0:00:00.707,0:00:03.505 So I want to start by offering you a free 0:00:03.505,0:00:06.129 no-tech life hack, 0:00:06.129,0:00:08.750 and all it requires of you is this: 0:00:08.750,0:00:12.937 that you change your posture for two minutes. 0:00:12.937,0:00:16.361 But before I give it away, I want to ask you to right now 0:00:16.361,0:00:19.954 do a little audit of your body and what you're doing with your body. 0:00:19.954,0:00:22.369 So how many of you are sort of making yourselves smaller? 0:00:22.369,0:00:25.090 Maybe you're hunching, crossing your legs, 0:00:25.090,0:00:26.014 maybe wrapping your ankles. 0:00:26.014,0:00:29.753 Sometimes we hold onto our arms like this. 0:00:29.753,0:00:33.424 Sometimes we spread out. (Laughter) 0:00:33.424,0:00:35.696 I see you. (Laughter) 0:00:35.696,0:00:38.211 So I want you to pay attention to what you're doing right now. 0:00:38.211,0:00:40.425 We're going to come back to that in a few minutes, 0:00:40.425,0:00:43.817 and I'm hoping that if you learn to tweak this a little bit, 0:00:43.817,0:00:47.453 it could significantly change the way your life unfolds. 0:00:47.453,0:00:51.977 So, we're really fascinated with body language, 0:00:51.977,0:00:53.936 and we're particularly interested 0:00:53.936,0:00:55.900 in other people's body language. 0:00:55.900,0:01:00.121 You know, we're interested in, like, you know — (Laughter) — 0:01:00.121,0:01:04.519 an awkward interaction, or a smile, 0:01:04.519,0:01:08.751 or a contemptuous glance, or maybe a very awkward wink, 0:01:08.751,0:01:11.989 or maybe even something like a handshake. 0:01:11.989,0:01:14.667 Narrator: Here they are arriving at Number 10, and look at this 0:01:14.667,0:01:17.343 lucky policeman gets to shake hands with the President 0:01:17.343,0:01:19.831 of the United States. Oh, and here comes 0:01:19.831,0:01:24.758 the Prime Minister of the — ? No. (Laughter) (Applause) 0:01:24.758,0:01:26.846 (Laughter) (Applause) 0:01:26.846,0:01:31.140 Amy Cuddy: So a handshake, or the lack of a handshake, 0:01:31.140,0:01:33.664 can have us talking for weeks and weeks and weeks. 0:01:33.664,0:01:35.804 Even the BBC and The New York Times. 0:01:35.804,0:01:39.755 So obviously when we think about nonverbal behavior, 0:01:39.755,0:01:43.143 or body language -- but we call it nonverbals as social scientists -- 0:01:43.143,0:01:46.023 it's language, so we think about communication. 0:01:46.023,0:01:48.450 When we think about communication, we think about interactions. 0:01:48.450,0:01:51.289 So what is your body language communicating to me? 0:01:51.289,0:01:53.555 What's mine communicating to you? 0:01:53.555,0:01:57.773 And there's a lot of reason to believe that this is a valid 0:01:57.773,0:02:00.308 way to look at this. So social scientists have spent a lot 0:02:00.308,0:02:03.700 of time looking at the effects of our body language, 0:02:03.700,0:02:06.209 or other people's body language, on judgments. 0:02:06.209,0:02:09.648 And we make sweeping judgments and inferences from body language. 0:02:09.648,0:02:13.638 And those judgments can predict really meaningful life outcomes 0:02:13.638,0:02:17.431 like who we hire or promote, who we ask out on a date. 0:02:17.431,0:02:22.116 For example, Nalini Ambady, a researcher at Tufts University, 0:02:22.116,0:02:26.588 shows that when people watch 30-second soundless clips 0:02:26.588,0:02:29.612 of real physician-patient interactions, 0:02:29.612,0:02:32.445 their judgments of the physician's niceness 0:02:32.445,0:02:35.082 predict whether or not that physician will be sued. 0:02:35.082,0:02:37.276 So it doesn't have to do so much with whether or not 0:02:37.276,0:02:39.421 that physician was incompetent, but do we like that person 0:02:39.421,0:02:42.117 and how they interacted? 0:02:42.117,0:02:45.052 Even more dramatic, Alex Todorov at Princeton has shown 0:02:45.052,0:02:48.729 us that judgments of political candidates' faces 0:02:48.729,0:02:53.316 in just one second predict 70 percent of U.S. Senate 0:02:53.316,0:02:56.547 and gubernatorial race outcomes, 0:02:56.547,0:02:58.769 and even, let's go digital, 0:02:58.769,0:03:02.914 emoticons used well in online negotiations 0:03:02.914,0:03:05.746 can lead to you claim more value from that negotiation. 0:03:05.746,0:03:08.969 If you use them poorly, bad idea. Right? 0:03:08.969,0:03:11.866 So when we think of nonverbals, we think of how we judge 0:03:11.866,0:03:14.968 others, how they judge us and what the outcomes are. 0:03:14.968,0:03:16.848 We tend to forget, though, the other audience 0:03:16.848,0:03:20.523 that's influenced by our nonverbals, and that's ourselves. 0:03:20.523,0:03:23.736 We are also influenced by our nonverbals, our thoughts 0:03:23.736,0:03:26.099 and our feelings and our physiology. 0:03:26.099,0:03:29.162 So what nonverbals am I talking about? 0:03:29.162,0:03:32.105 I'm a social psychologist. I study prejudice, 0:03:32.105,0:03:34.832 and I teach at a competitive business school, 0:03:34.832,0:03:39.316 so it was inevitable that I would become interested in power dynamics. 0:03:39.316,0:03:43.128 I became especially interested in nonverbal expressions 0:03:43.128,0:03:45.131 of power and dominance. 0:03:45.131,0:03:47.789 And what are nonverbal expressions of power and dominance? 0:03:47.789,0:03:49.953 Well, this is what they are. 0:03:49.953,0:03:52.831 So in the animal kingdom, they are about expanding. 0:03:52.831,0:03:55.841 So you make yourself big, you stretch out, 0:03:55.841,0:03:58.782 you take up space, you're basically opening up. 0:03:58.782,0:04:01.772 It's about opening up. And this is true 0:04:01.772,0:04:05.532 across the animal kingdom. It's not just limited to primates. 0:04:05.532,0:04:08.952 And humans do the same thing. (Laughter) 0:04:08.952,0:04:12.663 So they do this both when they have power sort of chronically, 0:04:12.663,0:04:15.664 and also when they're feeling powerful in the moment. 0:04:15.664,0:04:18.569 And this one is especially interesting because it really shows us 0:04:18.569,0:04:22.758 how universal and old these expressions of power are. 0:04:22.758,0:04:25.357 This expression, which is known as pride, 0:04:25.357,0:04:28.405 Jessica Tracy has studied. She shows that 0:04:28.405,0:04:30.517 people who are born with sight 0:04:30.517,0:04:33.458 and people who are congenitally blind do this 0:04:33.458,0:04:35.772 when they win at a physical competition. 0:04:35.772,0:04:37.750 So when they cross the finish line and they've won, 0:04:37.750,0:04:39.861 it doesn't matter if they've never seen anyone do it. 0:04:39.861,0:04:40.947 They do this. 0:04:40.947,0:04:44.390 So the arms up in the V, the chin is slightly lifted. 0:04:44.390,0:04:46.934 What do we do when we feel powerless? We do exactly 0:04:46.934,0:04:50.984 the opposite. We close up. We wrap ourselves up. 0:04:50.984,0:04:54.448 We make ourselves small. We don't want to bump into the person next to us. 0:04:54.448,0:04:57.489 So again, both animals and humans do the same thing. 0:04:57.489,0:05:00.569 And this is what happens when you put together high 0:05:00.569,0:05:02.880 and low power. So what we tend to do 0:05:02.880,0:05:07.248 when it comes to power is that we complement the other's nonverbals. 0:05:07.248,0:05:09.679 So if someone is being really powerful with us, 0:05:09.679,0:05:11.904 we tend to make ourselves smaller. We don't mirror them. 0:05:11.904,0:05:13.937 We do the opposite of them. 0:05:13.937,0:05:17.136 So I'm watching this behavior in the classroom, 0:05:17.136,0:05:23.922 and what do I notice? I notice that MBA students 0:05:23.922,0:05:26.926 really exhibit the full range of power nonverbals. 0:05:26.926,0:05:29.394 So you have people who are like caricatures of alphas, 0:05:29.394,0:05:32.384 really coming into the room, they get right into the middle of the room 0:05:32.384,0:05:36.316 before class even starts, like they really want to occupy space. 0:05:36.316,0:05:38.205 When they sit down, they're sort of spread out. 0:05:38.205,0:05:40.337 They raise their hands like this. 0:05:40.337,0:05:42.972 You have other people who are virtually collapsing 0:05:42.972,0:05:45.296 when they come in. As soon they come in, you see it. 0:05:45.296,0:05:47.834 You see it on their faces and their bodies, and they sit 0:05:47.834,0:05:49.820 in their chair and they make themselves tiny, 0:05:49.820,0:05:52.969 and they go like this when they raise their hand. 0:05:52.969,0:05:54.646 I notice a couple of things about this. 0:05:54.646,0:05:56.383 One, you're not going to be surprised. 0:05:56.383,0:05:58.727 It seems to be related to gender. 0:05:58.727,0:06:04.192 So women are much more likely to do this kind of thing than men. 0:06:04.192,0:06:06.778 Women feel chronically less powerful than men, 0:06:06.778,0:06:10.733 so this is not surprising. But the other thing I noticed is that 0:06:10.733,0:06:13.578 it also seemed to be related to the extent to which 0:06:13.578,0:06:17.259 the students were participating, and how well they were participating. 0:06:17.259,0:06:19.841 And this is really important in the MBA classroom, 0:06:19.841,0:06:22.522 because participation counts for half the grade. 0:06:22.522,0:06:26.995 So business schools have been struggling with this gender grade gap. 0:06:26.995,0:06:30.267 You get these equally qualified women and men coming in 0:06:30.267,0:06:32.263 and then you get these differences in grades, 0:06:32.263,0:06:35.523 and it seems to be partly attributable to participation. 0:06:35.523,0:06:38.546 So I started to wonder, you know, okay, 0:06:38.546,0:06:41.070 so you have these people coming in like this, and they're 0:06:41.070,0:06:44.741 participating. Is it possible that we could get people to fake it 0:06:44.741,0:06:46.713 and would it lead them to participate more? 0:06:46.713,0:06:51.378 So my main collaborator Dana Carney, who's at Berkeley, 0:06:51.378,0:06:54.933 and I really wanted to know, can you fake it till you make it? 0:06:54.933,0:06:57.963 Like, can you do this just for a little while and actually 0:06:57.963,0:07:01.786 experience a behavioral outcome that makes you seem more powerful? 0:07:01.786,0:07:05.338 So we know that our nonverbals govern how other people 0:07:05.338,0:07:07.031 think and feel about us. There's a lot of evidence. 0:07:07.031,0:07:10.143 But our question really was, do our nonverbals 0:07:10.143,0:07:13.253 govern how we think and feel about ourselves? 0:07:13.253,0:07:15.943 There's some evidence that they do. 0:07:15.943,0:07:20.579 So, for example, we smile when we feel happy, 0:07:20.579,0:07:22.757 but also, when we're forced to smile 0:07:22.757,0:07:27.172 by holding a pen in our teeth like this, it makes us feel happy. 0:07:27.172,0:07:30.253 So it goes both ways. When it comes to power, 0:07:30.253,0:07:35.468 it also goes both ways. So when you feel powerful, 0:07:35.468,0:07:38.854 you're more likely to do this, but it's also possible that 0:07:38.854,0:07:44.460 when you pretend to be powerful, you are more likely 0:07:44.460,0:07:46.888 to actually feel powerful. 0:07:46.888,0:07:49.948 So the second question really was, you know, 0:07:49.948,0:07:52.531 so we know that our minds change our bodies, 0:07:52.531,0:07:56.948 but is it also true that our bodies change our minds? 0:07:56.948,0:07:59.675 And when I say minds, in the case of the powerful, 0:07:59.675,0:08:01.047 what am I talking about? 0:08:01.047,0:08:03.213 So I'm talking about thoughts and feelings 0:08:03.213,0:08:06.668 and the sort of physiological things that make up our thoughts and feelings, 0:08:06.668,0:08:09.876 and in my case, that's hormones. I look at hormones. 0:08:09.876,0:08:12.979 So what do the minds of the powerful versus the powerless 0:08:12.979,0:08:14.210 look like? 0:08:14.210,0:08:18.506 So powerful people tend to be, not surprisingly, 0:08:18.506,0:08:22.730 more assertive and more confident, more optimistic. 0:08:22.730,0:08:25.729 They actually feel that they're going to win even at games of chance. 0:08:25.729,0:08:29.908 They also tend to be able to think more abstractly. 0:08:29.908,0:08:32.514 So there are a lot of differences. They take more risks. 0:08:32.514,0:08:35.367 There are a lot of differences between powerful and powerless people. 0:08:35.367,0:08:38.659 Physiologically, there also are differences on two 0:08:38.659,0:08:42.724 key hormones: testosterone, which is the dominance hormone, 0:08:42.724,0:08:46.387 and cortisol, which is the stress hormone. 0:08:46.387,0:08:49.724 So what we find is that 0:08:49.724,0:08:53.563 high-power alpha males in primate hierarchies 0:08:53.563,0:08:56.761 have high testosterone and low cortisol, 0:08:56.761,0:09:00.287 and powerful and effective leaders also have 0:09:00.287,0:09:02.542 high testosterone and low cortisol. 0:09:02.542,0:09:04.845 So what does that mean? When you think about power, 0:09:04.845,0:09:07.270 people tended to think only about testosterone, 0:09:07.270,0:09:09.058 because that was about dominance. 0:09:09.058,0:09:12.528 But really, power is also about how you react to stress. 0:09:12.528,0:09:15.657 So do you want the high-power leader that's dominant, 0:09:15.657,0:09:18.399 high on testosterone, but really stress reactive? 0:09:18.399,0:09:20.734 Probably not, right? You want the person 0:09:20.734,0:09:23.018 who's powerful and assertive and dominant, 0:09:23.018,0:09:26.706 but not very stress reactive, the person who's laid back. 0:09:26.706,0:09:32.938 So we know that in primate hierarchies, if an alpha 0:09:32.938,0:09:36.629 needs to take over, if an individual needs to take over 0:09:36.629,0:09:39.186 an alpha role sort of suddenly, 0:09:39.186,0:09:42.297 within a few days, that individual's testosterone has gone up 0:09:42.297,0:09:45.802 significantly and his cortisol has dropped significantly. 0:09:45.802,0:09:48.843 So we have this evidence, both that the body can shape 0:09:48.843,0:09:51.209 the mind, at least at the facial level, 0:09:51.209,0:09:55.338 and also that role changes can shape the mind. 0:09:55.338,0:09:58.120 So what happens, okay, you take a role change, 0:09:58.120,0:10:00.704 what happens if you do that at a really minimal level, 0:10:00.704,0:10:03.117 like this tiny manipulation, this tiny intervention? 0:10:03.117,0:10:05.768 "For two minutes," you say, "I want you to stand like this, 0:10:05.768,0:10:08.551 and it's going to make you feel more powerful." 0:10:08.551,0:10:13.026 So this is what we did. We decided to bring people 0:10:13.026,0:10:17.239 into the lab and run a little experiment, and these people 0:10:17.239,0:10:21.668 adopted, for two minutes, either high-power poses 0:10:21.668,0:10:23.917 or low-power poses, and I'm just going to show you 0:10:23.917,0:10:26.879 five of the poses, although they took on only two. 0:10:26.879,0:10:29.359 So here's one. 0:10:29.359,0:10:31.453 A couple more. 0:10:31.453,0:10:34.271 This one has been dubbed the "Wonder Woman" 0:10:34.271,0:10:36.646 by the media. 0:10:36.646,0:10:37.968 Here are a couple more. 0:10:37.968,0:10:40.322 So you can be standing or you can be sitting. 0:10:40.322,0:10:42.307 And here are the low-power poses. 0:10:42.307,0:10:46.370 So you're folding up, you're making yourself small. 0:10:46.370,0:10:48.109 This one is very low-power. 0:10:48.109,0:10:49.466 When you're touching your neck, 0:10:49.466,0:10:52.092 you're really protecting yourself. 0:10:52.092,0:10:54.677 So this is what happens. They come in, 0:10:54.677,0:10:56.437 they spit into a vial, 0:10:56.437,0:10:59.610 we for two minutes say, "You need to do this or this." 0:10:59.610,0:11:01.403 They don't look at pictures of the poses. We don't want to prime them 0:11:01.403,0:11:04.783 with a concept of power. We want them to be feeling power, 0:11:04.783,0:11:06.842 right? So two minutes they do this. 0:11:06.842,0:11:10.051 We then ask them, "How powerful do you feel?" on a series of items, 0:11:10.051,0:11:12.818 and then we give them an opportunity to gamble, 0:11:12.818,0:11:15.583 and then we take another saliva sample. 0:11:15.583,0:11:17.148 That's it. That's the whole experiment. 0:11:17.148,0:11:20.854 So this is what we find. Risk tolerance, which is the gambling, 0:11:20.854,0:11:23.752 what we find is that when you're in the high-power 0:11:23.752,0:11:27.250 pose condition, 86 percent of you will gamble. 0:11:27.250,0:11:29.195 When you're in the low-power pose condition, 0:11:29.195,0:11:33.370 only 60 percent, and that's a pretty whopping significant difference. 0:11:33.370,0:11:35.850 Here's what we find on testosterone. 0:11:35.850,0:11:39.355 From their baseline when they come in, high-power people 0:11:39.355,0:11:41.717 experience about a 20-percent increase, 0:11:41.717,0:11:46.338 and low-power people experience about a 10-percent decrease. 0:11:46.338,0:11:49.155 So again, two minutes, and you get these changes. 0:11:49.155,0:11:51.907 Here's what you get on cortisol. High-power people 0:11:51.907,0:11:54.954 experience about a 25-percent decrease, and 0:11:54.954,0:11:59.086 the low-power people experience about a 15-percent increase. 0:11:59.086,0:12:01.818 So two minutes lead to these hormonal changes 0:12:01.818,0:12:04.835 that configure your brain to basically be either 0:12:04.835,0:12:07.763 assertive, confident and comfortable, 0:12:07.763,0:12:11.771 or really stress-reactive, and, you know, feeling 0:12:11.771,0:12:15.627 sort of shut down. And we've all had the feeling, right? 0:12:15.627,0:12:18.514 So it seems that our nonverbals do govern 0:12:18.514,0:12:20.835 how we think and feel about ourselves, 0:12:20.835,0:12:23.291 so it's not just others, but it's also ourselves. 0:12:23.291,0:12:25.718 Also, our bodies change our minds. 0:12:25.718,0:12:28.124 But the next question, of course, is 0:12:28.124,0:12:29.638 can power posing for a few minutes 0:12:29.638,0:12:31.929 really change your life in meaningful ways? 0:12:31.929,0:12:34.575 So this is in the lab. It's this little task, you know, 0:12:34.575,0:12:37.171 it's just a couple of minutes. Where can you actually 0:12:37.171,0:12:39.946 apply this? Which we cared about, of course. 0:12:39.946,0:12:44.123 And so we think it's really, what matters, I mean, 0:12:44.123,0:12:46.711 where you want to use this is evaluative situations 0:12:46.711,0:12:50.164 like social threat situations. Where are you being evaluated, 0:12:50.164,0:12:53.848 either by your friends? Like for teenagers it's at the lunchroom table. 0:12:53.848,0:12:56.053 It could be, you know, for some people it's speaking 0:12:56.053,0:12:59.077 at a school board meeting. It might be giving a pitch 0:12:59.077,0:13:01.934 or giving a talk like this 0:13:01.934,0:13:04.732 or doing a job interview. 0:13:04.732,0:13:07.224 We decided that the one that most people could relate to 0:13:07.224,0:13:08.461 because most people had been through 0:13:08.461,0:13:09.843 was the job interview. 0:13:09.843,0:13:13.796 So we published these findings, and the media 0:13:13.796,0:13:16.390 are all over it, and they say, Okay, so this is what you do 0:13:16.390,0:13:19.590 when you go in for the job interview, right? (Laughter) 0:13:19.590,0:13:21.981 You know, so we were of course horrified, and said, 0:13:21.981,0:13:24.166 Oh my God, no, no, no, that's not what we meant at all. 0:13:24.166,0:13:26.941 For numerous reasons, no, no, no, don't do that. 0:13:26.941,0:13:29.532 Again, this is not about you talking to other people. 0:13:29.532,0:13:31.391 It's you talking to yourself. What do you do 0:13:31.391,0:13:34.200 before you go into a job interview? You do this. 0:13:34.200,0:13:36.466 Right? You're sitting down. You're looking at your iPhone -- 0:13:36.466,0:13:38.752 or your Android, not trying to leave anyone out. 0:13:38.752,0:13:40.946 You are, you know, you're looking at your notes, 0:13:40.946,0:13:42.776 you're hunching up, making yourself small, 0:13:42.776,0:13:45.068 when really what you should be doing maybe is this, 0:13:45.068,0:13:48.484 like, in the bathroom, right? Do that. Find two minutes. 0:13:48.484,0:13:49.904 So that's what we want to test. Okay? 0:13:49.904,0:13:52.088 So we bring people into a lab, and 0:13:52.088,0:13:55.465 they do either high- or low-power poses again, 0:13:55.465,0:13:58.097 they go through a very stressful job interview. 0:13:58.097,0:14:01.713 It's five minutes long. They are being recorded. 0:14:01.713,0:14:04.224 They're being judged also, and the judges 0:14:04.224,0:14:08.199 are trained to give no nonverbal feedback, 0:14:08.199,0:14:09.806 so they look like this. Like, imagine 0:14:09.806,0:14:12.090 this is the person interviewing you. 0:14:12.090,0:14:16.713 So for five minutes, nothing, and this is worse than being heckled. 0:14:16.713,0:14:20.026 People hate this. It's what Marianne LaFrance calls 0:14:20.026,0:14:22.117 "standing in social quicksand." 0:14:22.117,0:14:23.926 So this really spikes your cortisol. 0:14:23.926,0:14:25.628 So this is the job interview we put them through, 0:14:25.628,0:14:28.457 because we really wanted to see what happened. 0:14:28.457,0:14:31.564 We then have these coders look at these tapes, four of them. 0:14:31.564,0:14:34.736 They're blind to the hypothesis. They're blind to the conditions. 0:14:34.736,0:14:37.521 They have no idea who's been posing in what pose, 0:14:37.521,0:14:42.611 and they end up looking at these sets of tapes, 0:14:42.611,0:14:44.683 and they say, "Oh, we want to hire these people," -- 0:14:44.683,0:14:48.105 all the high-power posers -- "we don't want to hire these people. 0:14:48.105,0:14:50.890 We also evaluate these people much more positively overall." 0:14:50.890,0:14:55.626 But what's driving it? It's not about the content of the speech. 0:14:55.626,0:14:58.502 It's about the presence that they're bringing to the speech. 0:14:58.502,0:15:00.551 We also, because we rate them on all these variables 0:15:00.551,0:15:03.642 related to competence, like, how well-structured 0:15:03.642,0:15:06.418 is the speech? How good is it? What are their qualifications? 0:15:06.418,0:15:09.474 No effect on those things. This is what's affected. 0:15:09.474,0:15:12.753 These kinds of things. People are bringing their true selves, 0:15:12.753,0:15:14.626 basically. They're bringing themselves. 0:15:14.626,0:15:16.849 They bring their ideas, but as themselves, 0:15:16.849,0:15:19.385 with no, you know, residue over them. 0:15:19.385,0:15:24.316 So this is what's driving the effect, or mediating the effect. 0:15:24.316,0:15:27.684 So when I tell people about this, 0:15:27.684,0:15:30.563 that our bodies change our minds and our minds can change our behavior, 0:15:30.563,0:15:33.539 and our behavior can change our outcomes, they say to me, 0:15:33.539,0:15:35.406 "I don't -- It feels fake." Right? 0:15:35.406,0:15:39.185 So I said, fake it till you make it. I don't -- It's not me. 0:15:39.185,0:15:42.360 I don't want to get there and then still feel like a fraud. 0:15:42.360,0:15:43.879 I don't want to feel like an impostor. 0:15:43.879,0:15:48.291 I don't want to get there only to feel like I'm not supposed to be here. 0:15:48.291,0:15:50.478 And that really resonated with me, 0:15:50.478,0:15:52.536 because I want to tell you a little story about 0:15:52.536,0:15:55.946 being an impostor and feeling like I'm not supposed to be here. 0:15:55.946,0:15:58.887 When I was 19, I was in a really bad car accident. 0:15:58.887,0:16:02.292 I was thrown out of a car, rolled several times. 0:16:02.292,0:16:05.803 I was thrown from the car. And I woke up in a head injury 0:16:05.803,0:16:09.395 rehab ward, and I had been withdrawn from college, 0:16:09.395,0:16:15.107 and I learned that my I.Q. had dropped by two standard deviations, 0:16:15.107,0:16:17.695 which was very traumatic. 0:16:17.695,0:16:20.566 I knew my I.Q. because I had identified with being smart, 0:16:20.566,0:16:22.578 and I had been called gifted as a child. 0:16:22.578,0:16:25.778 So I'm taken out of college, I keep trying to go back. 0:16:25.778,0:16:27.502 They say, "You're not going to finish college. 0:16:27.502,0:16:30.379 Just, you know, there are other things for you to do, 0:16:30.379,0:16:32.277 but that's not going to work out for you." 0:16:32.277,0:16:36.161 So I really struggled with this, and I have to say, 0:16:36.161,0:16:38.935 having your identity taken from you, your core identity, 0:16:38.935,0:16:40.794 and for me it was being smart, 0:16:40.794,0:16:45.203 having that taken from you, there's nothing that leaves you feeling more powerless than that. 0:16:45.203,0:16:47.805 So I felt entirely powerless. I worked and worked and worked, 0:16:47.805,0:16:50.939 and I got lucky, and worked, and got lucky, and worked. 0:16:50.939,0:16:53.391 Eventually I graduated from college. 0:16:53.391,0:16:55.198 It took me four years longer than my peers, 0:16:55.198,0:16:59.756 and I convinced someone, my angel advisor, Susan Fiske, 0:16:59.756,0:17:02.700 to take me on, and so I ended up at Princeton, 0:17:02.700,0:17:05.551 and I was like, I am not supposed to be here. 0:17:05.551,0:17:06.845 I am an impostor. 0:17:06.845,0:17:08.426 And the night before my first-year talk, 0:17:08.426,0:17:11.064 and the first-year talk at Princeton is a 20-minute talk 0:17:11.064,0:17:13.099 to 20 people. That's it. 0:17:13.099,0:17:15.986 I was so afraid of being found out the next day 0:17:15.986,0:17:18.799 that I called her and said, "I'm quitting." 0:17:18.799,0:17:20.655 She was like, "You are not quitting, 0:17:20.655,0:17:23.213 because I took a gamble on you, and you're staying. 0:17:23.213,0:17:25.404 You're going to stay, and this is what you're going to do. 0:17:25.404,0:17:26.761 You are going to fake it. 0:17:26.761,0:17:30.541 You're going to do every talk that you ever get asked to do. 0:17:30.541,0:17:32.280 You're just going to do it and do it and do it, 0:17:32.280,0:17:35.249 even if you're terrified and just paralyzed 0:17:35.249,0:17:37.827 and having an out-of-body experience, until you have 0:17:37.827,0:17:40.992 this moment where you say, 'Oh my gosh, I'm doing it. 0:17:40.992,0:17:43.958 Like, I have become this. I am actually doing this.'" 0:17:43.958,0:17:46.368 So that's what I did. Five years in grad school, 0:17:46.368,0:17:48.109 a few years, you know, I'm at Northwestern, 0:17:48.109,0:17:50.696 I moved to Harvard, I'm at Harvard, I'm not really 0:17:50.696,0:17:54.196 thinking about it anymore, but for a long time I had been thinking, 0:17:54.196,0:17:56.500 "Not supposed to be here. Not supposed to be here." 0:17:56.500,0:17:58.978 So at the end of my first year at Harvard, 0:17:58.978,0:18:03.544 a student who had not talked in class the entire semester, 0:18:03.544,0:18:06.751 who I had said, "Look, you've gotta participate or else you're going to fail," 0:18:06.751,0:18:09.253 came into my office. I really didn't know her at all. 0:18:09.253,0:18:13.235 And she said, she came in totally defeated, and she said, 0:18:13.235,0:18:19.280 "I'm not supposed to be here." 0:18:19.280,0:18:23.408 And that was the moment for me. Because two things happened. 0:18:23.408,0:18:24.902 One was that I realized, 0:18:24.902,0:18:28.136 oh my gosh, I don't feel like that anymore. You know. 0:18:28.136,0:18:30.818 I don't feel that anymore, but she does, and I get that feeling. 0:18:30.818,0:18:33.455 And the second was, she is supposed to be here! 0:18:33.455,0:18:35.259 Like, she can fake it, she can become it. 0:18:35.259,0:18:38.999 So I was like, "Yes, you are! You are supposed to be here! 0:18:38.999,0:18:40.434 And tomorrow you're going to fake it, 0:18:40.434,0:18:43.498 you're going to make yourself powerful, and, you know, 0:18:43.498,0:18:46.521 you're gonna — " (Applause) 0:18:46.521,0:18:48.560 (Applause) 0:18:48.560,0:18:52.993 "And you're going to go into the classroom, 0:18:52.993,0:18:55.417 and you are going to give the best comment ever." 0:18:55.417,0:18:58.422 You know? And she gave the best comment ever, 0:18:58.422,0:18:59.285 and people turned around and they were like, 0:18:59.285,0:19:02.729 oh my God, I didn't even notice her sitting there, you know? (Laughter) 0:19:02.729,0:19:05.600 She comes back to me months later, and I realized 0:19:05.600,0:19:07.884 that she had not just faked it till she made it, 0:19:07.884,0:19:10.608 she had actually faked it till she became it. 0:19:10.608,0:19:12.431 So she had changed. 0:19:12.431,0:19:16.515 And so I want to say to you, don't fake it till you make it. 0:19:16.515,0:19:19.312 Fake it till you become it. You know? It's not — 0:19:19.312,0:19:22.953 Do it enough until you actually become it and internalize. 0:19:22.953,0:19:25.608 The last thing I'm going to leave you with is this. 0:19:25.608,0:19:30.080 Tiny tweaks can lead to big changes. 0:19:30.080,0:19:32.577 So this is two minutes. 0:19:32.577,0:19:34.313 Two minutes, two minutes, two minutes. 0:19:34.313,0:19:37.559 Before you go into the next stressful evaluative situation, 0:19:37.559,0:19:40.265 for two minutes, try doing this, in the elevator, 0:19:40.265,0:19:43.504 in a bathroom stall, at your desk behind closed doors. 0:19:43.504,0:19:45.944 That's what you want to do. Configure your brain 0:19:45.944,0:19:47.766 to cope the best in that situation. 0:19:47.766,0:19:50.731 Get your testosterone up. Get your cortisol down. 0:19:50.731,0:19:54.697 Don't leave that situation feeling like, oh, I didn't show them who I am. 0:19:54.697,0:19:57.049 Leave that situation feeling like, oh, I really feel like 0:19:57.049,0:19:58.885 I got to say who I am and show who I am. 0:19:58.885,0:20:01.427 So I want to ask you first, you know, 0:20:01.427,0:20:05.208 both to try power posing, 0:20:05.208,0:20:07.094 and also I want to ask you 0:20:07.094,0:20:10.322 to share the science, because this is simple. 0:20:10.322,0:20:12.199 I don't have ego involved in this. (Laughter) 0:20:12.199,0:20:14.086 Give it away. Share it with people, 0:20:14.086,0:20:15.947 because the people who can use it the most are the ones 0:20:15.947,0:20:20.105 with no resources and no technology 0:20:20.105,0:20:23.231 and no status and no power. Give it to them 0:20:23.231,0:20:24.514 because they can do it in private. 0:20:24.514,0:20:27.343 They need their bodies, privacy and two minutes, 0:20:27.343,0:20:30.493 and it can significantly change the outcomes of their life. 0:20:30.493,0:20:34.679 Thank you. (Applause) 0:20:34.679,0:20:41.569 (Applause)