The Diary of a CEOThe Body Language Expert: 4 Body Language Tricks That Will Make People Love You & Respect You!
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,058 words- 0:00 – 2:09
Intro
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is body language really that important?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes. For example, when you change the posture of people who are depressed, it reduces their symptoms. Tiny tweaks lead to big changes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Dr. Amy Cuddy, expert on the behavioral science of power.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
A Harvard professor coined the term Power Pose... The second most watched TED Talk of all time. Our posture can affect some of the biggest moments of our lives. Your body language is betraying you. 50% of our first impression is based around body language, so the way that we carry ourselves really affects your life 'cause if people feel utterly powerless, they see challenges as threats instead of opportunities. They are less creative, less authentic. So that's my mission, to help people feel more powerful and become more socially brave. And there's all kinds of ways in which we can fix it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there a relationship there as well between our body language and attractiveness?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah. There's research showing that if you... That body language is more effective both in the workplace and in dating situations. How we tell our stories to ourselves matters.
- SBSteven Bartlett
W- as I read through your story, there was bullying in your life.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
It's the worst thing that ever happened to me. I had to leave my job after I'd worked so hard to get there.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I almost decided to die. Like, I'm so afraid of them still. Um...
- SBSteven Bartlett
I think this is fascinating. I looked at the back end of our YouTube channel, and it says that since this channel started, 69.9% of you that watch it frequently haven't yet hit the subscribe button. So, I have a favor to ask you. If you've ever watched this channel and enjoyed the content, if you're enjoying this episode right now, please, could I ask a small favor? Please hit the subscribe button. It helps this channel more than I can explain. And I promise, if you do that, to return the favor, we will make this show better, and better, and better, and better, and better. That's a promise I'm willing to make you if you hit the subscribe button. Do we have a deal? Amy,
- 2:09 – 6:33
Is body language important?
- SBSteven Bartlett
there's lots of, um, myths around body language and how important it is, and y- you hear all these phrases about, "Oh, 80% of our-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yup.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... communication is non-verbal, or 90%. I can't remember the numbers, but you hear all of this stuff. Is body language really that important?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes. It, it, it is important, absolutely. And, and it, it is, it probably affects, uh, about, about half of our impression of others. Our first impression is based around body language. I'm not go- maybe it's higher than that, but I would say it's at least 50%. Body language isn't just y- us speaking to others. We're also speaking to ourselves. The way that we carry ourselves is sending messages back to our, our brain about whether we're, um, safe or unsafe. Are, are we threatened or not threatened? Are we, you know, confident or not confident? And so...
- SBSteven Bartlett
How do we know that?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Well, the, the sort of earliest studies looking at this idea about, um, body-mind feedback were focused on facial expressions. And so, we know that there are some mostly universal expressions of emotion that are facial. And when I say mostly, there is some debate about, um, uh, you know, whether they're entirely universal to every single culture and exactly which emotions they are. But you have things like happiness and smiling, sadness and crying, um, you know, widened eyes and surprise. Those things are universal, uh, regardless of where you grew up and what you were exposed to. So if they're universal, that indicates that they are hardwired, that we're born with some association in our brains. So if they're hardwired, can you reverse the direction of that wiring? Can you, can you tell people to smile, and will it make them happier? And so the facial-feedback studies showed that yes, indeed, you can, uh, that you... You know, and the first ones were, were, uh, smiling and, and mood. Uh, so, you know, they had people, some people hold a pencil between their teeth in a way that made them smile, and others hold a pencil between their teeth in a way that didn't make them smile. The people who were in this forced smile, which did cause the, the contraction of the muscles around the eyes, which, which is a, a real smile, even though it was a fake smile-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... uh, it's not just your mouth, it's your mouth and your eyes ... they were in a better mood. Their mood lifted. They liked the experimenter better. They liked anything put in front of them better. They felt happier than the people who were not in this forced smile. It was then expanded to look at some of these other universal facial expressions, like crying and sadness, and then, uh, people started to look at things like movement, posture. I would say the earliest work really was on breathing. Um, brea- when, you know, when we get anxious, we breathe quickly and shallowly. And if you think about... And I don't, I'm not sure that you ever had this experience, but if, you know, you were called on in class, say, in high school, and you weren't prepared, or you had... The first time you had to give a speech in front of class, you know, a lot of students speak very quickly, and sh- you can t- tell that their, their breathing is shallow, and they're, they're, they're breathing quickly. That's, that's a fight-or-flight response. And so, you, uh, can you turn that around? Um, and, and so the, the people who started studying this called this the relaxation response, where they got people to change their breathing. And I'm gonna... I'm oversimplifying this, but in essence, you're breathing more slowly and deeply, and that triggers a nervous system response that makes people feel much more relaxed and more confident and safe.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which impacts performance of their speech, whatever they're doing.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes. Or the context in which it was first studied was medicine, and...... trying to get patients to feel calmer before stressful procedures. Um, Herb Benson at Harvard Medical School did some of that early work, I think, you know, going back to the '60s and '70s. Uh, so, you know, that was, uh, but it wasn't sort of linked quite to psychology because it was coming from medicine.
- 6:33 – 8:50
Your posture can affect how you feel!
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
When you have a person who is suffering from major depressive disorder, uh, open up, open their posture just for a couple of minutes, and then have them fill out a depression scale afterwards, they are less depressed. When you treat people with PTSD, um, w- by teaching them, you know, yoga poses that open them up, it, it reduces their PTSD symptoms. So, you, you know, th- this is coming from all different fields of study, not just from, uh, social psychology.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So there's-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... there's a clear two-way relationship between my posture and how I'm feeling-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and then also how I'm feeling in my posture-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... which communicates outwardly to the world about who I am and-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Exactly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... all those things. I don't know if you know the answer to this question, but I- it made me wonder as you- as you were s- talking. Do you know how old language is? I actually don't know the answer to that, but-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I don't, I don't know.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Jack, how old is language?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
It's between 150 to 200,000 years old.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And how old are humans? (laughs)
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
200,000 years. Okay. So we have- It's in the 50,000 years. ... about 50,000 years of people not having sophisticated language and having to read each other's body language, which a lot of non-human animals are doing all the time. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, exactly.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I mean-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... you know, it's, it's, it's funny. We, we have these w- squirrels in our front yard, um, a- and they're really active and there are all kinds of body language s- signals, but also these different kinds of chirps that they make. And of course, I was curious, I looked this up, you know, is, are they, do these different chirps mean different things? Like, bir- certain bird calls really clearly mean certain things. And the ethologists, the animal behavior specialists, say that in, with squirrels, they don't mean specific things, but it's, it's still, it's, it's a body language sen- signal. So even, that, it's, it's not formal language, but, but they, they still get the sense that there's something threatening happening or not.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Or, you know, sometimes it's mating related. But they're not as specific as bird calls, which are closer to our language than, say, these
- 8:50 – 14:59
Your famous TED Talk
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
squirrel chirps.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When you did that TED Talk some 10 years ago, I, I think, uh, from what I read, it became the most viewed TED Talk of all time in its moment.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
It's the, it became second most viewed, um, and it has remained there for a long time. So it, it was never, it was never the most viewed, but it certainly went viral quickly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
W- why? Why do you think people-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Um...
- SBSteven Bartlett
... care so much about this subject matter?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
It's funny because, you know, it, it still gets 5,000 or 10,000 views a day, and it, that's, it's 10 years old. And I still get 10 emails a day from strangers who've just seen it for the first time, thanking me, saying they felt that I was speaking to them. And so there must be something timeless about it that I, that I didn't know I was tapping into, but I think there was some universal truth that resonated across people, across cultures. And a lot of it was about feeling like an imposter. I mean, the, the, you know, I talked about imposter syndrome an- and the feeling like you don't belong there. And it turns out almost everyone has this imposter experience. And in fact, the woman who eve- who originally studied p- imposter syndrome says she wishes she had called it the imposter experience because syndrome indicates that it's pathological, and it's not. It's ju- it's so common. So what I found, you know, I'd, I was getting emails from first generation, you know, um, um, uh, Black college students. I was getting emails from white males, literally Swiss bankers, all of these different people, retired people, um, uh, w- 12-year-old kids, who felt that they didn't belong there. What I think resonated was, first, it's okay. W- you're not the only one who feels that way, it's normal, but also there are some things that you can do to, to, to get out of feeling that way. And so it very much is about, to me, um, people feeling understood. I feel like it's when you, you know, you love a song, it speaks to you, it, it, it evokes a certain emotional response because something about that song mak- makes you feel connected. And I think something about the talk did the same thing. It made people feel understood, um, and not alone in their feelings of powerlessness and not belonging.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it gave them a blueprint as such to, to be more... to feel more powerful.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes. And something that was, you know, didn't require technology, that didn't really require much of anything, um, to, to change the way they felt. Yes. And-
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is, what is that blueprint?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I f- feel like there's t- we know so much more now than we knew then. Then, we, we were having people adopt these expansive, you know, what we call power poses for a couple of minutes and looking at how it changed the way they felt. Um-... you know, standing with their hands on their hips, for example, or in the victory pose with their arms up as if they had just crossed the finish line and won, you know, Usain Bolt, for example. And it changed the way they felt. So, that was the blueprint, was, was before you go into this stressful situation, you know, find a private space. It's funny, I said a bathroom stall. I had not scripted that. That's just what came out. And so (laughs) many people say, "I stood in a bathroom stall-"
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... "and, um, power posed before the job interview or before pitching an idea or something like that. Uh, and, and it changed the way I felt." And so that was the blueprint, but I, I feel like the idea of being expansive is so much more expansive than that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Um, it's, it's the way we walk. It's taking longer strides, um, swinging our arms more. It's, uh, it's talking more slowly. It is, you know, which is taking up temporal space. It's that breathing, breathing more deeply and more slowly. It's all... There are all kinds of ways in which we can expand that will change our feeling of agency, of power. Not power over others, but power over ourselves, or power to.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
And when that happens, it activates what psychologists call the behavioral approach system, and the approach system causes us to see challenges not as threats, but as opportunities. It causes us to see other people not as potential predators or competitors, but as possible allies and friends. It makes us more creative because we're not feeling cognitively limited. We have more of an abundance mindset than a scarcity mindset. We don't feel as defensive. We're more able to trust. And I think maybe most important, we're more likely to act. So, when we feel powerful, we are more likely to take action, not just on behalf of ourselves, but also on behalf of others. So, when you look at research on, say, bystander intervention, you know, when do people step in and help in emergencies, one of the best predictors is personal... feeling personally powerful. When people feel personally powerful, they step in and help. They go, "Hey, something's (laughs) wrong." They don't second-guess themselves and think, "Well, maybe I'm not the right person to help." They just do it. They step in and help. So, you know, it- it- it has, it has so... B- that feeling of power is linked to so many other, uh, feelings and, and sort of m- aspects of our mindset that change how we approach life, so as we expand and step forward, the world expands.
- 14:59 – 18:35
How to know if we’re holding ourselves properly
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm. So many people listening to this now will be unaware that they've been going through their lives signaling to themselves and to others a sense of their own powerlessness.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, which is one of the first things that I- I was thinking about when I ha- was reading through your work and watching the videos, was that most people don't even know... These are all unknown unknowns. So, they're feeling a certain way, they're showing up in a certain way, they're on stage hiding behind the lectern in a certain way-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and they have no idea the, the profundity of that signal that they're sending to themselves and others.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is... How do I know that I'm signaling that to myself and to others? What are the signs?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I thi- I ask people to do a kind of audit of their body, of, of how they're holding themselves. And it's funny, when I, when I'm giving a talk and speaking to a big group of people and I say, you know, "Now check your posture," I can hear everyone immediately moving in their chairs.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
You know, even if the lights are low. But I say, "No, don't move yet. Check your posture." Because what you think... You think that when you're not the one performing, it... your body language doesn't matter because you... Again, we're think- we think of body language as just one direction, what we're saying to others, but our body language is always speaking to us as well. So, I ask them to think a- to, to pay attention to what is their default even just seated position. Are they holding their shoulders up and forward, collapsing their chest? Are they wrapping their hands or arms around their torso, or opposite torso?
- SBSteven Bartlett
What are the hallmarks of powerlessness? So, like, what's the...
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
It really is, you know, your, your limbs are pulled in. Your shoulders are pull- pulled forward. Your chest is collapsed. Um, legs might be crossed and ankles wrapped. I think the wrapping of the ankles matters more than the crossing of the legs. If you watch sports and watch what's happening, what- what- what is the winning team doing versus the losing team, y- you really see it. I mean, you see, you know, these big basketball players who are holding their heads in their hands, and you know, uh, leaning forward, and, and they, they look absolutely defeated, um, even though they're- th- they're just as physically strong as they were five minutes earlier when things were going well. So, watching the body language of, like, athletes, for example, and then paying attention to what you're doing yourself, I think helps us to become much more aware of how we're carrying ourselves. But you can do little things, like just when you get up in the morning, you know, if you wake up all curled up in the fetal position, which is the most common sleeping position, 40% of people sleep in the fetal position, and we know that when people wake up in the fetal position, um, they are more anxious than people who don't. That is obviously correlational. We don't know the- the causal direction, because it might be that you're anxious and that's why you're sleeping in the fetal position. Nonetheless, say you wake up in the fetal position, stretch out, you know, into a starfish pose, you know? Be Usain Bolt, uh, in bed-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... before you put your feet on the gr- on the ground. One of my research assistants said that he would, uh, hold one of his hands on his hip while he brushed his teeth. Like, little things that... like that, that sort of...... forced him to spend a little bit of time expanding really helped. And I hear so many stories like this, people rearrange their desks so that they have to stretch out a bit more when they're working instead of, you know, working like
- 18:35 – 21:47
What to do if one has low self-esteem
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
this over their phone. You know, how are you sitting in your car? Are you, you know, really close to the steering wheel and kind of collapsed, or more open? Little things like that can really change the way you feel. So, I think it starts with just noticing how we carry ourselves-
- SBSteven Bartlett
So interesting.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... how we carry ourselves physically, how we speak, how we breathe.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's so interesting, 'cause I've got a, uh, a, a guy friend of mine who is, um, s- would s- be the first to say that he's very low self-esteem. He's very disparaging of himself, so when he walks into a room, he'll, m- f- insult himself. So he'll say, "Sorry, I smell," or s- sorry, he'll apologize for himself. Take up very little room, sit on the floor, um, all the time, and all of these things which, um, (clicks tongue) we, we, we've always kind of noticed it, but when you say all of these, these things about people con- contracting when they're ... they feel powerless and taking up less space, and being sort of self-disparaging, I've always looked at that behavior in him and thought, "I don't, I don't ... it's something deeper. I don't know th- I don't know what we can do to, or he can do to help himself." What would you say to someone like that who's ... feels like a cr- uh, you know ...
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I mean, uh, like I was saying, if you look at the clinical studies, the research is pretty clear that, that, you know, sort of body-mind feedback ha- uh, has significant benefits to people who are feeling ... I- 'c- 'cause that sounds like sort of un- unusually low self-esteem, right? I would say that's several standard deviations below the mean, if, if that's how he carries himself and speaks about himself that consistently.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wraps the legs.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah, so-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Everything you described was ... I just saw him.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I would say, uh, you know, a- a- and again, I'm not a clinical psychologist-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... but if you look at the clinical psychology literature, it very clearly shows that if you get people to change the way they carry themselves, they feel better, they feel different. Um, I th- you know, I, I think, to me, some of the most compelling work is the work on combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder who feel utterly broken, and often feel that they, their bodies betrayed them, and, you know, are living at home, are unable to keep a job or, uh, you know, keep a relationship going. And the research, uh, you know, there are researchers who have worked with them and taught them these, you know, expansive yoga poses and the effects are dramatic. It, it just makes ... th- it restores their sense of personal power, their sense of agency. And, you know, these are self-reports. I mean, the, uh, the ... when I s- talk about the behaviors, they're self-reports, but the researcher who did a lot of these studies, Emma, Emma Seppala who's at Yale, says that ch- she would hear from these people a year later saying, "I no longer live at home. I have a job. I'm so much happier. I'm dating," and it's because of this.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because just of the expansive yoga poses?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Y- yeah. Breathing, the expansive breathing, expansive yoga poses, but getting into the practice of doing that changes their lives.
- 21:47 – 24:31
Why your self-story really matters
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
You know, I feel strongly that g- encouraging people to open up, even if it's when they're alone. Y- you know, because sometimes people close up in social situations 'cause they have, you know, complex PTSD. They have experienced trauma and they've ... or they been assaulted, they've been harassed, um, and they feel that they're protecting themselves. So, I think you start at home alone. You start in pri- the privacy of your own home where you don't feel threatened, um, and then maybe you build it into these more social situations. So instead of worrying about the impression you're making on others, you think about the impression you're making on yourself first. That's what matters. How we tell our stories to ourselves matters.
- SBSteven Bartlett
100% agree. I've been really compelled by this idea of what I've, I've been calling the self story, which is kind of what you're describing there, which is, um, we all have this kind of story about who we are and how valuable we are and what we're good at and what we're capable of that governs our lives.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it's written in every small thing we do. Uh, I sat here with, um ... it's a bit of a different example, but I sat here with a championship boxer and he was telling me that when he's on the treadmill at home, it's a very different example, but y- when he's on the treadmill at home, if he's told himself he's gonna do seven miles and he gets to six and a half miles and gets cramp in his leg, he will limp the remaining half a mile because he doesn't wanna, want to let, in his own words, the demons in. And what he, what he's really saying there is this idea that, "Even though I'm alone and I'm ... no one's gonna know or see, I'm gonna know and I'm gonna-"
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
"... write into my self story just a new paragraph about who I am when things get tough."
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And that- and I've, I've thought so much about this because, um, lying kind of links to this in many ways, because lying is this kind of decay of trust, but also lying to yourself, so like making a commitment to yourself that-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I'm gonna do something, and continually breaking the commitment to yourself, even if nobody knows, I think is just so detrimental to our, our perception of ourselves. Like it's a downward spiral of the perception of ourselves.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Absolutely. Uh, I, I, I ... you know, we, we, we own our narratives and i- uh, you know, there's research even on looking at older people, um, and physical health outcomes, I mean, mortality. And, and the researchers found that older people who had more positive personal narratives about how they got to where they are in life lived significantly longer than people who had these negative narratives. Even if they had the same job, the same kind of sort of ... on the surface, they looked the same. They controlled for all of those differences and still found that these, that older people with these more positive, uh-... personal narratives live longer. Again, that's correlational, but, uh,
- 24:31 – 29:27
Why body language helps you to be more authentic
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
it's, you know, it's powerful, and one of the things that happens when people feel powerless is, uh, that they are less able to be authentic, right? So when they, when they present themselves, say they are in a job interview, they don't come across as authentic as somebody who feels more powerful. And what's interesting is that the body language associated with sort of l- lower authenticity is sort of on the same spectrum with the body language that's associated with outright deception, right? So when people are lying to somebody else, I mean, knowingly lying, the body language that matters the most is not eye contact. That's what people focus... Th- they think eye contact is the most important signal. It's not, because people learn very different things in different households and cultures, personality differences that change how people choose to make eye contact in different situations. What matters is the asynchrony between the emotions conveyed with the words and the emotions conveyed with the body language. So if you're telling a happy story, but you do not look hap- your body language doesn't look happy, you know, you don't come across as authentic.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Um, if you think about, you know, being a kid and maybe you lied to get out of going to school and you told your parents that you were sick and you really weren't, you're telling a story that's not true that's, you know, supposed to be sad, so you're trying to get the, the emotions right with your words, but your body language is probably betraying you, um, y- you know, because you're actually excited that you're gonna sit at home on the couch and eat chips and watch reruns, right? I know r- rerun is probably a word that nobody uses anymore, but TV, um, uh, YouTube, TikTok, whatever.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
So th- that, that, those asynchronies are the same as the asynchronies that you see when people aren't able to be authentic. And of course, in those cases, that's not... The, the intention is not bad. They're not, in any way, trying to lie to, to the other person. In a way, they're kind of lying to themselves, um, and then that spills over into not being able to show an honest expression of themselves to the other.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
And people... And, and the funny thing is that people don't... can't quite articulate... And so if you're an interviewer, say, in that situation, it's very hard to articulate what was off, but they know something was off, and they'll say the person didn't seem authentic. But they're not gonna say, "Oh, well, their words didn't match their body language."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, they wouldn't either.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
No, because the, you- e- we... You know, when people are lying, they can choreograph, they can script the words, but it's very hard to choreograph all of the body language to go along with it. It takes up too much cognitive bandwidth.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
So... But it, it does come across to other people. I think one of the fun places to watch th- for this is on Shark Tank, um, is to, to watch the, the sort of, the body language of these people pitching, and sometimes you'll have people who come across at first as, like, super confident, but the... Something about the way they tell their story does not match their body language, and, and the sharks feel that. You see them, you see them almost cringe. There's something off, and they don't get the money. And then you might have somebody who is, you know, h- e- let's say, uh, doesn't have a business school education, uh, doesn't have as much experience, but really believes in what they're doing and, and knows what they're doing, you know?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I'm, I'm not saying that you can be incompetent. You have to, uh, be at a certain level of confidence. But they're able to convey their authentic conviction and passion about this project, about what they're doing, and the sharks warm toward them. You see them lean in toward those people, and those people are more likely to be... To, to, to, to, to find investors. And the thing is those, those signals aren't just short-term signals. Those people are also more likely to stick with it, to inspire other people, to, uh, to be promoted, to, to be successful in the long run. It's a real signal that you're picking up on that you just can't fake, um, and it really starts with how you tell your story to yourself.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there a relationship there as well between our body language and our attractiveness, i.e., does my... Is there a certain body language that's associated with me being attractive? If I'm single and I'm like, you know, "I wanna, I wanna increase my chances of finding a mate."
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah, it's... Well, it's interesting 'cause, you know, people, I think, there
- 29:27 – 35:56
How body language affects what people think of you
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
was skepticism about whether women would be punished for, uh, um, using more dominant body language, and... Which I thought was kind of sad 'cause it just reinforces the stereotype, but, but there's recent research showing that, first of all, they're not. They're, they're not. And I'm not talking about super alpha body language. I'm talking about body language that's confident and warm, right? That, that, that shows, "I feel good about myself and I want to be here and I'm interested in you." That body language is, is more s- more effective both in the workplace and in dating situations. So people... Eh, there, there was a study that looked at dating profile pictures on dating apps, and both men and women with more open body language, more confident body language, were seen as more attractive. So I, I thought that was... Th- that, that was very reassuring and also suggested to me that we're making some progress-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... if that was true for, for, for, you know, across genders.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's so interesting.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
So, yeah, people want to be with somebody who is confident, but not arrogant-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... who is comfortable in their skin, and your body language conveys that. Even in a still picture, it conveys that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wow. If I am the type of person that is ... feels powerless inside of myself, I'm suffering with a variety of, for a variety of different reasons. Um, I know, I know that there's, as you've described, there's- there's things that I can do to tell a different story to myself per- publicly and privately. Is this, is this a form of practice that one has to do? Is this like a-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... is there a sys- like a, like I go to the gym, and I (stretches) .
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Some of my favorite work in social psychology is on what's called s- self-affirmation theory. When people think of self-affirmation, they think of someone looking in a mirror saying, "I'm awesome. I'm, you know, I'm the best. I'm gonna win. I'm a winner." (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
We kinda know that when we feel bad about ourselves, saying "I'm great" doesn't help because now we just feel like we're lying to ourselves, so we feel bad already, and now we're like, "Well, I feel bad, and I'm a liar."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Self-deception, right?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes, exactly. So, so self-affirmation is not that. Self-affirmation is this. What- what these experiments, and there are hundreds of experiments now on self-affirmation, they have people list the top two or three values or qualities that make them who they are. Like, if I took that value or quality away from you, you would say, "I'm just no longer myself," like, "You are just taking a- a piece of me away." They then have them kind of rank them, and then take the top one and write a couple of paragraphs, one paragraph about, um, you know, a time when they expressed it, and another maybe about how it felt to express it. That is it. That's the exercise. They then have them do- do difficult things, like take a difficult math test, for example, or, uh, do a debate, uh, you know, do, uh, be- in a debate competition or- or, um, you know, whatever. It's something challenging that's unrelated, right? So, if, say I said, um, "I value music." You know, "I- I- if- if- if you took the experience of- of music away from me, I just would not feel like myself," and then I- I did a math test, I would do better on the math test after doing that self-affirmation exercise, uh, likely, I would be likely to. On average, people perform better. They also even show decreases in levels of stress hormones like epinephrine. So, the idea is that you're anchoring yourself in who you are, and what you're doing is reminding yourself that no matter what happens on that math test, you're still gonna be that person when you walk out. And so, it ... that math test becomes less important, which ironically or paradoxically makes you do better (laughs) on it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interesting.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
And so I think that's a really good start is to just spend time, you know, kind of journaling about who are you, what do you value, but really, what are those qualities that make you who you are? To you, not to others, not how would others describe you, what moves you? Like, what really moves you?
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's so interesting. I've never heard that before 'cause a lot of the time, you kinda have- have the two camps, where one camp, it says, "Look in the mirror and tell yourself a bunch of lies," and there's a whole industry (laughs) -
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Right. Yeah, I know where they are.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... about lying to yourself in the mirror- mirror.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Don't like it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, and then there's the other camp, which is maybe, uh ... I don't know if this is the other camp necessarily, but it's probably the school of thought I've always lived in, which is you need to go and build evidence somehow, new evidence about yourself-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... 'cause you're, like, counteracting the evidence that- the limiting evidence or the limiting beliefs that are standing in your way, um-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah, it's like self-perception theory, right,-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is that what it's called?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... y- if- if you see yourself doing it, you- you become it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, and that's just a reflection on the thi- areas in my life where I was, like, very low confidence, and how I got from that place to being higher confidence-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... came from st- st- straying outside of my comfort zone and going and doing the thing more, um, building evidence that I wasn't gonna die.
- 35:56 – 43:32
How to nudge yourself in the direction you want to get to
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, just to- just to- just to close off that point about ... 'cause I feel like there's gonna be people listening right now, um, that identify with feeling powerless in their everyday lives, in their working lives and relationships. They, uh, they can spot all the symptoms you described of that sort of, like, contracted posture. The self-affirmation piece, loved it. Never heard that before. Um, what else to get me out of that situation? And I'm thinking in terms of things that I can, like, either practice or, you kn- how do I get from there to there?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Well, it's funny because I- I talk a lot about...... how tiny tweaks lead, lead to big changes. And I, I called, you know, there, there was a whole sort of nudge movement, like how do you change people's behavior through these little nudges? And I, I talk about self-nudging. Y- I'm not a, I'm not a big believer in New Year's resolutions because they're too, they're grandiose, they require a million steps. You're gonna fail somewhere along the way and then quit. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I believe in just doing a little bit better the next time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
So, the next time you go in to, uh, uh, give a talk, for example, to anyone, to, to, if somebody's afraid of public speaking but has to, to do, to lead team meetings, for example, I want you to focus on changing one thing. Maybe it's your breathing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(inhales deeply)
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
You breathe more slowly and deeply. Maybe you make sure that you're not wrapping your hands around your body by holding a bottle of water or a, a slide advancer, something, something that forces you to keep your hands away from your body. Each time, you get a little bit better and eventually you find that you're there. And my advisor, my grad school advisor, Susan Fiske, who I just adore, taught me that, because I almost quit grad school the night before my first year talk, which is where you present the first year of research you've done, just to the people in your department. I was so scared that I called her and I said, "I'm, I can't do this. I'm gonna quit." And she said, "You're not quitting." She said, "You're going to do it, and even if it doesn't go perfectly, which it won't, you will have done it and learned something and gotten a little better, and each time it's gonna get better." She said, "And I want you to give every talk you're asked to give. Take every opportunity that you're, that, that's given to you to improve, and eventually you won't notice th- the moment when, you know, you suddenly you've gotten there. You'll just look back and go, 'Oh my gosh, I'm here. How did I get here?' Through these tiny nudges." So, go easy on yourself. Focus on only one change in that next challenge. Focus on the situations that you approach with dread, that you execute with anxiety and distraction, and that you tend to leave with a sense of regret. M- each, those challenges vary for different, across people. You know, for some people it's public speaking. For some people it's giving negative feedback. For some people it's, um, having a difficult discussion with a family member. Whatever that challenge is for you, I want you to do, change one little thing each time you go into it so that you can, in the end, approach it with confidence, execute with this calm confidence, and leave it with a sense of satisfaction that you showed up, that you did what you could do. Lot of things that you can't control, but it's much easier to accept a negative outcome if you controlled the things you could.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Right? If you know, how often do people walk away from those situations and go, "Oh, I feel like they didn't see who I am"? You wanna walk away and say, "They saw who I am, and now they get to make the decision, and I can't control whether they, you know, how, how they eval- evaluate me beyond this. I did, I did my best." That's where you wanna get to.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I always think of, um, confidence and self-esteem, and now powerlessness or powerfulness-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... the feeling of it, as an upward or a downward spiral that we're all kind of on, like a self-reinforcing upward or downward spiral, if you, if that kind of makes sense.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I think it is.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So if I, just to kind of, I think that, say something I'm confident at, public speaking on stage for example, I will show up better, which means I'm likely to get a better reaction, I'm likely to feel better after, which means next time I show up better, which means, and the spiral goes up.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Exactly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Or conversely, it can go the opposite way, downwards. And the people that are on that downwards... So there's many area- areas of my life that I think I'm on an upward spiral. I'm like, I'm building positive evidence, and it's all going well-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and everyone's gla- And then there's some a- areas of my life that I might be on a downward spiral. Um, I, I know, I've got some good friends that I think are so far down that downward spiral that even telling them what your lovely professor, or she was a...
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
My advi- my, yeah, she was a professor. My, my graduate school advisor.
- SBSteven Bartlett
They're so far down at the bottom of that spiral that they would have quit.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
A lot of people are living in a state of survival, which I actually think of like self-preservation or defense.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes. Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
They're like, "Just remove all chance of threat from my life." And in that situation, you never do get to go upwards on that spiral.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
No.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh God, I just, so many people are at the bottom of that spiral in their lives.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I know, and-
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I don't know what to do about it.
- 43:32 – 47:40
How do we become better speakers?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
never lived through something like this."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Earlier when we were talking about the things that make you feel powerless in your body language and the way you conduct yourselves and all these things, the things that make someone look and feel powerful, um, I imagine, is the opposite in many respects. But specifically, if I, if I want to, and I wanna... because I really want to leave people with actionable things that they can c- they can do in their lives. If I want to, um, become a better speaker, pre- present myself better, show up better for my employees, um, or be a better podcast host, and I think about this. People... I've never said his before. Peop- I spend so long thinking about how I'm sitting when I'm speaking to someone.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Really?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. C- 'cause, 'cause when I'm not thinking, I might, like, fall into a certain posture. I was-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I've even been thinking about these bloody arms on this chair. Sometimes I'm like this, and this is my favorite p- situation to be in, so, like, my body's open.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then sometimes, I go like this, and sometimes I, I crunch over into a ball and stuff.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And when I'm having these kind of conversations with people, I w- I think that the best approach to take is to be open with my body language.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then hopefully they'll open up with me.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
That's exactly right. So, I, I think y- to, to really simplify it, and again, as I said, I don't love, like, choreographing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Sure.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
But the body language that is, I think, the, the most, uh, effective is to be open, to be kind of leaning forward, you know, palms up, not wrapping yourself up. Not the whole time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
But what, what you wanna be showing is, "I'm comfortable, I'm relaxed with you, I'm interested in you."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
And so, I think that's the, that's the posture that you wanna take on. And people will mirror that. One thing that people... In general, people mirror each other's body language, right? That's a way that we sync up. But there's one exception, and that's when there's a power differential, so if a powerful person is interacting with somebody that's cl- clearly less powerful, the powerful person tends to become more dominant in their b- body language and the powerless person becomes more powerless, and we call that complementarity. So, I think it's very important for people in leadership positions to be aware that when one of their, you know, employees comes to talk to them, they're probably a little nervous, and to be very mindful of their body language, because you don't, you don't want them to shut down. You want them to feel comfortable and tell you what's going on-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... share their interest or their problem or their challenge.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Penguin arms. I never heard that, um-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... expression until chapter nine of your book. What's penguin arms?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
It's when people, people don't know what to do with their ha- a lot of people don't know what to do with their hands when they're speaking.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
And so they kind of, like, pin... they pin their wrists to their, like, ar- around their hips and their hands kind of stick out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, okay. Got you. Okay.
- 47:40 – 50:06
Is eye contact important?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
- SBSteven Bartlett
There's this, there's this interesting thing that happens to me once in a while where I'll be speaking to someone, and it's usually someone... I gotta be honest, right? So it's usually someone where there's a lot I think about them but I haven't told 'em, and I find it hard to hold eye contact with them. And I notice this about myself. There's certain people in my life where there's, like, unaddressed things that I haven't fully spoken about, and when I speak to them, I tend to not look at them and I tend to just, like, be looking away or looking down and I, I will occasionally glance over and look at them. But this broader point about eye contact then, when you mentioned it briefly earlier on, what significance does it have in w- our communications and...? 'Cause I, I, I find it the hardest thing. I can kind of... I think I can feign the body language. Da-da!
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
W- I wish could make that... I, I, I can't give you a simple answer, and I... be- because there are so many cultural differences-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, really?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... in, in... when you make eye contact. So, kids learn such different rules about making eye contact, um-... you know, a lot of kids are taught you don't make eye contact with an authority figure. Right? So, and then they're seen as lying, because they're m- not making eye contact.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Ah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
You know, um, but, but the, but seen as rude to make eye contact. I mean, you know, in a lot of East Asian cultures, eye contact, you, you, you don't hold eye contact for as long. It's seen as very aggressive. Um, in the US, you can hold eye contact for quite a while before people feel uncomfortable.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
But it's, uh, you know, it, it, so yeah, it's ve- it ... I think it's one of the more culturally constrained expressions.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about in primates? I, I mean, I've, I've watched all these primate documentaries, and it's often the case that when primates kinda look at each other for too long, it can ... It's often-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Aggressive.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... associ- aggressive, yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah. I, I, I don't, I, and ag- I, I-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... would have to defer to somebody like Bob Sapolsky on that one, but I think, um, I, I, I think that in non-human primates, it, you know, great apes, it is, it is a sign of aggression. It is like, "Bring it on."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. And in certain contexts, y- yeah, again, it's so contextual and cultural, 'cause I, as we were saying before we started recording, in the US, if someone stares at me in a lift, I would imagine that they're about to say hello, whereas in, I don't know, a rough part of the UK, I, if someone stares at me, I would check where my wallet and my keys are and assume that we had a, there was gonna be a problem.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So. Hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there, and there are
- 50:06 – 55:59
Is it possible to learn to read people's body language?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
differences, cultural differences within the US too, you know?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is it possible to learn how to read people better in terms of their body language? Is that also something you can practice?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Oh, for sure. I just think there's some really great books. Like, I, I love Joe Navaro's work. He's a former FBI agent. He has a lot of images. He really c- he's not a researcher, but grounds in the research and has a lot of personal experience. The book that I love is, is What Every Body is Saying, um, by Joe Navaro, so I would recommend that as a great way to start. I think there are some that are sort of like more like how to pick up women. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
And I don't like those.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
This is just really understanding people and what's happening in an interaction.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm gonna confess that when I was 18, I read one such book about pickup artistry and, um, it actually, it actually was very useful.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I've had this conversation-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... with my husband. It's so funny. And-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... it's like the one thing he's like, "I did read that."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, yeah, so it was, it was useful, f- 'cause I love psychology. I studied psychology at, in, in school as well, and, um, I chose that for one of my A- A levels, and it was useful from that perspective. I've, I mean, 'cause probably why I do this now. I was so compelled to understand why humans do what they do that I read this book, which I didn't intend to buy, I'm gonna be honest. Okay, I've told the truth the whole time, so believe me when I say I didn't int- intend to buy this book about pickup artistry. My older brother ordered it for home in the southwest of the UK when he'd gone ... He put the wrong address in when he was at university. So it came home and he goes, "Oh, just keep it." So I open it and I opened it on my bedroom floor and I did not move until I'd finished the entire book. The first book where, from the first page till the last, I didn't move, and it fascinated me because it was just, it was like someone turned the lights on to this whole other language-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that I'd been communicating my whole life without knowing. Some o- one of the really, things I always talk about with my friends is this idea of pecking, which is this kind of invasion of personal space that happens when you're, when you meet someone you're attracted to.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The music's loud. You lean into their personal space. "Ra ra ra ra ra ra ra."
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Gosh, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And how that signals like low value. Then they lean out, um, but all those things, I found-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Oh, geez. I am-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... the worst. I, if I'm in a restaurant and I see it, a first date-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... it is-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh my god.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... it can be so ... I want to slip a napkin to the woman sometimes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
It c- and like, like the guy will get up-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- 55:59 – 1:04:17
Can we fake good body language?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
like... Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I guess the, I guess the last piece is about being able to fake body language. Can people do that? Can we fake it?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I mean, you can try. I-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is it effective?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I d- I... Usually not. It, it... Be- because you get those asynchronies, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
So it's too much. Think a- think about all of the non-verbal chal- ch- channels. You've got vocal cue. They call them para-linguistic cues, like tone of voice, range of voice, how quickly or slowly you speak. You've got y- your, your fingers, your hands, your arms, your-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Thousands of them.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
There's too much-
- SBSteven Bartlett
To fake.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... to do, to fake it, for, you know, uh, uh, and, and to make it consistent with what you're saying. Probably, you know, the greatest actors can pretty well. But n- I mean, to me, it's ju- uh, it's, it's so likely to fail that it's not even worth trying, and I, I don't think it's honest.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I... Super interesting for me because between the age of, I'm gonna say, 14, and let's go for 21, I was... In my view, I think I was kind of rejected by every, um, woman that I pursued. And I think I was inherently low value and didn't realize it. So when I read these books about pick-up artistry and all this stuff, I read all this work, I tried to do what the book said, and it was unsuccessful. Like fundamentally unsuccessful. My life changed when I actually changed-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... like, when my actual opinion of myself-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Exactly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... changed. And I s- I was saying this to my friend the other day who's, who's going through a bit of a process where, um, they're struggling with that same thing. I said, "Do you know what? I wasn't able to lie to myself. I tried waiting longer to text back. I tried this, I tried all of these things." And I s- and my conclusion from that chapter of my life is there's a thousand little things that, ways we communicate. It's exactly what you've just said. I said to my friend the other day, "There's a thousand ways we can communicate, and you might think you can control three or four of 'em, but w- as humans that have evolved over those 200,000 years, we're so good at knowing what someone really thinks and feels." And so, I guess my question here is, like, I came to the conclusion, and then this was when I was g- when I was giving my friend some advice the other day, is, you can't fake it. You have to actually go and change your self story. Like, you can know the tips and tricks, but-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that wasn't enough for me to actually get the, you know... And it was, uh, honestly, the thing that changed in my life was when my opinion of myself changed.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it's... And I... And it sounds so weird to say, but I'm sure nobody's listening, um, the profund- the profundity of the change, I just can't, I can't describe it. Not, not even in the relationship being able to attract people, but just in every context. Like, I don't know what changed, I don't know what I did. All I know is that something deep within me, my story of who I am changed, and that means that when I show up in places, I stand differently.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah. You know, non-verbal sort of experts talk about inside out change.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Right? As opposed to outside in.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Um...
- SBSteven Bartlett
'Cause people have clicked this video right now or clicked this podcast because they want outside-in change.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I know they do. I know, and it's... Like, I always feel like, look, I'm a body language person, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna give you a hatful of tricks.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
It just doesn't, 'cause it's not gonna work. That wouldn't be right. A- and it's funny too, because the quote that I'm best known for is, "Fake it till you become it." And what I mean by that, uh, e- is... F- fake it till you make it, to me, has always meant w- pretend that you know things you don't know, pre- pretend that you are a person that you're not, until you get the job. But what do you do then? D- H- do you keep faking it? So fake it till you make it is fooling other people. Fake it till you become it is expand, allow yourself to feel powerful enough to really understand who you are, to know what your story is, to be, to be more focused on the impression you're making on yourself than on others. Um, to grow, to be less afraid of these challenges. Uh, and eventually, you know, maybe, you know, standing in those big positions alone feels a little awkward at first, and you're faking it. But eventually, you become that person. And, you know, that's what happened with my student who I talk about in the TED Talk, who had not participated at all the whole semester. And, uh, I was gonna have to fail her, and I said, "You have to participate." And she finally raised her hand in the last class. I said, "I'll call on you." And first of all, her comment was amazing, and people's heads spun, like they hadn't noticed her. But she continued to use these ideas, and she came back to me l- later, like, uh, y- six months or a year later, and she said, she said to me, "I want you to know...... I'm so happy now. 'Cause she had come into my office and said, "I feel like an imposter. I don't belong here. I'm from this small town." I was like, "So am I. If I belong here, you do." She came back to me after graduating and finding an... and actually getting into education and not business, and she said, "Those things that we talked about, I did, and I realized I wasn't faking it till I made it, I was faking it till I became it, and now I'm the person that I wanted to be."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm. That makes so much sense. So expand yourself so that you can get the evidence you need to become the thing that you want to become.
- 1:04:17 – 1:15:27
Your bullying experience
- SBSteven Bartlett
As I read through your story, I came across this moment where there was some academic bullying in your life, and this appeared to me to be the... a real pivotal, um, hurtful chapter of your life that's now the basis for some of the work that you're doing and some of the things you're writing about. What, what do I need to know about what happened there to understand the lessons that you've taken from that, um, chapter?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I, I would rather endure any physical pain than go through that, and I have interviewed... I mean, it went on for years. I became just fair game. It, it was... It... Be- because the bullies had been so successfully diminished, demeaned, stigmatized me-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wow.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... that anyone else who felt the need to act out could act out against me. It was okay. So I- I... The, the, the mountain of, you know, social media, um, uh, uh, evidence of, of this bullying is overwhelming, and I can't even look through it. I have to have someone else sort through that. I am not talking about anonymous trolls. This was other academics. This was about me. It was personal. They, they, they're, th- they were not hiding behind anonymity. Every person I've interviewed for this book who's been, been bullied, every adult, has said, "It's the worst thing that ever happened to me," and "I felt like I was dying or I wanted to die for a long time," because it is social death. It is social death, and without community, we, we are, we are in a bad place. I mean, we d- we do need each other. The facts of my life were stolen from me. My story was rewritten s- so much so that I could not do an interview without having to correct all kinds of disinformation about me. Right? So th- the whole, you know, telling... uh, the way you tell your story to yourself matters piece, wow, that was hard. I had to keep doing that to survive it because other people were telling a story that was j- wa- a lie and that was deeply hurting me. I mean, emotionally, professionally, um, hurting my family. I mean, it was terrible. I was...I, I almost died. I almost decided to die, and, um, and that's very common for people who are bullied, and (exhales) I'm not through it. It's th- those ... I mean, I'm, I'm through the worst of it, but it still, it still comes up, and, and, and there are f- there are ... There's disinformation and news articles that, that these bullies sort of got out there that will always circulate. I can never c- I can't get rid of all of that, right? It will pop up every once in a while, and people will go, "But yeah, but I heard you did this," and you're like, "No. That's incorrect." Um, and so every time that pops up, it's, it's just like a dagger again. It i- it is an absolute theft of your life. It is, it is absolutely ... It is absolutely devastating, and the, in the workplace, it's remarkably common, and d- d- the estimates by people who study workplace bullying are that o- more than 90% of people who become targets of workplace bullying dis- disappear from that job. And when I say disappear, I mean they're either fired because the bully flips it around and they're seen as the difficult person, or they're moved to a different department, or they quit 'cause they can't endure it, or they die of a stress-related illness, or they take their own lives. Um, suicide rates are very high for bu- for adult bully, for, for children and adult bullying targets.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If I was in your household around that time, what would I have seen? And I ask that question because people never get to see that, right? They d- they get to see either silence, or they might get to see a statement, but ...
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
(crying) You know what I'm thinking right now is that my bullies are gonna hear this, and they're gonna be laughing, and they're gonna be, they're gonna be saying that I'm exaggerating (laughs) , you know. Like, but who cares wha- if, if they say that. But I ... It's still ... Uh, like, I'm so afraid of them still. Um, I was, you know, raising a son who is just a lovely, remarkable person. I'm, like ... I can't believe that he grew up to be such a wonderful person, because for so much of his teenage life, I was going through this, and it was so hard to be present, but I had to be. Like, I nee- e- ... Th- there was this constant conflict that I had. How much do I tell him about? Um, how much do I just shield him from it? Can I shield him from it, because ... You know, my hu- God, my husband, who, uh, was just, uh, like, uh, wanted s- so desperately to fix it for me, and he, he's a scientist, and he understood very well the statistical arguments as, as ... better than, than most people in my field do, and he would engage with these bullies, and that would escalate. He was, he was f- for sure traumatized by it. Um, I was just in a ... Curled up in a ball, and then, amazingly, I was still able to go out and speak, and for that hour, I was safe, and, and then I would j- I would hide again, and I was just so afraid. Uh, I just felt like I was dying. I would just ... I, I think almost every day I said, "I feel like I'm dying." Uh, it was a- it w- uh, uh, just the darkest of dark. (laughs) Um, they ... Like, I'm grieving, still, the loss of, again, the facts of my life, and a future that I thought I was going to have, even though I ... And this is that whole silver lining thing. I'm actually happier now in the life that I'm in. I had to leave my job. I wasn't forced out at all, and in fact, I wanna be clear because th- th- this is an ... The bullies love to say that I was denied tenure. I was not denied tenure. I chose to leave. My dean was incredibly supportive of me. I could not live in that toxic house anymore. It was filled with fumes. It was ... I, I, I, I would have died if I had stayed. So ...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Harvard?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I- i- in academia, period.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Academia. You left your job at Harvard, though.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes, my, my full-time, you know, tenure track position, and that's after I had been promoted twice. Like, I, I had worked so hard to get there. I had an excellent record of research. (laughs) Um, I wanted to stay there. I, I wanted to continue to do work around sexism and racism. I thought maybe I would eventually get into the ad- you know, administration. I wanted to ... Like, that was the life that I thought I had, and, and y- y- y- they made it impossible for me to stay.Yes, it was my choice and no, it wasn't my choice. Um, they stole my future. Now I have a different one, and maybe that's, maybe that's better, but it doesn't take away the pain of that loss. It's sort of like, it's like losing a spouse, uh, a spouse dying young, and then you get remarried a few years later and you're happy in your new marriage, and maybe you're even happier, but you'll never stop grieving the loss of that first person, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
It's, that's how this feels. Um, and that's why it's (laughs) taken me like four years to write this book 'cause it's a lo- it's a l- it, it's a lot to tell my own story, I'm scared, and it's a lot to hold other people's stories 'cause I know how they feel. I know how hard it is. I mean, uh, I've interviewed people whose adult children have taken their own lives because they were so badly bullied in the workplace. It was tor- it was just torture. My collaborators were tortured and lost so much d- ju- fighting this disinformation and just this, this meanness. My son, in the last six months, has had two friends who were taking psychology courses learn this disinformation about me in their psychology courses because again, it just sort of lives on, and so now, he's coming, going, "I don't understand."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Can I ask you for an honest question here? Because I did lots of research on you, didn't really come across any of that.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
That's amazing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I didn't. So I don't know the details of it. Um, what I, what I've, I have inferred from what you're saying is that people tried to discredit you.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And your intentions.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is that accurate?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. So they tried to discredit your r-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Me, my intentions, and my a- my actions, uh, um, and to prevent me from...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Doing more work.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Doing more work, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. Makes sense.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Okay. Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
W- w- why d'you,
- 1:15:27 – 1:23:40
Your bullies' motivations
- SBSteven Bartlett
why d'you, what do you think their motivations were?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I can tell you that a small percentage of people, I believe, are what I call primary bullies, like they are the ones who get the ball rolling. If they're alone, and I, you know, we chatted about this earlier, but if they're alone, they're just assholes. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
But when they recruit people, then they become bullies. And they tend to be repeat offenders. What they want is status and recognition. They feel that they have not gotten as much as they deserve, and they resent people who they perceive as getting more than they deserved, and so when they perceive that, they'll start to go after that person in little ways, and I call that the bully test. The bully's testing to see if people will allow that to happen, and if people don't push back, and this is where bystanders could get involved right away and say, "That's not okay," I so wish more people had done that in my case, then they escalate very quickly, and they are basically, they are gaining status by taking away your status. It's, I don't think it's about power as much as it is about status. There are people who are very powerful, but still feel like they're not getting the recognition and status that they deserve, and they're bullies. It is motivated, I believe, i- in general, again, I don't know what motivated my bullies, by a need for status, and one of the commonalities across bullies is that they tend to have a scarcity mindset, um, they see the world as everything is zero sum, everything's affixed by, and that means if, if somebody else is getting i- uh, status or success, it's somehow taking away from the- from them. You know, Einstein once said, "The most important question that you'll answer for yourself is sort of is the universe fundamentally hostile or friendly?" Because y- the way you answer that will affect the way you do your work and how you interact with people and what, what you aspire to. Uh, these are people who would say the world is fundamentally hostile.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The bullies are?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes. And that's the commonality across bullies. I think there are some myths about bullies, like th- the idea that bullied people become bullies. Some do, and most don't. In fact, a lot of the people who I call bravehearts, who stand up against bullies, were bullied. So it's, it's not that bullied people become bullies. It's not that, y- uh, th- th- you know, it's not that they're, they have such low self-esteem and they can't sleep at night. They actually f- they can sleep at night. They're okay with what they're doing. They think they're right. Um, yeah. But we, there are way, there are so many ways, and I'm, I, this is, uh, maybe another conversation for next year. Th- th- there are so many opportunities for bystanders to get involved early so that it doesn't escalate to this full-blown bullying campaign because once you're there, the person is, is, is, is, is socially killed.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think this is an inevitable byproduct of being successful?... because you're talk- you, the, those primary bullies, they see status as the, the game. So, you become really successful in your industry, you get a TED Talk which becomes one of the mo- most watched ever, you know, your podcast becomes big, those primary people are gonna say, "I- i- he or she is getting too much credit. What can I do to tear them down? Give me a little bit of credit, take back some of that zero-s- sum status." Um, so, uh, you know, so is it a, a inevitable, what do they call it, um, occupational hazard of success?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah. I, so I don't think, I think it's common for you- for successful people to have haters. That doesn't always turn into bullying. Also, the people who tend to be targets tend to be people who have... Okay, so if you, if you think about the, kind of the workplace or the profession, and then the rest of the world, they have lower status in their profession than they do with the rest of the world. And so, I was a junior researcher. I wasn't, you know, supposed to get this much attention, and, uh, uh y- I just gave a TED Talk. Like, that, you know... I wasn't going out looking for status. That's what happened. It happened to go viral. But the, the targets tend to be people who are below the average on status in, with, with the in group, and then cross what some researchers have called the line of resentment.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Ooh.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
And then they become targets, or they're viable targets. They don't necessarily become targets, but they're viable targets. So, people who have very high status in the inside and get high status outside, they're much less likely to be bullied.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interesting. So to, so to clarify that in words that I... just make sure I understand, if I am in a school-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and I am maybe in the lower quartile of popularity, I'm not so popular, but then something happens which means outside of school I become super famous-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you know, I blow up in the news outside of school and everyone's talking about me and they love me, the people in school-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... there's gonna be a group of people in school that go, "We need to rein this guy back in."
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
There's gonna be a couple of people. And you hear those stories, and you've interviewed a lot of celebrities-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. (laughs)
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... and, you know, when you talk to celebrities, like people who've, who've, who got famous, uh, as kids, a lot of them were bullied, and people are shocked.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
They're like, "But you, but everyone else loved you."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah, but that's exactly why they got bullied in their schools-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
... because they weren't supposed to succeed.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I ha- I've heard this story many times on this podcast, Amy.
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
I, I...
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know, like, as in this someone doing well, um, the, a group of people thinking that they've punched too far above their weight-
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yep.
- 1:23:40 – 1:25:50
The importance and how to build trust
- SBSteven Bartlett
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interesting. What's the most important thing that we haven't talked about that maybe we should have?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Yeah, I, I mean, we've talked a lot about trust, but I guess... So, so I guess I, I just wanna summarize s- sort of all of that talk about trust. It, just that, you know, s- a lot of people in the business world make the mistake of thinking that they gotta go in and be the smartest person in the room, so they've gotta show, uh, competence, and they do that at the expense of demonstrating their trust- trustworthiness. Uh, and, and if you do not establish, earn trust, build trust, you, you have no medium through which your ideas can travel, so trust is the conduit of influence. It's not a soft idea, it's a true idea. (laughs) This is just the way people are. If you come in a- and, and you start talking at them, and you haven't listened to them, you don't know what they're about, they don't feel like you care, it doesn't matter if you have the best idea in the world, you're throwing it against a brick wall, you know? You, you have got to earn and establish trust in order to influence people.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And how do you establish trust?
- ACDr. Amy Cuddy
Not thinking that you have to take the floor first. So, a lot of people feel that, especially in business settings, they, like a negotiation, they feel like they've gotta drop the anchor, they have to talk first, when in reality, it's th- m- m- often much more effective to ask questions and learn about the other person. You're showing, first, that I, you're interested, that you understand them, and you're actually gaining information-
Episode duration: 1:29:22
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