Now in this lesson we're gonna look at how physical space impacts our level of confidence. And Amy Cuddy, who I referred to in a previous lesson is famous for the expression of fake it until you become it. Cuddy is a social psychologist working at Harvard in the business school, and in her work she has studied how our body positions, impact or level of presence. Think of this advice as sort of a life hack. What Cuddy has discovered is that each of us can elevate or diminish our level of credibility, assuming different body positions. Now, generally speaking, in the animal kingdom, those animals that consume space, increase their feeling of power.

Think of porcupines with their quills, gorillas with their chest, skunks with their tails, Cobras. When you make yourself bigger, you subconsciously trick the brain into becoming more confident. Now when the human world think of what taking up space looks like what is Sounds like and what it feels like. We can physically take up more space by simply standing taller or sitting straighter or more forward or spreading our legs and arms wide. Our voices strengthen, we speaking slows, sometimes even to the point where we aren't afraid to pause, because we have complete confidence that no one will interrupt our train of thought. we initiate conversations, we make introductions for ourselves and on behalf of others, we work the room as opposed to waiting to be approached.

Now Cuddy's research discovered that when we use power poses, right before stressful situations, we can actually and significantly improve our own personal presence. In other words, our level of confidence, power posing actually triggers a hormonal effect that explains part of this confidence boost when you power pose as is the super woman in the slide that had before you you your testosterone increases by 19%. testosterone is the body's hormone that makes you more aggressive, makes you more assertive. At the same time interestingly striking that Wonder Woman pose decreases your cortisol. Now cortisol is the stress hormone that makes us feel anxious and takes away our feeling of power. So the Wonder Woman pose that you see here is an example of one such power pose, that Cuddy says can trigger this hormonal effect.

To trigger this hormonal response in our body, we simply need to assume a power post for two minutes in advance of a big important event. Ideally, we should be doing this alone in a private place. Now, Jen, and I practice what we preach. But consider the different types of situations where you might need an extra boost of confidence in your day to day workplace. Perhaps you're thinking of job interviews, or when you're meeting important people Having a difficult conversation, or entering into a negotiation, or perhaps when you're making a presentation, perhaps meeting someone new, maybe you're quitting a job, or maybe it's before a big performance appraisal. In other words, in the realm of an executive or becoming an executive, most of your days can be taken up with events like these.

Now, the research suggests that you only needed two minutes to trigger this hormonal effect. So where and when can you find two minutes in your day and do this in the privacy of someplace? Because again, we do not want to strike the post in the middle of our presentation. So can you find two minutes in your day? How about when we wake up in our offices in the elevator, in the waiting rooms in a bathroom, or perhaps just arriving ahead of a big meeting? So really, it's not that hard to do.

But even though I'm going to tell you that this has been proven by research to work, most of you are still going to do nothing ahead of your next big meeting. For those procrastinators, I will suggest that research has shown that even by thinking about striking a strong physical pose, you can still trigger some of the same hormonal reactions in your body. So the best part of perfecting your own presence is the effect. It also has not only on yourself but on others. When you become present, you allow others to be present, and you can help people feel more powerful, even when you can't give them formal power. This is a quote by Amy Cuddy.

So interestingly, when you feel powerful and confident yourself, you can actually improve the confidence and level of empowerment in others. This creates a magnification effect in terms of their performance and their productivity without having to promote anyone, pay them more, or even offer them any other tangible or intangible rewards. In the last lesson, let's see if we can recap what we've learned about developing confidence as one of the elements of your executive power. It's