Notes from Reading: Presence by Amy Cuddy

Amy Cuddy is a well respected social psychologist and a known face in TED talk circle. I got to know about the book of hers from one of my friend.

The book starts with her personal encounter where she met with a bad accident and how she recovered fully from it. As book progresses, she starts unfolding various techniques.

Some being:

  1. Self affirmation
  2. Nudge (the same one on which, Richard Thaler wrote entire book)
  3. Body postures
  4. Living in present,  this moment

Like every other book written by academicians, this book as well cites 100+ research papers and findings.

Apart from all this, the book is full of stories how Amy’s power pose advice changed life of many others. Most of them wrote email to her (which as a collection, she has shared in last chapter of the book), while others met her after the TED talks(all she presented).

It is my personal opinion, watching some of her talks (like one below) are better than buying and reading this book.