Listen in to hear my top highlights from this fantastic book “Presence” by Amy Cuddy.

It will inspire you with exactly how to transform your confidence and show up as your most authentic self – especially in high stakes situations when it counts the most.

See below for some of my favourite points…

Top highlights:

• Adopting strong expansive posture changes your physiology (body-chemistry), psychology (thoughts) and behaviour and ultimate influence your life.
• This book is incredibly well researched (including 31 pages of end notes/references) and it puts such a body of evidence behind the profound impact our body language has on how we act and behave.
• Powerful poses (which you’ll see in the video) result in positive effects such as lowering pain, increasing confidence, improving decision making and helping us to be more present and perform at our best, for example in a high-stakes situation such as a job interview, performance, contest or exam.
• Research participants who held powerful poses prior to being interviewed performed significantly better and were much more likely to be hired than those that did the opposite.
• I enjoyed her description of the New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks haka and the positive impact that physical practise has in terms of their performance.
• She delves into imposter-syndrome which she shared about passionately in her TED talk and explains how pervasive this feeling is, of not fitting in, not belonging and it being simple luck that we have achieved what we have.
• It is both encouraging and to read the statistics on this and reflect on how common it is, especially when we are stretching/reaching for a new goal – to feel somewhat out of our league.
• The remedy – “Fake it until you become it” or as I learnt it many years ago and had it re-confirmed… “Be before you are and you will become”. That is, act the way that successful people in that given situation would act and before you know it, you will truly be that successful person.
• The importance of “Small Nudges” and how incredibly important it is to approach habit change through small tweaks rather than making large outright changes which seldom work. I love this in the context of Snacking on Exercise for example and how taking an approach like this will make such a phenomenal and transformative change in one’s life because it is SO achievable as to be almost effortless. I loved this confirmation!
• Even picturing yourself in a powerful pose can give you the same benefits mentioned above so if you don’t have the space/privacy to power pose, you can picture it in your mind to shift how you feel instantly.
• “Starfish Up” – Most of all, personalise your use of the research and scientific findings that she has discovered and apply to our own lives in our own ways.
• Join me now and raise your arms in a strong V, pant your feet wide, lift your gaze and hold this pose for two minutes and incorporate this practise into your daily routines and see what a difference it makes for you!

You can get the book here and view Amy’s TED Talk here.

If you too love life-long learning or have a great book you’d recommend please comment below or join the conversation on my facebook page.

You can also see and comment on the original live facebook video over here.