On Sunday evening, Doug went out with a friend and I didn’t feel like going out at all so I stayed in. I was flipping around on Netflix, trying to find something interesting and found Ted Talks; Life Hacks. I decided to give it a shot and one presenter in particular really resonated with me. Her name is Amy Cuddy and her talk is absolutely amazing

I have always been intrigued by the subject of how our posture and body language affects the people around us, so I kept watching. She began to transition into whether your posture before an interview can have a correlation on whether or not the interviewer would want to give you a job. She decided to do a study with a few of her peers to determine if there is a correlation.

She had I think 10 people who were in the study, 5 were told to sit in a way that made them shrink down aka a ‘low power’ pose. Basically they would sit 2 minutes before the interview with their shoulders hunched down and their hands crossed on their laps. The other 5 people were told to sit in a ‘high power’ pose with their arms open wide or sit with their legs up on a table with their hands laced behind their heads, again for 2 minutes before the interview.

During the interview, the interviewer had a blank face and gave absolutely no hint at how he or she was perceiving the interviewee. It sounded like a horrible and hard interview that these people had to go through.

After each individual went through the interview, the interviewers were asked which individuals they would want to hire. Every single person who had sat in a ‘high power’ pose prior to the interview were chosen and offered a job. This shows that our nonverbals, our body language can seriously affect our outcomes.

What this means to me is that it isn’t always about your credentials, or your what you have done in the past or even what you can do for the company you are wanting to work for. It’s about confidence, it’s about believing in yourself. If all you have to do before you go into anything that is taxing is to sit or stand in a ‘high power’ pose, do it! Do it until you believe that you can do whatever task is in front of you. Be inspired and believe in yourself. We’re all worthy of our dreams. The only difference in the people who don’t reach theirs, is simply believing in yourself and taking action.

I went and found the video so if you’re interested, check it out!