Description

Don’t fake it till you make it, fake it until you become it – the essential guide to improving your body language.

How can we be our strongest selves in life’s most challenging situations? We often approach these situations – job interviews, difficult conversations, speaking up for ourselves – with anxiety and leave them with regret. Moments that require us to be genuine and powerful instead cause us to feel phoney and powerless, preventing us from being our best selves.

Harvard professor Amy Cuddy shows us we need to stop worrying about the impression we’re making on others, and instead change the impression we’re making on ourselves. Cutting-edge science reveals that if we adopt behaviours reflecting power and strength, we liberate ourselves from the fears and doubts that obstruct us. By redirecting our thoughts, actions, and even physiology, we free ourselves to be our best.

Amy Cuddy galvanised viewers around the world with her TED talk on ‘power poses’. Now she explains the science underlying these and many other fascinating body-mind effects, and teaches us how to use this science to become self-assured in high-pressure moments.

Impassioned, beautifully researched, and accessible, PRESENCE is filled with stories of individuals facing real obstacles, and succeeding against the odds. Every reader will learn how to approach stress-filled challenges without fear and leave them without regret.

Publisher Review

In this wonderfully engaging, intelligent, and practical book, Amy Cuddy unpacks the cutting-edge psychology of presence when we most need it. I recommend it highly! -- William Ury * Co-author of GETTING TO YES and author of GETTING TO YES WITH YOURSELF * There is one thing that separates those who do from those who don't: power. Amy Cuddy helps us understand what it means to build our personal power, keep it strong when it falters and help us steer clear of arrogance. This book is a must read for every doer out there. -- Simon Sinek * author of the NEW YORK TIMES bestsellers LEADERS EAT LAST and START WITH WHY * In one exquisitely written book, Amy Cuddy illuminates for us the latest research of how the body and mind, in surprising yet elegant ways, affect who we are and how we are perceived. But first we have to understand how the body affects the mind and the mind working with the body changes us and changes the world around us. And no one does this better than Amy Cuddy. -- Joe Navarro * former FBI counterintelligence officer and author of the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller WHAT EVERY BODY IS SAYING * With advice that is both practical and profound, Amy Cuddy shows how to summon your true and best self when doing so matters most. Emotions are contagious. If you personify poise and optimism yourself, you enhance the odds that they will respond in kind. -- Michael Wheeler * Harvard Business School. author of THE ART OF NEGOTIATION * Amy Cuddy is the high priestess of self-confidence for the self-doubting. In PRESENCE, she uses her warmth, empathy, and laser-sharp intelligence to decode the mysteries of presence under social pressure. A must-read for--well, for everyone. -- Susan Cain * author of the SUNDAY TIMES bestseller QUIET *