Presence : bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges / Amy Cuddy.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [305]-336) and index.

What is presence? -- Believing and owning your story -- Stop preaching, start listening: how presence begets presence -- I don't deserve to be here -- How powerlessness shackles the self (and how power sets it free) -- Slouching, steepling, and the language of the body -- Surfing, smiling, and singing ourselves to happiness -- The body shapes the mind (so starfish up!) -- How to pose for presence -- Self-nudging: how tiny tweaks lead to big changes -- Fake it till you become it.

Have you ever left a nerve-racking challenge and immediately wished for a do over? Maybe after a job interview, a performance, or a difficult conversation? The very moments that require us to be genuine and commanding can instead cause us to feel phony and powerless. Too often we approach our lives' biggest hurdles with dread, execute them with anxiety, and leave them with regret. By accessing our personal power, we can achieve "presence," the state in which we stop worrying about the impression we're making on others and instead adjust the impression we've been making on ourselves. As Harvard professor Amy Cuddy's revolutionary book reveals, we don't need to embark on a grand spiritual quest or complete an inner transformation to harness the power of presence. Instead, we need to nudge ourselves, moment by moment, by tweaking our body language, behavior, and mind-set in our day-to-day lives. Amy Cuddy has reached tens of millions of viewers around the world with her TED talk about "power poses." Now she presents the science underlying these and many other body-mind effects, and teaches us how to use simple techniques to liberate ourselves from fear in high-pressure moments, perform at our best, and connect with and empower others to do the same.