What Wonder Woman can do for your Business and Life?  Or…”Don’t Fake it till you Make it. Fake it till you become it”!

Who would have thought that standing in a Power Pose just like our friend Wonder Woman, here, could change your life and career?

Well, Amy Cuddy, Harvard Business School professor and Social Psychologist gave a great TED Talk this summer about how tiny changes in your body language can radically change your job performance and career.

Certain “power poses” immediately change your body chemistry, Professor Cuddy says. She has people do “high power poses” like Wonder Woman and “low power poses”.

After just a 2-minute “high power pose,” the risk tolerance of the high-power posers soared. The risk tolerance of the low-power posers, meanwhile, shrank. And taking risks is crucial for success. So, not only do you feel powerful after these poses, it makes you more powerful by taking the edge off the “risk fear”.

She has done years of studies on striking this pose and other primordial power poses and holding them for two minutes and there is always an immediate change in cortisol and testosterone levels, which are the power and stress hormones.

Now, what does this have to do with your Life and Business you may be asking?

Well, if you take two minutes to do this before going into a client meeting or interview or even a date, your chances of that meeting being more successful are much higher. Why? Because studies and just plain observation can tell you that when others perceive you as powerful (but not stressed out), they also perceive you as successful. And people want to do business with a successful and confident person. And if you don’t feel terribly successful now or that you are playing the part (and who hasn’t felt this way? I sure know that I haven’t in the past), this will train you to feel that way.

And the whole “Fake it till you Make it” really isn’t what it’s all about. “Faking it till you Become it”, is what it’s all about. If you act like a success and like you have Personal Power out there in the world and in your connections, sooner or later, you will become this. Then when you do “make it”, you have slowly already phased out faking it altogether because what you are is an authentically powerful and genuinely successful person, who is pretty chill on top of it all!

So beyond the Power Posing, if you start behaving like the person you want to become, you will become it sooner or later.

Much Success and Love,

Jeanne