The Alter Ego Effect

I read that passage with a choir of angels singing in the background.

Quick recap then we’ll cue the angels.

Superman and Clark Kent. We all know they’re the same.

But… Which one is the “real” person and which one is the alter ego?

Alas, although 90% of the people to whom Todd asks this question say that Superman is the alter ego, they get it backward.

The REAL person is Superman. The fumbling Clark Kent is the alter ego.

Enter that choir of angels moment.

Although Todd is making a slightly different point in this context, my mind immediately went to our endless discussions about Optimizing so we can more consistently express the best version of ourselves as we make Aristotle proud by high-fiving our inner daimons en route to eudaimonic flourishing.

So…

I ask you…

Which is the REAL you?

The soul-level inspired Superyou or the fumbling fearful Clark Kent-ish you?

* Insert Jeopardy music here *

To help us answer the question, let’s bring Eric Butterworth in to the discussion. Here’s what he has to say in Discover the Power within You: “You may say, ‘But I am only human.’ This is the understatement of your life. You are not only human—you are also divine in potential. The fulfillment of all your goals and aspirations in life depends upon stirring up and releasing more of that divine potential. And there is really nothing difficult about letting this inner light shine. All we must do is correct the tendency to turn off our light when we face darkness.”

P.S. Speaking of 1980s Christopher Reeves era Superman, here’s a little +1 on How Clark Kent Becomes Superman in 11 Seconds. Let’s flip the switch!!! :)

That’s from a chapter called “The Power of the Alter Ego Effect” subsection: “Activating Your Heroic Self.”

And, that HAS to be at least tied for most awesome study ever, eh?

Perhaps tied with this one by Harvard Professor of the Psychology of Possibility Ellen Langer’s studies in Counterclockwise. Impersonating Batman (cape, please!!) and watching your performance soar reminds me of this: “In one study I conducted with my students, we explored the mindset most of us have regarding excellent vision air force pilots have. All participants were given a vision test. One group of participants were then encouraged to role-play ‘air force pilots.’ They dressed the part and, in uniform, sat in a flight simulator. They were asked to read the letters on the wing of a nearby plane, which were actually part of an eye chart. Those participants who adopted the ‘pilot’ mindset, primed to have excellent vision, showed improved vision over those who were simply asked to read an eye chart from the same distance.”

Really? Yep.

Then there’s all of Langer’s other research on elderly men acting as if they were decades younger only to see their bodies measurably change in days.

Richard Wiseman wrote a whole book on all the research (and there’s a LOT!) proving what he calls The As If Principle. As he puts it: “The notion of behavior causing emotion suggests that people should be able to create any feeling they desire simply by acting as if they are experiencing that emotion. Or as [William] James famously put it, ‘If you want a quality, act as if you already have it.’ I refer to this simple but powerful proposition as the As If principle.

This aspect of [William] James’s theory energized him more than any other. In one public talk, he described the potential power of the idea as ‘bottled lightning’ and enthusiastically noted, ‘The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness . . . is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. . . . To wrestle with a bad feeling only pins our attention on it, and keeps it still fastened in the mind.’”

So… Shall we grab a Batman or Dora costume today on your way to the office? :)

Let’s geek out on some etymology.

Did you know that the words emotion and motivation share the same Latin root, movere, that literally means “to move”? Yep.

Perhaps that’s why Joseph Campbell was so adamant that we should follow our bliss as we set out on our Heroic Quest. Or, perhaps he was so adamant because he was tapping into ancient wisdom and knew that our deepest joy was our quickest route to enlightenment.

As we discuss in The Power of Myth (and that I riff on in the documentary Finding Joe): “Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: Sat, Chit, Ananda. The word ‘Sat’ means being. ‘Chit’ means consciousness. ‘Ananda’ means bliss or rapture. I thought, ‘I don’t know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don’t know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.’ I think it worked.”

Bliss. That’s a pretty strong emotion. Fantastic fuel for motivation.

Science agrees.

As per that Motivation Equation we talk about all the time, Piers Steele tells us that it ALL starts with a strong desire. You have to really (!!!) want it.

Angela Duckworth’s science of Grit concurs. Want grit? Start with Passion. Not the “fireworks” variety that comes and goes but the “compass” kind that enduringly points you in the right direction on that heroic quest of yours.

So… Where’s/how’s your bliss?

P.S. One more Campbell gem: “Your bliss can guide you to that transcendent mystery, because bliss is the welling up of the energy of the transcendent wisdom within you. So when the bliss cuts off, you know that you’ve cut off the welling up; try to find it again.”

P.P.S. This is a REALLY powerful point especially important to keep in mind as we look to share this wisdom with others: “As a mental strength coach, there’s one thing I can’t coach people on. That’s motivation. I won’t touch it. It’s one of the few things that no one can coach you to want or create for you. It’s the X–factor. I can’t make an athlete get up at 4 a.m. to run drills and wind sprints. I can’t make an entrepreneur want to start and grow a business or to stick with it when they hit the rough patches. I can’t make someone want their goal bad enough that they’re driven to overcome any and every obstacle, no matter how tough or how high the cost.”

You know those Virtues we talk about all the time?

… The ones that Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson tell us we want to put “in Action”?

Well… How about we reframe those Virtues a bit and call them SUPERPOWERS. Because, that’s basically what they are.

Science says: It’s ALL about putting those Virtue-Superpowers in action.

In Flourish, Seligman says: “In authentic happiness theory, the strengths and virtues—kindness, social intelligence, humor, courage, integrity, and the like (there are twenty-four of them)—are the supports for engagement. You go into flow when your highest strengths are deployed to meet the highest challenges that come your way. In well-being theory, these twenty-four strengths underpin all five elements, not just engagement: deploying your highest strengths leads to more positive emotion, to more meaning, to more accomplishment, and to better relationships.”

And, in Authentic Happiness, he puts it this way: “The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths [/virtues!] every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or goodness. A life that does this is pregnant with meaning, and if God comes at the end, such a life is sacred.”

How about the Heroic Life?

Knowing our Superpowers. Putting them in action in service to something bigger than ourselves as we strive to have strength for two and give the world all we’ve got.

P.S. Have you taken the Signature Strengths survey yet? It’s awesome. Check it out here. And, check out this +1 on Putting Your Virtues in Action for more.

Those are the final words of the book.

Is it time for you to cross a(nother) threshold? As Steven Pressfield tells us in The Artist’s Journey, that’s an all-day every day thing. And, as Campbell says, “When you get to a chasm… Jump… It’s not as wide as you think.”

Here’s to you and your Heroic Self saying, “YES!” to your next Hero’s Journey as you step forward, cross the threshold and give us all you’ve got!