Scan time: 2-4 minutes / Read time: 5-7 minutes
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Howdy rebel ideapreneurs 🦸♂️🦸♀️
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🙋♂️ Ethan’s unsent first issue
Ethan is a product manager starting a newsletter for first-time product managers.
His first issue is finished, but it has sat unsent on his laptop for a month.
But every time he hovers over the publish button, the same thought stops him: who am I to write this?
🧩 His struggle:
He waits to feel like an expert first, so the finished issue never reaches a reader.
At the gym on Saturday, a friend shows him the true story of a young man
who also had nothing to prove he was any good yet,
and still became Mr. Universe, then a millionaire.
He walked onto his first big stage in borrowed shorts.
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🏋️ The soldier who sneaked out of the army to become a champion
In October 1965, an eighteen-year-old Austrian soldier walked out of his army base without permission.
His name was Arnold Schwarzenegger.
That weekend, in Stuttgart, Germany, there was a bodybuilding contest called Junior Mr. Europe.
Arnold had been lifting weights for three years, and he had decided he was going to compete in it, even without the army’s permission.
So he sneaked out and made his way to Stuttgart.
He walked onto the stage in borrowed posing trunks, the small shorts bodybuilders wear on stage.
He forgot his routine halfway through.
He won anyway.
When he got back to the base, the army put him in a cell as punishment for leaving without permission.
Why would a teenager risk jail for a bodybuilding trophy?
Here is what was going on in Arnold’s head in those years, in his own words:
“In my own mind, I was Mr. Universe; I had this absolutely clear vision of myself up on the dais with the trophy.
It was only a matter of time before the whole world would be able to see it too.”
He was a teenager with no trophies when he thought that.
In his head, he was already the champion.
So the person who walked onto that stage in Stuttgart was not a scared soldier who had left his base without permission.
It was a man who already believed he was Mr. Universe, waiting for everyone else to see it too.
Two years later, at twenty, he won Mr. Universe in London.
In 1968 he moved to America.
Then he did the same thing with money.
His training partner, Franco Columbu, was a trained bricklayer.
So the two of them put an ad in the newspaper as “European bricklayers and masonry experts,” and charged more than the local bricklayers.
Arnold put the bricklaying money into a mail-order business, selling his own training courses.
He put the mail-order money into an apartment building.
Get this — in his own words, “I became a millionaire from my real estate investments.
That was before my career took off in show business and acting.”
Arnold saw other actors take any movie role they were offered, even terrible ones, because they were broke and needed the money.
He did not want to be that kind of actor.
He wanted to be the kind of actor who could turn down bad roles and wait for great ones.
To do that, he needed money in the bank first.
So he became a millionaire before Hollywood had paid him a single dollar.
At eighteen, Arnold believed he was a champion, before he had won anything.
In his twenties, he made himself rich enough to pick his roles like a star, before he had made a hit movie.
In both cases, he decided who he was first.
Everyone else saw it later.
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🔥 The recipe
➡️ The Alter Ego
Arnold saw himself as Mr. Universe two years before the judges did.
Then he made himself a millionaire before Hollywood ever paid him, so he could pick his roles like a star.
Todd Herman calls this the Alter Ego, in his book The Alter Ego Effect.
An alter ego is a character you step into for one situation, the way an actor steps into a role.
You pick the one situation that scares you, like publishing, or selling, or going on camera.
You decide who you are going to be in that situation.
You give that character a name, a look, or a signal.
Then you walk in as that character, and perform not like you but like your confident alter ego.
You can borrow the character from a hero, a movie, or a person you admire.
But here is the catch: the character has to be built from things you can really do.
Arnold really had the body, and the years of training.
Picturing himself as Mr. Universe did not give Arnold any new muscles.
It just let him see himself as the winner before the judges did.
So he was not faking it.
He already had the skill, and simply started acting like the person who had it.
So you stop waiting to feel like an expert before you publish the newsletter.
Instead, you pick your character before you sit down: a writer who publishes every week, no matter what.
You already wrote the issue, so you already have the skill.
The only thing missing is the confidence.
That is what the alter ego is for.
The writer you picked already has the confidence, so you borrow it from the character until your own shows up.
So you press publish as that writer, this week.
After a few issues, readers start writing back to you, and one day you notice you no longer need the character.
You are simply a writer now.
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🛠️ Ethan’s turn
Let’s check in on Ethan, whose finished first issue has sat unsent for a month because he doesn’t feel like an expert.
That evening, he runs the prompt at the bottom of this email,
and tells it the one moment he keeps avoiding: pressing publish on issue one.
His AI sidekick says:
You already have the skill, because you already wrote a good issue,
so press publish as a writer who sends one every week, no matter what.
He reads the issue once more, as that writer.
Then he presses publish.
It goes out to the twenty-six people who signed up for it.
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🌅 Two months later
Every Tuesday since, Ethan has sent a new issue.
Last week, four readers wrote back with questions about their own first product job.
He doesn’t need to picture the writer before he sits down anymore.
You might have a finished piece of work that you still haven’t sent.
Decide you’re a writer before anyone calls you one, and press publish on the issue you already finished.
That’s it, my fellow contrarians!
Yours ‘proving one person with an AI sidekick can build something amazingly big’ Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️
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🏄♀️ The prompt
The prompt below builds the version of you that walks into the one moment you keep avoiding.
🧰 What you’ll need
The one moment you keep avoiding, and what goes through your head right before it
- Type it, or say it out loud with a voice tool.
- e.g. pressing publish on the first newsletter issue, and I decide I sound like I am pretending to be an expert, so I soften everythingWho you are at your best, where that shows up, and someone whose way of speaking you’d borrow
- e.g. coaching a new product manager one-to-one, direct and funny with no hedging, and I would borrow the way a good ER doctor speaksWhat you want people to feel in that moment
- e.g. that I have done this a hundred times, because I have, just not in public
🚀 How to run it
Open your AI sidekick, ChatGPT, Claude, or whichever one you use.
Swap the three examples, the text inside the curly brackets, for your own, then run it. If your AI sidekick can already see your notes, you can run it as is.
🧪 Want to test it first? Run it without changing anything, and it will use the examples.
CONTEXT:
- Use my own material first. If you can see my drafts, my sent issues, or my subscriber dashboard, pull the real details from there instead of the examples below.
- If you know how I write, use my voice. Otherwise, write in a clear, warm, no-jargon voice — first-person, plain words, no startup-speak.
- If you know who my readers are, write for them. Otherwise assume first-time product managers in their first year on the job.
- If I have replaced the examples, use only mine. If an example is still there, fill it in from what you already know about me, and mark it as your assumption. If you don't know anything about me yet, use the example exactly as written.
- This applies to ONE arena, not to my whole life. If a recommendation would have me be someone different at home, it is wrong. Do not tell me to fake anything — build behavior I can actually perform.
=============== INPUTS — edit these, or just run as is ===============
The one moment I keep avoiding, and what happens in my head right before it:
{e.g. pressing publish on the first newsletter issue, and I decide I sound like I am pretending to be an expert, so I soften everything}
Who I am when I am at my best and where that shows up, and someone whose way of speaking I would borrow:
{e.g. coaching a new product manager one-to-one, direct and funny with no hedging, and I would borrow the way a good ER doctor speaks}
What I want people to feel in that moment:
{e.g. that I have done this a hundred times, because I have, just not in public}
======================== END OF INPUTS ========================
Outputs:
1. My Field of Play — the exact arena, defined narrowly, and everywhere this does NOT apply.
2. The Moment of Impact — the precise second I step on, and what currently happens there.
3. The Alter Ego — who I step on as, built from traits I already have somewhere else in my life.
4. The switch — a small physical thing I do at the Moment of Impact, and why a physical cue rather than a thought.
5. The first outing — the specific low-stakes place to try it this week.
Then tell me which trait I already have and never bring into that room.