Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges

by Amy Cuddy

this quality predicts drive, willingness to work hard, initiative, persistence in the face of obstacles, enhanced mental activity, creativity, and the ability to identify good opportunities and novel ideas.

Presence, as I mean it throughout these pages, is the state of being attuned to and able to comfortably express our true thoughts, feelings, values, and potential.

Through self-nudges, small tweaks in our body language and mind-sets, we can achieve presence. We can self-induce presence. To some extent, this is about allowing your body to lead your mind—but

we are present, we communicate the kinds of traits Lakshmi Balachandra identified in her research on venture capital pitches—passion, confidence, and comfortable enthusiasm.

Your boldest self emerges through the experience of having full access to your values, traits, and strengths and knowing that you can autonomously and sincerely express them through your actions and interactions. That is what it means to believe in your own story. In essence, self-affirmation is the practice of clarifying your story to yourself, allowing you to trust that who you are will come through naturally in what you say and do.

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.”

So when cortisol is high, high testosterone does not relate to powerful feelings and behaviors. This especially makes sense when you think of power as a characteristic that, as I’ve described in this chapter, causes us to feel not only risk tolerant and assertive but also calm, focused, controlled, and present. Risk tolerant and assertive mixed with anxious, scattered, and stressed is not a recipe for power.

William James’s words: “I don’t sing because I am happy; I’m happy because I sing.”

Hundreds of studies have measured the effects of relaxation-focused breathing, with similar results. Psychological outcomes include reduced anxiety and depression and improved optimism, emotional control, and pain management. Behavioral outcomes include reduced aggression and impulsive behavior as well as improved addiction management and work and school performance.

Players whose body language immediately preceding the kick was rushed and avoidant (i.e., the player did not make eye contact with the goalkeeper) had a significantly higher rate of unsuccessful shots.

(“Perfectionism,” wrote Anne Lamott, “is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.”2)

Kathy, who had been working for years on a project that “encourages horses to find intrinsically motivating behaviors as a means to both physical and mental rehab.”

one young woman, Monique, wrote to me, “I am still ‘faking it until I become it,’ but faking it sure is better than avoiding it!” Recall what my academic crush, William James, told us: “Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.”