A Harvard Business School professor and social psychologist, Cuddy studies how nonverbal behavior and snap judgments influence people. Today, I interview Amy Cuddy, bestselling author of Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges, known around the world for her 2012 TED Talk, which is the second-most viewed talk in TED’s history. Amy J.C.Cialdini Asks is a series of video interviews in which I ask experts in behavioral science about the journey that spurred their literary and academic work: how they wrote about it for a larger and more popular audience, the aspects of their content, and the motivations behind their work.'Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges' by Amy Cuddy (Little, Brown) Also available in Large Print Hardcover, eBook, Digital Audio Download, and Digital Audio CD formats.I want everyone to know that they can have power.' 'How can I give it away to more people who can give it away to more people?' Cuddy said. And now, she says she has one major goal: Now, they come to meet her, and write her from all over the world. 'So I was like, 'Yes, you are! You are supposed to be here! And tomorrow you're gonna fake it, you're gonna make yourself powerful!' Because two things happened: one was that I realized, 'Oh my gosh, I don't feel like that anymore, I don't feel that anymore, but she does, and I get that feeling' and the second was, 'She is supposed to be here,' like she can fake it. Yet she had a secret: She said she felt like an imposter, someone who didn't belong there.Īnd it was her dramatic confession of feeling like an impostor that mesmerized the audience at her TED Talk, when she spoke of trying to help a student with similar fears: 'She came in totally defeated and she said, 'I'm not supposed to be here.' And that was the moment for me. 'And I was told that I should probably figure out something else to do, that I was unlikely to finish college.'īut she powered through, going on to get a Ph.D. She was thrown out of the car, and suffered serious traumatic brain injury.Īt one point she was told that she had a diminished brain function. While a sophomore in college, she was in a car crash. 'It's about bringing your best self forward, having the keys to unlock that best self and show it.'īut what is really remarkable about Amy Cuddy is that she is able to do the work she does.

'The better we understand it, the better we can use it.'Ĭuddy points out that power posing can't magically give you knowledge or abilities that you don't already have. 'I welcome challenges that help us grow the science and move it forward,' said Cuddy. There has been some criticism of Cuddy's theories from other researchers, some saying that it only works in very specific kinds of circumstances.

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