Last modified on February 10, 2015 by Brad Phillips

Power Posing: A TED Talk You Should Watch

Olympic swimmers spend years trying to shave a few tenths of a second off their racing times. Ambitious students learn to become more efficient studiers. Daily commuters learn how to avoid peak traffic by leaving the house at precisely the right time.

We’re all looking to gain small advantages in our daily routines, and yet, most of us have missed a technique that can have a dramatic impact on our personal and professional lives. And to benefit from it, all you need to do is find two minutes and a private space (a bathroom stall is fine) before the next situation in which you’ll be evaluated (e.g. a job interview, a date, a presentation).

In her 2012 TED Talk (the second most-viewed TED Talk ever), social psychologist and Harvard Business School associate professor Amy Cuddy discussed her research into “power poses”—and concluded that your body language shapes who you are.

TEDGlobal 2012 - June 25 - 29, 2012, Edinburgh, Scotland. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Cuddy’s research found that people who adopted “high-power poses” (such as the one she’s displaying above) for two minutes prior to an evaluative situation experienced a 20 percent increase in testosterone (the “dominance” hormone) and a 25 percent decrease in cortisol (the “stress” hormone).

She also found that the reverse is true: People who adopted a “low-power pose” (such as the one displayed in the slide above Ms. Cuddy) for two minutes before an evaluative situation experienced a 10 percent drop in testosterone and a 15 percent increase in cortisol.

Based on those results, Ms. Cuddy says that, “Our nonverbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves.” Her conclusion? Just two minutes of power posing can increase our dominance and decrease our stress.

I encourage you to watch her talk. And don’t miss the ending, in which she shares a moving personal story that explains why she doesn’t encourage you to “fake it until you make it,” but to “fake it until you become it.”

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