Fake It Till You Become It
Two minutes of power posing changes your hormones, behavior, and ultimately your identity
Fake It Till You Become It builds on Amy Cuddy's research showing that body language does not just communicate power to others—it communicates it to ourselves. Two minutes of high-power posing (standing tall, arms spread, taking up space) produces measurable hormonal changes: roughly 20% increase in testosterone (the dominance hormone) and 25% decrease in cortisol (the stress hormone). Low-power poses produce the opposite: decreased testosterone and increased cortisol.
In experiments, people who power-posed for two minutes before stressful job interviews were overwhelmingly selected for hiring by evaluators blind to the posing condition. The effect was not about the content of their answers but about the presence they brought—they appeared more authentic, confident, and comfortable. The poses literally configured their brains to cope better with stress.
Cuddy's deeper insight goes beyond 'fake it till you make it' to 'fake it till you become it.' Her personal story of recovering from a severe head injury that dropped her IQ by two standard deviations—and her mentor Susan Fiske's directive to 'fake it' through every talk until she internalized the identity—demonstrates that repeated action eventually transforms identity. A student who came to Cuddy's office saying 'I am not supposed to be here' proved this: she did not just fake it till she made it, she faked it till she became it.
- Our bodies change our minds—not just our minds change our bodies
- Two minutes of power posing produces measurable hormonal changes: increased testosterone, decreased cortisol
- The presence you bring to a situation matters more than the content of what you say
- Don't fake it till you make it—fake it till you become it. Do it enough until you actually internalize it
- Tiny tweaks can lead to big changes—this is two minutes, not years of therapy
- Identify your evaluative situationsMap the situations where you are being evaluated and where stress undermines your performance: job interviews, presentations, difficult conversations, sales pitches, first dates, school board meetings. These are the moments where power posing delivers the most value because they combine high stakes with high cortisol. The goal is not to pose during these situations but to configure your brain for optimal performance before them.Pro tipTeenagers face evaluative stress at the lunchroom table; adults face it in meetings and interviews—identify your personal 'lunchroom table' moments
- Power pose privately for two minutes before the situationFind a private space—a bathroom stall, your car, an elevator, your desk behind closed doors—and adopt a high-power pose for two full minutes. Stand tall with hands on hips (the Wonder Woman pose), lean back with feet on desk and hands behind head, or stand with arms raised in a V. The key is expanding: taking up space, opening your body, and avoiding the low-power poses (hunching, crossing arms, touching neck, making yourself small) that naturally occur before stressful situations.Pro tipDo not power pose during the situation itself—this is about configuring your brain beforehand, not performing dominance during the interactionWarningThis is you talking to yourself, not you talking to other people. Never power pose AT someone
- Repeat until you become itCuddy's mentor told her to do every talk she was asked to do, even when terrified, until she had the moment of saying 'I am doing it.' This is not about one-time tricks but about repeated practice that eventually rewires your self-concept. Each time you power pose and then perform, you accumulate evidence that you belong, that you are capable, and that you deserve to be in the room. Over months and years, the pose becomes unnecessary because the identity has been internalized.Pro tipKeep a log of situations where you power-posed and performed—reviewing this evidence accelerates the identity shift
At 19, Cuddy was thrown from a car in a severe accident. She woke in a head injury rehab ward with her IQ dropped by two standard deviations. She was told she would never finish college. She struggled, worked, got lucky, and worked more, eventually graduating four years behind her peers. At Princeton, the night before her first-year talk, she called her mentor Susan Fiske and said she was quitting. Fiske told her: 'You are not quitting. You are going to fake it. Do every talk until you have the moment where you say, I am doing it.'
A student who had not spoken all semester came to Cuddy's office and said 'I am not supposed to be here.' Cuddy recognized her own former feeling and told the student to fake it—power pose, participate, show up. The student gave the best comment in class the next day. Months later, Cuddy realized the student had not just faked it till she made it; she had faked it till she became it. She had fundamentally changed.
Cuddy and Dana Carney brought participants into a lab, had them adopt high-power or low-power poses for two minutes, then measured hormones and behavior. High-power posers showed 20% testosterone increase and 25% cortisol decrease. In a subsequent job interview experiment with stone-faced evaluators, blind coders unanimously wanted to hire the high-power posers and rejected the low-power posers—driven not by answer quality but by the presence and authenticity they brought.
Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist at Harvard Business School, was inspired by observing gender differences in her MBA classroom: women made themselves physically smaller and participated less, while men expanded and dominated discussion—with participation counting for half the grade. With collaborator Dana Carney at Berkeley, she designed experiments measuring hormonal changes from two-minute power poses. Cuddy's personal stake was deeply emotional: at 19, she was thrown from a car in a serious accident, woke in a head injury rehab ward with her IQ dropped by two standard deviations, and was told she would never finish college. It took her four years longer than her peers, but she eventually reached Princeton and then Harvard, driven by her mentor Susan Fiske's instruction to 'do every talk you ever get asked to do until you have the moment where you say, oh my gosh, I am doing it.'