How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

Focus on whatever you feel most strongly about.
To convey confidence
when the stakes are high, even experienced communicators can benefit from
focusing their message on the things they personally care most about. Patrick,
a media company CEO, was working with a performance coach to prepare for
a big press conference. He was a seasoned leader, used to being on the public
stage. But each time he rehearsed his speech, he kept stuttering as he reached
a particular point—which was strange, because he didn’t have a stutter. Yet it
kept happening every time he tried to talk about his “excitement” over certain
new plans for the company. His coach asked him what the problem was. “The
truth is,” Patrick told her, “I’m not sure I completely believe that part of the
speech.” His coach asked him to try refocusing that section on topics that
Patrick felt genuinely excited about. The result? No stuttering, and a widely
lauded presentation.
TAKE YOUR SPACE
I’d like to highlight an unusual technique that you can use to boost your
confidence both as you prepare for your challenge and while you’re actually in
the midst of it.
In The Science Essentials at the start of the book, I highlighted the strength of
the connection from body to mind and back again. This two-way flow manifests
itself in an odd and useful way when it comes to assertiveness. Amy Cuddy and
her colleagues at Harvard were intrigued by the fact that when we feel
comfortable and courageous, we behave like gorillas: we tend to make ourselves
bigger. (“Gorillas 
again
?” you may be saying.) We stand tall; we spread out,
with our arms behind our head, perhaps, or our hands on hips. And when we feel
reticent or uptight, we tend to do the opposite. We hunch our shoulders. We fold
ourselves into smaller shapes, by crossing our arms or bowing our heads.
Remarkably, both Cuddy’s team and a Swiss-led research group have found
that the mechanism works the other way, too. When people make themselves

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physically bigger—by standing straighter, planting their legs a little further
apart, and throwing their shoulders and arms a little wider—it quickly boosts
people’s feelings of self-confidence.
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It’s as if a relaxed, let-it-all-hang-out
stance is signaling to the brain that there are no threats nearby, so it’s okay to
emerge from defensive mode. And when volunteers spent a couple of minutes
stretching their arms and legs to expand their physical space before giving a
speech, Cuddy found their performances were more highly rated by independent
observers compared with other people who’d been sitting around normally
beforehand.
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Now let’s meet Gemma, who used to manage the Romanian operations of a
global agricultural products company, overseeing everything from local
manufacturing to sales to public relations. She’d done this complex job well for
some years and felt ready for a bigger challenge. But when she started talking to
her boss about the possibility of promotion, she was told she wasn’t considered
to be “board material.” When she pushed for more details, he didn’t seem to
have any issues with her performance. She just wasn’t seen as having as much
gravitas and assertiveness as some of her peers. Gemma felt confident in her
capabilities, but her demeanor wasn’t conveying it. She says, “I was competing
in a game that I didn’t even know was happening. I thought, ‘Okay, now I get it.
I have to step it up.’ It’s about attitude as much as anything else.”
A key meeting was coming up where she needed to make the case to the board
for securing extra budget for her country’s operations. She knew it was a chance
to show who she really was, and she decided to put power posing at the heart of
her preparation. “I had this phrase running through my head: ‘take your space.’ I
visualized myself being relaxed in the conversation, and in control of my turf.”
When the meeting came around, she says, “I inhabited that image completely. I
sat squarely at the table, back straight, head up, with my shoulders and hands
planted wide. Made my case. Looked everyone in the eye. And those words,
‘take your space,’ all the time in the back of my mind.” Did it work? “The effect
was electric. People were really listening. Afterward, the chair of the board took
me aside and urged me to put myself forward for bigger roles, and he said that
he would support me. I use this ‘take your space’ reminder all the time now.”
To try this for yourself before your next high-stakes conversation:
Find yourself a space where you can spread out; an empty room, corridor, or
restroom will do. Stand up straight, with your legs wide apart. Stretch out and

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swing your arms. Put your shoulders back and open up your chest. Plant your
hands widely on a table, or behind your head.
When talking with someone, try a more modest version of the same thing. If
you notice yourself hunching over, sit back and breathe deeply, opening up
your lungs. Uncross your arms and legs. Try putting an arm over the back of
your chair, or planting the palms of both hands on the table.