No B.S Friday: The secret ingredient is always time.
I found myself down a bit of a rabbit hole around power poses last night.
In 2012, Amy Cuddy, a professor at Harvard gave a TED talk where she reported results of one of her recent studies. It showed that busting out a power-pose, even just for a minute, increased testosterone, reduced cortisol (stress) and increased risk-taking behaviour in a gambling game.
Her conclusion? Power poses were the simplest way to bio-hack yourself for greater confidence.
(Her TED talk is still the second most watched TED talk of all time.)
But then there was a bit of a problem. Other researchers had trouble replicating her results. Some critiqued her methodology (they got participants to bust a power-pose, or a disempowered pose (think grovelling), but they didn’t have a control group that busted no pose.)
Now it seems that the data is mixed. Cuddy stands by her work. Others thinks it’s rubbish.
And I guess I found this interesting because when I heard about the power-pose study, it made intuitive sense to me. In my experience, my sense of strength and power in my body is connected to my sense of strength and power in the world.
(We’re not as complex as we like to think we are.)
So I wondered why other studies were failing to register an effect.
But I think I’ve figured it out.
(Harvard, hit me up and I can tell you where to send my honorary doctorate.)
I think the thing about all the studies is that they’re incredibly short term.
Do a power-pose, once, for one minute, and then in a few minutes we’re going to run some tests.
This is not how change in the human mind works. It’s not how neuro-plasticity works.
For meaningful change to happen, you need repetition. Lots of repetition.
My guess is that the first time you ask someone to bust a power-pose, the overwhelming feeling they’re going to have is, “Wow, this feels really weird. I’ve never done this before.”
That’s not a mindset that boosts testosterone.
My bet is that you need people to do them every day for a month, for them to get through the initial discomfort, and ‘relax’ into the practice.
That’s when meaningful change is going to happen.
Real change only comes through dedication and commitment.
To conclude my case, I’ll leave you with a quote from a Spanish bull-fighter I came across once:
“Have you ever seen a bullfighter in the ring show anything but supreme confidence? Have you ever seen them mope around with rounded shoulders, saying, ‘Oh, I’m having a bad day. I don’t feel like I’m on my game today,’ being negative or a little bit pessimistic and irritated at the bull because the bull is just not cooperating or whatever?”
“We start training as a young boy at a very early age on how to walk, how to turn, how to carry our shoulders, where to put our eyes. Every single detail is done meticulously.”
“The bull can see that and knows that you have no fear, and that you dominate the bull by your presence. We control fear by our physical presence.”
My guess is that the real value of power poses is as a life practice. Not as a one-off magic pill.
Harvard, waiting for your call.
JG.