We all need power poses!

Hi Friends,

For the last 2 minutes, I stood in the "Wonder Woman" high power pose.*

Why?

Because I myself am trying to build my own confidence--as I start this blog, and put myself, Moms as Mentors® and our crowd-funding campaign out to the world, where it is beyond my control what happens and how we are received.

These days there is more and more talk about encouraging girls to take healthy risks, to be confident, expect bumps along the way and be fueled by failure, not paralyzed by it. But this is something I too need to learn-it isn't something that was ingrained in me as a girl. It wasn't until I started working in the "girl-serving space" (an admittedly bizarre term meaning I've worked for organizations devoted to helping advance women and girls) that I really started to learn how much confidence is an issue for so many women.

Along my way, I have accumulated tips and tools to help build confidence, ones I try to use myself and also ones to share with girls and women. One of those tools was "power poses"--using confident body-language even when you don't feel confident as a way to not only project confidence but actually start feeling more confident. That's why we incorporate learning "high power poses" (and distinguishing them from "low power poses") into a game we play with moms and girls at our programs. I'm always moved by the idea that the girls in our program days, months or years later, might go into a bathroom stall for 2 minutes and stand like wonder woman before a big test, a class presentation or even a college interview. And, I love that we are also sharing these power poses with the moms in our program, because they too can benefit from power poses, (before a job interview, an important business meeting etc.). 

Power Poses have been on my mind lately because I just bought a ticket to go see Amy Cuddy herself discuss her new book which I'm so excited to read, called Presence, Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges. It's a great time for me to read this book and hear her speak, because it is taking my boldest self to lead this crowd-funding campaign. And, it's hard to be bold. I need all the help I can get, even if that means standing like Wonder Woman before writing a blog post!

Thanks for reading,
Leslie

P.S. Do you have any confidence-building tips to share? If so, please pass them on! 

*For those you not familiar with power poses, I  highly recommend you take the next 20 minutes to watch this TED talk by the expert Amy Cuddy responsible for bringing world-wide attention to the power of power poses.