Heather Burton's Key Ideas from Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges
by Amy Cuddy

Presence is the state of being able to comfortably express our thoughts. It’s not a permanent mode of being – it comes and goes, moment to moment.

When we feel present, our speech, facial expressions and movements align. It’s what makes us compelling. We are no longer fighting ourselves, we are being ourselves.

Self-assured enthusiasm is a strong indicator of success. This quality predicts:

• Drive
• Willingness to work hard
• Initiative
• Persistence in the face of obstacles
• Enhanced mental activity
• Creativity
• The ability to identify good opportunities and novel ideas

This is contagious and spreads confidence, passion and commitment to people who work for and with them. These traits can’t easily be faked either.

Presence emerges when we feel personally powerful.

• Through small tweaks in our body language and mindsets, we can self-induce presence.
• Presence is confidence without arrogance.

Presence manifests itself in two ways:

• We communicate passion, confidence, and comfortable enthusiasm.
• Synchrony.

• A bit of quiet goes a long way towards being present.
• Focus more on the impression you are making in yourself and less on the impression you are making on others.
• Confidence is often confused with cockiness.
• True confidence stems from real love and leads to a long-term commitment to growth.
• False confidence comes from desperate passion and leads to dysfunctional relationships, disappointment and frustration.
• Presence is not about pretending to be confident. It’s about believing and having confidence in the abilities you really have.
• Just be you.

Alignment: emotions, thoughts, physical and facial expressions, and behaviours must be in harmony.

If our actions are not consistent with our values, we won’t feel true to ourselves.

There is strong cross-cultural support for the universality of these nine emotions:

• Anger
• Fear
• Disgust
• Happiness
• Sadness
• Surprise
• Contempt
• Shame
• Pride

• Emotion is authentic, negative or positive.
• Lying or being inauthentic is hard work.
• Truth reveals itself more clearly through our actions than through our words.
• The body says what words cannot.
• Presence stems from believing our own stories.
•  It is the inner self showing up.

What is the authentic self?

• Multi-faceted, not singular.
• Expressed and reflected through our thoughts, feelings, values and behaviours.
• Dynamic and flexible, not static and rigid. It reflects and responds to the situation.

Self-affirmation is the practice of clarifying your story to yourself, allowing you to trust that who you are will come through naturally in what you say and do.

It is about reminding ourselves what matters most to us.

Examine a list of common core values:

Select the one or two closest to the core of who they are, then write a short essay about why the value is important and a particular time it was important.

Four common narrative themes in elderly people who recall their life stories:

Agency: people felt they were in control of their lives

Communion: people describe their lives as being about relationships

Redemption: people felt that challenges had improved their attitudes or conferred wisdom in someway

Contamination: people felt that positive beginnings had turned toward negative endings

By finding, believing, expressing and then engaging our authentic best selves, especially if we do it right before our biggest challenges, we reduce our anxiety about social rejections and increase our openness to others, and that allows us to be fully present.

• When a musician is present we are moved, transported, and convinced. They bring us with them to the present.
• Technical mastery is not enough to become the principal dancer.
• When you find your true presence, it is the strength to be there, to be there in a state of balance because you are not trying to protect yourself, you just are.

Often our default behaviour when approaching people is trying to demonstrate our own power and control.

How people judge each other in first encounters.

When we meet someone new we quickly answer two questions:

• Can I trust this person?
• Can I respect this person?

Approach others with kindness instead of toughness.

We usually think a person we have just meant is either more warm than competent, or more competent than warm, but not both in equal measure.

We classify new acquaintances into types.

• More warm than competent = lovable fools
• More competent than warm = competent jerks
• Incompetent and cold = foolish jerks
• Competent and warm = lovable stars

We don’t judge the two equally. Most people prioritize warmth over competence.

Your chance of being seen as an unlikeable but effective leader is about 1 in 2,000.

• Trust is the conduit of influence.
• The only way to establish real trust is by being present.
• Presence is the medium through which trust develops and ideas travel.
• Without trust your great ideas are impotent.

When you listen to someone it is the most profound act of human respect.

Real listening can’t happen unless we have a sincere desire to understand what we are hearing.

To listen we need to overcome our fear of silence and space.

When to stop talking and listen, here is what happens:

• People can trust you.
• You acquire useful information.
• You begin to see other people as individuals and maybe allies.
• You develop solutions other people are willing to accept and even adopt.
• When people feel heard, they are more willing to listen.

• When we feel powerful we feel free, in control, un-threatened and safe. As a result, we are unrestricted.
• Powerlessness activates a psychological and physical inhibition system.
• Power makes us approach.
• Powerlessness makes us avoid.
• Presence is the power we confer on ourselves.
• Power can liberate.

Social Power is characterized by:

• Ability to exert dominance.
• To influence or control the behaviour of others.
• Earned and expressed through disproportionate control over valued resources.
• Social power is limited, requires some kind of control over others.

Personal Power

• Freedom from the dominance of others.
• Infinite instead of zero-sum.
• Access to and control over limitless inner resources.
• Makes us more open, optimistic and risk-tolerant.
• Ability to control our own states and behaviours.

If we start with personal power, we may increase our social power without trying

Powerful people think and act in a way that leads to retention and acquisition of power.

Power can often activate at a non-conscious level.

Briefly saying words that connote power like control, command and authority and make you feel present and powerful.

The feeling of power can be summoned by little nudges.

Powerlessness impairs thought and planning.

Powerlessness induces goal neglect. The general phenomenon of failing to remain focused on a goal prevents you from executing the necessary task.

Powerlessness makes us self-absorbed.

Power expands our body language. Likewise, our body language can influence and expand our feelings of personal power.

Our voices communicate power.

Powerful people make more eye contact while they are speaking.

When we feel powerful we speak more slowly and take more time, we don’t rush and aren’t afraid to pause. We feel entitled to the time we are using.

When people speak at a low pitch they are judged to be powerful by strangers.

We want power to, not power over.

Several scientific experiments lead them to believe that smiling does impact emotions and make a person happier. Our body, breath and movement play a huge role in how we feel.

Train yourself through breathing. Inhale quickly and exhale slowly.

Benefits of the breathing exercise:

• Decreased blood pressure
• Reduced anxiety and depression
• Improved optimism
• Emotional control
• Pain management
• Reduced aggression and impulsive behaviour
• Improved addiction management
• Improved work and school performance

• The way you carry yourself is a source of personal power. The kind of power that is the key to presence.
• Expanding your body expands your mind and allows you to be present.
• We pose in a powerless way much more often than we think.
• High power poses are expansive and open.
• Low power poses are constricted and clenched.
• In tests performed, adopting power poses increased testosterone and decreased cortisol.

• Powerful people speak more slowly.
• Slow speech demonstrates a kind of openness.
• In speaking slowly one indicates that he or she has no fear of interruption.
• Speaking slowly allows us time to communicate clearly.
• Expanding your body brings you to the present and improves your performance.
• Your body shapes your mind, your mind shapes your behaviour, and your behaviour shapes your future.
• Let your body tell you that you are powerful and deserving and you become more present, enthusiastic and authentically yourself.

• Notice situations and people that trigger powerless body language.
• Prepare with big poses.
• In the morning practice, your favourite poses for a couple of minutes to start the day.
• Lists specific tips on preparation before public speaking.
• Stand at work instead of sitting when you can.
• Consider having walking meetings instead of sitting.