Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges

Cuddy argues that Everyone Can Achieve Personal Empowerment. She writes that power poses and presence are tools available to all, suggesting that her work is aimed at the masses rather than an elite few. In this way, she aims to connect with the reader and assure them that the book’s guidance is something that they can master.

In the Introduction, Cuddy focuses on the many people who wrote to her after her influential Ted Talk. By beginning the book this way, she implies that her methods are successful. She aims to create a bridge between the work that she is known for—her TED Talk—and the research that informed the talk. As she notes, usually the book comes first and responses come second. In this case, there was initially research, then the TED Talk, then listeners’ personal experiences, and then the book. The demand for the book reflects the popularity of the original speech and the personal stories that people who tried power poses share. This book provides the in-depth explanation for the science behind the ideas shared in the TED Talk and how they work.

Cuddy aims to connect with the reader by being vulnerable and sharing her backstory, which influenced the direction of her future research. This is common in the self-help genre, where an author often combines scientific evidence with anecdotes and personal stories. Cuddy explains how she sustained a serious brain injury after a car crash during which she was sleeping, unrestrained, in the backseat. She survived, but the brain injury sapped her confidence and made it very difficult for her to finish school. Ultimately, the challenges Cuddy experienced while trying to learn after the accident prompted her interest in psychology and the concept of presence. She writes: “Along the way, not surprisingly, I became a person for whom all these questions of presence and power, of confidence and doubt, took on a great deal of significance” (10). Because of her accident, she questioned who she was and what it meant to be confident, and that created opportunities for research as well as personal growth.

Cuddy again renders herself vulnerable when opening Chapter 1, relaying how she failed to give an elevator pitch to important researchers in her field. She was unable to articulate her ideas and felt frustrated afterwards that she had missed her chance to make a good impression. Cuddy uses this story to set the stage for her definition of presence, and to show a more common situation where presence can be helpful. Her story also shows how not having presence can have a negative impact. By sharing her story, Cuddy aims to show the reader the relevance of presence to their own lives.

In Chapter 1, Cuddy establishes the need for a method that can help people overcome feelings of frustration and anxiety in situations where they feel like they did not exhibit their best selves. She explores The Importance of Synchronicity Between the Mind and Body when referring to Carl Jung’s theory of individuation, in which each part of the self is integrated with the other parts. Cuddy sets up her argument that what we do with our bodies influences how we feel and how we communicate nonverbally.