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This isn't 'the secret' and it's not cribbed from an emerald tablet. It's advice based on experience and creative problem-solving. Understanding your objective and focusing on it, explaining it to others in your social network, and then allowing that interaction to guide you will inevitably lead you to where you need to be. Kurt Vonnegut⁴⁴ tells us that "you are what you pretend to be", but a more accurate phrase would be: You become what you do. Pretending is acting as if something is true and it is that acting that is imprinted into the preconscious and unconscious mind over time.

Occasionally you hear about actors having trouble getting out of character and being themselves again or of workaholics becoming stereotypical manifestations of their job's roles over time. If what you do determines who you are, then do people in a well-defined profession become, in some sense, the same person? Are all lawyers, for example, actually all one archetypal Lawyer? Although individuals will differ in the degree to which they embody this ideal, through the lens of memetics the answer is yes. We could distinguish between an American Lawyer and a British Barrister, as the differences in roles would lead to a different character, generated by other aspects of the culture in which those roles are anchored. But all the individuals are manifesting the same entity, archetype or menome type.

Even more issues come into play when an actor takes on an archetypal role through method acting, and implants an aspect of that archetype into their psyche, essentially becoming a gateway for an egregore. Magicians in various traditions have collectively referred to this as an invocation, and it can be a powerful tool in a ritual setting. Understanding the impact a role can have on an identity as that identity moves forward through time is an essential tool in triggering self-transformation, as well as in watching out for signs of personality seepage. Neuro-Linguistic Programming is based in many ways around the concept of modeling a role to cause changes in behaviors, but not all changes are desirable. Being aware of the potential of self-changes before engaging in a role, and understanding that the longer a role is engaged in, the longer-lasting the effect of that role on one's personality is essential to effective self-actualization.