TEDTalks: Life Hack, Amy Cuddy

Amy Cuddy is a Social Psychologist who lectured a crowd about how body language impacts life. She brought up many good points and made me realize things I've never really noticed before. Her introduction to the audience was different. She asked everyone to look at themselves and realize if they're hunched down in their seats, sitting straight up, leaning, etc. She then informed people how these simple body stances meant something. It showed whether or not the person was confident, felt crowded, and so on. Then she went on to talk about the importance of body language. Amy showed a clip on her presentation that involved the President, Prime Minister and a guard standing near by. As the President was walking into the building the guard was guarding, he shook the guard's hand. Then it was the Prime Minister's turn and you could see him greeting the guard, but refused a handshake and turned to walk again. Even if it was unintentional, the Prime Minister came of snobby or too good for shaking the guard's hand. Something as small as that had an impact and resulted in gossip sites and shows talking about it for weeks.
Opening up was another important topic she touched on when it came to body language. Amy showed how animals and humans open up ourselves when we are feeling powerful, accomplished, prideful and happy. It gives off a certain energy that can be read by others and speaks volumes. She even pointed out that blind people who have never seen anybody use this power-position, use this, which was very interesting. That shows that is is human and animalistic nature. IN opposite, Amy Cuddy revealed how we make ourselves small when we are feeling low, powerless, defeated and so on. WE keep to ourselves and even hold ourselves as a result. This even happens in job interviews, which is the most relateable. But Amy brought up the line, "Fake it till you make it." She showed in an experiment how if you go into an interview with a power-position stance, you will feel better and more confident even if you originally weren't. Our non-verbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves and even cause an increase/decrease in testosterone and cortisol . After a few stores and slides, in the end, she gave the inspiring quote to "Fake it until you become it", leaving the audience in heavy applauds.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc