Presence

Presence Plot Summary

Introduction

The conference room fell silent as Sarah walked in. Though she was the most qualified person on the team, her shoulders hunched forward, her arms wrapped tightly around the folder she clutched to her chest, and her eyes darted nervously around the room. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and hesitant, despite the brilliance of her ideas. The potential clients glanced at each other, unconvinced. In the corner, her colleague Michael leaned back in his chair, arms spread wide across the back of neighboring seats, speaking with easy confidence though his presentation contained half the substance of Sarah's. The clients nodded along, impressed. This scene plays out daily in boardrooms, classrooms, and social gatherings worldwide. Our bodies speak a language that often drowns out our words. This fundamental connection between physical posture and inner power forms the heart of what we'll explore together. Through groundbreaking research and compelling real-life stories, we'll discover how simple adjustments to how we carry ourselves can transform not just how others perceive us, but how we experience ourselves. The science reveals something remarkable: our bodies don't just reflect our mental states—they can actually create them. By understanding and harnessing this body-mind connection, we can develop authentic presence in challenging moments, allowing our true capabilities to shine through when we need them most.

Chapter 1: The Science of Presence: How Bodies Shape Minds

When Eve Fairbanks struggled to learn surfing, she focused obsessively on technical skills, convinced that mastering specific movements would lead to success. After numerous failures, her teacher offered surprising advice: "Just decide to stay on the board." This simple shift in approach changed everything. "It was astonishing to experience how great a difference simply making that decision and being tenacious about it made," she recalled. "Where I'd been falling most of the time, I began to catch every wave. Pleasure built upon pleasure, the certainty of my ability amplifying with each new trial." What Fairbanks discovered through surfing reveals a profound truth about human psychology. We often believe that confidence must precede action—that we must feel certain before we can perform well. But her experience showed the opposite: decisions create confidence, not the other way around. By physically committing to staying upright on her board, her body taught her mind what she was capable of in a way that thinking alone never could. This insight aligns perfectly with what psychologist William James proposed over a century ago when he famously stated, "I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing." James challenged the conventional wisdom that emotions drive expressions, suggesting instead that our bodily expressions cause our emotions. When we smile, we feel happier. When we stand tall, we feel more confident. Modern neuroscience has confirmed James's intuition. Our bodies and minds form an integrated system with communication flowing in both directions. The vagus nerve, which connects our brain stem with vital organs, carries information not just from brain to body but also from body to brain. This means we can directly influence our mental states through how we breathe, move, and position ourselves. This body-mind connection explains why activities like yoga and meditation produce such powerful psychological effects. When we adopt certain physical postures or control our breathing, we're not just stretching muscles or filling lungs—we're sending signals to our brain that alter our emotional state, attention, and even our perception of ourselves. As neuroscientist Pierre Philippot demonstrated, specific breathing patterns reliably produce specific emotional states, regardless of whether the breather consciously intends this effect. The implications of this science are revolutionary. If our bodies shape our minds as much as our minds shape our bodies, then we possess an often-overlooked tool for psychological transformation. By mindfully adjusting our physical presence, we can potentially access mental states that might otherwise feel beyond reach—confidence during nervousness, calm during stress, or presence during distraction.

Chapter 2: Power Posing: Expanding Your Way to Confidence

Will, a 21-year-old college student and part-time actor, received a call from his agent about an audition for a major motion picture. Though he'd done some commercials and small roles, this opportunity seemed far beyond his experience level. Arriving at the audition, he looked around the waiting room filled with professional actors and felt a wave of intense anxiety. Remembering advice from a friend, Will found the men's restroom, locked himself in a stall, and struck what he called the "Wonder Woman pose"—hands on hips, chin raised, chest out—holding this position while taking deep breaths for two full minutes. "I walked back into the waiting room, sat tall in my chair, and waited for my name to be called," Will recalled. When it was his turn, something remarkable happened: "I walked into the audition room without a care in the world. I had nothing to lose." The session went beautifully. Will felt no anxiety, enjoyed the process, and wasn't intimidated by the famous director. When his father asked afterward if he got the part, Will realized he'd nearly forgotten about the outcome: "Oh, no... I mean, I don't know. But it went great! It was so much fun. I've never felt better during an audition." Will's experience wasn't just psychological luck. It demonstrates the science of "power posing"—the practice of adopting expansive, open postures to create psychological and physiological changes that enhance performance. Research conducted at Harvard and other institutions has shown that holding expansive postures for just two minutes can significantly increase testosterone (the dominance hormone) and decrease cortisol (the stress hormone) in both men and women. This hormone profile is associated with confidence, assertiveness, and reduced anxiety—exactly what Will experienced. The effects go beyond hormones. Studies show that power posing improves abstract thinking, increases pain tolerance, enhances memory for positive information, and even makes people more likely to take action in challenging situations. In one experiment, job candidates who power-posed before interviews (not during them) were rated significantly higher by interviewers who had no idea about the pre-interview posing. What made the difference? The candidates exhibited greater presence—they appeared more confident, enthusiastic, captivating, and authentic. What makes this approach so effective is that it bypasses our conscious resistance. When feeling insecure, telling yourself "be confident" rarely works because you don't believe it. But your body has a more direct line to your brain. By expanding physically, you trigger a cascade of internal changes that naturally produce feelings of power and presence. As psychologist Amy Cuddy explains, "You're not trying to fake anything. You're just using your body to bring forth your best self when you need it most." The power of this approach lies in its accessibility. Unlike many psychological interventions, power posing requires no special training, equipment, or even privacy (though a bathroom stall works fine in a pinch). It's a tool available to anyone, anywhere, at any time—a democratic path to personal empowerment that works from the outside in.

Chapter 3: Impostor Syndrome: When Success Feels Fraudulent

Pauline Rose Clance was puzzled by a pattern she observed among her high-achieving female graduate students. Despite objective evidence of their intelligence and accomplishments, many privately expressed feelings of fraudulence. "I'm not really as capable as everyone thinks," they would confide. "I just work harder than most people," or "I just got lucky." One student with a perfect academic record was convinced that her admission to the program had been a clerical error. Another, despite publishing exceptional research, lived in constant fear of being "found out" as an intellectual impostor. In 1978, Clance and colleague Suzanne Imes published their groundbreaking paper identifying what they called the "impostor phenomenon"—the internal experience of believing you're not as competent as others perceive you to be, despite evidence of high achievement. Their research revealed that this phenomenon was particularly prevalent among high-achieving women, though subsequent studies have found it affects people across gender, race, and professional backgrounds. The impostor syndrome manifests in predictable patterns. Those experiencing it tend to attribute their successes to external factors like luck, timing, or others' misperception of their abilities, while internalizing failures as confirmation of their inadequacy. They often work harder than necessary to prevent being "exposed," experience anxiety before tasks where they might "fail," and feel relief rather than joy when succeeding. Perhaps most tellingly, they dismiss positive feedback, believing that if others truly knew them, they would see their incompetence. This psychological pattern creates a painful paradox: the more successful someone becomes, the more opportunities they have to feel like a fraud. A promotion becomes not a celebration but a source of dread. Recognition feels not like validation but like a mistake waiting to be discovered. As one accomplished executive confided, "I've been waiting for the tap on the shoulder, someone saying 'We need to talk to you about how you got here.'" The consequences of impostor syndrome extend beyond emotional discomfort. It can lead to chronic stress, anxiety, and depression. It causes people to self-sabotage by procrastinating, over-preparing, or avoiding challenges altogether. It prevents individuals from accurately assessing their abilities and taking appropriate risks. Perhaps most significantly, it robs people of the joy and satisfaction their achievements should bring. What makes impostor syndrome particularly insidious is that it often affects the very people who have the most to contribute. Research shows that true impostors—those who genuinely overestimate their abilities—rarely suffer from impostor syndrome. It's the competent, conscientious achievers who are most susceptible. By understanding this phenomenon and recognizing its patterns, we can begin to develop strategies to overcome it—starting with how we physically present ourselves in challenging situations.

Chapter 4: Transformation Stories: From Powerlessness to Presence

Kristin had moved to South America on a whim after her divorce, seeking adventure and a fresh start. She found work at a local café, where things initially seemed fine. But within weeks, her boss began making inappropriate comments about her body. The harassment escalated daily, culminating when he stopped using her name entirely, referring to her only by a vulgar term. "I was just feeling smaller and smaller," she recalled. "I knew how wrong that was, but you sometimes question yourself and wonder, 'Is this a big enough deal?'" After confiding in friends who offered support, Kristin decided to confront her boss. The morning of her planned confrontation, she deliberately prepared herself physically as well as mentally. She dressed in clothes that made her feel good, played an empowering song, and then stood tall in her stilted house with her hands on her hips and shoulders back—holding the pose for several minutes. "When I left the house and began to walk into town, I felt myself getting bigger and bigger—in a way I hadn't felt in a long time," she explained. The transformation was remarkable. Upon arriving at the café, Kristin noticed her boss seemed smaller than she'd remembered—not physically, but in presence. "I felt myself taking my power back from him," she said. Their conversation lasted twenty minutes, during which she calmly explained why his behavior was unacceptable, referencing his own daughters and how he would never want them treated similarly. To her surprise, he apologized repeatedly. Kristin felt an unexpected sense of compassion alongside her newfound strength. "I felt strong, but not dominant in an alpha way. I felt strong enough to be compassionate." Stories like Kristin's illustrate how physical transformation can catalyze psychological and social transformation. By literally expanding her body before a challenging confrontation, she accessed a sense of personal power that had been diminished through months of harassment. This physical expansion created psychological expansion—allowing her to speak her truth with both strength and generosity. Similar transformations occur in professional contexts. Thomas, a business owner who had struggled in meetings with dominant personalities, realized his nonverbal communication had been undermining his expertise. Before an important video conference, he stood in his office with arms akimbo and feet spread apart. During the call, he found himself "speaking as if I were explaining the deal to a friend in my kitchen." The result? He landed a contract that had stalled for months. These stories reveal a crucial insight: presence isn't about dominating others but about accessing your authentic best self in challenging moments. When we expand physically, we expand psychologically—creating space for our true capabilities to emerge. The power we access isn't power over others but power to be fully ourselves. This explains why Kristin could simultaneously feel stronger and more compassionate, why Thomas could be both more authoritative and more natural. Physical expansion doesn't create artificial confidence; it removes the artificial constraints of self-doubt.

Chapter 5: Self-Nudging: Small Changes for Lasting Impact

Rebecca, the mother of a high school freshman, shared how her daughter transformed her academic performance through an unexpected technique. "She had been suffering from test anxiety, so partly as a joke and partly out of desperation for a cure, she started power posing before tests," Rebecca explained. The results were remarkable: "I swear she hasn't gotten under 100 percent in the past three months!" What began as her daughter's experiment soon spread to friends and eventually the entire girls' soccer team. "It's an epidemic of Wonder Woman look-alikes spreading through the youth of our community!" This story illustrates the concept of "self-nudging"—making minimal modifications to your body language or mindset that produce small psychological improvements in the moment, which can eventually lead to significant changes over time. Unlike ambitious New Year's resolutions or dramatic life overhauls, self-nudges are tiny tweaks with low psychological and physical commitment, making them both accessible and sustainable. The effectiveness of self-nudging stems from several psychological principles. First, small changes bypass our resistance to change. When Rebecca's daughter struck a power pose before tests, she wasn't trying to transform her entire identity—she was just trying something that might help with one specific challenge. Second, self-nudges work through psychological shortcuts, activating automatic processes rather than requiring conscious effort. The physical act of expanding her body automatically triggered hormonal and neurological changes that reduced anxiety and increased confidence. Perhaps most importantly, self-nudges reverse the conventional wisdom about attitude and behavior. We typically assume our behaviors follow from our attitudes—we study hard because we value education, for example. But psychologists have demonstrated that causality often works in the opposite direction: our attitudes follow from our behaviors. By adopting the physical behaviors associated with confidence, we begin to feel more confident, which then reinforces those behaviors in a virtuous cycle. This principle explains why self-nudges tend to grow stronger over time. Harvard psychologist Alison Wood Brooks found that simply saying "I am excited" before anxiety-provoking performances significantly improved outcomes in public speaking, singing competitions, and math tests. As she explained, "The more you reframe your anxiety as excitement, the happier and more successful you may become." Each small success builds upon the previous one, gradually shifting your default response to challenges. Other effective self-nudges include wearing clothes that embody a desired role (research shows doctors' white coats improve attention and focus), visualizing your future self to make better financial decisions, and adopting upright posture to improve mood and memory. What unites these diverse approaches is their ability to create incremental change through minimal intervention—nudging rather than forcing yourself toward presence and authenticity.

Chapter 6: Cultural Contexts: Power Poses Across Boundaries

When Lora Park and her colleagues conducted a cross-cultural study comparing American and East Asian participants' responses to power posing, they discovered something fascinating. While both groups benefited from certain expansive postures like the hands-spread-on-desk pose, East Asian participants did not experience increased feelings of power when adopting the feet-on-desk, hands-behind-head pose that worked well for Americans. This cultural difference reflects deeper patterns in how power is expressed physically across societies. In many East Asian cultures, power is displayed vertically rather than horizontally. Status is communicated through choices about whether to sit or stand, how low to bow, or how high to raise a glass during a toast. As researcher Seinenu Thein observed in Myanmar, children are expected to keep their heads below those of elders—remaining seated on the floor until parents rise from bed and sitting on the floor when monks enter and take chairs. By contrast, Western expressions of power often involve horizontal expansion: spreading arms wide, gesturing broadly, or claiming physical territory by putting feet up on furniture. These cultural differences highlight an important principle: while the connection between expansive posture and feelings of power appears universal, the specific postures that read as appropriately powerful vary significantly across cultures. What communicates confidence in one context might signal rudeness or disrespect in another. This understanding is crucial for anyone working across cultural boundaries. Similar contextual sensitivity applies to gender. Research consistently shows that women use less expansive body language than men across cultures. This difference stems not from biological predisposition but from power differences and social expectations. Women who display traditionally masculine power poses often face backlash for violating gender norms—being perceived as aggressive rather than assertive, bossy rather than leaderlike. As one woman from Bangladesh wrote, "Women tend to make themselves smaller compared to men. I grew up in Bangladesh, and culturally we are not taught to feel powerful." Even within a single culture, context determines which expressions of power are effective. The expansive, dominant postures that might work well before a job interview would be inappropriate during the interview itself. Research shows that overtly dominant nonverbal displays during interactions often backfire, causing others to perceive the displayer as arrogant or threatening. This explains why power posing works best as preparation rather than performance—expanding in private before contracting appropriately in public. The digital context introduces additional considerations. Studies show that using smaller electronic devices (smartphones versus desktop computers) causes people to adopt more contracted postures, which then reduce assertiveness. This "iPosture" effect means that hours spent hunched over phones may be diminishing our sense of personal power without our awareness. As physiotherapist Steve August explains, "As the devices get smaller, not only does assertiveness decrease, but loading on the neck increases—in exactly the same proportions." Understanding these cultural and contextual nuances allows us to apply the science of body language with wisdom rather than rigidity—adapting our physical presence to honor both our internal needs and external social realities.

Chapter 7: Practical Applications: Posing for Everyday Challenges

Six-year-old Sage developed an intense fear after accidentally watching a horror movie. She became convinced her dolls would attack her while she slept, leading to nightly terrors that no amount of parental reassurance could quell. Her mother, C.G. Rawles, discovered power posing and decided to try it with her daughter. "Every day, I followed the advice, which was to tell my girls to find a power position and hold it for two minutes," Rawles explained. Sage became particularly fond of the Wonder Woman pose—hands on hips, feet shoulder-width apart, head held high. Before entering a room alone or being by herself, Sage would automatically assume this position. Sometimes she would raise her arms high like she'd just crossed a finish line in first place. Gradually, her anxiety diminished and her confidence returned. "She simply needed to tap into her inner Wonder Woman and assume a power pose," her mother observed. A year later, Sage had improved dramatically—though her mother noted with humor that "it helps, too, that the dolls are still locked in the closet." This charming story illustrates how power posing can be adapted for different ages and situations. Children, with their natural physical expressiveness, often take to power posing intuitively. Elementary school teachers report success using power poses to help students overcome anxiety before tests or presentations. One teacher even used power posing to help a fifth-grader with selective mutism—a childhood anxiety disorder that prevents speaking in certain social situations—begin answering questions in class. For adults, practical applications extend across professional and personal domains. Job seekers can prepare for interviews by power posing in private spaces like bathroom stalls or elevators. Public speakers can arrive early to presentation venues, expanding in the empty room to make the space feel like "home territory" before the audience arrives. Athletes can incorporate power posing into pre-competition routines—as the Kenyon College swimming team discovered when they began standing in the X pose before matches, leading to "mind-blowingly fast swims" and a stronger team connection. Even people with physical limitations can benefit. Christine, who works for a nonprofit organization helping individuals with disabilities, explained how she uses mental power posing: "My power poses are not actually done physically. No one sees them. No one knows I'm doing them—I'm imagining them." Research confirms this approach works—mental imagery activates many of the same brain regions as physical movement, and studies show that simply imagining yourself in a power pose can increase feelings of confidence and reduce social threat. For everyday presence, subtle adjustments to posture can make a significant difference. Sitting up straight, keeping shoulders back and chest open, breathing deeply, maintaining level eye contact, and keeping feet grounded all contribute to feelings of confidence and competence. Even small changes to workspace ergonomics help—positioning computer monitors at eye level to prevent hunching, taking regular walking breaks, or using standing desks when possible. The most powerful application may be in moments of failure or criticism. When we make mistakes—which we all inevitably do—our instinct is often to collapse inward physically. By consciously expanding in these moments instead, we can maintain presence even when challenged, transforming potential spirals of shame into opportunities for resilience and growth.

Summary

Throughout these chapters, we've witnessed a profound truth: our bodies don't just express our inner states—they create them. From Will finding unexpected confidence in an audition after power posing in a bathroom stall, to Kristin reclaiming her dignity through an expanded posture before confronting her harasser, to little Sage overcoming her fears by channeling Wonder Woman, we've seen how physical expansion leads to psychological expansion. This body-mind connection isn't mystical or metaphorical—it's grounded in measurable hormonal changes, nervous system responses, and cognitive shifts that occur when we adjust how we carry ourselves. The science reveals that presence isn't something we either have or lack—it's a capability we can systematically develop through practice. By adopting expansive postures before challenging situations, maintaining good posture during interactions, and being mindful of our body language throughout daily life, we gradually build our capacity to bring our authentic best selves to our biggest challenges. These practices work not by helping us fake confidence we don't feel, but by removing the physical patterns of powerlessness that prevent us from accessing the confidence that already exists within us. Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of this approach is its accessibility. Unlike many self-improvement strategies that require special resources or privileges, the power of posture is available to everyone. Whether you're preparing for a job interview in a bathroom stall, imagining yourself expanded when physical limitations prevent actual expansion, or teaching a child to stand like a superhero before facing a fear—these tools require nothing more than awareness and intention. As we incorporate these practices into our lives, we don't just transform individual moments; we gradually reshape our relationship with challenge itself, approaching life's difficulties not with dread but with presence, not with anxiety but with authenticity, not with regret but with the quiet confidence that comes from knowing we've brought our full selves to each moment that matters.

About Author

Loading...

Amy Cuddy

Read more