The Alter Ego Effect

What Hacker News says

1. muzaniMay 2022
   Alter Egos are a great hack. Your alter ego is a simplified version of yourself and who you want to be. It doesn't get rid of the fear, but it alters your response to the stimulus. e.g. you can adopt a mindset of Jason or The Terminator to be relentless in the face of threats. Your actions break you out of the loop, and you can drop or replace the alter ego later.

   Great book on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/Alter-Ego-Effect-Identities-Transform...

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2. thenerdheadApr 2022
   I taught comedy improv for many years. One tip I would give new performers is to adopt an alter ego for the stage (a fun fake name and/or personality) and to choose a totem (an object) that they wear to do just that such as shoes, a shirt, watch, etc.

   This helped so many different people such as accountants, pre-k teachers, stay-at-home moms, and even university professors get out of their shells, prevent their stage fright, and to be more energetic on-stage when their normal persona is calm, cool, and collected.

   I do believe we also have an alter ego in three different situations such as work, home, and play. Another common thing I would teach is that you can alter your characters in scenes easily by adopting one of those personas of the character you're portraying.

   I believe many people adopt an alter ego without knowing it today. These are YouTubers, Streamers, Conference Speakers, and really anything where there's a concept of a "stage".

   The book "The Alter Ego Effect" by Todd Herman goes into this further, but my favorite material on this is "Impro" by Keith Johnstone.

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3. SMAAARTApr 2022
   That's interesting because as recently as a couple of months ago I read "The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life" and found it pretty good for at least 90% of it.

   There's something about the overall principle, worth investigating on an individual basis.

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4. jmurphy-atlApr 2022
   The definitive book on this is ‘The Alter Ego Effect’ by Todd Herman (there’s also a bunch of extra resources on his website https://alteregoeffect.com )

   He goes into great detail about the method and the science of what’s happening in your brain when you use it.

   It’s helped me go from introverted engineer to successful start-up founder that just exited.

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5. robjanNov 2022
   Could also be the Alter Ego Effect (there's a book with the same title about it).
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