Hey guys what is up welcome back to my blog I’m so thankful that you guys took the time out of your day to read my blog post. Hope you all are safe from the COVID-19. This book is phenomenal, totally recommend it no matter who you are and what you are trying to achieve. I experimented a bit with the ides given in the book and have included it at the end.
The Alter Ego Effect By Todd Herman talks about the hidden hero inside each and every one of us. I get excited when people talk about things like ‘beating the enemy’ and ‘becoming the hero of your story’ so this book really spoke to me in a way that I had never imagined. The basic idea of the book is that each of us can create an alter ego that contains a quality that we want to hone or blocks out a quality that we don’t want to take with us on a specific job. The example is of a tennis player who is too kind and compassionate and when she wins games by a lot she starts deliberately playing bad so that her opponent can catch up a bit, what this did was lower her confidence when her opponent caught up and caused her to lose to opponents who were much inferior to her. Now what does this tennis player do? She creates an alter ego that is not compassionate but is dominant in the game, she lets the alter ego take over when she is playing and when she is in her regular life she switches back to her normal self. This might seem like fantasy to all of you but let me tell you I have tried it and it has worked. I’ll discuss that in a bit.
Another thing to love about the book is that it’s not like one of those ‘you can do anything’ type of books, it’s the ‘here is a method to help you get closer to your goal’ kind of book and that is why I instantly feel in love with it. The book not for a moment deviates from the practical tips it is giving to sell you some, ‘Remember you just need to believe.’ Thing, it stays true to itself till the very end. The book shows different stages of creating an alter ego by showing you different stories of real people, some of whom reveal their real identities while others do not due to privacy reasons. What’s the point here you ask? I can guarantee that there is at least one story in there which you relate to and once you relate you will dive deep into what the book is offering and create an alter ego and don’t think you don’t need one, no matter how developed each of us are we all need one someday.
The book doesn’t cover everything because obviously it would be all crammed them but Todd leaves links all over the book for you to follow and gather more insight on the tips and tactics in the book. The book talks about fear and how the Enemy within us is always pulling the strings of fear to keep us from becoming a better version of ourselves, or as Todd would say in the book ‘The Enemy keeps us from becoming the Hero and reach our Extraordinary World.’
Now let’s talk about my personal use of the technique. The first thing that I noticed is that I did this so much when I played video games, because I was always focused and accurate in games and do everything without missing a beat. This laser like super focus went unnoticed till I realized that I wasn’t even playing as myself when I played. Every time I create an account for games I always keep my name ‘Assassin’ or something similar, this is because I am deeply fascinated by the Assassin’s Creed games and I love Ezio. I saw that when I played I always acted and spoke like him while I wasn’t playing I was always distracted and goofing off. I also noticed this in the ‘Persona’ games which featured the characters having personas to use which grew as the characters themselves grew. What Todd called Alter Ego, I called Persona. I knew that I was already using a persona but I let the Assassin rest in the gaming space because Todd tells us to respect the sacred spaces of where we use our Alter Egos. I decided to channel the Death Note character Light Yagami to be more observant of people and my surroundings. Todd prescribed an exercise to order coffee or do something simple as your alter ego to get settled into it. The trigger that channelled me into Assassin was the controller so I kept a pen with me which I twirled in a specific motion to activate my ‘Light Yagami’ persona. It was different and I felt it. I noticed most of the things going on around me, things I wouldn’t normally notice. The thing to notice here is that if you’ve played the Persona games the MC had the wild card ability which gave them the ability to wield many personas, this is like our lives we already have our current personality now we can create new ones and mix and match according to situations like the Protagonist of the Persona games and still retain the person we are.
Now I’m not saying that this will magically give you all the powers you need but what this will do is give you a push, make you let go of your fear so that you can change yourself for a while. You won’t be a good investor by channelling Jeff Bezos you need to learn about investing but by channelling Jeff you’ll let go of the fear you had with investing and stop doubting yourself because the fear that speaks inside you won’t be speaking to your alter ego because it’s a different mind-set. I highly recommend this book to each and every one of you so please check it out.
So that is it for this post guys hope you got some value from this. Thank you guys for reading to the end hit me up on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn with your thoughts and if you have any ideas which I should write about. Stay safe from the COVID-19. Thank you again and I’ll see you all next week.
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