Habits and Hustle - Episode 259: Todd Herman: Unlocking Your Alter Ego + Discovering Your Supercharged Self

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Have you ever thought about the benefits to have an alter ego? Bestselling author and renowned performance coach Todd Herman takes us on an exploration of this fascinating concept in this episode of the Habits & Hustle podcast. He explains how he stumbled upon the powerful tool of alter egos while working in 82 different sports and how he used it to help legends like Kobe Bryant and several business leaders tap into their inner strengths. Todd also enlightens us on how he helps individuals struggling with confidence, despite their skills and qualifications, by using the unique approach of developing an alter ego. This episode is a goldmine of information for anyone looking to overcome their limitations, unlock their potential, and achieve success. It's not just about discovering the power of alter egos, it's about discovering the power within ourselves.  Todd Herman is the author of The Alter Ego Effect. He is an award-winning author; performance advisor to athletes, leaders and public figures. He’s been featured on the Today Show, Sky Business News, PBS and CBC National News. What we discuss: (0:00:01) - Intro (0:11:06) - Mental Toughness and Authenticity in Coaching (0:20:37) - Going from accidental coach to successful speaker (0:30:50) - Building confidence and concentration through precognition, dyslexia, ADHD, and energetic rhythm. (0:42:45) - Affirmations' effectiveness explored, absolutes' dangers discussed, studies from Waterloo, King's College, Stanford Neuroscience Lab examined, power of natural self talk explored. (0:47:29) - Asking questions to access our brain's processing power to create an alter ego is effective and backed by research. (0:51:28) - Creating alter egos to access inner strength, understanding human nature, and using affirmations and questions to build confidence and concentration. (0:57:20) - Visualization, alter ego, and trap self discussed to create desired life. (1:04:21) - Using alter egos to unlock creative potential and achieve goals, with examples of successful people and a five-step process. (1:24:50) - Sleep, nutrition, rare genetic markers, table stakes habits, gut health, and goal setting discussed for performance success. (1:31:27) - Building an alter ego to increase confidence, exploring nature's power, and emphasizing sleep and nutrition for success. Thank you to our sponsors:  Shopify: Go to shopify.com/hustle to take your business to the next level The Kelly Roach Show: Listen to The Kelly Roach show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about Todd: Website: https://toddherman.me/ “The Alter Ego Effect” by Todd Herman: https://a.co/d/0EMnYKE Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toddhermanconnect/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/todd_herman/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/todd_herman Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/toddherman1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddherman1/ My links: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I got this Tony Robbins you're listening to Habits in Hustle! Crash it! Thank you for coming on the podcast Todd. Yeah, I'm excited to do this. We're driving, we're going right into it Todd, Hermann you guys. So he wrote a book called The Alter Ego Effect, The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life. And you're basically, would you call yourself a performance coach?

You help like hundreds of people, right? Through business CEOs, athletes, high performance in all areas, basically get to the levels that they want and like kind of succeed in the goal, get to their goals basically. If they have stumbling blocks or things that are stopping them. I was a coach, Jen, when coaching wasn't a thing. I started my company in 1997, the peak

athlete, and I grew it to the largest peak performance in mental game coaching company in the world, sold it to Real Madrid in 2014. So work with Christiana Ronaldo, Rafael Nadell, Kobe Bryant. I built out his black mamba, Alter Ego, and then built up other coaching and training companies along the way, because the moment someone finds out that you work with Kobe or the likes of that another leader goes well I got a performance at a high level and so I took my peak performance Strategies and took them into the leadership in corporate world and built a company and sold it to Chevron And so I've built three different coaching and training companies and sold them

But yes, I operate between the six inches of people's ears and give them better strategies, models, and methods to help them actualize and bring out of themselves all of their capabilities. Wow, so I didn't realize that you were the first of it's kind of the performance coach, era, because now everybody in their dog or dog are claiming that they're, you know, high-performance coaches and claiming that,

but you actually were the man behind Kobe Bryant's alter ego. Tell me about that. Well, I'm a very big believer in mentorship and apprenticeship. And so I'll go back a little bit. So when I started, yeah, coaching wasn't a thing. All my friends teased me and said, basically, I was unemployed and I was like just trying to find a job while I was calling myself a coach. And that wasn't the case, but whatever.

And so I started in 97 working with young athletes on the mental game. It was one of my strengths when I played college football. I was a national ranked badminton player. And I just happened to fall into this world of like helping these young people as well. How did you actually fall into it? If it wasn't even existing, right?

Yes. To answer that, I said, I was an assistant coach coaching the defensive backs at a high school in Sherwood Park, Alberta. I lived in Edmonton, Alberta at the time. And one of my former teammates from the University of Alberta, Go Golden Bears, I know you're a bison girl. Yes. Two Canadians.

Two Canadians from the prairies here. Yeah. So I was working with these defensive backs, and I was spending more time with them. I'm like, listen, you don't need to run more cone drills. Like, you're already in great shape. The reason you're making mistakes, or the reason you're not getting the success that you want out there,

is really, you've got really bad preparation skills. You've got, you know, bad rituals, bad routines. You're not setting good goals for yourself. So I kind of gave them my stuff. But I also taught them about how their brain worked, because I fell down that rabbit hole many years before that. Now remember, I'm still young, I'm only 21 at the time. And these kids started getting really, really great results.

One kid in particular went from a 29% average in school to the honor role in less than six months. And so it was because of the whole me showing them kind of more about how the brain sort of worked and how his mind creates things, oh, it's kind of stuff. So anyways, one of the moms came up to me and said, hey, I'd like to hire you to like mentor Kirby. And I said, yeah, love to.

And she's like, okay. And I'm like, yeah. And she's like, well, how much do you want to charge me? And I said, oh, how about $75 for three sessions? So that was my price, Jen, from 97 until January of 2020. For almost three years, I charged $75 for package of three sessions in home visits. Wait, wait, 2020 or 2000? 2000.

Or to that. I'm like, who do you mean? How are you making a living? No, no, it was 2000, it was 2000. Okay. I'm like, who do you mean? How are you making a living? It was 2000, it was 2000. So for three years, you're making $75 for three hours. Three sessions exactly in my taxes. I was averaging $8.56 an hour because gas was the highest cost for me in my business.

But I say that, so I was super cheap, gave me a lot of reps, I was full all the time, and but I love that I was doing. I mean, I mean, I wasn't, I was what I call an accidental entrepreneur at the time. I fell into it accidentally. That's what I mean by like, I fell into it because it was because one mom asked me if I could mentor. And so I was good at it. Like I was a really good coach. And then I was three years into it, end of 99, or two years into it, end of 99. And I was reading all these different psychology books and stuff. And this gets to the whole Kobe thing.

I just to track this. This is really important setup for it. So I was reading all these psychology books and physiology books and kinesiology books and stuff about the mind and everything. And there's one book that resonated the most. And it was from this guy, Harvey Dorthman, who wrote the book, Coaching the Mental Game.

And I, he just, everything just sounded practical. And he's known as the Yoda of baseball. He's the biggest mental game guy in professional baseball, all the professional teams wanted to work with them. So I called, called him. And my voice smell I left him was basically, hey Harvey, it's Todd Herman. We've never met before,

but I have this little coaching practice in the mental game space kind of like you, but I'm nowhere near you. And I know enough to know that I need someone like you in my world. And no one else of stuff resonates. I'd love to maybe help you out if I could, you know, be an assistant for you. And then I give my number and he call me back about two days later. And if I could, you know, be an assistant for you, and then I give my number and he call me back about two days later. And he's like, you know, we're talking and I said, well, I could come down to North Carolina, because now this is the baseball off season.

So this is December, and in December 99, it's the baseball off season. And I said, well, I can come down to North Carolina, and I can spend some time. He's like, you don't want to live with me, kid, do you? And I was like, no, no, no, I've got an uncle who live in the area, I can stay with them. That was a lie.

I just wanted to, I just wanted to get to a yes as easily as possible. Yes. And so he agreed. And so I went down to North Carolina. I stayed at a motel six for $28.50. And I maxed out my Scotiabank Visa credit card, which had a $1,000 limit on it while I was down there. I ate itchibon, raman, soup.

Itchibon? Yeah. And I brought it with me in my suitcase, and I had to pick up more when I was there, some cup of noodles and things like that. And anyways, I spent 33 days with Harvey Dorfman. And on the eights day, some of the biggest names in baseball

started making their annual pilgrimage down to see him. And I got to sit in on these sessions with Roger Clements, Andy Pettit, Craig Bigio, the biggest names in baseball at the time. Who else, who else, keep on going? Well, everyone else, I wouldn't want to disclose because I mean, there were private conversations with him, but those are the three that have,

you know, mentioned at least myself and Harvey in the past. Just tell me, was Derek Jeter there or that was before his father? Jeter didn't come down. Yeah, okay. But, yeah, so I got to see the master of mental game work with the top athletes in the world and it was just such an

Education for me. So at the end of the 33rd day Harvey, you know, we had we're kindred spirits now and he started funneling Pro-clients my way and now fast forward three years Kobe Bryant is going through the sexual assault trial in Denver, Colorado and Kobe Bryant is going through the sexual assault trial in Denver, Colorado. And he's having a crisis of ego. He gets connected to Harvey. Harvey is talking to Kobe and Kobe's talking about how he feels like he's losing his edge.

And it was just before the basketball training camp, NBA training camps. And Harvey said to him, you're not losing your edge, you're having a crisis, you're going through an ego death. And a guy that I work with specializes in identity based performance. And you should talk to him. And so Harvey connected Kobe and I. And then through that process, we built the black mamba. Wow.

First of all, that is unbelievable. Yeah. Okay. So that in itself probably just catapulted your entire career. It was, yeah, it was one of those pinnacle moments that changed everything for me. And it was more that, because I had just discovered this world of alter egos as an as a performance tool, about seven months before that helping a US Olympic swimmer get ready for the Athens Games. And it was cool.

Who was that? Who was that? Who was that? I actually don't share my private clients with people unless they mentioned me in public. That's the only time. And actually, I'll get to that in a second, Jen, with this other interesting thing that happened

as I was growing this performance coaching business. But anyways, so she had mentioned this performance identity or she called it her alter ego. Other people talked about a persona that they would use and so forth and I was like, wait a second, I did the exact same thing when I played sport. I had Geronimo that I took it onto the football field. Then when I was starting this fledgling business when I was young, I looked like I was 12,

so insecure about how young I looked, I wasn't making sales calls, I was good at coaching, I wasn't good at building my business. So I built up this new alter ego, super Richard, who was literally hired for me to do sales calls for my business. And that allowed me to become more of myself, so to speak. So I was very familiar with using alter egos

and I just felt knee deep into it and found that if you changed people's identities, everything changes with it because habits, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors are all stacked on top of how you see yourself in the identity that you have. And so that Alter Ego thing exploded, and then even Tim Grover, who was Kobe's fitness coach, and Michael Jordan's fitness coach as well,

when we met at Sarah Blakely's, you know, the founder of Spanx, she did an event and brought myself and Tim Grover and Frank Shamrock, the great UFC fighter in to speak. He came up to me when we were doing the, the sort of before or evening drinks night and networking and he gave me a big bear hug from behind and he's like, damn it, Todd. I wish I was the one who came up with that alter ego stuff. And so anyways, it did. It catapulted.

It made the alter ego stuff my signature thing and got me into the ranks of the people that I've worked with. Can I say something, actually? That's a fantastic story. And I'm happy you mentioned Tim Grover because he's been kind of resting his laurels on this idea that he kind of,

even though I know he was his personal trainer fitness coach, he said it in a very gray area where people I believe think that he was the his performance coach because his whole book about winners versus losers and the mindset and the mentality, he's never ever said he was his trainer. He implies over and over again that he was you, not you, but like the performance part of it. And nobody ever corrects him. So he's built an entire business on this and you're

just telling me that your friend with him or you know him, doesn't that bother you at all? Well, he's definitely skirted the territory of like you said, the gray area. I mean, I'll say this, like I mean, how do you build mental toughness? I mean, you know this as being like a fitness superstar as well. Like mental toughness is something that you earn. You don't learn it. You can't buy a book on mental toughness and be mentally tough.

You need to go out and develop it through the things that you do. And so can you be developing someone's mental toughness because you push them hard physically? Oh, 100% you can. But the thing that people need to remember is I was explicitly always being hired to deal with the six inches between the brain. Inner game stuff is where I did.

I didn't do anything with your physical game. I didn't teach you how to swing the glove club better. I didn't teach you how to swing the bat better. That was up for your skill-based coaches. I literally just stayed there. And what it allowed me to do was, I ended up working in 82 different sports. And it was that ability to be between

all these different sports. It was how I discovered the whole alter ego thing. Because if you stayed nested inside of one sport, you would have never found it as this like amazing performance tool. So, you know, I don't know if it really bothers me. Cause yeah, it's Grey Zone, I think for most people, but again, like I tell people,

it's like, I'm explicitly hired for mental game stuff. Yeah, a bother, I mean, if I was being honest, I would say it bothers me because like, it's an entire platform. Sorry, but this is the truth, you know what I mean? Like, people don't know what they don't know, right? And so, I live and breathe this every day with people coming on the podcast

and it might end in my regular business life So I know the different, but if people don't know the difference I think it's not cool not fair. Yeah to imply something when it's Completely not true. You know what I mean? And and build an entire business and speaking Business and book business around this idea when you are the guy. You know what I mean? Like it's crazy. Jennifer, that's my that's but that's the battle with how I show up on social media with people. Like I don't play well with influencers, frankly, because I'm a practitioner. You know, practitioners typically are not the most followed people. Influencers are the ones who

and again, I'm not branding all influencers, but people who only publish content and they're not in the gutters, they're not on the field, they're not in the muck in the grime of helping people every single day do difficult things. There is massive nuance that is lost in that. And so there's a lot of different ideas that are panned around on social media from people who haven't done the work. Totally. Oh my god.

You know idea. Yeah. I have a really false. I'll give you a good one. What's the one of the most popular terms that's out there today in Poster syndrome? And I mean, I used to use it as a term in the last couple of years. But again, I've been doing this since 97. And Poster syndrome was never a word that was ever uttered until literally I did a post on

social media you can go and people can go and find it and I showed the Google search algorithm from between 2004 to now and you see the moment Instagram started in 2010 all of a sudden in Poster syndrome searches started to go up and they were consistent every single month okay well that's interesting to me first off in Poster syndrome when it was first coined as a term was not syndrome. It was impostor phenomenon in the 1970s. Two women discovered it and it was because more women were coming into the workforce and they were feeling like they were not being very good at being a mom or a professional woman at the same time. They kind of felt like they were being impostors. All right, it's not a syndrome, but social media loves catchy little terms like that. And now people think that it's an actual thing and it's not a syndrome, but social media loves catchy little terms like that, and now

people think that it's an actual thing and it is not. Imposter can be coupled down to three basic things. One, you're actually terrible at what you do right now. You're just bad. It's not an imposter. You're just new. You're a beginner. Like, you gotta get better.

Suck it up. Like, sorry, there's no other way to say it. You gotta do the reps. You gotta do the thing. Secondly, being an impor could be that, you're just fucking lying. You're lying about who and what you can do. Well, good, now carry the badge of being an impostor,

because congratulations, you are one. You are one. So, but that isn't most people. That's an extraordinarily small group of people that would be that. And the third one is, people who feel like they're an impostor despite the fact that they have the skills, they have the abilities, they have the qualifications

to go out and do something. And they are scared of being found out. Know what that is? Is a lack of confidence. You're not leaning into the reps and the things that you've done over the course of your lifetime that qualify you to do this thing. And those are the people that I like to help then.

First of all, I could not agree with you more. Maybe it's because it's a Canadian both of us, but I have a huge problem, a huge problem with how things have kind of evolved and morphed with social media, right? Because people are selling all these courses and claiming, like I said, you have to be getting up this podcast to be, you know, these high-performance coaches

who can get you to a place where you can make, you know, millions of dollars and buy your planes and like, or they can tell themselves as the person who did whatever, but they're not in the trenches. It's all smoke and mirrors, and you can get away with anything because there's always a sucker born every day.

And people just don't know, besides being a sucker, some of them are every day and and people just don't know besides being a sucker some of them are and some of them just don't know what they don't know and so with all the information overload you wouldn't know like some of these people are so slick and so good that like unfortunately like you can get away with a lot of stuff and so the real the people who are the real like the meat on the bone they're not the greatest social media influencers, right? Because they're actually out doing the work. They don't have time to be content creating all day. Do you know what I mean?

They nailed it. And that's what it is. Because the truth, the matter is what you're seeing on social media are great content creators and great internet marketers. Those are not the same as being somebody who is a real performance coach, period. Or, or, you know, like even to take it

in a different direction of someone who's trying to help you develop your online business, say, for example, okay? Okay. So take it in that direction. Here's an easy way to qualify, whether someone is gonna have meat on the bone. Do they work with people one on one? So that means do they have a marketing agency,

where they execute the work? Because you can hide a lot of stuff in the way that you show up on social media by just having great little sound bites, great little hair. But the moment you start asking more clarifying questions with someone, boom, you've just poked through the very thin exterior of what they have as skill set or understanding on the topic.

Like there is no one on the planet. I mean, I own the category of alter egos. Like I mean, when someone, oh, 100%, everywhere around the globe, I get tech, when someone starts talking about alter egos on LinkedIn or Instagram or you name it, I'll typically be tagged right away and saying, oh my god, have you read Todd Herman's book? Or when someone starts posturing with expertise on the topic, someone says, yeah, I like it the first time

I read it in Todd Herman's book, alter ego effect, you literally just pulled out chapter number three from his book. So that's a powerful thing. But if even someone is talking about alter egos, I can ask them just a couple of questions immediately, and I'll know whether or not they even understand the science behind why this thing works so well. But again, that's amazing. That's amazing. That's amazing. Thousands of people on this, like I know it at my bone.

And so, and by the way, it's not that I'm, there is a very good use for people who are influencers and stuff because sometimes they can make people aware of something, right? Their job is to build awareness, but now it's gone to the level which is kind of our sources of consternation with it is people think that because they talk about something a lot, that they're an expert on it, and that's the problem. Exactly, and they say it over and over again.

Well, you know what's interesting though? If you own the terminology, right, alter ego, why, and you've been doing this since 1997, why is the book just, why did you write it in 2019 and not in 2005, 2002, 2010? Great question. It's because I owned a coaching and training company, you know, is at the very centerpiece

of how people came into my world. And so I knew that there would be Tim Grovers out there who would want to get their hands on it, because it was my IP. Again, this gets back to understanding what business models are. And I have a coaching and training business model. This is long before social media. So I always knew that I mean, I had people asking me in 2004

and five, can you write this book on it? And I was like, yeah, I will, I will. But I also, I wanted to understand it even better too. I didn't know everything about, well, what was the science behind this? Because that was always our background for my people performance company was, we are gonna explain this stuff with neuroscience

and science as to why these things work. So I waited until, we started it in 2016 and it came out in 2019, but it was because I had sold my company. I didn't need it and needed to own the training idea on it. It was my way of, you know, birthing it onto the world to get the concept into wider circulation. So that was the biggest reason why I never wrote it earlier or earlier.

This is fascinating because I wasn't even expecting to talk to you about all this stuff. I'm glad in a way that my algorithm didn't pick up on certain interviews that you did because now I'm learning this piece about you, which is I think actually very, very fastening and interesting. I'm still on this idea of those like how did you you don't have a psychology degree, right? You don't have a background in psychology. Besides fault training and kind of shadowing Dwarfman, the Batta baseball coach, or baseball performance coach, besides that type of kind of experiential training,

how did you figure out how to do this well? But how did you know what to do? Were you just naturally gifted in this area? Or? Well, okay, so when I started in 1997... Right, and the mom asked you to mentor, I mean. Yeah, I was insecure with, yeah, my understanding of what I was doing, because it was, again, it was accidental.

But now I'm gonna like, okay, well, now I need to actually coach these young kids with some sort of method. So I put together my ideas. And again, there was no internet. There wasn't, right? Wasn't widely used, right? So I was in the Edmonton Public Library all the time. I was listening to Dennis Wattley books on tape who was a performance guy at the time.

And like many others. So I tried to piece certain things together, but I was coaching. I didn't have a training company at the time. I wasn't doing workshops. I was just doing 101 coaching. But over all those reps, I immediately started to see what resonates, what works, what doesn't work. And again, I was an insatiable researcher, researched tons of different content as well that started to put this all together. Like who? Like Tony Robbins or Wayne Diarr, or... Yeah, Tony, yes.

One of my earliest mentors before even Harvey was Jim Rohn. I met him randomly at an event, and my uncle was getting construction person of the year in Canada. I was really close with my uncle Ted, and so I came with him to Banff, Alberta, and I sat next to Jim Rohn, who I didn't know yet, and he was asking me all these questions

that adults didn't ask me, and make what I wanted to do with my life. What's my vision for things? I'm like, this guy's amazing, he's letting me talk, and then he goes up and gives one of the greatest keynotes I've ever heard in his way. If people aren't familiar with Jim Rohn,

he's just an absolute legend in speaking. He's a legend, yeah. Legend. And came back to the table and I said, well, I want to do that, what you just did. And he gave me a couple of things to do. And I did them. It was a Saturday on the Monday at one o'clock in the afternoon.

I was done the three things they gave me to do. And I called him back. He called me back the next day and said, you're officially the only person that's ever taken me up on my challenge. And he started like helping me out. Well, what was a challenge? You can't just leave me hanging. What was a challenge? Well, the three things were, because I said, what I up on my challenge. And he started like helping me out. Well, what was a challenge? You can't just leave me hanging.

What was a challenge? Well, the three things were, because I said, what I wanted to go do. And he said, okay, well, first thing you need to do is you need to go and register a business name for yourself. Where do you do that? And I said, I didn't know but I can figure it. I think you go to the city hall in Edmonton,

which was wrong. You don't go to city hall, you go to a government division. And then take that and then you can go and open a bank account, get your bank account opened. And then can you call at least three people to try and book yourself some sort of speaking gig? And I said, yeah, I can, I know who the two people are that I could call.

And at one o'clock, I had done all of that. I had, so I went and registered, got an Alberta limited numbered company. And then I went to Scotiabank and I got my bank account. And then I called Eric and I called the Southern guy Richard, who both ran sports associations. And I booked myself a little speaking gig and two speaking gigs.

And that was it. And I had a topic. He said, you also had a topic. And so my topic was the triune athlete, the mentally, emotionally, and physically tough athlete. And when you align all three of those, you get all of someone's capabilities on that ice because I was going after hockey players at the time. So that's how it started. And then I did so well with those two speaking gigs that I was like, wait a second, I have no idea how to grow a business. I only know how to do one thing, and that's speak. And the reason I knew how to speak was because I was in 4-H. So 4-H, if people aren't

familiar, is like agricultural boy scout. It's one of the things that you do while you're in a 4-H club, is you have to do a speaking competition every year with your club, and if you win that, then you advance and you advance. And so I actually won the speaking competition when I was 10, and you know, did it again when I was 11, 12. I did it until I was 16. So I was very comfortable being on stages. And that was my marketing channel. I only did speeches and I did, I wanted to resolve that this was actually a business

that was a real thing because it was no such, like I said, there was no such thing as coaches. So how can I validate this thing? Am I gonna waste my time doing something that no one's gonna pay me for in the future? So I said, There were some coaches, there was Dorfman, you said, there was like I Dennis that you researched a little bit.

But that was at the pro level. Yeah. But there wasn't an industry yet at the amateur level. Right. There was not. Yes. Yeah. And so that was the big thing.

So I said, okay, well, let's just see how many speeches I can do in the next 90 days. And if nothing comes of it, whatever, I'll just move on to something else. So I ended up doing 68 free speeches in 90 days. And that was in 97 going into 98. Or it was really by then it was 98. And I basically never had to mark my business since because I had a waiting list. And everyone in my province, Albert, knew who this guy was. Or you're one degree away from knowing me.

Wow. So wait, so I want to know, so like, what would I keep? So let's say I'm a person who comes to you. What's the first thing we do? Like, if I have a goal in mind, if I have something that I'm trying to achieve and I'm blocked, what's the first thing that you do in your module?

Well, are you talking about back then or now? I think it's staring to be. Both, I'm telling both, like, how did you start and where, how you started and where you ended up? Like, so it's there to be. Both, I'm telling both, like how did you start and where, how you started and where you ended up? Like, so it all started with a diagnostic and it still does. So I have certain diagnostics that I get people to take. In the sports world, I grade you on seven different pillars

of mental toughness and where you're really grading yourself on it. And of those seven, there's one in there that's an outlier one. I call it the red herring, that if you rank grading yourself on it. And of those seven, there's one in there that's an outlier one. I call it the red herring. That if you rank yourself low on it, I don't work with you. And it's motivation. It's the one thing that I cannot control.

The other six I can give you skills on. Motivation is a you thing, not a me thing. I've stood on stage and said that. Like I love that. Because if you're not motivated, if you don't have a drive to pick up the racket and go hit balls at the wall until they bleed, I can't help you.

Like I can't build the other things like visualization and imagery skills, building up what I call the holographic mental movie theater in your head. I built it out for Kobe Bryant, for him to go into and do what he called communing with his black mamba. So for him, there was a cage that was built and the black mamba lived in the cage. And what many people would do is you would think about going into your mind and releasing the cage

to allow the thing to come out. Kobe was a bit different. He went into the cage, closed the door behind him and he became the black mamba that way. So it's just like little nuances. So that's one, like building your mental movie theater. Another one is just confidence. Another one is going to be anxiety and stress management. Another one is going to be your concentration and focus skills. So we do diagnostics.

So, I mean, I work with entrepreneurs just like you. I work with CEOs. I work with teams of CEOs, or teams from a company, or, you know, sports teams and athletes, right? But it's always starts the diagnostic because everything should be customized to you. You're a unique being, Jen. I say that there's no such thing as special snowflakes. I don't like special snowflakes. I don't want anyone dancing around arguing for their limitations, arguing for their excuses. I work with elite human beings that are striving to do ambitious things that's going to be very hard and you're going to be running up against the things that's going to be very hard and you're going to be running up against the vision of what you think your identity can solve. That's who I work with. And so when we're working with people, like I have another company in 90-day year, which is a performance system that's born out of our sports performance world that helps business owners grow and scale their business without getting burnt out. So even in that one, we always start with, it's Simon Sinek says starts with why. That's how I know Simon Sinek has never worked with anybody, okay? He's an

influencer as well. You would be, I see you, I see you. But everyone who does this stuff for a living Jennifer has the exact same response. I did a keynote speech at Trafficking Conversions Summit, one of the biggest online or digital marketing events, but 12,000 people I did a keynote on basically saying starts with why is just, you know, it's cotton candy, it pops, it closes bubblegum. You know, it sounds great, but it's less filling. You know, it tastes sweet, that's how I know an idea typically isn't a good idea and will break under the weight of practical application, because it just sounds like cotton candy to me. It's not starts with why, with anybody, if you're someone who coaches someone that's listening, it's always, it starts with where that individual is.

It's not starts with why. It's like, I need to know, are you in Detroit or are you in Chicago before I give you the pathway? I don't need to, why is in the process, but it's not starting with it. It's always starting with it. It's always starting with where is this human being? That's a diagnostic approach. The doctor does it when you come into the like, oh, so why are you bleeding from the neck? Hey, like it's hey, there is a freaking gash in my neck. That's the where part of it. And now can we fix

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Can I just interject yet again? I love how honest you are on this podcast. Cause I cannot tell you how many people are just not that way, right? Like they screwed around things, they try to be very politically correct and the PC and not say shit, that is so clear to me what it is.

Yeah. I really appreciate you right now more than you know. That's the first thing I wanna say. Thanks, Jen. No, you're welcome. the first thing I want to say. Thanks Jen. But, no you're welcome. The second thing I want to say is you said something about confidence earlier in the diagnostic and concentration and focus. I see a lot also with people talking about how to build confidence, how to build confidence.

And, you know, what you said, we kind of talked about this at the beginning of the podcast was, the confidence I believe in, it sounds like you you do too, that those things have to be earned. You can't just externally have someone tell you, you get confidence by just to A, B, and C. It's all about like you have to get it from within from things that you've accomplished on your own that you've earned. And besides that, I mean, it's virtually impossible if it's real true confidence. When you do your diagnostic, what are you looking at and how do you help people build that confidence that they do need to kind of go up there and crush?

Yeah, so you've been going back to when we were talking about concept of imposter syndrome and that third category of people who they actually do have skills, competencies, they've had wins in their life. And Jen, when you take a look at how most people lead their lives, it's because our brain is wired as a pre-cognition machine to find threats in the world, right? Like, I'm walking out of the cave and the bush over there is rustling, holy shit, it's a saber-tooth tiger. Oh no, wait, it's a bunny rabbit.

Most people in our world are walking around, scared of bunny rabbits, and they don't go and investigate the bush over there. That's an important thing because our brain is wired to pick up negative things. Like if something, throw it, Jennifer, the way that you lead your life, you're gonna be doing so many things

where you're stacking up, you know, confidence in other people. You're sort of reason that you exist, even for this podcast, is to try to give people better ideas, more uplifting ideas, encouraging people to continue to march forward through the bogs, the buyers, the swamps, and the difficult things

that are laying ahead of them, but just to not quit, because there's an amazing version of yourself waiting on the other side of that. But if one person in your day leaves a comment on your Instagram saying, oh, why did Jennifer, why does she change her haircut? Like, what's up with that? And why does she wear like hoodies?

Or why does she wear a sweatshirt? Like, you know, like, I'm not gonna listen to someone who's just got a hoodie on or a sweatshirt. Like, that's the one that like eats away at us. It's like that one little negative comment, the little thorn in our side, right? And it's totally, that's natural. I say this because I'm gonna lift this up,

people that are listening to the podcast aren't gonna see this, but I keep this stacked on my desk. And these are all, it's a glass jar with a bunch of poker chips in it. So I talk about how important it is for everybody to stack confidence chips in their day. You and I, we were all coming to the table, the poker table of life.

And if you're sitting there, Jen, with a huge stack of poker chips in front of you, and I've got a small stack, of course, you're gonna play bigger. You might be leaning back in your chair a little bit more, and you're gonna be playing a little bit more relaxed. You might lose a hand and, ah, whatever, right?

Whereas me, I've got this small stack, I'm gonna protect it. I mean, I even have a great hand with me. It's got, I got great cards, but I can't afford to lose. And so then I don't go big. A lot of people play life that way, but why is that? It's because they haven't recorded their wins.

So I met the CEO of Levi's, and he told me the story of when they were gonna be going into China. They're going into China, and he was, I'm not gonna say terrified, but he was extremely nervous and anxious about their move into China He didn't think it was gonna go well and he was avoiding doing and making some decisions And he has this little journal that he keeps on his desk and he hasn't broken up into three year increments in his entire life

0 to 2 2 to 5 on and on through and each Increment of three years he has all of the things that he learned, all the wins that he developed, all the skills that he built and stuff stacked in between. And he picked it up, leaped through it, this mountain of information, this mountain of wins and skills. And he says, I couldn't help but feel like no matter what gets thrown my way because something will, I'll be able to handle it, handle it. Because I literally have a journal that tells me that I have handled it. So how do I build people's confidence? First thing is, I'd love it if everyone that's listening to this took out a piece of paper, a journal or whatever, and you record all the wins that you've developed over your life,

stack the confidence chips in front of you so that when you're playing at the poker table of life, you can look down and say, yeah, that thing might be big, might be scary, might be risky. But look at my entire history tells me that I overcome. I'm resilient, I'm persistent. That sounds good. And then how would the concentration piece and the focus piece? How can you help harness and develop that for people? Because I know people like me anyway, like, I've become my own worst enemy. It's hard for me to sit and concentrate long enough sometimes to get something done. And that's a lot of people, not because they don't have

the even the capabilities or the confidence is because they don't have the concentration. Skills. So, I mean, think about Jen, especially in the way that we grew up in schools have changed slightly, but they're still pretty much the same. We've got, and I'm not a big label person, I am dyslexic, diagnosed when I was 21 after a car accident, which would have been very helpful to know that I was dyslexic while I was actually in school. You found out afterwards?

After, yeah. I'm like, well, no wonder it takes me freaking three days to read like 100 pages inside of a book. Oh, you've no idea how long this took me to read this book. You don't want to know. Oh, sorry about that. And then diagnosed ADHD as well. But whatever, that's just useful. Now I can look at myself and go, okay, well, how does someone who has a certain energetic rhythm to how their body works, how their brain works, how can I best use that

so that I can be focused and concentrate better. So for example, this goes back to the individual. When I'm working, like I'm standing right now, if I'm sitting down, I'm gonna fidget in all these things that doesn't bother me, but I have a treadmill, small little standing treadmill, it's flat, that's right underneath my standing desk, I can pull it out and I walk and I work, right?

My point about that is that so many ways that people think about focusing and concentrating is about sitting in a mood or a pose, arms, cross, like meditation is only that way. That's not meditation. Like there's so many other ways that we can meditate or focus or concentrate that don't look like the typical way that again society and influence and people like that put out there as this is the way that we focus and we concentrate. That's that's not it at all. So going back to the person, I'm just looking at how they operate, how they work. And then I'm going to custom build them the method. Now I have,

because I've had thousands and thousands of reps, everyone sort of gets into a bucket of how they work. So how do we actually practically teach someone to focus? Well, focus comes from the front to low area. That's where the focusing skill needs to get built. So it's a muscle, so habits and hustle. I'm going to get you to hustle on a certain set of habits or routines to build this thing up. One of them was getting someone to stare at a candle for about three minutes. Okay, a flickering candle. I don't care if you're seated, I don't care if you're walking with it, and it's got a glass thing around it. I don't care. I don't care how you do it, but you're going to stare at that candle flickering for three minutes. You're going to set a timer and you're going to go, this is important because athletes are competitive.

Okay, entrepreneurs typically competitive as well, so it worked well. Set a timer of three minutes. Every time you find your mind wandering off of the flame and you catch yourself in a thought, count to one, then go back to staring at that candle flickering again. And then you won't you find yourself wandering? Two, go back. Three. And then when the timer goes off three minutes, record that number, All right. Now we've got a score. And then the next time you do it tomorrow or whatever, see if you can improve that score. What we need is feedback loops. That's what I want to do with all of my training and my coaching and the stuff that I delivered people is.

I want to help create a feedback loop so you can see growth happening with people. Okay. That's a great one. I like that. I'm going to try that. In the National Hockey League, the equipment trainers in National Hockey League know when a player is working with me one-on-one because I get the player while they're traveling, I want their gloves, they're stick, and their helmet brought up to their hotel room.

Because unlike other people who talk about visualization, find a nice calm, restful place beside the fireplace, and you know, calmly sit, you know, legs crossed, no, that is not how you need to visualize it. And you've got to close your eyes. It's actually categorically one of the worst things that you can do when you're learning to develop your visual brain because 7% of your brain is dedicated to the visual cortex, Jen. Closing your eyes now shuts off 7% of your brain. And so what happens? The other 30% lights up. And then you wonder why meditation doesn't work for me

because my brain just starts thinking about a million different thoughts. I feel like I climb into a race car all of a sudden and my brain is racing everywhere. And I'm like, yeah, that's because biologically, you've set up yourself to fail at this. Secondly, most people when they're trying to visualize something, they make it difficult on themselves

because they don't use props. Going back to the hockey player. The reason I want their stick, their gloves, and their helmet is I want to use what's called enclosed cognition. Enclosed cognition is the fun phenomenon inside the human mind where you and I, we tell stories about articles, clothing, totems, artifacts. And the moment you put on that artifact, you actually adopt the traits of that thing naturally. You don't have to fake it, nothing. So if you put on a doctor's coat, Jennifer, because we already know what doctors mean, they're successful, they're detailed, they're methodical, they're smart, all these things. If you were doing a task that involved detail, methodical, and needing to be smart,

you would actually unpack the traits naturally. Kellogg School of Management did a study on it. Many others. My point is- Is that like the bad man effect? That's the bad man effect. Yeah, so the lady at University of Minnesota who did that study, what I heard was someone else

who saw me doing a workshop in the early 2010s let her know about this whole alter ego guy. Yeah, so the lady at University of Minnesota who did that study, what I heard was someone else who saw me doing a workshop in the early 2010s let her know about this whole alter ego guy. And so she did this study with young children. So just to close the loop for the listener, the Batman effect is that at the university, they brought in a bunch of six, seven and eight year olds into a room. And they had this puzzle set up. It had a bunch of locks on it.

And they gave the kids keys to unlock the locks. Only problem is is the keys didn't work in any of the locks and they wanted to see their resilient test their resiliency. So kids come in individually, they try to unlock these things and they record the results. Next, they bring in a second group and they also rolled in a rack of Batman costumes and door the Explorer costumes and they said, Hey, pick your favorite costume, put it on. We got a little challenge for you. So they put on the costume, they give them the keys, try to unlock all these locks. We're going to time you see how fast you can do it. The fascinating thing that they weren't expecting was the vocalized self-talk of these kids. The ones who were doing it, just in their regular clothes, would say things like,

I'm not good at puzzles. This is too hard. I can't get this. I quit. The people who were wearing door the explorer, Batman costumes would say things like, well, Batman would never quit, so I'm not gonna quit. Door the explorer always finds a way, so I'm gonna find a way.

They had adopted the traits, qualities, attributes of the alter ego that they were wearing. So the question I have people is, okay, well then who was being authentic in that moment? Because everyone loves to talk about authentic self and authenticity nowadays. That's another big hashtag right now. Yeah, big time. And here's what I tell people, there's no such thing because there's no such thing as a self. There is no one Jennifer. There are many versions of you that show up. There's Jennifer the mom. There's Jennifer the podcast host.

There's Jennifer the coach, the content creator, the Jennifer the CEO of the company. There's Jennifer the speaker. He gets on one stage. There's Jennifer the author. There's Jennifer the citizen who goes out into the world and tries to spread light and be kind to other people and shake up her conversation with the Starbucks barista and things like that. There's many versions of you that operate in the world.

There's no one authentic version of you sitting at your core. But what does sit at the core of every human being is a whole set of traits, abilities, qualities that we with our creative imagination can tap into. And so those kids that were wearing Batman costumes, they tapped into a version of themselves that was resilient and tough and wouldn't quit.

They saw themselves differently. And when you see yourself differently, you now give yourself the permission to do things differently. The kids that were just sitting there and they're playing clothes, they just retracted into whatever belief idea they have, I'm not good at puzzles.

This is too hard. I'm getting judged. The kids who were getting, the other Batman and Dorley's board kids, they were getting, quote, judged, but there was a mask between them and the judgment. The judge was judging Batman and Dory the Explorer, not that sort of innocent version of me on the inside. And that's just a part of like why the alter ego stuff just works so powerful for people. I love it. I believe in it. I think it's fascinating. And like I had no idea that you were the man

behind it, but I've got, so I haven't even gotten to any of my real questions because I've just been so enthralled with all this other stuff. But what I wanted to ask you about it, because I, you were talking about visualization and I want to talk to you about affirmations. Another huge, another huge thing that all I see about, like, and I get, like, I get lamb-based, is that even a word? Because I don't personally, I'm not a big person who's much into the whole manifestation and affirmation thing, and to whenever I stay with that people are like, how can that, you don't know what it means, just because you're not understanding what it is, and da da da da da, so when I read about what you said about affirmations, I really had to bring it up. And I want you to explain and back it by research and science,

what your belief system and what about affirmations and do they work? What is the science back data on it? So what here's what the science says about affirmations. Well, first off, I'll say this. And what you struggle with, Jen, and what all of us will struggle with is when people create absolutes in the world. We're like, no, affirmations can only be good, right? Well, here's the problem is we live in a world and nature is the greatest test of whether a model even exists.

So nothing in nature is good or bad, right? Like a forest fire can clean out the brush and bring back life. But it can also be terribly bad because it rages on because of poor forest management or something like that. Water, last thing I want when I'm floating in the middle of the ocean is more salt water, right?

So there's hyper and hypoverseans of something. Affirmations is a great example. When I see people, like, they're sitting on the pulpit of affirmations is the only way, it's the best way, it's like, okay, well, wait a second. Here's what the science says. The science says, University of Waterloo did a study on this, King's College in London did a study on this, neuroscience research lab at Stanford has done tons of university and colleges have done studies on this. Here's what we find. When people affirm something to themselves with an affirmation,

where they actually don't have confidence in it and they don't believe it to be true, it actually causes depression and a depressive state. Depressive state possibly going into depression. That's what the studies show. So no, it is not a one- fit fits all like everyone should be towing affirmations to themselves. Like my mentor Jim Rohn would say, you know what would be a better affirmation for yourself is, I am broke, I live in America, and I have the skills to change, but I'm not. Like, be honest with yourself. Be honest with yourself that way. But where affirmations do work, Jen, is when you do have confidence, or you do have traction in something, reaffirming it with a positive affirmation does help

to strengthen confidence with someone, right? So like, even you, like you coming on, you've had hundreds of reps at being an interviewer, Like, I'm sure your natural self-talk isn't when you're coming on to do an interview. Oh my God, Matthew McConaughey, like, I have no idea what I'm gonna ask, and it might, you know, you might have been cool to interview Matthew and stuff, but you're not gonna lose your interviewing skills.

Your natural self-talk, probably in your head is like, you know, I'm good at this, I love it. Like, you're- I can do it. Yeah, yeah, you're gonna refer me. So no affirmations are not the one size fits all magical elixir to like success in life. It's obtuse to think it. All right, this might sound like a really weird segue, but have you ever had to open the top two buttons of your pants and leave a party because of bloating?

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So if you're ready to try their bedding or loungewear, which I highly suggest you do, go to cosyearth.com and they're offering all my listeners an exclusive offer today, saving up to 35% off by using the code HUSSLE. So go to cosyearth.com and use the code HUSSLE and you will save 35% off sitewide. Check it out. So basically, when this whole ideology of looking in the mirror and being like, you know, you got this girl or, you know, you look great, you know, your body's, you know, your body positivity know your body's you know your body positivity when really you don't feel that way right yeah and you keep on telling yourself how beautiful you you are and I'm just giving it this is a very simplistic example what does that do does that make you feel worse about

yourself physically yeah yeah because you really don't believe it to be true yeah because you had that other voice in to be true. Yeah, because you did other voice in your head that says, but I'm not that. But what if you are and you don't believe it? And so like, let's say, for example, like, you know, you are somebody who, you know, you have a going on, but you just have insecurity in low self-esteem. And so you really are it, even though you don't think it, by you doing an affirmation, does it help then? Okay, so, well let's go back and say, before we do everything.

Yeah, no, no, we're not. I was going to say, before we even accept the idea that affirmations are even the best way to do it, how about we use for technology for how our brains actually operate? Because we are always, Gen, if you and I are gonna be meeting at some sort of event, right, I'm already sitting in there, you walk in the door. What do you think is gonna be one of the first things that you're gonna start saying to yourself?

So you walk into the room. Yeah. What are you gonna do? What do you mean? I wonder where Todd is. I'm kidding. You're making for you. You did it. You did it. I wonder where Todd is. You're not looking for you. You did it.

You did it. I wonder where? You asked yourself a question. We ask ourselves questions. We don't speak in affirmations that way. So going back to, so it's not, I am good looking. I am, you know, 145 pounds, dropping 70 pounds

from 215. It's like the better way to do it, let's leave affirmations to the side, instead ask yourself questions because it's how your brain is built. Your brain is constantly trying to answer questions. So why am I going to be 115 pounds or why am I, presently? What is it about me that makes me so kind and determined? Ask yourself questions so that your brain can give you answers. That's the way that we should be,

instead of like affirming and making statements to ourselves, as if we even think that that's the right statement. It's the ego coming in saying, no, I've got the perfect affirmation I'm gonna say. No, instead, what if you just use this phenomenal processing power of our brain to give you answers back and instead you say to yourself, what is it about me that makes me so equipped to be an entrepreneur?

Instead of saying, I'm a successful entrepreneur. Now, what is it about me that makes me so equipped to be an entrepreneur? And then you write that down. Now, look for proof from your own life, your brain will give it to you. So don't speak in affirmations, speak in positive questioning for yourself instead. That's a great, I like that so much. That's like, that's, I like that. That's very helpful. Well, and again, it maps, it just maps back to, that's how our brain works. Like, you know, you walk into the event, you're like, oh, I want to retort is, oh, is there anyone

else here that I know? Oh, where's the open seats? You know, are the, where are the cool people? Where are the what people? Where's the stage? Where's the exit? Where's the entrance? You're like, hey, I want to be on an N seat. Where's an open N seat? Because I want to be able to get up and go to the bathroom. Or I like to get up and stand around.

Or I like to go and lean against the wall. I don't want to be in the... 100%. Question, question, question, question. That's how our brain operates. So, if you're going to do it deliberately with yourself, which is what kind of the root of affirmations are, why don't we use deliberate questions to get us to where we want to go?

That's great. Let's talk about alter-ego since that's really, like I said, I didn't even get to say my questions, but I do believe it is so powerful. I talk about it, of course, in my book, as you know. Yeah. And I want to know, so how do people actually create their alter ego? Let's start from the beginning. We know it's effective. Can you talk about why it's so effective, the research behind what makes having an alter ego so effective, and what is it effect, and what is it the most effective for? Like, what is it?

Effective for that word. Yeah. Effective for, yes, things. So, yeah, so we'll talk about the situations that typically people will lean into developing What is that word? Yeah, effective for. Yes, things. So we'll talk about the situations that typically people will lean into developing an alter ego for in a second. Right. So some of the reasons why it's so effective is, well, one, it uses the power of intentional

disassociation. You know, we're storytelling beings. No matter, however much we want to think that we're so data driven and we're such great decision makers, we create stories in our head. We add meaning to everything. And because of that, a lot of people tell themselves narratives and stories about who they are, what they're capable of, what they're worthy of that isn't very supportive, and then it gets in the way of them taking the actions that they want to take. So the alter ego or personified self or secret identity disassociates from my current narrative

and allows me to attach itself to a new idea of what I think I am. So Kobe Bryant did that with the Black Mamba. Beyonce, like I talk about in the book, Beyonce grew up in a gospel singing family, in a very religious family. She stood at the front of her church every Sunday, people would come to watch her and her sister sing. And so here she is singing a lot of those types of songs. And now her father puts her into essentially a dance pop troupe of eight girls total, seven others from her. And now she's dancing provocatively and singing provocative or popularics on stage. That was a very out of body experience for her. She felt it just was very challenging to her. And so when you look at why she created Sasha Thears, it's because the Thears word was actually on the opposite end of the spectrum from what she

was feeling like, which was, you know, trepidation or scared, or, you know, this isn't me. She built Sasha Fears to become the entertainer that she did want. She did want this life, but she didn't know how Beyonce could do it, but Sasha Fears could do it. And so it disassociated. It's like, okay, so Beyonce can have and still exist inside that world. Sasha Fears lives over here, though. And so that's why so many many people when they feel like they're really embodying this alter ego concept, they feel like it's an out of body experience, which helps them get into the zone in the flow state because they're just so caught in the creative self.

Does it happen naturally? Like this is you, Sasha Fears as an example, because I think I was going to use that right because Sasha Fears is who she is when she walks on stage that's her alter ego right yeah now did that on the flip side you know you talk about the Superman you know and Clark and Clark Kent right Superman is actually the real Beyonce, let's say, right? And Clark Kent is how he kind of, you know, gets along in the real world type of thing, right? That's right. So same thing, right? So this Beyonce and Clark Kent, the same real world person, like, you know, Beyonce is real world. I don't think someone needs to make that comparison.

So Superman is colliel. It's the superpowers that he has. He creates Clark Kent so that he can be go unnoticed in this human society and just live amongst people. Also, so he's the mild mannered version of himself and the glasses are there. And some people will joke and say

he really is a social narrative on the writers and creators of Superman on making fun of human society. But that's not it. He, because of him living amongst human beings, he got to understand us better. So when he was defending, you know, why should we save planet Earth to the other superheroes that could come along or the enemies or villains, he's like, no, you don't understand these people. But Clark Kent was a useful alter-ego forum, but the real him is there. And that's why I say to people like, I just feel like most people are walking around as Clark Kent's in their world, but really underneath it all, there is a superwoman, super hero that's there, and

really what's there is a collection of attributes and traits and qualities because most people just live through a habit of self, and you believe that that's who you are but you're denying the very nature of being a human being is our creative capacity to reinvent ourselves to transform. That's what we're gifted with. Nothing else in the planet has the creative imagination of a human being. Nothing else. That's one of our great superpowers. And so Beyoncé is a great example by creating Sasha Fierce. And then even she said when she was retiring her in 2008, I don't need her anymore because I am that now. She now reconciled it within.

I became that. It's like two Venn diagrams finally meeting. And even I use the code all the time and I'm doing keynote speeches, Carrie Grant, the great Hollywood Golden Era actor, like Debenair, charismatic, charming and everything. Well, he grew up in Bristol, England, terribly insecure about his poor upbringing with his mom, but he had this desire to want to go to Hollywood. And he talked in an interview with End of His career, how he said, I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be, and I finally became that person,

or he became me, but at some point we met. So he didn't stay shackled to this identity that he didn't choose. Like we don't choose where we grow up. We don't choose parents. We don't choose environment that we're birthed into. I got lucky, I have phenomenal parents, but many people don't have that. And it shapes a lot of how they see themselves.

And so I just encourage people that, you know, there's a great line in the movie Rocket Man, which is a phenomenal movie. I encourage everyone to watch it because it's just almost like a documentary on all three of you goes. But Elton John, and there's this meeting of a mentor that happens this other great musician.

And he's sitting down with Reggie at the time before he changes his name to Elton John. And he says, sometimes you gotta kill the person you were born to be, to become the person you want to be. And I would just say that if I shifted it to like the language of, you know, a coach, I would say, sometimes you're shaped into becoming the person you don't want to be. And you need to kill that to become the person you want to be. And if you're someone who's ambitious and you're constantly taking on new things,

starting a business, you know, yeah, you got to reconcile the fact that maybe who you are right now, we need to rebirth into a new role and identity so that we can go and win. I think, yeah, no, I like that. What is considered, I mean, you said something, I know I found interesting, is that if you do it long enough, like Beyonce did or whoever, does it just become, is it, does it lose, does it kind of get out of the alter ego? Nist and becomes just part of who you are as a whole.

And it's, it's gonna drop. Like just keep Kobe Bryant lose Vamba. And is he now in body, Vamba? Is he Kobe Mamba? He's embodying the traits that he ultimately was wanting. Because the purpose of the alter ego was to draw out of me The characteristics and traits that I want to bring to that role and going back to like the question on why it's so successful Well, you know, we were talking about visualization earlier

You know in teaching the people that you talk to about the importance of you know having a vision for your life and stuff So we say these words you got to, you have to have a vision. If anytime you're doing a project, it's not go build me a website, it's hey, I like these three websites, so you give someone a picture of what your is, what it is you're trying to move towards, and then it's a lot easier for that web designer

to create it for you, right? Because you said, these three things, I like that header from that one, I like how this one's built. Well, when we're trying to change ourselves, or change the way we show up in the world, the alter ego is just simply the perfect, is a great model that we can use

to create a picture in our mind of what we're trying to move towards. Does that make sense? Because again, Senator Senator Brains dedicated to the visual cortex. And so if I'm trying to, quote, change myself, or transform myself into what? Some people have a hard time with that.

So when I come along and I say, hey, there's a reason why in my office and other places in my home, I have this magazine cover with Mr. Rogers and Daniel Tiger on it, okay? Mr. Rogers is my alter ego, along with my dad, for how I want to be as a dad. So this person that you're interviewing here is not the same version of me that I bring to my kids. I am a challenger personality in my coaching and in most interviews like this, because I want to break a lot of these really bad paradigms that are out there in the world. That's a part of my mission.

But do I need to bring the challenger personality to my kids? It would be very easy for me to believe after 8-10 hours of working every single day, flexing the muscle of being a challenger, and like, you know, breaking the egos of some of the very big personalities that I'll work with, that that's me. No, it's not. It was a useful form for me to bring onto that field of play, but my kids don't need a challenger personality type. I want a kind, generous, patient, loving, I want a kind, generous, patient, loving, and creative dad to be around them. That's the energy that I want to nurture them with. And Mr. Rogers is my mental image that I have in my mind following me around, saying, okay Todd, if you say that you're going to embody me, I'm watching you, right?

Like that's a part of my method that I talk about in the book, is that honoring the spirit of whatever we're trying to bring into our moments. And, you know, so if Mr. Rogers and my dad were following around and watching me and saying, okay, like your representation of us Todd, let's see how well you do. So I mimicked, in the beginning,

before my daughter Molly, who's 10, came along. I mimicked and I practiced his mannerisms. I practiced his method. Like anytime you talk to a kid, he'd get down on one knee, because he wanted and I practiced his mannerisms. I practiced his method. Like anytime you talk to a kid, he'd get down on one knee because you wanted to get down to their level. He didn't want to lured over them. So I practiced that. There's nothing fake in that.

That's me being very intentional about, hey, I do want to be successful as a father. I do want to bring the best of myself to them. And it's me realizing that there's no one version of Todd. There's many versions of me, and I'm excited through every role I get to play in my life, to experiment with these different traits and qualities that are available to me

and bring them out into the light of day. And it's made me a better coach then, as well. Because I didn't flex some of those traits before, and now I do have them. So then what is the trap self? The trap self is when a lot of the motivations for why you're showing up in the world is an outside in approach, okay?

That's why imposter syndrome became this ubiquitous term on social media because many people are showing up trying to posture to other people to impress them to get likes and comments and shares. Hey, I'd love to get as many likes, comments and shares as I possibly can, but I'm still not going to sell myself out in some way. A trapped self is your experience in some role in your life, not your entire world, because you might be successful in some areas of your life.

But in one area of your life could be your professional role or mom or dad or whatever, you just feel like not all of you is getting out there. And so there's something that's trapping your qualities that you do have from getting out there. You didn't, how it shows up then, Jan is, you know, you're out with one of your girlfriends and someone says something about your girlfriend while you're there and you didn't say something in the

moment. And then when you get home at night and you're laying in bed and you're like, why didn't I? She's my bestie. Like, why didn't I say? And you beat yourself up because you didn't act from a true sense of what you stand for. That's an example of a trapped self that's there. And so there's many, many things that can cause that trap self from you know, but basically it's you know, you can do better and you're not for whatever reason. And it's hard to figure it all out for you. Okay, I get that. Then, okay, so let's say, for example, someone doesn't have their ultra ego down, right? So they come see you and you have to develop it with them.

How do you help someone develop an ultra ego? Great. So I'll give everyone kind of the simple five-step process with it. Right? And there's always nuance in it, but step one is always identify the one role that you're doing it for. You're not building an alter ego for your entire life. It's for a specific role in your world. So you might be struggling with not making sales calls like I was in my business. So I built super Richard for that. I didn't need to help for coaching. I kind of felt already confident with that.

But sales and marketing, I needed help with that. Or it could be your challenge because you're taking on the new role of being a new mom or a new dad. Oftentimes, I've done speeches to the, actually the Los Angeles YPO, billionaires in the room. I know, which YPO chapter was it? My husband said the Beverly Hills chapter. Oh, okay.

Not, yeah. You'd be, I was actually thinking this whole time. God, they should be hiring at why PO. You'd be a great talk for them. Yeah, so I've done a bunch of black PO events. And, but anyways, I've talked about this and so many people come to me like, hey, you had me and then when you brought up Mr. Rogers and you,

you're like, oh, that's good to see. I was not expecting that. That's where I under index in my life is being a parent or something like that. But by the way, I'm happy you use that as an example, right? Because I think that if you show the variances, right? Like it's not just for business. Like, I mean, you could have an alter ego for any area of your life that you want to show up differently.

It could be for parenting, it could be for your businesses, it could be for your personal relationships, as a wife and mother, whatever. So I love that you actually did use that as an example because it makes people think about it in a bigger, broader, in a broader way. Yeah, because it's so easy, because we think, okay, I'm going to make more money, you're going to achieve this. Right. And it's like, you're greatest achievement. I mean as a parent your greatest achievement is always gonna be your kids I mean, that's just my that's my belief anyway 100% well your Canadian of course you're gonna think that Ballu's are so solid. I mean and I can hear the Canadian in you by the way Soory and about and soory yeah

Get a couple of beers and you and it doesn't take long for it to come out with a. Yeah. Exactly. So always stick to which one role. One identity that you're trying to do this for. And then secondly, it's, well, what is it about the way that you're showing up or not showing up that is getting in the way of you achieving what it is that you want there? So it's like going back to like myself and super Richard, I was indecisive.

So I wasn't taking action. I was insecure. I didn't have confidence. And because I was worried about rejection and resistance of making these phone calls to try and book a speaking gig or a workshop. And then the third one was, I wasn't very articulate. Like I was an absolute word salad of like, oh, well, I can do this. And I, you know, like, that never works.

You know this from your message. Yeah. Yeah. And so I knew what was getting in the way. So there's typically ways, traits, attributes, qualities, characteristics that you're bringing to this identity, this role that you've got that are counter to you reaching your success.

Well, then that gets to the third step, which is, OK, well, then what are the superpowers that you want? Every alter ego or every superhero has character or six traits abilities. So for me, it was, I wanted to be more confident. I wanted to be decisive. I didn't want to end every day,

beating myself up again, for not doing the things I said I was gonna do that day. I didn't make the call, I said I was gonna do the night before. Everyone's super motivated the night before, right? But then when you get to the edge of the field and you gotta step onto it, that's when people go back to the locker room. So many times in their day.

So what parts of that role that you have in your life are you turning away from and not doing the actions? Well, what are the traits that you want? Well, I wanted to be more confident, decisive, and articulate, which were the flips of the things that were holding me back. And immediately I knew, for me, that was the kind of composite of, which is now step four, well, who could be the source of inspiration for it? What's the source code?

And it was Benjamin Franklin, Superman, and Joseph Campbell. Benjamin Franklin, because I wanted his confidence, the man had seven phenomenal careers in his life. He is the model of reinvention like nobody else. Superman, man of action, that was his tagline, right? Like he was decisive. And then Joseph Campbell, who wrote the power of myth and heroes' journey, and he was just so articulate and I sort of fell in love with him when I was about 12 watching him do a PBS special. And so I wanted their qualities and attributes. And then I created the name.

And it's important to have a name for this. Because ideas that float around in our mind without giving them form and substance, they're ethereal. They don't have any weight to them. But the moment you give something a name, and the fact that we go a picture, right, moving towards Joseph Campbell, and Benjamin Franklin, and Superman, with a name,

that is like, now it feels real. And so Super Richard was the name. Richard is my actual first name, and because I was 21 and insecure, I was like, oh, Todd sounds like I'm 12, and Richard just sounds like I'm a business-y, and I was using Super because it was the first part of Superman, so Super Richard became my name.

Now, I didn't go, Jen, and call people and say, hey, this is Super Richard calling. Can I book it? No, it was my state of mind that I was in. And then the fifth step is, and this goes back to the science of why this is so effective. It's because we're leveraging already existing scientific rules that happen inside of the human mind.

I talked about enclosed cognition before. Have a uniform, a totem, or an artifact that you use to step into this identity. So I went out and I bought a pair of non-prescription glasses at Lenscrafters in West Edmonton Mall, which was the largest mall in the world at the time. And that was when wearing glasses was not cool. Like everyone was getting lay sick, you know,

you don't wear glasses anymore, nerds wear glasses, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I went out and I bought a pair of non-prescription glasses because I wanted to do the reverse Superman. He put on the glasses to become Clark Kent. I was putting on my cape. And I would practice embodying this confidence

and this decisiveness and this articulation that I was going to have. And then I would, well, how would I move? What would it, like, embodying it? Like, what does it mean to be these people? Like, you know, and I would ask myself different questions. Like, if I actually was Benjamin Franklin, would he really care about just calling and asking someone to book a workshop? Like, is that going to be the hell that he dies on as a human being? No, that's silly, right? And so that was kind of the

basics of the five steps of kind of how you adopt this. And when you actually unwind and you look at how a lot of other people built their alter egos, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, I talk about him in the book, you know, Kobe, even though I built it, but it's the same method. Sasha Fears, there was a moment that they were challenged with something, a circumstance, a situation, a new thing that they wanted to birth into the world. And they had a hard time seeing themselves do it. And voila, they tapped into their creative imagination and built something new. I love it.

Who are some of the other people that you will talk about, that you helped beyond, of course, Gobi? So like, Raffa and Madal, as an example, so Raffa? That's a huge one. And you also said, Cristiano Ronaldo. Yeah, So well, they're the ones that, you know, real Madrid with the one who ultimately bought the peak athlete. So I was able to work with all of the players on that team. And, and again, alter Egos game. What is what hold on? What is his alter ego? What is

Ronaldo's alter ego? So he doesn't really have one. He has what I call a super ego. I didn't need to go in and build an alter ego. Cristiano, he's got, he has a super ego. And there's a bunch of other athletes that are very, very similar that have extraordinary, they basically, it's almost like God complexes that they have out on the court, the court, the ice, the field, whatever the case is. So, you know, again, this is just one of the tools that I had to help anyone develop and get towards their goal.

But not everyone did I build on an alter ego for. No, no, but that is one of your main things that you can, that's one of your big modalities is like the alter ego is your thing. So like people who have a super ego, like Ronaldo or who's the other one in the Dow, did you see he had a super ego too? Or you built a alter ego? No, he didn't other one? Nidale. Did you see he had a super ego too or you built a

call to his was the alter ego is needed and he spends about five minutes before going on to the court stepping into that identity. And everyone leaves the room and he spends his time like, you know, drawing forth that guy that needs to go out there because Rafa is one of the nicest people that there is that walks this planet. But when you're gonna go and compete at the highest levels, the one thing that can get in the way of that is this kindness trait,

is this fairness trait and stuff. And so in the book, I talk about a tennis player that I worked with, a woman who was known to be, should be winning more major championships. And yet, she would dominate in the early set. And then she would take her foot off the gas because she would feel bad about it. And then she would let that person come back in to the match. And it creates something that's very dangerous in sport, momentum, and momentum creates going back to your asking about confidence. How do I create confidence people? Momentum. That's how you do it.

Because if I can stack a bunch of wins for 14 days, 21 days straight, boy, does that ever start a boulder, a snowball going down a hill that is hard to compare? So it's how do you build confidence, reps, doing it over and over again? All of a sudden, you start to see yourself differently. You've got discipline. Wait, wait, wait, I've got discipline. I've got consistency putting those two together, momentum, and then momentum gets confidence. And fundamentally, when I'm trying to get to with everybody is certainty, because certainty is trust. And so when an athlete is out there playing against Rafa, and Rafa feels bad because he's beaten someone so badly and he takes his his foot off the gas, and that person starts to get momentum, and then they get confidence.

And if they get confidence enough that they're certain that they can beat Rafa, now the entire playing field is leveled. There is no advantage for Rafa or insert the name of anyone else, because in that moment in time, that player feels like they can beat. And so that certainty is important because it creates trust then. I trust myself, I trust my abilities, I can get into the flow state, I can get into the zone. So that's the kind of algorithm that I'm thinking about when working with people. That's great. That's amazing. So then what is his alter ego? What is his, you say he has a five minute process before he gets on? What is it? What does he do? Yeah. So his is private to him. So

that one, that one I wouldn't share. You know, Kobe was one of the few, but he actually built it into a friggin brand for himself, which is I take zero credit for that. That is a 100% Kobe. And yeah, he was a master. Truly it was. But yeah. So that's the one thing for anyone that's listening and you're, you know, kind of wrestling with this idea for yourself is we don't have to go out and broadcast to everyone that we have this all to be go. It is a private mental game strategy that you use to help you to be more playful because playfulness is that final golden key that unlocks capability flow state, the zone.

You know, because if you're going to take everything so rigidly and seriously, it's almost impossible to get into the flow state if you're serious because it's activating too much of your frontal low area anyway, reasoning and judgment. So there's a playfulness that's here because it's at the seat of creative imagination, but it is. It's this golden key that unlocks flow state for people, but you don't have to tell everyone about it. I didn't tell everyone about super-richard.

It was just my thing. You know, I totally agree. But just finish with the super-ego part. So what does that mean? So there are people out there who are saying that just have such ingrained innate confidence that they don't need to have an alter ego to win.

Or... That's right. So the super-ego is where it kind of starts to couple itself with God complex, where you literally feel at your core that you are not of this world. You're born differently than other people. You were gifted with something that no matter how hard someone else trains, they'll never be able to get to your level because you're personally tapping into something that they could never have anyway because you're a god amongst men. And that can sound

very toxic to many people. But for me, being someone who's been playing around between the six inches of people's ears, that's why when I hear people talk about mental toughness and finding success, I'm like, you guys are missing so many things because my clients would never tell you when they're at the press conference, how they actually think, how they get themselves ready for the game. Kobe would never tell people. He only did it in an interview late in this

just before he actually passed away where he talked about getting into the cage with the mamba and the music that he would listen to, which we talked about him and I, because everyone's gonna think that you're crazy, but the reality is it's what elite human beings do. They're using different narratives and stories and rituals in their own mind

that other people who aren't getting the results that they want in life are too busy worrying about getting my morning routine right. And you know, like nourish myself ice-dolph and self-care. And there's a huge softening of society that's happened in the last two decades. And yeah, people are becoming fundamentally a lot weaker. I just saw a whole thing on this actually.

Oh, you know, Dana White did this whole thing about like what our generation is now versus how it was. And if the people from 20 years ago maybe double in age, but they'll crush anybody from today because we are society are just basically we're just raising a bunch of whims basically. I'm saying it nice. I'm saying it in my current way.

Here's my problem with the whole generational arguments that people make is I'm like, hey, don't forget, it's the GenXers, like our generation and baby boomers that are raising people, right? And so like the group, you know, they're like, ha ha ha, our generation's better than your generation. And I'm like, I want the next generation

to be better than me because that's literally how society grows. 100% also our kids are in this generation, hello. Yeah, yeah. But, but that doesn't mean that everybody should deserve a trophy. Like it's not a war, you know, if you Yeah, yeah. But that doesn't mean that everybody should deserve a trophy. Like, if you lose, there are winners and there are losers and you have to try to teach, you know,

at a younger age, at some point, some grit and like, that you have to work hard and work ethic and that's my opinion. So to your point, my daughter Molly just finished up a baseball tournament and she got a medal. They didn't have like first places and things like that, even though they did finish first place. But she's 10. It's not about first places, it's about developing the skills at this point in time.

And so she got a medal and she, so she did the ceremony and she went back to the person and handed it back and said, no, I don't need this. And because we talk about, we don't accept participation ribbons. You don't need that, you don't need that Molly to make yourself feel good about how you're developing yourself. Because it's an internal thing. I don't want you to have to have that thing as an object to show that you participated. I can only imagine you as a dad, but then you have that Mr. Rogers thing. So like, I would think you'd be great as a performance coach for these young, like these

youngsters, like your kids. Well, where I started, it's where I started was there. I don't, and it's still, you know, the great joy of my career was, was working with the 12-year-olds, the 13-year-olds. But not as a Mr. Rodgers. If not when you're Mr. Rogers. But I was, I was a very different coach back then. I wasn't as much of a challenger. I was very sort of nurturing as a coach, you know, with them. And it's, and it's why I was very successful with that age group. And so anytime I do, because I still five young people every year get to apply to work with me for free for the year. So you have to be below the age of 18, you have to be playing

sport, you have to be in the upper echelon of your sport as well. There has to be a chance in a shot, you know, and you got to have aspirations to move up in your sport. And you have to write a five page essay on, you know, why you would be a good fit and why you wanna work with me. And then I'll mentor you all year long for free. And what is that, like, when someone works with you, like if I hired you one-on-one, how does it work? Do I hire you for, I mean, I know you're not $75 for three days anymore, but like, how do I, do I do it it's in an app, like, do I buy 10 sessions? And I'm asking for

my, like, seriously, like, do I buy a 10 sessions? Do I buy it for the year? How do you work? Like, what is your whole, like, what is it? It's, so A, I have coaching and mentoring programs, like group stuff that lots of people can come into that are entrepreneurial Can you sold your company right to the real mid-real? Yeah, but I haven't but I have another one. Yeah, okay So for 90-day year, which is focus on entrepreneurs So we have coaching mentoring programs that are there and there are either 90 day or a year long and it's not just one-on-one with me That's me in my head of coaching and other people But if someone was working just one-on-one with me. That's me, my head of coaching and other people. But if someone was working with me one-on-one, there's different options. There's people who come in

and they want the entire full meal deal of like, I want you to, because I do a ton of business coaching and mentoring. So, like, actually on building your business model, it's kind of one of my other superpowers is that. So, it's in that one, it's a year long, and we would typically meet at least once every two weeks, but there's a lot of asynchronous coaching going on in between. Typically, the ones who get the best results, you know, send me audio messages or text messages frequently throughout the week. And what we always kick off every single quarter with a three hour to four hour session together, what happened? So again, where did you come from? What's happening?

What do we need to move forward? And then I look at it as it's three circles of a Venn diagram. I'm working with you on your inner game. I'm working with you on your strategy game and then the execution game. So like doing what do we actually need to do, execute what are the routines, the habits,

for you, the business, whatever. The inner game, getting you very clear on who is showing up, how are you showing up, what are the attitudes that we need in order to win, and then the strategy side of things is really coming up with your custom approach that's going to be right for you and your world that you have. Like, Brunei Brown's team came to me with a similar thing because of just my experience of scaling, coaching and training companies, they wanted when they were building out their certification help with that.

But there is another opportunity where people can buy a rack rate of hours off of me. And I could just, you know, use them up whenever they want, just be used up within the first year. Like, how much are you? So, to buy eight hours from me, that's the rack of hours that people could buy.

It's $20,000 for eight hours. And then for that year thing that you're talking about, how much is it? So for the full meal deal, it's gonna start at six figures and go up depending on frequency and how often we, how many sessions basically people wanna have throughout that time together.

But I don't really sell sessions because I'm like, you know, the value that we deliver, it's like anything, it's value-based pricing. how many sessions basically people want to have throughout that time together. But I don't really sell sessions because I'm like, you know, the value that we deliver, it's like anything, it's value-based pricing. I mean, I'm as the people who work with me because I don't bring on people who are making like, you know, six figures, I'm not the right person for that. It would be silly to use your money that way.

But the value that I want to make an impact for someone is in the millions for how they run things. What CEOs do you work with? Can you talk about that? Yeah, so John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco Systems and coming in and working with them, Bruce Richards, who's a PE guy out of New York City, a billionaire, him and his company.

CEO, a coal Gordon, another example. So he's in the sales training space and he came in, was doing about, I think, four and a half million dollars a year, a couple of years ago, and we have his coaching and training company up to 42 million now. So like it runs the gamut of different types of CEOs. I typically like wicking people who are below a quarter of a billion dollars in business because the CEO or the entrepreneur or the leader of it is still very much connected

to a lot of parts of the business and we can make it really a larger impact. I don't work as much anymore with people that are CEOs of multinational big corporations. Is the $20,000 Canadian dollars or is it American? No, I can't be space in New York City. I'm going to pay my New York City taxes. Oh, I'm kidding. And how big is your business? How many people do you have working for you now? So I have a software company called Upcoach. Upcoach is a platform to help coaches build out their coaching

and training kind of empire. Because that's always the, that's typically the hardest part is the delivery side of a coaching company. So I started that a couple of years ago with two co-founders in Turkey and then my personal company with like 90-year alter ego world, we have a total of eight people basically full-time in it and then we try to keep things as lean as we possibly can and so then there's probably another 15 to 20 people that we contract different things for. And I feel like if I go out for you, it's been like two hours. And I'm just going and you're like standing.

Don't you want to take a seat for, I mean, like, you've been standing for two hours already. No, I'm good. Are you okay? Yeah. Okay, well, I will wrap it. I did have one other question though, but I don't remember what it is now. But I just find this, I'm like so fascinated by this. I knew that we were going to, I knew that we were gonna

I knew that we're gonna be buddies The moment that I actually Written frankly the moment that Melanie because I really Melanie is responsible for one of the great wins of my life and So Melanie does not do a lot of connections very often But when she does she always introduces me to like superstar people. So yeah, that is really sweet. I mean yeah No, I I'm really loving you right. Like I love all the, everything you said,

I love the way your approach. I love the honesty, the fact that you're so blunt, you're not missing any words. You're not trying to, you know, I think you're fantastic. I really do. I mean, are you gonna be in LA anytime soon? I would love to even do like a part two in person.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Oh. Absolutely. So I have a bunch of travel that's upcoming. And I think I'm going to be in LA in four weeks, something like that. But. My gosh.

I didn't know that. Well, I mean, because especially when I come out to to to Kallona, I'll typically try to come down to Los Angeles, quite a bit. Because I just have like lots of friends down there. I do lots of business down there as well. So I was just there a couple of weeks or a few weeks ago. So. Wow. Okay, so wait. So then I'm going to wrap this. I have I can't remember the I had two questions in my brain and I can't remember. Oh, I do habits because this is my podcast. Are there specific habits and rituals that you do tell your client at that level that are non-negotiable, that are mandatory to kind of keep their, you know, productivity and

brain right? Yeah, great question. So actually, I'll give you a pop quiz here, Jen. Put you on the spot. Do you know what the number one cause of weight gain is? beats it. Lack of sleep or bad nutrition. Nailed it. Sleep. Sleep is something that you cannot outrun. And so if there was a non-negotiable to help people, it's exactly what helped Cristiano Ronaldo. So Cristiano, when we did the diagnostic with him,

wasn't getting enough sleep. The average athlete needs to get at least 10 and a half hours of sleep and deep rest a day. Their bodies go through so much physical breakdown. You know, this is a fitness superstar, like the body rebuild itself in sleep mode. And so sleep is the non-negotiable. And so if you want to operate at a really extraordinarily high level, we need to be taking care of that. Having said that though, there are a class of us who don't need a lot of sleep. So I have a certain genetic marker inside of my DNA

where I can operate at a high level. It doesn't cause me any sort of negative biological issues. I can operate a high level with about four and a half hours of sleep a day. John Groot and the head coach of the former head coach, he was the exact same way. And so it's actually what it was kind of part of my, let's say, secret code for how I was able to do so much more work than other people. Well, I didn't need as much sleep as everyone else did. But that's really rare. So, you know, when we're talking about sleep monitoring, that's the

biggest habit that we want to get into is what is the consistent time that we get you into bed? Okay, anything else? And then, even though I'm an inner game guy, one of the last places I wanna make a problem for you, Jan, is your six years between your ears, right? Like a belief issue, not everything in life is a belief issue. So another one is, you know, just classic water intake stuff.

Oh, so basic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is boring to people. But it really is not to my people, because this is what we love. Habits, rituals, what keeps you on point. This is exactly what we talk about. Just table stakes stuff stuff that sits at the very bottom of Maslow's hierarchy and needs. You know, that's the way to be thinking about it. The place for your habits that are going to give you the greatest impact is going to be something that impacts you down there.

People talk about journaling. Journaling is a self-transcendence thing. It's a self-esteem need. Whether or not my clients do it or don't do it. When I'm on my successful clients all the time has never journaled the day in his life, doesn't need it. But the table stakes stuff. Food, shelter, clothing, water, you know, like that's where we look at good, good systems to put into place for your habits.

Because on the days, because there's a lot of days that don't go your way, but if you're literally taking care of your biology, that can help you so much more so that your psychology doesn't get fudged up because your biology is taking care of. I'll give you another one. And this goes back to the issues that I have with the personal development self-help leadership or spiritual space.

To the person that's listening that is struggling right now with clarity in their life, having a vision for things, being challenged with like procrastination possibly avoidant behavior. Just be mindful of the fact that there is a system in your body that mimics depression and depressive state that has nothing to do with your psychology. If you have a high level of yeast in your gut health, it actually mimics depression. It causes brain fog and fatigue issues. It can cause people to feel like they're procrastinating on things, but it's not because you're a procrastinator.

It's literally because you've got bad gut health issues. And I say this because there's a lot of people out there who hear from insert name of like big name expert that they need another goal setting, workshop. They need to come to another big live event. They need to read another self-help book. No, you actually might have gut health issues. It might be something as simple as that.

I believe you because I bet you've seen them, people you've worked with, they've probably did all this testing and then they found that was the problem. Tons of data on it. Plus it's not just me saying it. This is literally widely known inside of the biology nutrition world. I've had a ton of doctors, functional medicine doctors, talk about that, got health doctor specialists, all that. But I'm saying you probably seen it firsthand with people that you've worked with where it's like they thought something was wrong

and maybe they had, that was the problem. Yeah, and it wasn't. It wasn't. I mean, even for myself, it happened to me once as well, where I was going through, I didn't realize I was going through a really bad gut health experience, but I couldn't get a clear thought through this fog in my head no matter how hard I leveraged every other tool that I had at my disposal. And did the whole gut health stuff, found a massive amount of yeast, got that cleared

up, and within the eighth day of being on, it was called the walls diet. So walls, W-A-H-L, it's a diet that specifically for people that have MS. And so I've got a bit of a condition that's kind of mimics MS. And I was, my brain was so clear on the eighth day, I said to my wife, I'm like, this feels like an unfair advantage. Like, wait, that my diet and nutrition, and again, I've been living in this world for long, that it affects it that much. Wow.

And I discovered that out of all the foods that I could eat, the one that affects my brain, any brain fog I could get is starches. It's not gluten, it's not anything like that. It's starches, potatoes. Potatoes cause me more brain fog issues than anything else I could eat. Was that just through a plain blood test that you figured that out?

Well, so I did a bunch of blood markers, but it was literally doing the actual foods itself. So it's a huge elimination diet. You can only eat meat and green leafy vegetables. No spices, no sugars, no cheeses and dairy, no bread, no caffeine, so no coffee, and on and on, Like it's pretty limited. And then you start introducing these things back in and seeing how you respond.

Well, bread came back. No, no issues. Dairy came back. No issues. Can't have an excessive amount of it, but I can have a little bit of cheese. But it was when I brought back starches that immediately, it was like my brain had a fog drop into it immediately. Wow. I know I've heard that before. It's really crazy, actually, that there's a huge It was like my brain had a fog drop into it immediately. Wow, yeah.

I know I've heard that before. It's really crazy actually that there's a huge, both gut brain connection, right? Yeah. The gut is your second brain. Okay, so where could people find more information about you, Todd Herman? So Todd Herman.me is my home based on the interwebs. This is the book, by the way.

Yeah, the alter ego effect. Go get it, tag me, ask me questions, I respond to everybody that I get DMs every single day. And then, you know, so Todd underscore Herman. So tag us in, you know, Instagram or Twitter or LinkedIn and let us know. Favorite take away. Absolutely. This is a great book. I think I believe in this book, heartily. I put it in my book, Bigger Ben or Boulder. And I am just so thankful that I finally met you. This was really great. Start of a new friendship, that's what I'm saying.

I'm serious. I'm calling it. It's done. Like, you are my friend now. I mean, like, everyone go buy his book. I'm telling you, won't be disappointed. And if you feel that you're lacking in some area that you really need to show up,

this book will help you. I promise. And all the reviews, by the way, even on Amazon, speak for itself. So thank you, Jen. You're welcome. Don't hang up, but I'm going to say goodbye. So bye.

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