What is up? I'm Grace Beverly and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast shared guide book on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

What is up and welcome back to Working Hard? On our episode with Abby Foster earlier this year,

she talked about having an alter ego specifically for scary situations. And she said that when

she has to walk into intimidating rooms or do something that feels bigger than her,

she steps into this slightly different version of herself and that person is more grounded, they are more

confident, they are less apologetic. Well, first of all, I really loved this idea. But I've also

started to see it more places or see how people are using this in more places. So I did what I always do,

and I went down a research rabbit hole. And it turns out that there's actually a lot of science

behind the idea of strategically accessing parts of yourself through an alter ego. So I went on a

Googling spring. And I found this amazing book called

the alter ego effect about exactly that. And that led to me putting this episode together

because it is so interesting and such a good book. And I think we could all learn a lot from

the things mentioned in it. So I thought today we could break down the science behind alter egos

why they actually work and how to create one in a way that

doesn't feel weird and won't mean you're not being yourself. Before we get into it, please make

sure you follow this podcast wherever you are listening to it on. A lot of research goes into these

solo episodes to make them the best they can possibly be. And you following the podcast means we can

keep these episodes totally free for you to listen to every single week.

So thank you.

Before we get into the science, I want to start by zooming out for a second.

Todd Herman makes a really important point in his book, The Alter ego Effects.

He says that for decades, we basically ignored the fact

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