On Purpose with Jay Shetty - The 5 Step Process To Tap Into Peak Performance Anytime & The Tool That Creates A New You

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

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

Hey, it's Debbie Brown, host of the Deeply Well Podcast, where we hold conscious conversations with leaders and radical healers and wellness around topics that are meant to expand and support you on your wellbeing journey. Deeply well is your soft place to land, to work on yourself without judgment, to heal, to learn, to grow, to become who you deserve to be. Deeply well with Debbie Brown is available now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Namaste. The one you feed explores how to build a fulfilling life admits the challenges we face. We share manageable steps to living with more joy and less fear through guidance on emotional resilience, transformational habits, and personal growth. I'm your host, Eric Zimmer, and I

speak with experts ranging from psychologists to spiritual teachers, offering powerful lessons to apply daily. Create the life you want now. Listen to the one you feed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Eva Longoria. And I'm Maite Gomes-Rajon. We're so excited to introduce you to our new podcast, Hungry for History. On every episode, we're exploring

some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, beverages from our Mexican culture. We'll share personal memories and family stories, decode culinary customs, and even provide a recipe or two for you to try at home. Listen to Hungry for History on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you choose an alter ego, you want to choose someone

real or fictional who is most known for the qualities and attributes you want more or less of in your life. So it doesn't just have to be one quality attribute. It can be several, but you might want to start out with just one or two and then you can shape your alter ego as you get more accustomed to working with it. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I am so excited to be with you today. It is truly exciting when I'm recording these episodes, preparing. I get so excited by some of the insights I get to read and study for these podcasts. And I put in a lot of time to really research

and think about how I can make these concepts really simple and accessible and relevant and shareable. I want you to be able to talk about them this weekend and at dinner and over your next Zoom call or whatever it is that you're up to. I want you to be able to share these concepts in a way that they add value to your life and what's going on.

Now, this was one of my favorite reviews that I got recently and I want to share it because I just love sharing your reviews and I would love, love, love for you to leave a review as well. And this is someone who wrote a review that says twice a week automatically. Like many others, I've become a bit of a podcast junkie. Jay's show is at the very top of my list.

Most shows I look at the subject and or guest before deciding to listen to it, not so with on purpose. This podcast is my automatic twice a week regardless of the subject or who the guest is. The day that Jay's podcast is published is the day I listen to it. That means the world to me. Thank you so much. It truly, truly makes a difference. Make sure you go ahead and leave a review.

And today we're talking about the surprising tool that can transform your life and the five steps to putting it into work for you. Now, answer these questions honestly. Like really think about it. Do you sometimes wish you as someone else? Maybe a famous actor or a rock star, a successful author or maybe an investor or maybe you wish you had a particular skill set that you were more charming or better at networking, that you were better at handling money or negotiating, that you were a better listener or a better public speaker or better at giving presentations. With the future so uncertain and things feeling so out of control in so many ways, lots of

us are looking for things we can control. future so uncertain and things feeling so out of control in so many ways, lots of us are looking for things we can control, what we can do to make an impact on our lives and perhaps the lives of others. The last few months have talked to you about increasing your focus, managing anxiety, culture, and curiosity and broadening your skill set. But what if you could just borrow these abilities from someone else? What if you were like rogue from the X-Men who could borrow the powers of others or mystique who could shape shift

and perfectly mimic other people or mutants? Okay, I get it. I'm super into mutants and super heroes. But here's a fun statistic. As of 2018, 45% of male consumer surveyed had seen one or more films from Marvel's Avengers series. I've got my hand up for sure. And 38% of women had watched one or more of the movies too. The most popular films, you want to guess, they were the Iron Man movies with roughly 48%

of men, 41% of women having seen at least one Iron Man movie. Now you might be thinking, Jay, where is this going, right? You know, why we talking about Iron Man? Well, there's so much going on around us that feels heavy. So this week I wanted to bring you something a bit lighter and it's something fun and playful, but the great thing is that it's also an extremely powerful tool that can create real meaningful change in your life. So let's say you struggle speaking in front of groups of people. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld famously joked that out of funeral, most people would rather be the person in the coffin than the one delivering the eulogy, because people are more

scared of public speaking than they are of dying. But what if you could be a great orator like Martin Luther King or Barack Obama? What if you could channel some of their skills to be a speaker who's brilliant and inspiring and motivating people? Today I'm going to talk to you about how you can do just that. Most people know that Winston Churchill was the British Prime Minister during World War II, leading during one of the most challenging times in modern history. What many don't know is that Churchill used the tool that I'm about to describe for you. If you look at pictures of Churchill, you'll often see him wearing a hat.

No big deal, right? Yeah, for Churchill, it was. Churchill would select his hat based on the person he needed to be for the event at hand, whether it was giving his speech to rally the British public during the bombing campaign against London and other British cities, or meeting with international leaders. In the movie The Darkest Hour,

there's a scene where Churchill, played by actor Gary Oldman, is preparing to travel to London to accept the role of Prime Minister from the British King. He stands there surveying his large collection of hats and asks, which self should I be? You see, for Churchill, a hat wasn't just a hat. It was what peak performance coach Todd Herman calls a totem, right? An object that evoked a particular personality. Now, I had the joy to sit down with Todd

about his book called the alter ego effect last year when it came out and I really enjoyed this conversation and so I dove into more around this theme and seeing how we could use it. Incidentally and he told me about this one, another famous figure who had a totem was Martin Luther King Jr. And another famous figure who had a totem was Martin Luther King Jr. Though his vision was fine, King walked the glasses because he thought they made him look more distinguished. Wearing the glasses he felt he was better able to channel the eloquence and presence that was required of him in his role as a leader of the civil rights movement. Both Churchill and King used props to invoke the same tool you can use

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

present she needed to channel as a pop star that she wanted to. So she let Sasha Feast do it for her. And I remember growing up listening to M&M, Marshall Madders, right? Slim Shady. These were all personality types that help us tap into different parts of ourselves and even understand ourselves. I had Liza Koshy as a guest on the podcast. I was an amazing podcast. I literally just watched her new movie on Netflix with my wife the other day.

It's awesome. It's really good fun. And she was talking about how she created characters on a YouTube channel that represented different parts of her personality. And that was almost like a healing process for herself. And this is something that you can do as well. Today I'm going to walk you through five steps

for creating and channeling your alter ego. But some of you may be thinking, really, an alter ego, does that actually work? Does actually science to back it up? Stephanie Carson, a professor and director of research at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Child Development at the University of Minnesota took four-year-olds and split them into groups and told them they were going

to do a task. Then she and her team did something guaranteed to frustrate the kids. They put a toy in a locked box and gave the kids an assortment of keys. But what the kids didn't know was that none of the kids would work to unlock the box. The researchers wanted to observe what the kids would do under these circumstances, how creative they'd get in how they'd try to unlock the box and how long they'd persist in trying. What they were studying is called executive functioning, which is a set of brain skills

that includes flexible thinking, working memory, and impulse control. Carlson and her team knew that kids already spend a lot of time in pretend play, and they wondered what would happen if they instructed one group to bring that pretend play to bear during a serious task. So the researchers also gave one group of kids some instructions. They told them to pick a character that they should pretend to be while they undertook the task. Either Batman or Dora the Explorer.

They even had the option of wearing a cape. The other group of kids received no special instructions. The results? As Carlson writes, kids who pretended that they were Batman or Dora were more flexible thinkers than those who didn't. They spent more time trying to open the box, they tried more keys, and overall they were calmer. As one child told researchers, Batman doesn't get frustrated.

But those were kids, right? Well, Carlson and her colleagues believed that the reason pretending at such a dramatic effect was that it created something called psychological distancing, which is when we have the space to step back and examine something from a different perspective. You've probably heard me talk before about the power of detachment in allowing us to access new and more creative solutions, along with patience. It is a form of psychological distancing and that skill doesn't have an age cap, right?

Like we did it as monks, like as monks, we, the mindset of a monk, is to psychologically distance to solve an issue. So all of that said, let's get started. Here's step one for creating your alter ego. Let's start with a little fill in the blank exercise. If you can get out a piece of paper or open a notes app,

if not, take a screenshot and come back to this exercise later because it's critical to creating an alter ego that's effective for the change you want in your life. Now, I want you to think of one quality you wish you had, right? Just one quality you wish you had and one way you want your life to be. So maybe a quality you wish you had was to be a better at finances or the stock market and you want your life to feel more secure

and you want to feel more confident in the decisions you make about money or maybe a quality you wish you had was to be a great listener. And you feel if you were a great listener, you would have stronger relationships in your life. So fill in the blanks. If I was more blank, my life would be more blank. Or you can go the other way and think of a quality of behavior you wish you didn't have or a behavior you didn't do, and then something you want your life to be less of.

Maybe you wish you didn't feel so afraid to have difficult conversations. So you feel like you wouldn't be held back in your career. So in terms of filling in the blanks, that sounds like if I was less blank, my life or my job or my family wouldn't be so blank. That's step one, and I prefer the positive affirmation as opposed to the negative, to try to do the first side of the activity. So for example, if you want to be more fun and engage with your kids and let's focus on work when you're home, you're not going to pick an alter ego like Thor or Shonda Rhymes. That's not what they were known for, right? Maybe if you wanted to be more confident, you'd pick Thor, or if you wanted to be an incredible

screenwriter, you'd pick Shonda Rhymes. But if you want to be more fun and an engaged parent, you'd pick someone like maybe Robin Williams' character Mrs. Doubtfire or Mary Poppins or Scott Lang who is Paul Rudd's character and Ant-Man. When you choose an alter ego, you want to choose someone real or fictional who is most known for the qualities and attributes you want more or less of in your life. So it doesn't just have to be one quality or attribute. It can be several, but you might want to start out with just one or two, and then you can shape your alter ego as you get more accustomed to working with it.

I am Mi'anla, and on my podcast, The R-Spot, we're having inspirational, educational, and sometimes difficult and challenging conversations about relationships. They may not have the capacity to give you what you need. And insisting means that you are abusing yourself now. You human. And that means that you're crazy as hell, just like the rest of us. When a relationship breaks down, I take copious notes, and I want to share them with you. Anybody with two eyes and a brain knows that too much Alfredo sauce is just

no good for you. But if you're going to eat it, they're not going to stop you. So he's going to continue to give you the Alfredo sauce and put it even on your grits if you don't stop him. Listen to the R-Spot on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is what it sounds like inside the box-paw. I'm journalist and I'm Morton in my podcast, City of the Rails. I plung into the dark world of America's railroads, searching for my daughter Ruby who ran off to hop train. My podcast, City of the Rails, I plunge into the dark world of America's railroads, searching

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history, and the thing we call the American Dream. It's the last vestige of American freedom. Everything about it is extreme. You're either going to die, or you can have this incredible rebirth and really understand who you are. Come with me to find out what waits for us in the city of the rails. Listen to the city of the rails on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Or cityoftherails.com

I'm Dr. Romani and I am back with season two of my podcast, Navigating Narcissism. Narcissists are everywhere and their toxic behavior in words can cause serious harm to your mental health. In our first season, we heard from Eileen Charlotte, who was loved by the Tinder swindler. The worst part is that he can only be guilty for stealing the money from me, but he cannot be guilty for the mental part he did. And that's even way worse than the money he took. But I am here to help.

As a licensed psychologist and survivor of narcissistic abuse myself, I know how to identify the narcissists in your life. Each week you will hear stories from survivors who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and the process of their healing from these relationships. Listen to navigating narcissism on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Step two is to list out five people you admire. you get your podcasts. Step 2 is to list out five people you admire. Now, these definitely do not have to be famous people. In fact, some of the most powerful figures in our lives are often family members, coaches, teachers, so definitely do not limit yourself to celebrities or other famous people. Also, just like comic and other fictional characters, they don't have to be real. You might look up to a favorite hero, a heroine from a book or a movie, or again, it might be someone who's an everyday person who embodies equality or several qualities you'd love

to channel in your life. Scott Harrison had a life people dreamed of. He was 28 and driving a BMW with a Porsche Parmin in New York City. As a club promoter, Harrison was connected, the rich and powerful, looked to him to nowhere to party and be seen. But even though he had all the outward signs of success, Harrison was desperately unhappy, describing himself as emotionally, morally, and spiritually bankrupt. During a New Year's trip to Uruguay, when Harrison was hosting a party with hundreds of guests, he decided it was time for

a change. When he got back, he quit his job and spent the next year volunteering as a photo journalist for a team of doctors, caring for people and poverty in Liberia. Harrison was deeply affected by the fact that so many of the health problems the people faced were because of a lack of clear drinking water. He realized that he had a superpower that he wasn't using for the greatest good. When he got back to New York, he threw himself a 31st birthday party, invited more than 700 people and charged them each a $20 coverage charge. Then he had a team took the 15,000 he'd raised to a refugee camp in Uganda and used it to fix three local wells to supply clean water. He sent pictures of the work back to his party guests

to show them what their money had done. And that was the birth of charity water, a non-profit that has donors for more than 100 countries around the world and provides clean water for millions. Lots of people wish they were better at networking. So Scott's superpower is one many of us have dreamed of having, but you might be thinking, Jay, Scott Harrison was great already at networking. He didn't have to create an alter ego to do that. And you're right, he didn't have to create an alter ego to become a great networker, but to create charity water, he did have to create another vision of himself, another version of himself.

And that was Harrison, the humanitarian, right? It's almost like connecting to your inner monk. And that also brings me to an important point. And it's perhaps the most important takeaway from this exercise. By creating an alter ego, you're not faking it or being insincere. Maybe you've heard the advice, fake it to, you're not faking it or being insincere. Maybe you've heard the advice fake it to you make it. But when you channel the skills of an alter ego, you're not faking it. Squat Harrison wasn't pretending to be a humanitarian. He tapped into that desire that was already

within himself, but that he hadn't yet connected with. Beyoncé wasn't faking being an unbelievable pop star. Her alter ego of Sasha Fee has helped her connect with those skills that were already inside of her. Though it might seem that by channeling an alter ego you are pretending to be someone else. What you're actually doing is bringing out something inside of you. The phrase alter ego is from the Latin for other eye. This isn't about tricking anyone or yourself. It's about connecting with other versions of yourself. You can think of your alter ego as a magnet for those qualities, pulling them to the front when you need them. In fact, in Todd Herman's book, Alter Ego,

he describes a client who actually created an alter ego that was a giant magnet so he could channel and focus his own innate ability to attract new business. Now, there's something else I should explain. If you want to have a certain skill set like being great investing, you can't just channel Warren Buffett and all of a sudden you'll have his knowledge. You have to actually take the time and take some tips from him and how he got to be Warren Buffett because he wasn't born knowing about money either. He used his innate interest in money and market to spark his desire and read and learn all he could about them.

You have to build those skills if you don't have them. Also, you don't have to want to be a footballer to channel Ronaldo or a scientist to channel Stephen Hawking. Creating an alter ego is about taking some of those qualities that makes the person so good at what they do and applying it to your field of play as Todd Herman calls it. Definitely that salesman didn't actually want to become a literal magnet, right? Ronaldo is on my short list of people, the top people that I greatly admire and would love to interview.

And while I do love playing football, it's his work ethic that's such a big part of his success. Ronaldo is at the top of his game because he shows up with the intensity and consistency and that's something I strive to emulate. Let's say that you want to be the kind of mother that your mother was for you. You've got to break down what it was about her parenting that you wanted to channel. Was it how she balanced her career and parenting? So you felt she was there for you when it mattered the most. Was it that she was a great listener?

Was it how she made home cooked meals? And she cared for you. Be specific so that when you think of channeling your mother when you parent your own kids, you will know what actions to take. Maybe you're not much of a cook or your partner does the cooking and instead you demonstrate your care for your kids

in other ways, like doing their homework with them. So that's step three. Pick one or two people you listed in step two and break out three to five specific actions or ways of being that made them show up on your list. What do you admire or want to emulate about them? What inspires you about them? Step four is to actually create your alter ego. Now you can choose to channel a specific character

or person such as Adele, Batman, or Dora the Explorer if you like. I'm joking about Dora, but actually, childhood heroes and errands can be very powerful for us. The amazing thing about your alter ego is it doesn't even have to be the same gender as you are, right? Or have the same approach to that as you have. They don't even have to be the same gender as you are, right? Or have the same approach to that as you have. They don't even have to be human. Kobe Bryant had his own alter ego. He called Black Member. And the idea he got from Kill Bill movies, you can choose an animal like Kobe. Maybe you want

the keen eyesight of an owl to be able to make smart decisions about your business or who to trust. Or maybe you want to be more playful in your life and channeler baby, go, right? I don't know, or have the confidence and self-assuredness of a lion. And of course, like our magnet man, you can choose an inanimate object. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season. And yet, we're constantly discovering new secrets. The depths of them, the variety of them, continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets.

When I realized this is not just happening to me, this is who and what I am. I needed her to help me. Something was annoying at me that I couldn't put my finger on that I just felt somehow that there was a piece missing. Why not restart? Look at all the things that were going wrong. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to season eight of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Our 20s are saying is this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, full in love, make mistakes, and decide what we want from our life. But what can psychology really teach us about this decade? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the psychology of your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money, friendships, and much more to explore the science and the psychology behind our experiences, incredible guests, fascinating topics, important science, and a bit of my own personal experience.

Audrey, I honestly have no idea what's going on with my life. Join me as we explore what our 20s are really all about. From the good, the bad, and the ugly, and listen along as we uncover how everything is psychology, including our 20s. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg, now streaming on the iHotRadio app, Apple podcasts, or whatever you get your podcasts. How's that New Year's resolution coming along? You know, the one you made about paying off

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on the iHeartRadio app, podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Once you've chosen your alter ego, the final step step five is to choose a totem to help you bring forward the energy of the alter ego, like Churchill with his hat or Martin Luther King with his glasses or the character of Mary Poppins with her umbrella. According to Todd Herman, a totem is not essential, but can help. Maybe it's the briefcase your uncle gave you a graduation and reminds you of his faith in you, that you make sure you bring to meetings

where you need to be confident. Maybe it's a red tie that evokes Iron Man or a piece of jewelry. Whatever it is, it should be something special that you clearly associate with your alter ego and doesn't also have a lot of other meaning attached to it. That way when you put it on or carry it, it clearly evokes that alter ego.

In 2010, Beyonce announced that Sasha Feast was no more. She no longer needed the alter ego. She had fully embodied the qualities of Sasha Feast that she wanted to keep and discarded the rest. The announcement marked a shift in Beyonceoncé's music and performances that embraced a more authentic self and in many ways different from earlier work. So those are the five steps to creating and invoking your alter ego, right? First, list either what qualities or skills you would like to display more or less of and how

that would impact your life. Second, make a short list of five people or animals or objects whose qualities you admire. Third, pick one or two people or animals or objects from your list and list out three to five that put them on your list. What fascinate or intrigue you about them? What do they represent to you? Step 4 is to create your alter ego. And to do that, you want to isolate one to three qualities that you want to be able to channel in particular situations.

Perhaps it's the key inside of a hawk we can spot and seize opportunities or the confidence of Drake, who incidentally has a few alter egos, including one he calls Champagne Puppy, which is even his Instagram handle. And lastly, once you have your alter ego, you can choose a totem or a symbol that will help you evoke your alter ego in those situations when you want those qualities to come forward.

So there you go. I hope this was powerful. And if you enjoyed it, you can check out Todd Herbens' book, The alter ego effect, too, which I interviewed him for when it came out and really underpins a lot of the research and a lot of ideas that I've shared here today. So I really hope you enjoyed this podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of On Purpose. Make sure you share what you learn from this in your Instagram feed and Twitter and Facebook. And please, please, please, take a moment to leave a review.

I hope this has been useful and powerful for you. I can't wait to see what you learn and what you practice in this one. Thanks for listening and always come back to On Purpose. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on I Heart. I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions. Like, can we create new senses for humans? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality. Listen to Intercosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I am Yom LaVanzant and I'll be your host for The R Spot. Each week listeners will call me live to discuss their relationship issues.

Nothing will tear a relationship down faster than two people with no vision. There's y'all are just flopp flopping around like fish out of water? Mommy, daddy, your ex, I'll be talking about those things and so much more. Check out the R-Spot on the iHeart video app Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Shatekler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in major league baseball, international banks, kpop groups, even the White House. But just what I thought I had to handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me, and my whole view on astrology changed.

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.