Dr. Seku Gathers

This week, the Truth Prescription welcomes Todd Herman. Todd is a global high performance coach and practitioner who works with professional athletes, CEOs, entrepreneurs and businesses. He’s someone who I wanted on the show because of his BS intolerance. Tom has a leadership and skills development program, 90 Day Year, that was born out of his work with athletes. The program asks you to look at your skills, the things that make you successful, and identify which one would yield the biggest impact if you laser focused on it for 90 days? Todd says that type of focus and discipline can create a years worth of results in 90 days.

Todd says that high performance is really about elimination. It comes down to us subtracting, deleting and removing the things from our lives that don’t support our goals. He says a sole focus on a particular area can have a dominio effect on the other aspects of our lives. Todd also brings the truth about the benefits of the alter ego and discusses the premise of his his book: The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life.

Host: Dr: Seku Gather

Guest: Todd Herman

Resources:

The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life.
Todd Herman – Website
90 Day Year – Website
@todd_herman – Instagram

Time Stamps:

[3:21]

• Personal Truth: Todd grew up on a large farm and ranch in Western Canada, what he calls the middle of nowhere. He didn’t have the same affinity as his older brother did for being a farmer and always had a draw to living in a big city. Being a, self proclaimed, massive extrovert he loves being around people. As soon as summer hit, he would do whatever he could to leave the farm, spending many weeks away at camps. When he was 12, while away at a church camp, he was subjected to a traumatic experience. Filled with shame, he didn’t tell anyone. He came home, dropped his bags and jumped in the pool to drown himself. After multiple other suicide attempts throughout his life, he was lead to a breaking point. Having been so successful, for so long at managing that pain, he was finally at a point where he had to face it head on, work through it and share the truth about what happened. He did, the truth set him free and he was met with an immense amount of support and love.

[10:43]

• Professional Truth: Todd has built a lot of his career on speaking and being on stages. He took a hiatus from the speaking circuit to build up his online platform when he and his wife were planning their family. He learned the importance of first impression at a young age and talks us about a speech he gave, on the topic, at a student council event. Ironically, at the end the speech, he realized that he had a very noticeable wardrobe malfunction (talk about first impression). Todd’s professional truth is that he’s about to think quickly and has a sharp tongue. He faced it down, applied his truth and received a huge standing ovation.

[14:44]

• Interested and Committed: I ask Todd what happens when he knows the answers (the truth) and his clients aren’t ready to hear it? He puts the ball in their court, asking “do you actually want to know to the answer? Are you ready for it?” He believes that interest and commitment are at very different ends of the spectrum. Interest is someone picking up a book, flipping through a few pages, grabbing some key pointers and circling back to it. When they read it, they take what they need and keep it moving. Commitment is someone being vested in the idea of the story. At the end of each chapter, they will stop, answers questions and take it all in. Todd says it’s a very different mindset and with being around so many high performers, he’s noticed the main differentiator is their mindset.

[25:35]

• Alter Ego: We talk about Todd’s book, the alter ego and the heroic self. He says his book is based on the fundamental truth of the human psyche; each one of us has used alter egos, personas and secret identities, tapping into that untethered creative imagination. The older we get the less we use it. We’re told to grow up and we start to attribute that creative imagination to being childish. Alter Ego means “the other eye” or “trusted friend.” Todd says that we are constantly looking for external friends or resources and forget about our internal ally. The one that we can use to help us navigate our resistance to getting in action about the things we want to achieve. He says our alter egos can be icons (Oprah, Martin Luther King, Jr), animals (lions), mythical creatures (dragons)…let your imagination run wild

[33:02]

• Five Pillars of Business: These are the areas of business that Todd has identified to help his clients navigate their area of focus. He’s created a comprehensive, quantifiable diagnostic that really helps his clients gain clarity about where they need to take action and what is right for them.
  1. Marketing and Sales
  2. Product
  3. Operations and Technology
  4. Finance
  5. People and Leadership

[43:32]

• Yes or BS
  1. Coaching business leaders is more exciting than coaching athletes
  2. The happiest entrepreneurs are the ones that make the most money?
  3. Being a coach is much easier than being a father?
  4. Whatever we associate ourselves with, we take on the traits of?
  5. Canadians are nicer?
  6. The mind can cause or change one’s emotion?
  7. If I put on glasses, I will feel smarter?
  8. Hate cannot drown out hate?
  9. Most self help books are helpful?