I recently read a great book called “Presence” written by Harvard Physocolgist & TED Talk star Amy Cuddy. My wife and I had watched her TED talk on “Your body language shapes who you are” a few years ago and were greatly impacted by it. In fact, we still do power posses every now and then (you have to watch the video to understand what I mean). I love the tagline of the book which is “Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges.” We ALL need to understand how to better bring our BOLD self to our challenges in life. The more present we are in terms of focus and intentionality the more successful our results. Through immense research and biological science, Amy suggests that how we see ourself determines our ability to connect with others. She says, “When our body language is confident and open, other people respond in kind, unconsciously reinforcing not only their perception of us but also our perception of ourselves.”

How you see yourself is how you’ll see the world. If you tend to have a negative outlook on yourself, you will always feel others have a negative outlook towards you. What you perceive will just confirm your suspicion that others see your flaws.

Your body language will emit the feelings you embrace inside thus others will begin to feel a disconnect with you that in actuality originated from your own design. Your body language influences your results and further impacts your thinking…which shapes your beliefs. Amy tells us that we can literally change our results by changing our body language. When we approach challenges with a bold, collective, and strong self-image we relax our body chemistry which allows us to think clearer and navigate better.

The more uncomfortable we feel, the more we release high levels of cortisol in our body, which is the stress hormone. The more cortisol rises at the moment, the more confused and muddy our thinking becomes. This is why we forget simple things in fearful situations. For example, in a meeting with someone, we feel intimated by we begin to shrink down as cortisol rises and we find ourselves forgetting everything we wanted to say. When we leave the meeting we are frustrated with ourselves because we literally felt like we weren’t present at all. When cortisol lowers back down after the meeting we now remember all the things we wanted to say and how we should have said it.

So in order to bring our best self to meetings and challenges we need to practice the art of opening up our body language and getting ourselves into a confident state of mind. Amy says, “Focus less on the impression you’re making on others and more on the impression you’re making on yourself.” When your own self-image is strong you come across as confident and inspiring. This means you have to truly love yourself…I know sounds mushy…but it is VERY true. I don’t mean love yourself in an arrogant way, but in a healthy self-confident way.

Here are some of my tips on having self-confidence…

1) Start each day with being thankful for what you have. This keeps yourself grateful for what you have not disgruntled with what you don’t have.

2) Drink water and get moving in the morning. The more you allow blood flow to circulate in your body the more present you become.

3) Feed your mind positive content. What you input is what you’ll output. Read life-giving blogs, books, articles, etc… that will shape your confidence.

4) Stop trying to be someone else. Embrace who you are and the unique outlook and skills that you have. Quit comparing yourself and start complementing who you were created to be.

5) Develop your strengths so that you add value to the world. You were given gifts and purpose to utilize so forge those skills and you’ll feel more confident in what you bring to this world

Check out Amy’s talk and get a copy of her book PRESENCE…