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Amy Cuddy tells the story of an Olympic swimming coach who reached out to her after a recent TED talk. The coach told Ms. Cuddy that, for years, he had been teaching his swimmers to physically behave as if they had won their races, beginning from the moment they woke up on the day of the event. In other words, the entire day, the swimmers were to adopt the large, alpha physical body postures we talked about earlier in this guide. This was helpful for all of the coach’s swimmers, but particularly helpful for those swimmers who had recently put forth a poor performance or who were feeling particularly insecure and doubtful.
Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we cannot muster feelings of genuine confidence. In these situations, we just need to fake it. In other words, we need to recall a time from our past when we were the best version of ourselves—confident and powerful—and then adopt a physical posture that represents that version of ourselves. Shoulders back, chin up and proud, standing straight and tall, legs planted wide, confident smile. This is a mental trick that allows us to tap into our store of personal power and, eventually, our body signals to our brain that we are the bold, brave, confident person we are telling our body to be. What starts out as “fake” becomes real, authentic, and life-changing.