TED Talk Highlight Week 3: Your Body Language may Shape Who You Are

“Do a little audit of your body and what you’re doing with your body. How many of you are sort of maybe making yourselves smaller, maybe you are hunching, crossing your legs, maybe wrapping your ankles, sometimes we hold onto our arms…” - Amy Cuddy

As the weather gets colder and we potentially get chillier during the workday, it’s important to learn about how our posture and body language (adopted due to habit, because we are cold, tired, or any other reason!) change our hormone levels and how we are perceived.

This week’s TED talk I’d like to share is by Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist who studies the impact of physical behaviors on both hormone levels and event outcomes (including job interviews!).

Her research is exciting and she shares a great “no-tech hack” for improving your outcomes in two minutes. (The video is 20 minutes, the hack is a 2-minute activity I highly recommend trying. I’ve used it throughout my career.)

Her video is embedded below:

I remember watching this video early in my career and sharing it with a few of my colleagues. It became kind of a joke that we would go into the bathroom and POWER POSE to realize our new corporate power.

While we joked, I also used this hack liberally in my career. Was I instantly made a manager?

No.

It took me seven years of hard work to earn my first official line reports. But through peer reviews and conversations with my managers, I came to understand that I was perceived as confident, knowledgeable, and creative, even when I often was feeling tentative on the inside. I like to think Amy’s video helped.

Two things I adopted from this video were: 1) getting BIG in the bathroom stall for two minutes before my early career presentations (until I didn’t need to anymore, which happened at some point without me even realizing) and 2) sitting BIG when I was in a room full of men (when as a young woman I wanted to be perceived as confident and listened to).

One thing that isn’t mentioned in this video is that the two seated power poses are poses that you may have been taught were “unladylike.” It struck me that unless I’m wearing an outfit that makes sitting with my legs apart inappropriate, there is absolutely nothing wrong with sitting in one of these poses.

Men from Amy’s video enjoying their seated power poses, both of which I was taught were “unladylike” growing up.

Do you have a specific situation you are going to start using this hack after watching this TED talk? How did using the hack go? I’d love to hear in the comments.

Thanks for joining me,