Guy Reams (00:00.846)
Today is 219. What is your alter ego?
So alter ego is something that I've thought of a lot in my life and something I've deployed also. I have a couple of alter egos. Now, don't accuse me of being schizophrenic. That's a negative connotation. I'm only talking about positive here. When I was a child, my father and grandfather were working in a law firm. And so it was very popular to, at home over the dinner conversation, to quote popular Latin expressions.
I think it's like something attorneys do to make themselves sound more credible is using really cool Latin phrases. But there's one Latin phrase that I really like and that's alter ego. And alter ego literally means another I, another version of yourself. So this alter ego concept has been around for a very long time. It's not something new. And it's not something that's necessarily in a negative light. I mean, in modern,
It seems like everybody's walking around as a psychologist today. Everybody's wanting to diagnose themselves or others with some sort of behavioral disorder. But I don't mean alter ego in the negative sense. I mean, I know that recent movies, like the movie Split, over sensationalizes people that have a split personality disorder. Or maybe not as recently, the movie Fight Club, in which Brad Pitt plays the alter ego to Edward Norton.
Which culminates in of course the destruction of an entire city?
Guy Reams (01:36.846)
But despite these negative portrayals, I believe that alter egos are actually a very positive tool that can be used in everyday society and everyday action. You can use them to help yourself. To give you great examples of this, some of the more, there's a lot of famous examples in our lives or in our day -to -day interaction with the music industry, with novels and various other places. So for example,
In the music industry, two of the most famous ones are Slim Shady and Sasha Fierce.
So if you don't know, Eminem or Marshall Mathers created Slim Shady. And I've listened to him talk about this. Slim Shady was this more rebellious, provocative, controversial side of his personality that would come out when he needed it. He also used that persona for creative license in his early albums.
But it's also, he kind of had to become somebody different when he was doing his albums or especially on stage. And a lot of intellectual, more creative people tend to be introverted. And so although they're very creative, they're put in the situation where they have to perform. So creating this alter ego can sometimes help them do what they normally can't do, such as Beyonce, which.
It's interesting that both of these people have a name they use other than their normal name. And then they also have created an alter ego that they use to act a certain way. It's interesting. But Beyonce created Sasha Fierce because of course she has to go on stage and be this really powerful, energetic, fearless persona on stage. And whereas that may not normally be her personality, she had to kind of
Guy Reams (03:35.342)
create that personality to have greater intensity and power in her stage, in her acting on stage or in her performances, I should say. So those are great examples. And of course there's many more. I mean, Prince had an alter ego, Garth Brooks has had an alter ego, Lady Gaga has had an alter ego, David Bowie, Nicki Minaj. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. So the music industry is full of people using this tool to benefit themselves. Of course,
You know, there's a lot of authors that do this as well. They call them pen names or pseudonyms. The most famous being Stephen King.
who, because of publishing limitations, had to create a pseudonym called Richard Bachman, which was kept secret for a long time. And he published several novels, which became very popular novels, as Richard Bachman. He even created a different picture, which he borrowed from a friend, and had a whole different storyline of a wife and his dedications were to fake people. He even faked this guy's death at one point. So Richard Bachman was a famous author. Now,
This would have kept going if not a bookstore clerk in Washington, DC or somewhere happened to be really a fan of both authors and was reading them quite a lot. And so when ended up comparing them, their writing styles and noticed their writing styles were very similar and wrote a letter to the publisher saying, I've noticed that one of these authors is copying each other. Of course, Stephen King called this guy and said, you found me out. He granted him an interview.
His name was Steve Brown. He granted him an interview and he wrote an article on this which revealed the secret to the community. That's the more famous one. Of course, there's been lots of others. And there's the list is there's a million of them. I mean, there's lots of pseudonyms in the in the publishing world. Of course, we're also very familiar with the comic book heroes. Superman, of course, the Clark Kent thing. But I think the more famous one is Peter Parker.
Guy Reams (05:39.534)
who is actually Spider -Man. This one is interesting because it shows the struggle between balancing personal and professional responsibilities. It epitomizes being a hero but also the human side of the hero. So the use of an alter ego in the case of Spider -Man is a perfect way to capture both those things. And of course this has been reoccurring in literature and art. Comic books didn't invent this idea. This has been around forever.
from all the way back in the early recording of like Shakespeare and other poetry. So, comic book heroes have been also a common alter ego. So, the point is that alter egos creating another version of yourself or another I is a powerful and acceptable tool. So, if famous people can use it, then why can't we? And we can. So, if there's something that you have,
you're afraid of or concerned about or have a great degree of trepidation over, consider creating one for yourself. I remember having to, in my early days, having to do cold calling, calling people, dialing for dollars, something that I'm not good at, don't want to be good at, but something that I had to do in order to get myself psyched up for it, I had to create an alter ego. In order to convince myself I was something I wasn't.
And that actually helped me. It helped me free up some inhibitions that I had. You can do the same. If there's something that you have to do as part of your job function or something you need to overcome, you can tap into some greatness that you have or overcome some insecurities you have by creating an alter ego and using that alter ego to do some great things. So another eye. See if you can come up with what your alter ego is. I'd be curious. I won't reveal mine.
I have a couple and I use them at various times in my life. So I'm not crazy as I've tried to prove in this discussion, but it's definitely something I use to help me in my life and I hope maybe you can too. Thanks, bye.