Amy Cuddy
Appearances
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
I often ask people, what is your biggest challenge? Like what is the situation that you approach with dread and that you execute with anxiety and that you leave with a sense of regret? And so if you look at all, so dread, that is you projecting yourself into a future that's not gone well. So you're borrowing trouble, basically.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
The anxiety in the moment is you thinking more about what the other person thinks of you than what they're actually just thinking. You're worried about what you said a minute ago or what's gonna happen afterwards. You're not able to be in the present. And then regret is what we call post-event processing.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
You're going over it wanting a do-over, going, I didn't show, I wasn't seen, they didn't see who I am. You know that feeling like, oh, they didn't see who I am. And you wanna go back in and like in a rom-com, you get to have a do-over. But in life, you don't. So that sense of regret becomes like a piece of baggage that you carry into the next similar situation.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
And then you're worried because you don't want to do the same thing.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
What if we could approach with the sense of composure and execute it with a kind of calm and grounded confidence and leave feeling satisfied. Even if we don't get the outcome that we want, we know that we did everything we could to show up. They saw who I was and it wasn't the right fit or whatever. And I can accept that outcome.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
So you can both accept the outcome and not have that extra piece of baggage.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
I don't even know where to begin. It's because there are also, first of all, if I make any statement about where I stand on that, there will be a million people telling me I'm absolutely wrong. But that's like, and the truth is complicated, right? Like, and in some ways, social media, like, so, you know, my son's on TikTok and I can't believe the,
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
the courage he has now to just put a video out there and sometimes it goes and sometimes it doesn't and he's fine if it doesn't go, if it doesn't move. So I think that that's actually been really good for him. He doesn't feel rejected. He just feels like, well, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but I'm never gonna know if I don't put myself out there. So I think in some ways,
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
young people have become more courageous at trying things. I mean, you know, yes, I would like them to spend less time on it. And I like that he's doing music. You know, he's like putting out my kid's doing quality content. But I think that in some ways it's actually given young people an opportunity to be braver. To express themselves in certain ways. Yeah, exactly.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
And to sort of, to be rejected and see that they've survived, right? Yes. But rejection, the rejection that I'm talking about is a video, a TikTok video not going viral. It's not that it's, which is not the same as nasty comments, like being rejected and trolled. That's a different kind of rejection.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
I hate to say something so simple, but yes. I am just not afraid to embarrass myself. That's good. And I have to sometimes... Hold on to that, because I think it was really important for my son to see that. To me, modeling that was really important.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Yeah, making mistakes, being goofy, like doing something goofy in the grocery store.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Yeah, another one is being okay with like,
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
chatting with a stranger and maybe they don't want to chat and that's fine then you move on but like why not try those i think doing those things first of all i think it's great to model that for kids but i also think it's good to do it just to see that you've survived you're fine yeah no one cares exactly no one even cares remembering this for the rest of their life you might have made somebody smile right right so
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Like, if you're terrified of- Well, I think that's a good one. I mean, like, chat with someone on the train or, and I know it's hard right now.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Yeah, or like, ask someone, Ask, you know, if you're, I don't know why grocery stores seem like places where lots of silly things can happen. You know, if someone's like checking out, checking you, what do you?
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Checking you out, but that sounds funny, checking you out. You know what I mean? Like checking out your groceries. And they are looking down and they seem, you know, grumpy.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
instead of deciding they're not friendly consider the possibility that they're having a bad day and and literally like pause and say how are you you know or like try to connect with them without being intrusive make eye contact with them thank them you know make eye contact maybe they'll just be annoyed and not make eye contact back. But I feel like that kind of thing is really important to try.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
And those are things that create sort of social benefits for others as well.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
I think the challenge for me has been adjusting to, you know, being more well known than the average academic, right?
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
And actually, you know, leaving academia. You know, I still teach, but I'm not, you know, I'm not.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
No. You know, I teach in executive education at Harvard. but I'm not a professor. I'm a lecturer when I lecture. Leaving was hard. It was a big leap to leave that security, but it just was not the right world for me. But I think the biggest challenge really has been dealing with becoming higher sort of having, becoming higher profile and the kind of backlash that I endured as a result of that.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Which is not, yes. And well, yeah, I mean, criticism's fine, but bullying is not, you know? Right, right. I know that this is common. In fact, it happens to a lot of junior professors who give TED Talks.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Yeah. It's funny. Somebody just wrote to me yesterday. She has a popular TED Talk, and she said that at her university, people started calling her TED Girl and sort of talking down to her.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Because it was popular, right? It's like if it had not really hit the radar, it would have been okay. Really?
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Yeah. People had to sort of diminish her in a way. And I experienced a lot of the same stuff. what became hard for me was talking to colleagues, standing up for myself. The truth is we need to stand up for each other. When people are in an acute bullying situation, they really can't stand up for themselves. But I'm still figuring out
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
how to engage with other people in academia who weren't necessarily bullies, but might've been bystanders who didn't do anything. But to be able to say, I still deserve to be having this conversation, I deserve, to have the beliefs that I have. I deserve to defend this massive area of research on body-mind feedback, of which I contribute a tiny bit to.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Just because these people don't like it doesn't mean I can't say, well, here's why I do believe it. That's really hard for me. That is the thing that I would approach with the most dread, I think.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
I mean, for me, the thing that works the best is... I mean, certainly I do, like I walk expansively, like long strides before this kind of stressful thing. I won't sit down with my hands in my lap. Like even putting your hands behind your chair, like this is a big thing. Kind of opens you up a little bit. But it forces you to open up just doing that.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
But the thing that works the best for me is breathing. And I know there is so much on breath work now and I don't wanna, you know, I'm not an expert. But the relaxation response that's triggered by certain breathing patterns is incredibly effective for me. And so basically it sends your nervous system into this rest and digest state, which is the opposite of fight, flee, or faint.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
And so the one that I like best is called four, seven, eight breathing. And we can do it right now. So basically for four counts, you inhale. For seven, you hold your breath. And for eight, you exhale. So I'm going to count and you do it.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Seven, hold it. Eight, exhale. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. One, two, three, four. four, five, six, seven, eight. That's it. Three times. One time you feel it. It will put me to sleep at night. If I'm relaxed, it makes me sleepy. But if I'm anxious, it calms me down. There's just so much research on the relaxation response and breathing.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
But what I think is interesting about it is that that kind of breathing is expansive. Just like what I talk about, you know, like expansive posture, that's expensive. You're breathing deeply and slowly. You're taking up more temporal space. You're expanding your, you know, like your physical body more. And when we expand, we tend to feel more confident, more powerful, more calm.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
What we should be in is having good neutral posture. So before stressful events, That's when I say find a private space. I think I said in the TED Talk, find a bathroom stall, which I honestly think just like I thought of at the moment, but I can't tell you how many emails I get from people who are like, I was in the bathroom.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Or like people who see somebody in a bathroom with their arms up in the air, they're like, are you power posing in there?
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Oh, I know. I loved it so much. That's so good. You can't imagine. Like, I love that show, and I had no idea. You had no idea it was coming. I was, like, sobbing.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
I know. And I think all of us were absolutely beyond thrilled. Like, this is cool. Yeah, yeah. I mean, to have that. And I know I was telling Brene this, but... The first time I saw that show, at the end of the first episode, I turned to my husband and I said, I love Ted Lasso. And he goes, that's because you are Ted Lasso. And I was like, well, I guess I had good self-esteem then.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
But I am Ted Lasso. And so are you. Yes, exactly. It's funny because Brene says that she's Roy Kent.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
But anyway, yeah. So before these stressful situations, the ones that you approach with dread, that's when you find some space and really make yourself big. Expansive. Like whatever feels comfortable to you, expand. You know, in front of other people, it comes across as really aggressive and domineering and off-putting.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
But if you're in the privacy of your own bathroom stall or office or whatever, you can do whatever you want. You don't have to worry about cultural norms or putting people off. In our everyday lives, we spend so much time like this, with our phones. And that is really bad. First, it's bad for us. just our posture, and it's creating this sort of fixed thoracic stoop.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
But physiotherapists used to only see in elderly people, and now they're seeing it in 15-year-old boys from gaming and things like that. And that's something, you can't just be like, oh, I'm going to sit up straight. work that out.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Exactly.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Totally. So it's not only hurting our posture, but I believe that it is affecting our mood. And so even just set up your workspace so that you can be more expansive. Yes. We neglect our body language when we're alone because it's language. And if we're alone, we're not talking to anyone.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
But we're talking to ourselves, right? So it's really important, I think, for us to be minding our posture. Also... There have been a couple of meta-analyses recently, which basically are just studies that look at all of the studies on a topic and come up with a sort of an average effect size. Like they say, yes, this is a real effect, and this is how big the effect is, right?
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
So studies that have looked at meta-analyses of power-opposing studies show really clearly that it affects the way we feel. By shrinking our body. Shrinking versus expanding. Affects the way, whether in a positive or- More expansive, more confident, and more powerful psychologically. Shrinking, less powerful, less confident. But what's interesting is that there are two meta-analyses.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
One of them shows that more of the effect is driven by the difference between neutral and expansive. The other one shows that more of the effect is driven by the difference between, you know, contractive and neutral. So I'm not, we still, In short, there's evidence that both of those things matter, but certainly neutral is better than contractive. Shrinking, yeah, yeah, contracting.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Exactly, exactly.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Absolutely. It's funny, I once, this woman wrote to me, she said, I teach people public speaking, and I had this student who was really stressed out, this man, and so I got into power pose for a minute, and he said it made him feel worse.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
And she said, but then I watched, we watched the video, she said I videotaped him, and we watched the video, and I was like, were you breathing? He said, no, I didn't breathe. I held my breath the whole time. Oh my gosh. He's like, well, that's not gonna work. Yeah, you're gonna pass out, you're gonna faint. Exactly. So he had... been like completely still in this power pose.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
And she, I mean, she was laughing about it, but yeah.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
You know, it's funny. I really emphasize two minutes in the TED Talk because that's what we had done in those first studies. I think actually less is more. Like we've gone out to five minutes. I think that I think that it just gets awkward. It's that silly. You feel weird, but also your body gets sort of stiff. So I just think it's... I don't even think you have to be still.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
I think you can be moving in an expansive way. I think it's the whole... I sometimes wish that I hadn't called this power posing because it was such a sticky idea. It's got alliteration.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Exactly. But at the same time, people got fixed on standing like Wonder Woman or in the victory pose. being expansive is more expansive than this. It's in whatever way works for you.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
It was awesome.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
She made this facial expression that I thought was great.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
I wonder if that was like, so if they were like, just do a power pose and she made it up. She probably did. I just feel like.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Um, only, you know, so I really love public speaking and it doesn't, it's like my favorite professional thing to do. It doesn't make me nervous. That's good. So... For me, I think a lot of people assume that speaking is the thing that makes everyone nervous. So for me, it's not, it's not that.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
You know, interpersonal conflict, like one-on-one or I get nervous in like smaller groups.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Yes, like talking to three people, I find much more stressful than talking to, you know, 3000 people. So I don't like to sit in a room for a long time before I'm gonna get up and talk to people. I don't wanna sit there in a cold room, these rooms are often cold, and you're going like this, and you're totally sort of stiff, and then you get up and you're like, ooh.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
So I've had that experience enough times to learn I need to be moving around, I need to be warm, not cold, and come in sort of, you know, right before I get up to present or to discuss. So yes, I've had the experience of being still and kind of, you know, hunched up for too long.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
I think people might think of it as sort of about being the most, sort of the best, the most competent. I think it's a combination of being, yes, your most sort of effective self, but also your most generous self. So greatness has to combine those two qualities.
The School of Greatness
How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything
Yes.