This week I came across an idea I couldn’t stop thinking about. It’s been used by Beyoncé, Kobe Bryant, and Serena Williams — and it has nothing to do with talent.
Beyoncé is shy.
Sasha Fierce was different. Sasha was the one who performed. Confident, direct, completely at home in front of eighty thousand people. Beyoncé described the moment she appeared: “When I hear the chords, when I put on my stilettos — the moment right before when you’re nervous — Sasha Fierce appears, and my posture and the way I speak and everything is different.”
This was not an accident. It was a deliberate psychological tool. And she is not the only one who used it.
Kobe Bryant adopted a persona he called the Black Mamba — a version of himself that was emotionally detached and completely focused. Serena Williams has spoken about channelling “The Beast” during matches. David Bowie did it. Eminem did it. These were not eccentric personal habits. They were a specific performance strategy — and it works for a reason.
In 2019, performance coach Todd Herman published The Alter Ego Effect, a book that codifies what these high performers had discovered intuitively. His argument is straightforward.
We all have what he calls a trapped self — the version of us that shows up in high-pressure moments, filtered through fear, self-doubt, and the accumulated weight of what we think we are and aren’t allowed to be. And we all have a heroic self — the version that is capable, clear, and fully present. The problem is not that the heroic self doesn’t exist. It is that in certain moments, we cannot access it.
The alter ego is a bridge between the two.
When you step into a persona — even briefly, even privately — something shifts neurologically. The psychological distance between you and the feared situation creates what researchers call self-distancing, which reduces the emotional intensity of the moment and allows you to think and act more clearly. You stop experiencing the situation as a threat to your identity and start experiencing it as a task to be executed.
This is not magic. It is cognitive mechanism.
The most common objection to this idea is an obvious one: isn’t this just pretending to be someone I’m not?
It is a fair question, especially if you are resistant to anything that sounds like performance.
But Herman is precise about this. The alter ego does not give you qualities you don’t possess. It gives you access to qualities you already have but cannot reach in specific moments.
For example, Beyoncé wasn’t performing a confidence she had invented. She was bypassing the fear that was blocking the confidence she already had.
That distinction is crucial. The alter ego is not a costume you wear to deceive anyone. It is a key you use to access the best parts of you.
(Beyoncé eventually retired Sasha Fierce in 2010. She said she didn’t need ‘her’ anymore. She had accessed those qualities so many times, they become her. The alter ego had done its job.)
How to actually do this?
The process is simpler than most people expect.
Identify the specific moment where you lose access to the best version of yourself. Not in general — specifically. The moment before an important interview conversation. Walking into a room where you need to give presentation, and leave with the funds The negotiation for your next big purchase.
Then ask yourself one question: who would handle this moment exactly the way it needs to be handled?
Not who you wish you were. Not a fantasy. Someone — real or fictional — who has the specific quality you need most in that specific situation. The quality could be directness. Calm. Decisiveness. The ability to hold her ground without apology.
It could be a real person you know or admire. It could be a fictional character. It does not matter who it is. What matters is that the quality you need is one you can clearly picture and that it is a quality you recognise — in yourself.
Then, before you walk into that moment, ask: What would that person do in this place?
Focus on the doing, and let the thinking and feeling follow. For example, focus on the walking in, posture, and what you say.
And then do that.
One question for you this week:
Who would you be in the moments that matter most — if fear wasn’t the one deciding?
I’d love to hear what is shifting in your life and work.
Write to: welcome@standoutjane.com
I read every reply. Send me yours.
Bon weekend.