“No one is going to believe your story if you don’t believe your story.”

December 16, 20151 minute read

— Amy Cuddy, a professor and researcher at Harvard Business School, talking about how powerful having the right presence can be in challenging situations. Her new book is Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges.

Cuddy has studied body language and posture and compiled her learnings into a guide for people who want to increase their personal power. Her very popular Ted Talk reveals how she leaned some of the lessons first-hand after she suffered a traumatic brain injury while in college.

For years she felt like an imposter, not really capable of doing the things she was expected to do, until she learned it was helpful to “fake it until you become it.” She has also identified “power poses” she says increase confidence before going into an important meeting.