In this episode, James was joined by Todd Herman, the author of The Alter Ego Effects, to talk about how James could use the Alter Ego Effects to gain an advantage in the chess tournament!
I have been going to Chess Tournament, I have had some wins and some losses. Now, I am thinking about how can I take my chess to the next level. How can I do better in the next chess tournament? I have been studying chess for at least 4 to 5 hours a day, analyzing my games, and been taking chess coaching sessions. And then it hit me, what about, The Alter Ego Effect!
So I called up the author of The Alter Ego Effects, Todd Herman, to get a "Free" Coaching Session! That's why I enjoy doing podcasts!
In the episode, we talked about how a kid took on the alter ego of Paul Bunyan, and then excel in baseball! We also talked about the techniques of looking for your own alter ego.
Last but not least, all the advice that Todd gave me to search and take on my own alter ego, and let see if I could do better in my next tournament!
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Todd Herman 0:01
This isn't your average business podcast. And he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. Today on the James Altucher show,
James Altucher 0:15
I didn't realize this. But often when a baseball player goes up to bat or a basketball player enters the game, or a salesman enters the meeting, they put on a different persona, a larger than life persona, that is so deeply baked into their brains and actually makes them perform better. So Todd Herman, author of the alter ego effect, is helping me out with something. This applies to everyone. But specifically, I wanted him to help me in such a way that it could be applied to all of you. So I'm trying to be the best tournament chess player I've ever been, I was a competitive player when I was younger. And I want to be competitive now, and even better, hasn't been always working out as well as I would like the world's a different place 25 years later. So Todd, is helping me achieve my peak performance by helping me find my alter ego, that I could bring to those moments when I need peak performance. And you can use the exact same techniques to achieve peak performance in whatever area it is, you want to achieve it, whether it's investing or your job, or career or a sport, or music or writing. Listen to this podcast, and you'll see what I mean like this one is going to change my life. So here's Todd Herman.
In the past, almost two years since COVID, started, over 55 million people have filed for unemployment at some point or other in the United States, and obviously, with with only about a little over 100 million jobs that's significantly greater than ever before in history. And I think a lot of people, including me, went through the same thing. What do I do now, I don't have the normal routine that I had, instead of being scared or terrified, which I know many people were, maybe this is also an opportunity to pursue something I love doing or pursue something I loved as a child or pursue something I always thought I would put off until I had stuff saved up or until I retired or whatever, like, who knows what, maybe some people may be wanting to be a chef, some people want to be a novelist. Some people might have wanted to make videos or play golf, or whatever it is, I don't know. And a couple years ago, I had on a good friend, Todd Herman, who wrote a book called the alter ego effect. He's been a great keynote speaker over the years, including during the pandemic, but he also coaches a lot of like athletes and other high performance experts to be the best they could be in their fields. And I remember from the alter ego effect that sometimes I remember specifically, this was in the first chapter that sometimes like a baseball player before they go up to hit, they might imagine themselves to be somebody else. But I used to do this a lot in comedy like, and Todd's listening to this. Before I would go on stage of stand up comedy, I might imagine I was some great comedian that I admired. I wouldn't imitate any of their jokes, of course, but it would give me this extra confidence. And, and I remember one time, I was pitching a TV show, and I called Todd. And I said, Todd, I'm really nervous going into pitch this TV show, what should I do? And he gave me really, just great advice. And advice is always different each time and I wrote to him again, because like many people pursuing something that I love doing, and some of you know, I've been playing in chess tournament again, for the first time in 25 years, I was a nationally ranked master and in 1997, and as a kid, and and now I'm playing a tournament again, and it's really hard like the world has changed in the 25 years, I stopped playing. And so I was hoping Todd could tell me a little bit more what to do in that alter ego effect. Way has and Todd thanks for joining the podcast.
Todd Herman 4:06
Yeah, well, this is gonna be a fun one because for everyone that's listening. And this is gonna be like a coaching session more than anything else. Yeah, like we're gonna we're gonna build James's alter ego to go out and, and crush the chessboard.
James Altucher 4:18
Yeah, and it's so interesting. Like, I'm a good player and online I play online for instance, and I did my normal techniques when I tried to get good at something I did a plus minus equal like I hired a chess coach, I have my cohort of equals that I play and move up with and I also give lessons because if you can't explain something simply then you don't truly understand it. I divided it up into micro skills so I I'm doing all the things I need to do to kind of what I call beat the 10,000 hour rule and online I'm doing pretty well but somehow or other and tournament's just again, like I said, the worlds different I'm different and I don't know I don't quite understand it, and yeah, should I be sometimes I try your technique I sometimes I'll go into thinking, I'm the best player here. I'm a grandmaster, a top grandmaster. And they're all afraid to play me. But you know, the feeling wears off after a few minutes.
Todd Herman 5:09
Yeah, well, that's the stuff that we'll dive into, to your statement before about, you know, the baseball player that might be going up to the batter's box. And he imagines himself as another player, oftentimes, some of the best alter egos have nothing to do contextually with the sport or the thing that people are actually doing. So one of the ones I talked about in the book was a young guy who imagined himself as Paul Bunyan. And the reason was because and this is actually what gets into why people end up choosing an alter ego to act through his biggest sort of psychological defect that he had going on was, everyone else had hit puberty, but him. So he was shorter and smaller. And so when I hear that, I want to try to put someone inside of the beingness of something that is massively larger than life. And this kid, I don't have the exact stat at the top of my head, I think it was 24. He had 24, at bats in a row where he hit homeruns.
James Altucher 6:12
Wow, you know, and what's really amazing about that is, when you hit puberty, of course, you grow more muscles, and you do get bigger and more powerful, and your coordination is better, and your focus is better. Yeah. So what do you think happened in his brain, when you're telling them to, I don't know exactly what you told him. But like, that's amazing, like, because he's competing against people who are definitely bigger than him and better.
Todd Herman 6:35
Well, I'll never forget, like when he when we had our first call after he came back from a tournament in Georgia, and it was the first time where he ever made this comment he was, so he was always a kid who had a lot of confidence, he was a natural leader, as well on his team. And then, um, you know, this adolescence is developing, and a lot of his teammates are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And he goes into this tournament in Georgia, and he comes back and he's like, taught, some of these guys had mustaches, some of these guys had beards. And in my head, I'm like, Ah, now I know why you've been sort of under indexing the last few months. And it's because you keep on looking at other people and other things that you cannot control. Like, your end, what you're doing is you're giving them a whole bunch of power over you, because you're, you're finishing this statement, which is, this guy has a mustache, which means he's better than me, which means he's bigger than me. Right? It's the story that he was adding to it. And so, you know, automatically, you know, even kinesiology Can you can do test on this stuff, you can do muscle testing, his power, which hadn't left his bat, his power hadn't left, he could still hit a home run. But he wasn't able to, because there has to be an alignment between the mental, the emotional, and the physical self, if you want to compete at your best levels. And so my job was always in the mental and emotional spot, like I always played between the six inches of the ears. So what I want to do is, instead of me trying to convince you that, oh, those guys don't have it, they're not as big as you are, they're on as strong as you, that's really hard to convince people that the self that they have right now, actually is good enough. And that gets into a world of therapy, which I am not qualified in doing. I am a peak performance guy. But what I knew from being in the alter ego world and refining this concept, almost 20 years ago now and then being the number one guy in the world on it, when I could get you to disassociate from your identity, disassociate from, you know, who you think you are, and move you into the identity of someone in something else. That's where magic would just happen. And so, you know, to your point about, you know, the head eye coordination being stronger, or the muscle, you know, being bigger and stronger. He hadn't quite hit that yet. But Paul Bunyan had all of that stuff, that disassociative nature of this concept is what helps people sort of unleash or reveal what their capabilities or capacities actually are.
James Altucher 9:15
So again, though, was it was a nutty picture himself as Paul Bunyan, you'll have to describe to me the process by which, yeah, he did that. But then what I'm amazed that is that, and I know, this stuff works, but that really worked. I mean, he changed his physical abilities that you just said, you deal with the emotional mental, but you made him hit 24 home runs.
Todd Herman 9:36
Well, I mean, it was so to your statement before about how you know you kind of do this you kind of hype yourself up to be this you know, whether it's another Grandmaster or whatever, it's not even a hyping up. It is a commitment with a strong intention to be this thing to show up this way. And and so that's why, you know, I talked about in the book It's so important to give form and substance to this alter ego to give it a name. It has to have a name. Because the moment we give something a name, its language is how we create our worlds anyway. So I'm trying to help you create a world in your own mind. And it for him, you know, it was well it was it was bunion, like that's who he was going up as. And then I we work on uniforms, I talked about the importance of totems and artifacts. And so he had a sweatband on his wrist, and that sweatband, he would flip it when he would go up to go up to bat, and it was the flipping of that, because on the other side, it had just the name bunion on it. And he was not allowed to step into that batter's box unless he was completely in fully embodying what it would be like, if Bunyan was in there, like just to play that out with him. That's what I did was like, you know, just imagine if you actually are Paul Bunyan, someone who is 16 feet tall. And there's a kid on the mound who's Yeah, he's 13 and he's got a mustache. But what's what's really going to go on in the mind of bunion, like you can't answer this as little Stevie, you got to answer this as bunion. I'm interviewing you. You're Paul Bunyan, right now. How would bunion like it would be like, so. So what? So what, I don't care how there's a kid with a mustache. And it was it was inviting him into telling himself a different narrative. And once you can get someone to really engage with that idea. I mean, whatever performance restrictors that person had before they're gone. And it's and it's not just the kid when the 1314 year old kid playing baseball. I mean, there's so many stories throughout history that I talked about in the book.
James Altucher 11:47
Yeah, well, I mean, a typical example. Now as you might go to a new job, where everybody's younger, everybody's the hot young tech person, and you're the older wizened salesperson say, but they don't respect you because they're young and hip, and you're older. And I bet you those people have similar issues like in the reverse direction,
Todd Herman 12:06
you name the different contexts, this stuff preys on people's confidence or certainty that they can go and do something everywhere.
James Altucher 12:13
But in this kid's case, still, what percentage do you think his physical performance improves? So probably part of it was just getting back to normal because he was intimidated by the kids with the mustaches. But then there must have been extra improvements somehow, like,
Todd Herman 12:28
I'll never forget the text message that I got from his dad, because this goes back to about 2009. And his dad sent me a text and he said, What did you say to Steve? Steve's not as real as using it. So what did you say to Steve and I, in my head? I'm like, Oh, crap, like, do it. Okay. And I was like, Well, you know, as you know, like, that's always between Steve. And I'm like, why? What's going on? And he said, and this was the, this was the start of his streak. He's like, he had four at bats today. And he hit four home runs. That's not the same kid. Like he's like, I'm watching my son. It's the same body in the baseball uniform out there. But I know it's not the same kid because he just looks different to me. And I'm like, Okay, well, what about him looks different to you. And he's like, it's just he looks more in the word he said was he looks more elastic, which when I unpack that, it was he's just so relaxed. And I mean, if you know anything about athletics, you know that, you know, elasticity or flexibility is a huge part of power and strength, because it's the snap of things. And so he was swinging with a different physical mechanism, which was influenced by the mental and emotional side of himself.
James Altucher 13:47
Wow, it's so interesting because I'm almost having and again, what I'm saying about me specifically probably applies to everybody listening to this to some extent or other figuring out where your story lies in what DoD saying what I'm saying. Yeah, but my experience is almost like the opposite where in 1997, there were no kids in tournament's. But now because of, you know, kids are on computers all the time. And you know, they're the best in the world by far IHS compared to 1997. They weren't. And kids had time during COVID to study and after the TV show, the Queen's everybody like focus, they spent 10 hours a day. Yeah, so now it's about 50% Kids, there was zero kids in 1997. tournament's now it's about 50% kids, and they are machines, it seems to me they almost have like, no weaknesses. And I'm coming in here and I'm, you know, decent players, strong player, but I don't know, I'm not playing as well as I think I could somehow
Todd Herman 14:47
so Okay, so, you know, one of the things we talked about in the book, I tried to use this Joseph Campbell model of, you know, the hero's journey, and I talked about the ordinary world versus the extraordinary world and what you're talking about Right now is what I classify as there's a bunch of story. And there could even be facts in that story that are causing you to feel whether it's doubtful or insecure, or lacking some sort of confidence in your ability to go and get the result that you want on that gameplay board. And
James Altucher 15:24
it might be subconscious a little bit like I don't think to myself while I'm playing Oh, I'm feeling unconfident. No, like no one does. Sometimes I'm feeling very confident, but there's something going on in my head. Yeah.
Todd Herman 15:34
But with that, if we were to only look at games and sports, through the lens of skills and competencies, like these kids have unlimited hours in their day, because they're not like you, they don't have businesses that they run, or they don't have podcasts that they got to show up for it and whatnot. But the reality, there is a lot more gameplay that is done between the ears, that isn't just about your skill set, because there's an intimidation factor that I would try to employ, if I was you, on these kids. Yeah, completely. And so I would be, and we had kind of gone back and forth a little bit about this beforehand, I would be employing some of that in the way that we'd be designing the identity of alto chair that shows up. And this is what people get wrong about all this. And this is this is more and more frustrating things I think about the world that we live in, we have these new memes or tropes or ideas that people have engaged with that are just categorically false. One of them is the idea of being authentic when people hear you and I talk about this. And then by the end of this podcast, hopefully we built out this alter ego for you. And people go home is that James just acting or genes being inauthentic. And it's like, no one that's listening to this podcast, authentically knows who they are. It is such a bad idea that people have been throwing around in the world of self help and personal development for the last 25 years, which is ramped up even that much more the last eight years. There is no one you I can't put James Altucher underneath some sort of MRI or nuclear telescope and find Eunice right, you've got many roles that you play in life, the great power that human beings have is the ability to create the self to create an identity for themselves. Most people are walking around with cloaks or robes of ideas that were given to them when they were kids, when they didn't get to choose who they were. None of us got to choose who our parents were, none of us got to choose where we grew up, none of us get to choose maybe the religion that we, you know, we're brought underneath when we were growing up. And yet we're still carrying around the beliefs and the ideas and the values of those people that influenced us, or those, you know, community groups that were around when we were young kids. That's not you. You say? Well, that's why I've always been, yeah. Well, how's that working for you? Like, I'm not, like I say this all the time, like listen on most people's podcast, because I've done hundreds of them. I'm gonna pretty polarizing not because I'm here to be a jerk to people. But I'm here to challenge the concept of who and what you think you are. And the words that some of us use to describe ourselves are just really clumsy. There is no you there is no self. There are many versions of you that show up in the context of many roles that you have. And so what I want to do is, take a look at if this role is so important to James, let's build that out in the lens, or in the vision of how you most want to show up.
James Altucher 18:45
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense what you're saying, because you're right, I build this whole narrative of who I am. And all of its kind of negative, like, Oh, I haven't played in a tournament 25 years, or I'm much older than everybody, not everybody else. But I'm much older than the this new cohort that's playing these kids. And they've had certain advantages that mathematically, they don't have these advantages. I study hard as well. But somehow the story gets built. And oh, my, maybe my skills are, you know, like, in when I play online, a game goes like 10 minutes, maybe. But what we're for faster, but when I play in a tournament, I play two games a day, they're five hours a game in many cases. And because I'm a little, I'm actually a little slow. So I'm usually like the last one or me and whoever I'm playing like the last ones playing in the hall. And so I'm playing 10 hours a day and seven days. So I build up the story that maybe I'm fatigued even though I don't really feel fatigue during it. I built this story that I'm rusty and the whole thing none of its positive.
Todd Herman 19:50
Yeah. Well, I mean, so I've got guys in Major League Baseball, where we've purposely designed their pitching style to frustrate the batter's at the plate. Because they are naturally a little bit longer with their pre pitch routine. All I do is say, cute, that's a natural thing that you want to lean yourself towards. Let's add a couple of seconds. Let's make you now this might be boring to the spectators. But let's add like a couple more seconds, because it's really frustrating. And if it gets that guy at the plate out of the game, and it gets him not thinking about really what he shouldn't be thinking about, which is really just nothingness, then that's just another notch on your side of the teeter totter, that gets to balance out this power a little bit. So for you, it's like, oh, man, I got a game against altitude, this is gonna be a long one already. You're going into the game with an edge. Because people are prepping themselves for a long game. I would lean into that more.
James Altucher 20:52
Yeah, so Alright, so let's, let's figure this out. Like, tell me what so what are some of the tools at my disposal here?
Todd Herman 21:00
Yeah. So I mean, so I'm going to talk to the listener now. So when you and I are going back and forth at a time you unpacked already, that when it comes to like online gameplay, no issues, because a the games are faster, and so forth. And what I said was, but there's also an element of anonymity that's going on there. Right? You're behind your computer screen, no one's seeing you. Right. So no one even sees that the guy who's there is a few years older than the the younger guys that might you might be playing with. And you don't even know that that person's young yet, either. Unless maybe they say in their profile name, correct? Yeah, yeah, I have no idea. So all of this other stuff that you're bringing into the equation of a live game doesn't exist in the online game. And some of that is anonymity. So you know, the gamer world is ripe with this, where I would turn you into if I was going to prescribe one for you, without you giving me any feedback yet, I would probably prescribe a more gamer type identity for you to show up with when you go and you play live. What do you over the head? Right? Where you don't, you can just you're just head down? You're it's like an element of mystery around you. And, and bringing a little bit more of a persona to the guy who I'm going to be playing with. He's mysterious, and he can play for a long time.
James Altucher 22:28
Do you think do you think it's works against me that on occasion, or certainly, what happens is before a game is that you get notified about a half hour earlier of who you're going to play, and then you will go the person, in most cases, you google them to see if any of their games are available to be seen, which they usually are. And but with me, of course, when they Google me, they see a lot more. Do you think that works against me? And or do you think it's something maybe I want to be intimidating? Like I have this persona outside of chess? But I don't know. Maybe I should be more anonymous?
Todd Herman 23:03
Well, no, I'm not. I'm I'm not saying that. So if there's a bunch of information out there about you. What's great about that is the more information creates doubt there is it's been proven even in the book Blink, right? You know, when when someone comes into an emergency room, a doctor's first reaction, or first diagnosis of what's wrong with you, is typically the most right diagnosis. And when they get more and more X rays or more and more information about your ailment, it actually takes them further away from the proper diagnosis.
James Altucher 23:42
That's so funny. You say that like, because my chess coach, though, his name's Jesse, Jesse cry, he noticed this with me is that I keep track of how many minutes I used on each move. And when I've spent the most time, that's when I make the worst move. Yeah, I mean, sometimes you have to spend time to calculate everything out. But when it's more like a strategic long time, like I'm just trying to figure out what strategy to pursue, the more time I spend, that's what I'm, it's a sign that I'm going to make a bad move.
Todd Herman 24:08
Yeah, well, then, but comparatively, it'd be it'd be interesting to know, what was the first move that you were thinking of playing, but you didn't play? And then what was the move that you did play? Because, um, you know, there's not as much actionable data information out of just knowing that the more time I take on a strategy move, you know, I end up making the wrong move on that. So okay,
James Altucher 24:33
so part of this is part of the persona or identity I built into this is just like with the kid, you mentioned the bunion he had a wristband that had the word bunion on it, and maybe another thing so as part of it is changing what I see when I look in the mirror, essentially.
Todd Herman 24:49
Well, I mean it what this employs is so there's a natural occurring phenomenon in human beings called enclosed cognition. Okay, enclosed cognition I talked about in the book is that we, as human beings, if we put on an article of clothing, or an item of any sort, and that article of clothing has narrative and story already built around it, we actually enclose our cognitive traits and abilities in whatever that item is, for example, the story I tell in the book is from the Kellogg School of Management, they brought a bunch of students, one by one into a room, and they gave him the the Stroop test, which is an eye test that typically tests your color blindness. But what it is, is it's got a bunch of words of colors, so yellow, blue, red, etc, except that it's colored in a different color than the word, alright. And, and because our brains process words faster than colors, what you're supposed to do in a Stroop test is name the color of the of the of the text that you're seeing. So if I see the word yellow, and it's done in orange, I'm suppose say, Orange. Anyways, so they do this test, and they track all the results. And they wanted to see how fast they could do this test and with and how many mistakes they would make, then they brought in a second group of kids. And this time, they give a white coat and they told them it was a painter's coat. And then they do the test day to put on the painter's coat in the new to the test. Then they bring in a third group, and they hand them the exact same white coat, except this time they tell them that it's a doctor's coat, and they put on the doctor's coat and they do it well, what are the results? Well, the results were that the kids who are wearing the doctor's coat did it in less than half the time and made less than half the mistakes. Why is that enclosed cognition tells the story of why. And it's because we all think of doctors as being careful, methodical, detailed, it's sort of an overarching good narrative that most people have about both doctors right, or that they're successful as well. Now, some people might have a negative reaction, you might disagree, but for the whole, you know, that's, that's pretty standard. Well, the Stroop test, the skills you need to be successful at it is to be careful, methodical and detailed. So they enclose themselves in the cognitive traits and abilities of a doctor when they put it on. That explains why the same white coat when you were given it, and it was you were told that it was a painter's coat didn't impact the results, because they got the same result. The painter's coat, kids got the same results as the kids that were just in their plain clothes. Why? Because a painter's coat is creativity, imagination, playfulness, expressiveness. They did another test after that one. And this time, it was actually a creative test. While would happen to the people in the doctor's coat, same results as the plain clothes and the painter's coat people excelled at it. So that's why I'm I talk about in the book, The Power of a uniform or the power of a totem or artifact for you to use, not because I want you to dress up necessarily, just because I'm trying to flick the natural occurring phenomenon that live inside of the brain, as we count on a peak performance guy. You know, some of this stuff is art, right? Like some of the stuff that we're talking about is a little bit
James Altucher 28:02
art. Yeah, no, I It's exciting to think about the possibilities. Yeah, but
Todd Herman 28:07
but there's also science as to why that's why that's why I talk about in the book. I mean, I had to find out the science of why is this one strategy that I've got inside of my peak performance company. And again, like, I worked with Real Madrid and help them build up the performance program, the Danish Olympic team, the South African Springboks, the New York Rangers, you know, PGA professionals all over the world, and then also entrepreneurs and CEOs and leaders. And I'm like, why is this working so much better than some of the other stuff? And it was, once I dove into the more scientific side of this, I was like, Oh, that makes so much sense as to why this concept works.
James Altucher 28:39
And it's interesting that the Dockers co combined with a narrative of a painter, which is, of course, not only associated with playfulness, but with color, that narrative was important in the percentage game of improvement. And so I'm trying to think how would I, so I appreciate the the what you're saying about the game or with the hoodie, and so on. It's like with poker as well, we had discussed previously. And you know, a lot of good poker players have the dark sunglasses and the hoodies so that you can't read what they're doing. I don't quite know how to construct what would be a strong narrative around this, you know, in addition to other strategies,
Todd Herman 29:14
this is the part of the process then. Okay. So when you think of the qualities that you most want to have to help you win in the game of chess, in a live environment, especially, what are those?
James Altucher 29:28
I think, aggression, okay. Combined with don't play tricks, because I'm going to catch those and punish you for it. Okay, combined with my memory is going to be enormous. So you're not going to do anything from memory that I'm not going to have already prepared. Yeah, you know, because Oh, in chess, you prepare your openings and you memorize you know, games, many hundreds of games 1000s of games that others have played in these openings, and often a game between two masters or higher You're playing through moves that you've seen before, and then somebody deviates at some point. And so I will express that. Any deviation you do, I'm going to be aware of and will punish you accordingly. Yeah. And once I'm winning, I'm going to win. And if I'm losing, I'm going to trick you. So you have to be extra careful with me. So that summarizes it all.
Todd Herman 30:21
Yeah, that's great. Is there any character, a person thing, fictional literary, that you're inspired by that sort of shows up that way?
James Altucher 30:49
I mean, in this particular case, I could really only think of chess players. Because there is no like, like, friends, the Paul Bunyan thing worked well for that kid, because Paul Bunyan probably could just walk up to the bat and hit a homerun every time. But like Einstein wouldn't be able to sit down at a chessboard and beat you know, a strong player unless he had been playing for four years, it IQ really doesn't really have much to do with it. It's just this raw aggression, combined with ext like you want to kill the other person, but with such care that he never has an opportunity to kill you. Yeah, yeah, that's really it. So I guess, if I'm trying to bring it out, I got it. So I in the chess world, I can think of people but I try to bring it outside the domain of chess, it's almost like, like a like a Bruce Lee or no martial art kind of, like, on the one hand, you expect Bruce Bruce Lee to punch incredibly hard and and know the right points to punch. On the other hand, also, you know, Bruce Lee is not going to be if you try to hit Bruce Lee, you're never going to land a punch. So that's, I guess there's a comparison there.
Todd Herman 31:56
Yeah. And so I'm gonna go a little bit better. So to the listener, what I'm actually doing, like when I'm talking to someone like James, and we're and we're looking at the performance identity that we're choosing to take out into whatever the domain is, I'm looking for a source code of inspiration. That's really what I'm looking for. So you say aggression. You say? Like, there's, there's certain words that you were using, they're like aggression, I want to punish you. And then if I am losing that, I'm going to trick you. I go into my own recesses of my own, you know, story history, I think of okay, so that sounds a little bit like Darth Vader, I've got the helmet of Darth Vader people are here, just listening to the pockets. I've got Darth Vader behind me. Now. That's actually a working Darth Vader helmet, James, because one of my, you know, maybe mental game issues. So I'm a dyslexic. And I've got ADHD, I always resistant against writing. And I love Darth Vader, he's probably my favorite character in the whole Star Wars world. And it's a working Darth Vader helmet, I will put on that helmet. And I will write with Darth Vader helmet on.
James Altucher 33:00
And that and that resonates with me somewhat like, first off with writing. So I write every single day. And I always read before I write. So I read great writers. So I feel like their essence in you when I sit down to write. And again, I don't mimic them, but I feel like them. And say I'm using kind of ideas, but I stick to the domain, I have a hard time going outside the domain. Although I will tell you one quick story. One time this was like in the early O's, I had a business. And I was going out of business. It was It was horrible. I was really scared. And I got all I love Star Wars as well. So I got all these books, like the Tao of Star Wars, and how to have the forest like all these dumb books that were self published, but were great and I love them. And I decided, Okay, I'm going to everyday, I'm a Jedi and I'm just going to surrender to the forest and my business will be safe, I'll do all the actions I need to do. That's not what the force is about. But I'm going to surrender to what's going on around me. And I feel it works like my business was saved. And I got it was a combination of luck and me taking advantage of the luck. And yeah, so that's the one time I went outside of my domain in this kind of picturing.
Todd Herman 34:14
Sure. No, I mean, and that's an I mean, that's sort of the art side of life. Like there's a lot of I mean, for as much as we're a science based company. There's still a lot of things that are unexplained as to why things happen the way that they weigh that they do. And I mean, we've got neuroscience researchers that have I've, I was the first ever peak performance company, you know, back in 2000. To hire neuroscience researchers to you know, help us build out the best possible training curriculum to help people with the the inner game. And there's an art to this too, just to your point right there. But reason I was talking about the Darth Vader thing is because I put that on, and all of my insecurities that I might have about my writing style. If I'm truly embodying dark Darth Vader, the last person who's going to be worried about whether James Altucher likes my writing is Darth Vader. So if I'm going to really commit to wearing that helmet, because that's actually something I talked about in the book is that you know, that phone booth moment or that activation moment, like you've got to really embody it. Like, you've got to live it. You got to live Darth Vader, and I would challenge you on the mimicking side of things. Because Paul McCartney on a recent interview with Jason Bateman and Willer net, and Sean Hayes on the Smartlist podcast talked about, they were asking you about like, Man, where do you come up with the inspiration for like, you've got the most number one hits of anybody in history? I don't know whether that's true or not. But you know, that's what they're saying. And he said, Oh, well, I'll tell you, I would sit down. And I would read through all of maybe Teddy Pendergrast, his greatest hits. And then I would, I would want to write a hit, just like Teddy. And I would mimic him as much as I can. Now he said, What people don't get about the mimicking process is, I could never be the perfect fake of Teddy. Because I've got so much of Paul in me. But it was that process of trying to model someone else that allowed me to creatively express myself, maybe in a, you know, more prolific way than most of the other artists out there,
James Altucher 36:27
though. That's really true. So like for this, let's say, I'm just gonna make up something like let's say I read Hemingway before I start writing. Yeah, it's not like I will repeat. When I say mimic a I'm not. It's not like I would repeat his words, but I would suddenly have a much more minimalist kind of style. Yes, write shorter paragraphs, smaller words, what, you know, one or two syllables. That does affect my style in that particular session. So yeah, so that's true.
Todd Herman 36:52
Yeah. So bringing this back to the whole aggressive punishment, you know, and and trickster thing. So I think of like Darth Vader at that. I also think about the Punisher himself, like the actual comic book character, the Punisher. Now, whether you're a comic book lover or not, yes, I am. This is this is the fun part for me in trying to find Okay, where's that other source code? Like, where's that in source of inspiration that you can use for how you're going to show up and embody a set of certain characteristics like insert source code, and it doesn't come from one place either. It could come from many places. I mean, in the book, I talk about my alter ego for when I played football, and then college football, it was the composite of Walter Payton, Ronnie Lott and five Native American warriors with the name Toronto. Now a lot of it is all very personal stories to me, I went to Walter Payton's camps. Growing up, Ronnie Lott was one of my favorite football players as well. And I grew up on a ranch in Alberta, Canada. That was when Sitting Bull fled the United States after the Battle of Little Bighorn, and they took refuge on my family's farm and ranch for a little while before they moved off into Saskatchewan. Well, I used to ride around on my horse, Cracker Jack as a kid, and I would look for old Native American artifacts. And I always had this deep love of air. So that's my story. So that's why I can't sell someone to alterego off the shelf, I've got to ask some questions and find like, what's the like, what and because it's that emotional connection that you have to that story in your own head, that helps to activate just a different side of you. So that's why it's a little bit less intellectual, even though we're using some, you know, an intellectual process. But at the end of the day, there is this magic of I mean, it could be a doctor that, you know, it could be your grandmother, which, by the way, is one of the most popular alter egos that people use for themselves.
James Altucher 38:48
I think this notion of the Trickster also, yeah, you know, someone who's a little devious. Yeah. Because you have to be a little more devious than your opponent. In order to win. You have to do some something that they all think is bad, that you realize in a tricky way is actually good. Yeah. I'm simplifying the process of winning a game of chess. Oh, what I've said, I know. Yeah. So so but so so a lot of these things resonate with me, including people inside the domain itself, like other great chess, you know, a great chess player. So how would you combine kind of multiple, like, like the kid you mentioned, he was just Paul Bunyan. It sounds like, and that sounds like the strongest thing to do is to completely and that's what I would do for comedy. I would just listen to one person and a couple hours before I would go on stage just to get there. Almost like that. My body would like mimic their their motions a little bit.
Todd Herman 39:44
Yeah. Well, I mean, so this is this is exactly what I did when I was first getting into business. I mean, I was a I was an accidental entrepreneur. I wasn't an intentional one. I happen to be watched
James Altucher 39:56
videos of me then and decided this is not going to be You know, go ahead.
Todd Herman 40:02
So yeah, so I mean, I was accidental, you know, people started asking me to mentor their sons and daughters on the mental game. And I was like, Yeah, sure. And then I thought it was gonna be doing it for free. And people would say, Well, how much do you want to charge and I said, $75 for three sessions, and that's how I started in 1997 doing this, um, and when you're that cheap, you're gonna get a lot of clients, by the way, too. But in order for me to grow my business, I needed to the only thing I knew how to do was speak I was for each kid, which is like agricultural Boy Scouts a part of for ages, you have to do a speech. So it was natural for me to go and speak. But I was so insecure about how young that I look, cuz I look, I was 12 talking about mental game stuff. I don't have any letters behind my name. I don't have four best selling books, which are all these rules I had in my head, kind of like the rules that you're placing in your head as to like, what these new kids now are, like, you know, I had these rules in my head that if you wanted to be thought of as an authority figure as successful, I had to have letters, and I had to have books. But reality was I was actually pretty good at helping these youngsters. And so in my head, I remembered Geronimo, and I'm like, wait a second, why don't I go and build an alter ego for in business, and I went and bought a pair of fake non prescription glasses, right? People know the story in the book, I was doing my reverse Clark Kent or reverse Superman, you know, Superman puts on the glass to become Clark Kent, mild mannered, I was putting on the, the glasses to enclose myself in the traits of Superman. I wanted his decisiveness. And these were all heroes of mine. So Superman, and Benjamin Franklin, who was all about beyond the whole man of action thing, a man of reinvention. And then the third one was Joseph Campbell, who was a hero of mine. And his was helping me with my articulation skills, I needed to become better at articulating myself. So that's what what I'd be doing if you're going to be looking at a few different people or a few different sources of inspiration. Well, what is it about that person that you really like? And that's the attribute that you pull with it? Does that make sense?
James Altucher 41:59
Yes, and so then, let's identify 123 people, let's say one person in the domain, two people outside the day and fictional or not? What do I do then to kind of build them into my consciousness almost.
Todd Herman 42:12
Now what we do is we take those attributes and those traits, and, you know, comic books give us the template on how to do this, where you know, what is the artifact, the wardrobe, or the thing that you put on, that can embody all of those characteristics. So for me, I would never like there was such an intentional act of putting the glasses on because these glasses, you know, if anyone who puts on glasses, you know that that arm goes, you know, past your temple in overtop of your ear. And it was almost like there was an on off switch there for me, I will put on the glasses. And these glasses had the characteristics of decisiveness of being articulate, and, and confidence all the three things that I needed, because I didn't have those things. But I'm also attaching them to my heroes. when I'm, when I'm wearing these glasses, I better show up like Superman and Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Campbell, I am not allowed to dishonor their memory by trying to act through them in this moment, or in this environment. And it's that was what I found James was the great activator. For other people, it was the idea of when you're going to employ someone or something that you have an attachment towards the final glue that helped everything come together beyond the artifact or the wardrobe or whatever was the idea of not dishonouring the memory of that or dishonouring the identities of them, like I'm going to live through this identity.
James Altucher 43:53
That's super strong. So So hypothetically, let's say, Okay, I like you do the Darth Vader, let's say I'm thinking of a Jedi Knight, I would think of some way to physically think to myself, Okay, I'm identifying as, yeah, whatever, a Jedi Knight, and then this piece of clothing kind of reminds me that I'm a switching personas now. And I might put it on right before the game or game prep or whatever. And then during the game, it's very important to kind of, you know, almost sort of remind myself that hey, I've got I've got to honor the code here, the Jedi Code and or whoever it is, I'm modeling like, this is yeah, this sort of thing this person would do. And and then what else?
Todd Herman 44:41
So you know, you're in a urinal. What's what's really important as a nuance for you, because a lot of people can go Yeah, Todd, I can see myself doing this for like 10 seconds or 15 or 18 seconds, but my golf game is four and a half hours. Like that sounds like it could be exhausting for me to try to like really embody something thing that might not be natural quite yet. And so that's why it's important. So let's say the with the, with the baseball player with him flipping over the sweatband, it was it was like it, there was an intentionality of switching into something. So let's say for you, a part of your, you know, wardrobe of the Trickster was, you know, a pair of funky glasses, let's just say. So like in between even you playing, if you wanted to sort of reset yourself, you could take off your glasses for a second and then put them back on. And it's this again, it's like anything, if you want to get good at something, you got to practice it. So I practice stepping into super Richard, which was you know, the name of my alter ego for business. And, and so for you, that would be another thing to, again, reconnect you back to the intentionality of how you want to play right now. And the one thing that can't be lost in this James, and this is really a point for everyone that's listening. The reason that this works so well is there is an attitude if you're going to execute this properly, there has to be an attitude of playfulness. That's what this because yeah, playfulness was the one thing one quality that I found that the most elite athletes had over other people now even in conversation, so Kobe and I connected because of the Black Mamba stuff. And I was actually on my way up to Newport Beach, the day that his helicopter crashed, because oh my gosh, taking the alter ego training and put it inside of his Mamba Academy. And then I was going to help him unpack his real mental game stuff because his Mamba mentality book didn't do that it was more of a picture book and a story book of his career. And even Kobe would say that the thing that people didn't get about my mindset was, I was playing with you, in my own head. Like, like the cat with a mouse type of thing, I knew that my mental game strength was superior to even the elite guys that were out there, some of them were bigger, some of them were faster, some of them did have better skills than me, but in the grand sort of scope of the game, I knew I had them beat. And that's where like, you know, for you, you know, there's an element I think of intimidation that could really come into play. For you, when you sit down, like if you embodied the identity of a trickster, really, there, that's intimidating. Like when, when someone knows that you've got a whole frickin bag of tricks up your sleeve, that's an intimidating person to play against.
James Altucher 47:44
And do they feel that if I'm embodying that,
Todd Herman 47:48
they're, of course gonna feel it, like I mean, that's the trans, that's the transmutation of energy that you get off of another human being in a physical environment is like, I've I've played in so many different sports, in different sort of athletic environments. And there are times when you know that you're going up against someone who absolutely believes that they are superior to you, not in like a cocky way, even, it can even come across in a relaxed way. But you're like, Oh, this is going to be a long day. This this person is going to be tough to play against.
James Altucher 48:25
Yeah, and you know, and it, alright, so I should kind of think about who embodies these attributes for me. And again, when it's more than one person, it's like, oh, it's
Todd Herman 48:38
like you said traits out of that person, or of that one, like, so I like that this person does this. I like that this person, and it's not even. It can be in their mannerisms as well. That's the one thing that you can't lose in this. There's also behavioral mannerisms that you're trying to, you know, borrow from other people as well.
James Altucher 48:58
Yeah. So it's interesting. That's, that's kind of related to what I would do with public speaking or comedy like by looking at watching comedians beforehand. But you call your your persona super Richard. So it's interesting. It's not like you say, You're Ben Franklin. It's just that super Richard has these qualities of Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Campbell and Darth Vader that it's super Richard has become this weird combination of all three of those and that's what you're that's what you're honoring is, is that suit? You're honoring super Richard Who is this breakdown of these three people and
Todd Herman 49:32
Richard came from? Well, my first name is Richard, it's Richard Todd Herman. I've always gone by Todd. Richard, there was a there was a practical side of it. Richard just sounded more old. Yeah, I did. So that's what I did because I wanted to make myself you know, sound older now. I didn't make other people call me super Richard. That was just the name that I that's who I'm stepping into. Is this person in Super obviously coming from Superman, as well or you know, The pop the the pop singer of today Halsey. Right, so, Halsey did an interview a year and a half ago, where they were talking about her alter ego, which is Halsey Her real name is Ashley. And if you take a look at an anagram Z, it's just an anagram. Right? Yeah. But she said, me wanting to do this was so far fetched. And the fact that I changed my name in the process. I think I had foresight to know that being me wasn't enough. I had to become somebody completely different. At the time, I felt that Ashley didn't deserve to be famous and successful. Because she wasn't that special. But if I made Halsey, maybe she could be.
James Altucher 50:46
It's almost like she's writing a character. Yeah. And then steps into that character
Todd Herman 50:50
as a character.
James Altucher 50:52
That's what I have to figure out how to do. Like, I feel like when I go to these tournaments, and actually, this goes full circle to what we, what you even were talking to me about before, is like, I'm going to these tournaments as James Altucher. There's no way to avoid that. And then I know they know who I am. Because sometimes they actually do know who I am. And sometimes they Google me and realize, and or figure out, so there's no way to avoid me. Yeah, in this, but a little bit, I have to somehow
Todd Herman 51:21
well, but the, I mean, not the joy necessarily. But the fun in that James is, I would go they, the thing I love is they think they know, James Alger, but they don't know, James Archer. And like I said before, there is such a wealth of information out there about you, for someone to sift and sort through it all, and come up with a cohesive narrative, or a carseat cohesive plan of attack on you would be very difficult. And then when you show up, because again, they think that they know who you are, because they listened to your podcast, maybe, or whatever. And then you're and then but the persona or the identity that shows up is different. That's again, it starts to grind up the gears in people's heads like wait a second, because expectation is an enemy in performance. The moment you expect something to go a certain way, and then it doesn't go that way. That's when the mental game side of someone starts to fall apart. And you can use that as an advantage when you're out there performing.
James Altucher 52:34
So so it sounds like the stronger the narrative that you build. Yes, the more persistent it's going to be through for instance, a four hour golf Exactly. Right. And, and do you remind yourself on purpose during your let's say, you're giving a talk or you're coaching someone who you're let's say you were coaching Richard Branson, and you feel completely intimidated, or Kobe, you're coaching Kobe? What's happening in the middle of that coaching? Like, do you suddenly take a step back and say, I'm, like you said, you take your glasses off and put them on again? Or what do you do?
Todd Herman 53:05
Yeah, you need to have a reset, you need to have a reset ritual. Like all this isn't routine. This is ritual. You and I talked about this on the first podcast, you know, people leaning heavily on habits, of course, habits are fantastic little strings that turn into cables that can help support the performance or the behavior that you want. But the best of the best, lean on rituals, because rituals is when narrative and storytelling meet the routine, or meet the habit. And because we're storytelling and narrative based animals without the narrative, it's weak under pressure. So for me, yeah, what's my reset moment? How do I reset myself? When these glasses come on? I can literally just do it like that. And really quickly, I can, I could reset myself because I've just done this for so many decades now. But in the moment, how do you reset that's why the ability to take off something and put it back on like the sweatband or, or the ring, or, or it could be just I've got a guy who wears an undershirt, in professional football or in the NFL. And his is just literally because he can't take off his equipment and take off the T shirt and put the t shirt back on it put the equipment back on, but he can tug at it. And he can pull because he's using Captain America underneath. He can pull Captain America away and then snap it back. But but there's a mean it's it's not you're just doing it. What do you mean when you're doing it? And it's it's that moment when you connect and you realize, oh, I am not really acting through Captain America's qualities in this moment. I'm not allowed to wear this shirt. That's why he pulls it away. But then he snaps it back because it's there for a reason.
James Altucher 54:57
So with the bunion kid, he flips the wrist band. Oh, what does he mean there?
Todd Herman 55:05
Well, he's got now bunion staring back at him. And because he went and did exactly what I asked people to do, because he didn't really know much about who Paul Bunyan was, so I've challenged me, I said, go read up on Paul Bunyan, and then come back and talk to me tomorrow. And he came back and he was super excited, like, amen, he, you know, he was like, you know, 27 feet tall, and you can knock down trees with a single swing of an axe and all this kind of stuff. So, I knew in that moment that he was now emotionally engaged in who Paul Bunyan was and so when he's flipping over that Paul Bunyan name on the back of the sweatband on his wristband. He's not flipping it over until he's committing to the fact that no Paul Bunyan is I am him. And he is me in this moment. Like his qualities, His attributes, His skills are I've got them. I've got them. And again, that goes back to just that's the power of human storytelling in that that's why we get engaged with movies and television shows, because we're putting it in, we're immersing ourselves into the emotional journey of that hero or even that villain, so to speak,
James Altucher 56:11
do do write stuff down, like do you write down? Like this is what Benjamin Franklin's attributes are that yes, you know, on the I live by this is what Darth Vader Yes is the code of the Sith. And I'm going to put it in my pocket. And yeah, why are the Sith stronger? Individually, then Jedi is only to set but there's like hundreds of Jedi, you know, throughout history, the set basically are stronger.
Todd Herman 56:32
Yeah. Well, and you would just like so even the Jedi. It's such. It's such an amorphous idea that being able to close your attention down onto one of them is so powerful. That's why when, you know, nonprofits say, you know, there's, you know, 1 million starving kids in Ethiopia. The response rates gonna be poor, you know, this, you're a phenomenal writer. But when you say, do you have you? Have you heard about a philia? Let me tell you what affiliate an affiliate was actually a young girl that I sponsored in Ghana 30 years ago. And now I'm reading this story through the lens of just one person's experience.
James Altucher 57:15
So okay, just forming this into a process for myself now, yeah, figure out 123 Whether it's role models or characters or whatever that I want to kind of live up to aspire to be, figure out kind of what it is those attributes are. Figure out. What is the narrative? Why am I those people? Why What am I going to think like, what how can I justify in some way that I am this person like this, the kid justify that when he turned the wristband around? He was facing bunion? It was transforming him there was a story behind Yeah, his transformation in his head for you. There's when you're putting the glasses on, you're going from Todd to super Richard. Yes. Right. And your Clark, your that Clark Kent narrative. And, and then it's, you know, a practicing that, but really being consistent and persistent with it in those moments where you have to be a peak performer and two other
Todd Herman 58:19
things. What is the totem the artifact or the uniform that you have? Like, does James Altucher always show up all black with a black baseball cap on? Right? Or does he wear the black hoodie kind of thing? Right, like, which is a very natural extension of the Sith or you know, the Vader? Dumb world, right? And then what's the name? Who is the one that shows up? Right, like everyone thinks it's James. Like when when I played football, I was a scrawny kid. I ended up getting a bunch of football scholarships, but I was a scrawny kid. I was, I was six feet tall, but I was 156 pounds soaking wet. That's not a weight that, you know, works through very well in the world of, you know, football. But in my head, I loved it. Because I was like, you think you're playing against Todd Herman? This 156 pound kid number 17. You have no idea who's running with Me, in Me and behind me, because it's a whole tribe, and ended up showing up in the way that I performed. There was one game there's nothing that says 100 656 pound kid should be able to break and crack open a football helmet. I did it twice in one game. It could have been that they were just really terrible helmets. But at the other day, all my teammates had the same helmets. But I know I played with a force that was way bigger than what my physical stature sort of was. So
James Altucher 59:44
what if though the way I want to, like for instance, let's say I wear black all the time anyway, but it really does fit the persona to wear all black. Is it possible to turn the same ritual into a super powered ritual? Do I Do I have to wear something different? No,
Todd Herman 1:00:02
you don't? No, you don't it what it what you need to do is have the one hoodie that you never wear unless you're playing chess. Right, right. Um, there's, I mean, there's so many different fiction writers that have reached out to me since the book has been out saying, oh my god, I never told anyone this. But no one is allowed to sit in my writing chair, because I look as my. So they're told them an artifact isn't a uniform, it's an actual place. It's a object that they sit in. And they're like, I have this whole ritual in my head that I walk through before I sit down in that chair, because that chair is a conduit to a completely different universe that I step inside of,
James Altucher 1:00:48
right. And it's not just like superstition, it's like they imbue note the chair with meaning. Yeah, and the way a religious person would review would imbue a religious icon with with meaning. Yeah. So, so interesting, because, you know, it's funny in one of the games, or two of the games, I said, I was gonna wear a tie, which is something I never do in my life. But it didn't really work. Yeah, I won one game last the other. It did, but I didn't really feel it because I'm not really, it didn't really give me any Yeah, satisfaction or extra edge in my mind, because I was wearing a tie. If anything, I felt less of myself wearing a tie. So. So this the narrative and the storytelling is very important, and kind of really researching that and figuring it out. But it sounds like you naturally knew Darth Vader, Ben Franklin, Superman, and yeah,
Todd Herman 1:01:38
I mean, I know who my sources of inspiration are, you know, and I've never really
James Altucher 1:01:42
had like a role model or sources of inspiration. I've always diversified that maybe too much.
Todd Herman 1:01:48
Yeah, I know, I think when you I think when you dig into this more, because you're a naturally creative person. Um, you know, and by the way, it's not lost in me that you wrote a book called choose yourself, right, which is literally a lot of the language that I would use, like mean, choose yourself, like, choose the source of your inspiration like that you want to show up without there. So yeah, but when you dig into this more, or what you do is your awareness starts to open up, you end up finding a lot of these other source codes more easily, because you're kind of in this realm right now. And it's again, like I just can't reinforce it's such a fun process.
James Altucher 1:02:27
Yeah, I was about to say, it's going to be fun. Doing this, allowing yourself giving yourself permission. That's right. It's like when you're a kid, and you play Dungeons and Dragons, and like, I remember trying to describe it to my dad at the time, I was like, 10 years old, like, then I was a ranger. And yeah, you know, I was strong, and I was saving people and blah, blah, blah. And like, you really feel like you're that.
Todd Herman 1:02:48
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the beautiful part about this. I mean, that was what you said before I was gonna, I was gonna kind of ping on this. You had said, you know, I really got to, like, learn this process. No, you don't you already know it, you already know it, because we've all done it. And when we were kids, because it's rooted in playful play from the ages of a year to seven years of age, right? Where there is no concept of self yet. That's a truism. There's no concept of me. And so what do kids at that age need? Well, we need to develop a lot of skills. Because you know, we do and that's when we develop the most amount of skills is in that timeframe. Our brain is actually in what's called the theta brainwave state, which is the which is the brainwave state of sort of creative imagination. It's also the same brainwave state that you'll find in people that are in caught in the zone and the flow state, like five year olds are in that state. So often, that's why, you know, you've been a dad, and not been, but you are a dad. That's why when we yell at our kids, hey, it's dinnertime, we gotta yell at them nine times. It's not because they're trying to ignore us. It's because they literally have some of their senses shut down, because they're just in play state. And what do we do when we're in our play state of one year to seven years of age, where a teacher or a banker, we play as our favorite sports hero on on the front driveway. And so and we do that, because we know that we have some natural limitations. And I'm like, well, what could I be if I'm Wayne Gretzky? Or if I'm Michael Jordan, or insert the name of whoever the hero is? So that's why I just say, like, you know, you know how to do this. Now. It's about allowing this to come back into your life.
James Altucher 1:04:29
Yeah, and I like the idea of viewing more than one, you know, because it's interesting. So, Todd, this has been great. I'm going to totally use this and let you know how it's going. I appreciate the
Todd Herman 1:04:42
Oh, you'll be following up. Yeah. And and, and I
James Altucher 1:04:46
know it's a free coaching session. It's why I like having a podcast. I can ask you to do this for free. And it's the trickster. Totally. I appreciate you doing this in front of my listeners as well. And I'm sure this This everybody who wants to strive for more this is, I mean, I called you because I knew this is valuable. I mean, you've helped me before and you know, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast and, and sharing all this with us. I know this is this is what you do. So
Todd Herman 1:05:13
I'm happy to you do you do so much good in the world that if I can only help magnify that moral, I'm happy to do it.
James Altucher 1:05:20
Thank you, Todd. And thanks again.