I finally watched Amy Cuddy’s Ted Talk, which has over 37 million views. It’s called Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are. If you’re an insecure dude who’s avoiding life to some degree and not putting yourself out there because of your hair loss, I’d highly recommend checking it out (I’ll embed it at the bottom of this article). You can fake it until you make it in life. I’ll explain how in this post.
Cuddy begins her speech with the assertion that we often judge others based on their body language, not their actual words. She points out that in 70% of elections, voters make their decisions based on one-second judgements of the candidates. Another study showed that people could predict whether or not a physician would be sued, simply by observing a 30-second, patient-doctor interaction. Again, no words.
This carries over into everyday life, too. We make broad, sweeping over-generalizations about people without knowing anything about them. But non-verbals don’t just affect how we view others. In fact, your body language also affects your own level of confidence and self-worth.
When You Make Yourself Small
The Phantom of the Opera, huddled over. He hid severe scarring with the mask. You knew that, hopefully.
When people are feeling stressed or vulnerable, they tend to shrink. They fold their arms; they lean forward in their chairs; they walk around like the hunchback of Notre Dame or the Phantom of the Opera or the Elephant Man. Or all of the above.
You’ve probably made hundreds or even thousands of submissive maneuvers and gestures over the course of your lifetime.
And every time you try to minimize your physical stature, your stress hormone (cortisol) increases. It’s simple biology. Your body is preparing itself for a crisis. You’re essentially in flight mode. Meanwhile, your testosterone level plummets, along with your confidence and sense of masculinity. Very bad!
Testosterone is the dominance hormone, according to Cuddy. Cortisol is the stress hormone. And I’d say cortisol is more feminine than masculine. So turn it down, and crank up your testosterone! Here’s how…
Strike a Power Pose for 2 Minutes
I get it. You’re reading this because you’re not totally at peace on your hair loss journey. And if you’re struggling with hair loss-related depression or anxiety, I wrote this article for you.
But I believe you can fake it until you make it, in both your personal and professional life.
Try doing one of these 3 power poses for two minutes before your next stressful event, social gathering, class, or whatever. Or better yet, try to incorporate at least one pose into your daily routine. I’ll explain in the benefits in the next section. Here are the poses:
1. The Rocky
It’s a simple victory sign. She uses a picture of Usain Bolt in her presentation. Rocky was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. Supposedly even blind people strike this pose when they accomplish a major feat. It’s totally innate in our biology. Remember the Pearl Jam Song? On a mountain top, Jeremy had his AAAAAARMS raised in a V. Good tune.
2. The Wonder Woman
Linda Carter, very nice. Dudes can use this pose too. Try it for a couple minutes. Ironically, it will help boost your manliness and confidence. The nice thing about this one is you can do it anywhere without embarrassing yourself. Or just head to the bathroom stall if you’re feeling subconscious. Either way.
3. The Boss Who Just Got Blown By His Secretary (or Secret Service Agent)
Is that too crude a title? I don’t think so. First thing that came to my mind when I saw it! Also put your hands behind your head and sit more straightforward.
The Benefits of Power Posing
So in her Study, Cuddy separated her subjects into two groups: the first one was comprised of people who posed in low-power, slumped-over positions; the second group was made up of individuals who posed in high-power positions, as I showed you in the last section.
But first, Cuddy did a baseline test to determine the cortisol and testosterone levels of each group upon their arrival. Then her team took another test after the participants struck their poses. The results were as follows.
- The high-power group enjoyed an overall 20% increase in testosterone, the dominance and confidence hormone.
- Cortisol, their stress hormone decreased by about 25%.
- Comparatively, the low-power posers saw their testosterone levels dip by 10%, and their cortisol rose by 15%.
So power posing, it’s worth a worth a try, right?
Cuddy says that simply by doing these two-minute posing exercises, you can reconfigure your brain and become more assertive, confident, and comfortable in practically any situation.
She’s Not Just Selling BS, She’s Also a Client
Remember that Hair Club for Men ad from like 1994? I do. God I’m getting old.
But anyway, in the Ted speech, Cuddy discusses how she’s applied her “fake it until you make it” philosophy into her own life. She had a serious car accident when she was in college and subsequently had a brain injury. Her IQ dropped by two standard deviations, and her identity as “a gifted child” was stripped from her in an instant. She was told she’d need to drop out of college and that her life would never be the same.
Cuddy persevered and overcame her limitations. It took her four years longer than her peers, but she eventually graduated from college and managed to get accepted to Princeton for graduate school.
But she couldn’t shake her insecurities. She felt like an impostor, desperately afraid of being “found out” as she puts it. One day the tension became overwhelming for her, just before she had to deliver a 20-minute speech for 20 of her peers. She told her adviser, Susan Fiske, who had helped her get into Princeton, that she was quitting.
Fiske persuaded her to reconsider. In one of the more powerful moments of the speech, Cuddy recounts what Fiske said to her at that moment:
“You are not quitting, because I took a gamble on you, and you’re staying. You’re going to stay, and this is what you’re going to do. You are going to fake it. You’re going to do every talk that you ever get asked to do. You’re just going to do it and do it and do it, even if you’re terrified and just paralyzed and having an out-of-body experience, until you have this moment where you say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m doing it. Like, I have become this. I am actually doing this.'”
Sure enough Cuddy succeeded. She eventually got to a point where she no longer felt like she didn’t belong and went onto become one of the most prominent social scientists in the nation. She faked it until she made it. So can you.
Now two quotes for motivation:
I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.
– Muhammad Ali
“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
-Michael Jordan, NBA and Bald Hall of Fame Member
Don’t let hair loss stop you. You can still get the girl, the dream job, the mansion, all of it. You may be feeling insecure or inadequate or overwhelmed now, but the world’s yours for the taking. Fake it until you make it. You can view the transcript of Amy Cuddy’s Ted Talk or watch the video below. Until next time.
Robert Price is a writer, consumer advocate, and hair loss researcher with thousands of hours of experience in the field. His goal is to keep you out of the hair loss rabbit hole, underworld, or whatever you want to call it. He founded Hair Loss Daily, the unbiased hair loss blog, in 2016. You can learn more about Robert in the my story section of this website.