Presence

Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges

Crucial quotes

“Presence, as I mean it throughout these pages, is the state of being attuned to and able to comfortably express our true thoughts, feelings, values, and potential.

“focus less on the impression you’re making on others and more on the impression you’re making on yourself.

Audiobook summary

Presence by Amy Cuddy – Audiobook Summary (MP3)

Overview

“The research I’ve been doing for years now joins a large body of inquiry into a quality I call presence. Presence stems from believing in and trusting yourself—your real, honest feelings, values, and abilities. That’s important, because if you don’t trust yourself, how can others trust you? Whether we are talking in front of two people or five thousand, interviewing for a job, negotiating for a raise, or pitching a business idea to potential investors, speaking up for ourselves or speaking up for someone else, we all face daunting moments that must be met with poise if we want to feel good about ourselves and make progress in our lives. Presence gives us the power to rise to these moments.”

Amy Cuddy is best known for having delivered the 2nd most-watched TED talk in history.

The talk is titled, “Your Body Shapes Who You Are”—definitely worth watching if you haven’t already done so.

Cuddy wrote this book to help people of all walks of life develop a strong sense of presence—a quality that helps us:

Command respect and inspire others
Speak with poise and clarity
Become genuinely likable to others
Develop an inner sense of confidence that helps us feel good about ourselves and make progress in our lives

We’ll talk more about how presence helps us lean into the aforementioned qualities, along with much, much more in the big ideas we’ll be sharing in this book summary.

So, are you ready to dive into the first big idea? Let’s do it.

1. What is Presence?

“Presence, as I mean it throughout these pages, is the state of being attuned to and able to comfortably express our true thoughts, feelings, values, and potential.

Here’s the thing about presence: it comes and it goes. It’s a moment-to-moment type of experience that is not permanent in nature.

In other words: there’s a ton of pieces to the puzzle when it comes to developing presence.

So the question is, how does presence emerge?—what are the pieces to the puzzle?

As Cuddy tells us:

“Presence emerges when we feel personally powerful, which allows us to be acutely attuned to our most sincere selves. In this psychological state, we are able to maintain presence even in the very stressful situations that typically make us feel distracted and powerless. When we feel present, our speech, facial expressions, postures, and movements align. They synchronize and focus. And that internal convergence, that harmony, is palpable and resonant—because it’s real. It’s what makes us compelling. We are no longer fighting ourselves; we are being ourselves. Our search for presence isn’t about finding charisma or extraversion or carefully managing the impression we’re making on other people. It’s about the honest, powerful connection that we create internally, with ourselves.”

In short: presence comes from within.

Our presence emerges when we develop our personal power, and begin believing in and trusting ourselves. Presence emerges when we bring out the most authentic version of ourselves—when we “show up” in congruence with our truest feelings, values, and abilities.

Presence is a beautiful thing.

But it can be difficult to call upon when we need it most.

And that’s why we must master our ability to become as present as possible, as often as possible. Which is what this book summary is dedicated to helping us do.