Dirty Alchemy

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Alter-Egos: Powerful Magic to Grow Your Business

Sam Garcia

These days, Halloween is less about scaring demons away… and more about having an excuse to be someone or something else.

For one night a year on Halloween, we get to become a character who isn’t actually us. You’re doing your makeup differently, you’re wearing something you wouldn’t usually wear, you might even be speaking with an accent or in another voice that isn’t yours.

You become your costume. At least for the night.

And guess what? This practice can totally uplevel your business.

I’m talking more revenue, more visibility, better clients, and the works.

One of the first things I teach in my mastermind, the Alchemical Business Accelerator, is the power of adopting an alter ego.

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Fear of visibility is one of the main things that holds so many business owners back from hitting their goals.

And I’ve seen this impact business owners even when they’re already making multiple 6 and 7 figures. Even if they’re totally fine with being the face and name of their business, this fear shows up in smaller ways that hold them back from bringing all their genius ideas forward in their business.

Obviously, if you’re scared of people interacting with your work or you’re worried about what every one of the thousands of people in your audience have to think about you... your business is never going to be as successful as it could be.

This especially pops up when you’re reaching for the NEXT level.

Maybe you’re all fine and dandy when your 10,000 followers interact with your IG. But what about 100,000 people? Or a million?

So here’s a fun hack: create an alter ego.

Celebrities do this all the time.

They're actually trained to do this, because when you're in the public eye, you get bashed a lot. And being able to say, “They’re not bashing me, they’re bashing my alter ego” is really protective for them as individuals.

This is literally what publicists do, they help celebrities create and maintain this public image of whatever they want to show the world.

If you’re in the public eye at all, even if it’s just to a few thousand people on Instagram, stepping into a new identity can bring you so much confidence around showing up. And it gives you resilience if something that you don’t want happens, like you get a nasty message. 

Just think of how you feel when you’re wearing a halloween costume or go to a costume party. Isn’t it so intriguing that you start acting a different way than your “normal self”?

Your halloween costume may have you making out with someone you normally wouldn’t think of as “your type” or “in your league”, or going out and smashing pumpkins… Something you wouldn’t dream of in “normal life.”

And it’s not just Scorpio vibes in the air. It’s the power of an alter ego.

The bigger your business gets, the more important this is.

And alter egos are such a good fix for this because they trigger altered states.

Anytime you transcend or descend from your average waking state, this is usually coupled with releases of various chemicals in your brain (aka — an altered state).  We do this on a daily basis: exercising, drinking, caffeine, spending time in nature, listening to music, having sex, even smiling.

And there are also more potent ways to get into altered states: Shamanic drumming, meditating, hypnosis, Kundalini yoga, lucid dreaming, active dreaming.

But there's also accessing the alter ego, where you’re consciously stepping outside your average waking state and into a new identity.

And we can create alter egos from anything we want.

The classic example is Sasha Fierce:

Beyonce started her career by singing for her church. And as she got bigger and bigger, it felt uncomfortable for her to be sexy or dance in certain ways coming from that church background. 

So she created the alter ego Sasha Fierce, where she felt more freedom and confidence in stepping into a new role outside of her background, and leaning into those parts of her career that she used to feel cautious about.

If you do this as a business owner or Thought Leader, it allows your brain to be able to separate itself from feedback & criticism.

Instead of people criticising YOU… they’re criticising your alter ego.

So here’s how you can actually create your alter ego:

Take a seat or lie down somewhere comfortable and open up to a new page in your notebook.

Journal on this question:

  • What fear is preventing you from growing to the next level? (i.e., being seen)

  • What quality or behavior do I need to bust through that? (confidence, radiance…)

  • Who do I know that embodies that?

  • What is my unique version of that embodiment?

  • You can use that person as your alter ego or you can envision your unique embodiment of that quality.

This is the start of your new alter ego. 

Start carrying these qualities over to your new persona.

So maybe you start wearing red on work days - or not wearing anything at all. Or you start being loud and outgoing, even though you’ve always been an introvert.

And this can carry over into every area of your life. If your alter ego is charming, you might become the person who starts up conversation in line at the grocery store. If she’s a ton of fun, maybe you start going out to bars more. Or you even start having more sex, if your alter ego is super sexy and sensual.

Just start LIVING as her.

This persona is totally up to you to define. Make her yours. Give her all the traits you envy in other people. Let her do all the things you always wanted to do. 

The whole point is that you’re not toning anything down. A lot of the time, people will actually dial up the volume on those parts of themselves that they usually silence, and let it take over.

Just remember that this alter ego isn’t you. You can even give her a name if you want to -- but you don’t have to.

Invoke her when you need to - before the sales call, when writing an email, before recording the video.

So my challenge for you is that you start showing up for your audience as this other version of yourself.

This one highly magical practice can completely transform your marketing.

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