Book SummaryThe Alter Ego Effect, by Todd Herman

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Alter Ego Effect

In The Alter Ego Effect, athletic performance coach and leadership advisor Todd Herman reveals the trick that many professional athletes use to bring their A-game when it matters: adopting an alter ego. By doing this, you consciously decide which of your existing talents and skills to bring to the fore and use these to excel in defining moments of your life and career. As a result of years of coaching athletes and other high-performers in implementing alter egos, Herman’s created a multi-step system...

The Alter Ego Effect Summary What Is an Alter Ego?

According to Herman, an alter ego is a science-backed tool that lets you adopt the traits, behaviors, and demeanor of a person who excels in a particular realm of your life (like your career or your social life). In practice, when using an alter ego, you set aside your usual mindset and behaviors and instead take on the mindset and behaviors of your alter ego—though you still filter these through your personality, so you avoid “playacting” as your alter ego. For instance, to excel as a businessperson, you might adopt the alter ego of Martha Stewart and negotiate shrewdly and confidently. If you’re a professional rower, your alter ego might be a graceful heron, and you might take on the heron’s single-minded focus and gracefulness to succeed.

(Shortform note: Herman argues for the adoption of fixed alter ego identities to perform at your peak. Others disagree entirely with the premise that you should take on defined characteristics to succeed: In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson argues that you’re better off releasing firm ideas about who you are because [this gives you the freedom to...

The Alter Ego Effect Summary Why Use an Alter Ego?

Now that you know what an alter ego is, let’s discuss the five advantages of creating one.

Advantage #1: An Alter Ego Lets You Perform at Your Peak When It Counts

Herman claims that athletes often adopt alter egos because doing so lets them consistently perform their best at critical moments. When you use an alter ego at key moments—for instance, in presentations, games, and exams—you greatly increase your chances of success.

(Shortform note: While Herman believes an alter ego lets you perform at your peak in important moments, Ryan Holiday, author of Ego Is the Enemy, might caution you to avoid adopting an alter ego with a too highly inflated sense of self. This is because an overly inflated ego can cause your alter ego to overestimate their abilities, which could lead to failure at those key times.)

Advantage #2: An Alter Ego Lets You Set Aside Your Weaknesses

Further, when using an alter ego, you drop unhelpful traits and personal weaknesses and adopt positive ones, Herman believes. Let’s say your alter ego is Michelle Obama,...

The Alter Ego Effect Summary The Steps to Bring Out Your Alter Ego

We’ve just explained the advantages of using an alter ego. Now, let’s discuss how to bring it out. There are six steps to this process.

Step 1: Decide How You Want to Change

The first step of creating your alter ego is to determine what behavioral and mental changes you want to make in a particular realm of your life. We’ll break this larger step into three sub-steps.

Sub-Step 1: Choose a Realm of Your Life to Focus On

First, pick a realm of your life in which you feel you aren’t achieving your potential, says Herman. This might be at work, in your family, or your artistic career. Additionally, determine what the high-stakes moments in that realm of your life are. These are moments where you can stand out and achieve glory, recognition, or ascend to a higher level of success—but where you currently often fail to do so. Examples include key moments in sports games, important exams, negotiations and speeches, and so on.

(Shortform note: Herman encourages you to target high-stakes moments in your life for improvement, but in The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath argue that [it’s actually in small,...

Shortform Exercise: Bring Out Your Alter Ego

Complete a truncated version of Herman’s process for choosing and bringing out your alter ego.

Think of a high-stakes moment in your life—a recurring situation in which you feel you consistently underperform. What is the “inner nemesis” that’s getting in the way of your success in these moments? (Remember, an inner nemesis is a cluster of negative thoughts and beliefs about yourself. For example, maybe you never speak up in weekly staff meetings because you believe you’re not experienced enough, or maybe you sabotage yourself on dates because you believe you’re too awkward.)