Interview: Presence with Amy Cuddy

You're listening to Optimize with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living Interview series. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting with Amy Cuddy, one of the world's leading social psychologist, whose TED Talk has been viewed something like 45 million times. She. She is a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of Bringing youg Boldest Self to youo Biggest Challenges. It's a phenomenal book. One of my favorite books of 2016, and I guess it was end of 2015, but one of my favorite books, period. I've implemented a ton of the ideas in my own life, and I'm excited to chat about them today. Amy, thank you so much for taking the time.

Thank you so much for having me.

All right, well, let's start at the top. Presence. What is it?

Well, I mean, it's many things to many different people, but I try to kind of take it off its pedestal. And, you know, I think of it as something pretty much pretty ordinary, something that we all experience at moments and don't in other moments. But I define it as the ability to be attuned to and able to access and express your best qualities, you know, your boldest self. So your. Your core values, your best skills, your true feelings to bring them forth in situations that are otherwise pretty stressful, like job interviews or first dates, any kind of situation that involves some component of social judgment and where we feel like the stakes are high. And so these are the moments when we're least likely to be present, but when we most need to be present.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And let's talk about some of the ways to access that before I jump into some of the ideas I want to cover. What's your favorite way?

Oh, geez. I mean. Well, you won't be surprised to hear that my favorite way involves expanding our bodies, so stretching out and taking up space and carrying ourselves with a sense of pride and power and openness. And by doing that physically, we are actually sending a signal to our brain that we are comfortable and powerful. And so I think that this is what allows us to be open, to walk into situations that are challenging and see them not as threats, but as opportunities to go into something like an audition and look around and see the people in that audition room, in the waiting room, not as threats, but as just other people like you, who are trying their best. So it's really interesting. But the body and the mind are connected in both directions. So obviously the mind is telling the body what to do like saying walk forward or kick the ball. But your body is also sending information to your mind all the time about what kind of situation you're in. So your body is basically preparing your mind to deal with threats or to relax if we're in a safe situation.

That's so cool. Let's go straight into the research. So your research on this is just absolutely fascinating. Can you tell us about it?

Yeah, I mean, we've done quite a bit. But really the interesting thing is that since we started doing some of this work, you know, many others kind of picked it up and took it in directions that I. That I wouldn't have even anticipated. But the general idea is that when people and animals have power, so it doesn't have to be humans or even primates, but when animals have power or status, they tend to expand their bodies, right? They stretch out, they take up space, they even occupy more central positions in the community, like they might sit on top of a hill. And that is a universal emotional display of power and pride and confidence. And so it's been studied in dozens of cultures, and in every culture in which it's been studied, that sort of throwing your arm. So imagine crossing the finish line. You know, in first place, what you do is you immediately spontaneously throw your arms up in the air into a V. You tend to lift your chin and smile. That is universal. That's what people do when they win all over the world. And if you show people pictures of other people doing that and say, what are they feeling? They'll say confidence or pride or power or something like that. So just as smiling and happiness are universally linked and hardwired, so too are power and expansiveness. So that's the sort of starting point. So if we know that smiling and happiness are linked and that when we smile, it's not just an expression of happiness, but it also can cause happiness, which research has shown in the last couple of decades. Then is it also possible that expanding our body isn't just an expression of power, but could also be a cause of feeling powerful? So that's what we really set out to answer. And we did the first couple of studies just having people. Once they got to the lab, they were randomly assigned to a high power or a low power condition. All they were asked to do was to adopt a particular high power expansive pose or a low power contractive pose. And they held those postures for about two minutes. And after that, we measured lots of different variables in different studies. But the most important takeaway is that across our studies and Many other lab studies. Expanding your body even for two minutes makes you feel more powerful, more confident, more in charge. It makes you behave more assertively. All the things that go along with feeling powerful. We've also looked at other variables and I'm happy to talk about those as well.

Let's do it. I mean, this is so fascinating to me and I just love the unpacking, so please continue.

So we've looked at, for example, how do people perform in stressful job interviews after they have power posed? And let me be clear, we have looked at the effects of power posing before a stressful situation. So I'm not telling you to stand like a superhero in the middle of a job interview. Like, that's not going to go over well because you're not challenging people to a duel. You know, you are, you are trying to project confidence and, and, and comfort and interest in them as well. You know, you're trying to connect with them, not, not compete with them. But when people do this before they go in, just as I said, the body is sort of preparing the mind. And so when you do that, you're preparing the mind to go into a challenging situation with confidence and power to feel open and not threatened. And so what happens is that people perform better in these stressful job interviews. After power posing for a few minutes, they end up being evaluated better overall by the judges and the judges are more likely to want to hire them. And just note that the judges have no idea that there are these two conditions. All they're seeing are these videotaped interviews and they're blind to the hypothesis and the conditions. But they like the high power posers better, they rate them better. And it turns out the thing that's different is that the high power posers are exhibiting more of what I call presence. They are being themselves, they are more authentic, they're more genuine. They're showing a kind of enthusiasm and confidence and even kind of warmth and openness. And that is what is mediating the relationship between power posing before the job interview and getting the job offer after the job interview. So it's not that they're saying different things, they're saying the same things in a different way. And I would say that they're saying them with more presence. Right? They're there. They're not threatened. They're telling you what they believe.

So all that is amazing. Let's step back for a moment. Tell us, Describe for us a power posture, a power pose.

So I mean, it really there's, there's, it's you know, there, there's an infinite set of power poses because, you know, everybody is different and every, you know, anything that's expansive really could be a power pose. But you know, there are some that are kind of classics. Like the victory pose, you know, having your arms up in a V and, and looking up there is the, the superhero pose where you stand with your hands on your hips and your feet apart. And you know, you're kind of opening your shoulders, you're kind of holding them back and down as opposed to forward and slouched.

That's the one I now do before every interview. And every thing that I do that requires that level.

Yeah, that's the one that I find the most comfortable. But you could. Some people. One of the poses that we've used is the feet on the desk. So you're in your chair and you've got your feet propped up on your desk, leaning back in your chair with your hands behind your head. So it's kind of like the, you know, I don't know what you'd call it, the CEO pose or something, but it's really anything that is expansive. I mean, there are lots of yoga poses that I would call power poses. Like the cobra, for example. I mean, warrior poses. Like there are many that have these same qualities. You're opening up, you're taking up space, you're opening up the chest, which is allowing you to breathe slowly and deeply. And that is part of what's happening. When we breathe slowly and deeply, we are signaling to our nervous system that we are in a rest and digest state that we do. We're not running from a predator, we're safe. And so, you know, if you, if you're all slouched and hunched over and your shoulders are collapsed, it's really hard to breathe slowly and deeply. You start to breathe in a more shallow way and that then sends the opposite side signal you're in a fight or flight situation. A predator is chasing you and you better either shut down or run.

That's amazing. So then expansiveness is what is bidirectionally connected to power. And that contraction of taking up less space is related to being the prey rather than the predator, right?

That's right. And that's exactly right. So we do feel like prey. And you really see this kind of taking it out of the, the non clinical population. People with post traumatic stress show a lot of these signs of contracting and closing up. Because the idea is that trauma kind of lives in the body, even psychological trauma. And so when we feel traumatized we act like timid, scared animals and we wrap ourselves up, we start touching our faces, covering our mouths and our eyes, we make less eye contact. All of these are really powerless postures. And you see them in populations of people with post traumatic stress. So you know, combat veterans with pts or you know, women who've survived, you know, violence or domestic abuse, you see the same kinds of symptoms. And so embodied therapy is really yielding great outcomes for these populations. And this is very mainstream now. It's not, you know, I think that 10, 20 years ago it was like sort of this marginalized thing, but now mainstream therapists are using these body based approaches to help people with post traumatic stress, many of which are breathing based. So you calm the nervous system and the nervous system sort of gets out of that hypervigilant state. So really I think that's when you think about post traumatic stress as kind of the most extreme form of psychological powerlessness. So you feel extremely threatened and you feel completely powerless to protect yourself, to get away. So it's kind of interesting to see the parallels there.

Yeah, that's amazing. To kind of bring it to life in our day to day lives. How would you recommend we integrate power poses?

I think first you have to do what's comfortable for you. So nothing in psychology is going to work for everyone. And I know that it would be great if there were some kind of panacea, but there's not. And so, you know, although I hear from thousands of people who find ways to implement this and it works well for them, I never, I always want to be careful about not, not over promising. The general idea is that, that and then I'll get into the specifics. But you know, how you carry your body is affecting how you carry out your interactions and you know, your thoughts and feelings and how you see yourself in the world. But in practice, you know, I'd recommend if you find a power pose that you feel comfortable in and you're about to go into something like a job interview or even like a difficult conversation with someone you care about or with your boss or, you know, there's so many situations like this, you take some private time and space and you know, just stand in one of those postures for a minute or two and focus on your breathing and you know, just stretch out as much as you can, take up as much space as you can because your body before going into that situation is going to want to do the exact opposite. Don't allow it to do that. When you walk into the situation, it's likely that you are going to be feeling calmer than you would have if you hadn't done that. And also more confident. Now during those stressful situations, what happens is just as this happens before we walk in, it also happens during these moments if something doesn't go well, especially we start to collapse. We start to hunch, you know, we start to wrap ourselves up. You know, we might take one hand and wrap it around the opposite forearm or start playing with our hair or touching our necks. All of these are signs of powerlessness. We might start breathing more shallowly. We might start talking really fast. All of these are things we do when we feel powerless. So you have to, you have to force yourself to stop that. So what. Become aware of your body. Notice when you're, what are, what's happening in the moments when your body does start to collapse? That's the first thing to notice for you because this is idiosyncratic. You know, what are the situations that make you feel powerless? And then when you're in those moments, if you start to feel your body collapse, force it open, you know, force your shoulders back and down. Slow your breathing. Pause. You don't have to talk nonstop the whole time. You know, people really fear pauses when they feel powerless. And I think it's, I think it's because it's like a hole, right? A pause is a vulnerability. And when you feel confident, it's safe to have a hole. But when you feel vulnerable and when you feel threatened, it's not safe, right? So you're afraid somebody's going to pounce in there and get you. But you have to trust that your body is going to help you calm down. So yeah, slow your breathing. Open your body if you need to, if you need to hold, say something like a water bottle or a slide advancer or rest your hand on the back of a chair. Whatever it takes to keep your body open, you want to do that because you want to show confident, open posture. But that's posture that's not domineering.

Yeah, you make that point really clear in the book. We're not talking about being a tough guy every moment of every day but, but to have that confidence and that calmness via that expansion, particularly when we feel threatened and want to contract. Those are really, really helpful and it makes me think of, of your. One of the ideas I wanted to explore which was your fascinating research on the eye hunch, you know, of just kind of the. How we hold ourselves even in non stressful moments throughout the day can be diminishing. Our power can you tell us about that.

Yeah. What we notice is that when people are over their phones, they adopt a posture that looks very much like the posture of people who are clinically depressed. It's really powerless. It's really caved in. Our shoulders, our chest is sort of caved in. Our shoulders are collapsed, our neck is down. And so people call that eye posture, eye hunching. Some people call it text neck. But what happened is I started to hear from physiotherapists from around the world after the TED Talk, and they started telling me. I mean, they were pretty much all telling me the same thing, which was, wow, I'm starting to see teenagers who have the kinds of postural problems that I'm used to seeing in elderly women. So, you know, they call. They call it the dowager's hump. And that's pretty amazing because it takes a long time to develop that. And that means that kids are spending a lot of time over their phones. And so not only is that physically painful and bad for you, but that time that you're spending over your phone in that collapsed, powerless position is also affecting you psychologically. It's making you feel more powerless and closed off and sad. And so other psychologists have seen this, and we've demonstrated this in our own studies, where we have people work on devices of different sizes. And the bigger the device, so if you go from, say, a smartphone to a desktop computer, the more expensive the device, the more assertively people behave after they've worked on it for just five minutes. So five minutes of working on that tiny device changes the way you feel about yourself and the way you behave, which is crazy.

Just to pause for a moment and reflect on that. And as I was reading the book, I mean, it's truly staggering, right? We're not spending five minutes. We're spending, obviously, hours and hours and hours a day. So just bringing that awareness to those little moments seem to be great ways to kind of cultivate where it's not just right before the moment of stress, but during the day, noticing and kind of pulling back the shoulders and expanding our chest a little, breathing more deeply and kind of rehearsing almost. Right. And building that skill so that when it matters most, we've practiced it enough to be able to drop in, right?

Yeah, exactly. And I think that we need to pay attention to how we carry ourselves throughout the day to just be more mindful, to be more mindful of our bodies, so that our bodies are helping our minds. But so you. You. These. This whole idea of standing desks there's something to this, right? There's something to standing up in a more erect position that's going to, you know, probably make you more productive and more effective. Walking meetings. There's more and more evidence that when people have meetings with somebody else where they're walking, they. They have. The quality of the meeting is better, right? Generate more ideas, they feel better after the meeting. It's just value creating. I think that when people walk, I think that I advise everyone to walk during a first date as well, because that's a very stressful situation. And we often sit across a table from each other, looking at each other still and kind of locked in and get super nervous. But if you're walking through a city or something, you're moving, you can take long strides and swing your arms. All of those things will make you feel better. Set up your workspace so that you, you know, your mouse is not right under you so that you have to reach for it. Set a reminder on your phone every hour that tells you to check your posture. You know, have your friends tell you when you're hunched over, you just want to pay attention throughout the day, because even when you're not actively participating, you are still sending information to your brain.

So amazing. There are so many awesome ideas there from. I'm standing right now. So I have a standing desk that I haven't integrated completely. I still need to sit to write for some reason, kind of slowly. Condition.

Wait, can we just pause for a minute? Because that. This is really interesting. So just yesterday I was talking to somebody and she was telling me that, wow, this is interesting. So she was telling me that she has a standing desk and it works for everything except writing. She said I have to sit while I write. And so we were starting to think about this, and this is my working hypothesis. Most of what we do is about responding to something that already exists. So even editing is different from writing. Or maybe we're talking to somebody on the phone and so we're responding to what they're doing. But writing is about generating something from scratch. And there seems to be something about that that is harder to do when we're standing. I don't know why, but I'm starting to see a theme here. So really interesting that you said the.

Same thing that gives me goosebumps because I interviewed Tom Rath, who's with Gallup and Eat, Move, Sleep, and he wrote his entire book on a treadmill, walking treadmill. And I'm looking at mine next to my desk right now. I haven't Upgraded that as often as possible. And I was thinking about it too and it's almost like it depletes a bit of the necessary working memory or something to kind of be doing. I just, that's the time I want to be in my head and just reduce all in the most positive sense. Right. Reduce distractions and kind of let it come through as you were describing. Whereas it's simple for me to be on the walking treadmill, you know, saying thanks on social media. Right. And doing things that don't require any real deep thought. So that's fascinating and I'm excited to see how that unfolds for you and your, in your scientific.

Yeah, that really makes sense. I mean, you are using energy right. When you're doing those things. And writing for most of us requires a lot of energy and your brain needs energy. Right. So it's, it's possible that it is somehow through blood flow better. Better to be sitting when you're writing anyway, something to test later.

That's really exciting. And then the other thing I want to highlight is, as you were saying, the first date, my first date with my wife was a hike and so we went on a hike and then it wound up being a 30 hour first date. PG13. She likes me to qualify it as, you know, but we, it was a hike and we were out, we were having fun and it was just an amazing, obviously a wonderful date. So just a funny personal highlight on that.

Well, my first date with my husband too was a walking date. We actually met. He's Australian, I'm American. We met through his sister and talked on email for a long time and met for the first time in Paris. And we were both so nervous that we just walked and we spent pretty much a day just walking and talking and it was so much better than sitting still. So we think that we had like a day long walking first date as well.

That's so great. Oh, that's awesome. Very sweet. Well, this is all so good. And there are obviously so many ideas we can talk about. I want to, I want to hit on a few more. Let's see where we want to go. I want to hear you describe. I'm excited. I know calling down the hallway, that's changed my life. I used to be a very always nervous and borderline anxious little guy when I was in high, you know, kid growing up. And I've always had, you know, really deep sensitivity and I used to think something was wrong with me. And that simple phrase of I'm excited vis a vis, something's wrong with you. Right. Change changed my life. So I'd love for you to describe that which you describe so beautifully and powerfully in the book.

Yeah. Sorry. Say the last. Sorry, Sorry, sorry. I got. As you were talking, I was thinking about a particular point that I. To make, and it's probably not what you want to. Can you just say, summarize that again? I'm sorry about that.

No problem. Well, I'm happy to hear whatever you.

I got onto the sort of sensitivity thing, so. Sorry, Go ahead.

If you want to pull that thread, that's awesome. But no, I just.

Sorry. It just. It was. It was making. You know, I think that I hate this idea that we tell our kids that they're too sensitive. I just think it's wrong. I think that sensitivity is a good thing. It's a matter of, you know, being sensitive is great.

It's the story we tell ourselves about that sensitivity that either creates a sense of power and presence. Right.

That's right. I mean, I think that sensitivity is a great skill and, you know, what a rich world you live in if you're sensitive and you're so much better at being able to connect with others and understand them. So, yeah, it very much is about being who you are and creating your own, or not even creating, but owning your narrative about who you are. Right. And having it be a positive narrative. And there's a lot of research on personal narratives and how more positive personal narratives, even about adversity, predict much better life outcomes. Right. So anyway, that one piece. But anxiety is excitement you asked about, and this is really cool research by my colleague Alison Woodbrooks. So Alison, who is also a psychologist and a professor at Harvard Business Business School, used to be a professional singer. And she is very, very calm. She does not get nervous about performing, but she's very interested in stage fright and, you know, what makes people nervous and how can you help them. And partly in response to this whole keep calm phenomenon, this keep calm meme, she. She was wondering, does that make sense? Because what people often tell us to do when we're anxious is to calm down. And what her research ultimately shows, and I'll explain why, but is that that's probably the last thing you should tell people, is to calm down. Because when you are in a high arousal state, so if your emotions are running high, it's very hard to calm them down to decrease the arousal level. So basically think of emotions as having two dimensions. There's the arousal level. So how. How sort of energized is the Emotion or energizing. And then there's the positivity, negativity of the emotion. So, for example, sadness is a low arousal negative emotion. Anxiety is a high arousal negative emotion. But excitement is a high arousal positive emotion. So what Allison did in her research, and by the way, calmness is a low arousal positive emotion. Right. So easy to change. Much easier. Sorry. Much easier to change the negativity, positivity than the arousal level. So this is what she did. She had people doing all kinds of stressful tasks like singing competitions and math tests and debating contests. And she had them, before they began, say to themselves one of three things, I am anxious, I am excited, or I am calm. She did various, various versions of this. But what she found ultimately was that the people who performed the best were the ones who told. Were the ones who told themselves, I am excited. So they reframed their anxiety as a high arousal positive emotion by telling themselves that they're calm. It just. It was impossible. It makes your. It makes your anxiety even more salient to you. It makes it worse. So reframe your anxiety as excitement.

So good. With the simple phrase, I'm excited. And there's no more trying to go from high arousal to low arousal or beating yourself up because you suddenly. You haven't ever figured out how to not be stressed. Right. But to use that energy positively is so exciting. I mean, again, for me, that's been so liberating whenever I feel that, the nervousness that I used to misinterpret, but now it's. No, I'm genuinely excited. Like, I truly care about this, and I wanted. I'm just excited about it. I want to do my best, and that's a good thing. And that's going to help me perform. Not something I need to stifle or be ashamed of.

And the thing is, you really are actually excited. You know, both of those things are true. You know, when you're going into something that's challenging, there is an element of excitement about it. Right. To see how can you. How is this going to turn out? It's new and it's exciting.

Yeah, that's really cool. And to know that the empirical research shows that that actually improves performance is a very good reason to enjoy it. Tell us about. You touched on it in different ways, but can you tell us about self affirmation theory? Oh, yeah, Stuart Smiley or whatever his name is.

Yeah, Stuart Smalley. Yeah. So the idea is that when people think of self affirmation, they think of this sort of thing that used to Be in the Saturday Night Live skit called Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley. He was played by Al Franken. And Al Franken would say to himself, he'd look in the mirror and he would say, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. And so let me say, yeah, he'd say, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. And the idea is that that was supposed to make him feel better, but by the end of the sketch, he'd be saying things like, I am in a shame spiral and I am a fraud and they're gonna cancel my show and I will die homeless and penniless and no one will love me. So it backfired. And it was funny because we all kind of know that that backfires because when you're feeling that when you're self doubting, it's not going to make you feel better to tell yourself something that you don't believe already. So now you're just lying to yourself on top of already feeling this sort of sense of self doubt. So the way self affirmation actually works, and there are literally hundreds of studies looking at this is where people, they don't say, I'm, you know, I'm going to be a pro tennis player tomorrow. Like, of course you're not if you're not a pro tennis player. Like, you can't just pick up a racket and decide that you're going to do that. You can't say I'm great at math if you're not great at math. But what you can do is affirm to yourself your core values so who you really are. So people are asked in these exercises to list their core values. You know, what, what is most important to you, what makes you who you are, what's most central to your identity. And then they choose the top one and they're asked to write about a time when they experienced this and when they were able to express it and why does it matter so much to them? And that's self affirmation. So you're not telling yourself you're good at something you're not good at. You're actually affirming something that you know to be, you know, perfectly true about who you are. When you go into a stressful situation after doing that, like say, taking a stressful math test, which is, many of the studies were done in that context with college students. You're less stressed, you're less anxious, you are physiologically less stressed. But also you perform better. Now this is kind of surprising because you've just self affirmed on a dimension that's unrelated to the one in which you're being tested. But the reason it works is that, but it's taking your focus off of the, you know, the importance of that one thing and that outcome and you know, the math test and it's putting the emphasis on the thing that you know to be true about yourself. So you're kind of anchoring yourself in the truth. And you know that no matter how you do on that math test, you're still going to be the same person when you leave that room. And so self affirmation really shores up our sense of self and that protects us.

Wow, that's so cool. And such a great juxtaposition of no need to lie to ourselves. Let's affirm that which we feel most connected to.

Exactly.

Yeah. That's really, really powerful. Is there anything that we didn't talk about? Obviously we could talk about so much more, but is there anything we didn't talk about that you feel is important to bring up in this context?

No, I think that we covered it pretty well.

Right on.

Thank you.

Well, if I can wrap up with a couple of really quick questions. One of the big things in my work is to focus on the fundamentals, the basic things that keep us plugged in, in optimizing and performing at our best. Things like eating, moving, sleeping, meditation, etc. Do you have any personal habits that you found to be most helpful for you in living a life of flourishing?

Oh gosh, I know I'm supposed to have like a really good answer to this and I don't, you know, I really wish I did and that's something I need to work on. I'm so over scheduled that I just haven't really found a lot of time to fix that. But I mean, I do think I have learned to carry myself more openly. I mean, I really actually now worry that I'm too expansive in interactions because I've become so tuned into my own body language. Partly because I'm giving talks about this and then people are going, oh, how was her posture? But I do think that I've learned to expand and just to be aware of what I'm doing with my body. And that awareness helps me to control how I feel. So I do absolutely notice when I start to collapse and I try to correct that. Sometimes it's hard to do that, but I try to and that helps.

That's awesome. The habit of cultivating presence Beautiful. I like to wrap up these, these chats with one final question, which will be another tough one. And it might be something we've already talked about, but if you could share just one piece of wisdom with someone passionate about optimizing their lives and actualizing their potential, making a difference in the world, what would that one piece of wisdom be?

Well, I guess I really. I love this Maya Angelou quote that I, that I. That I list in the book. Or. Sorry, let me start again. I'm really inspired by this Maya Angelou quote. Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. And I guess that, that, that advice is what I would give, which is that you have. You. You have yourself. You have the. The ability to feel powerful. Power does not, not all power comes from other people. Some power comes from you. And, you know, don't consent to feelings of powerlessness. Allow yourself to be your biggest, boldest, most expansive self. You know, stretch out and take up your fair share of space in the world. You know, stop hushing yourself. You know, be your biggest, boldest self. You actually become not just stronger, but more open to other people, more able to connect with them, more compassionate.

Absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for you stepping into the boldest version of yourself and inspiring us to do the same. I appreciate you and all your work and taking time today. If you haven't watched Amy's TED Talk yet, you're one of the few people in the world who hasn't. Check it out. And Amy, where can they learn more about you and your work?

Well, I mean, amycutty.com but really, honestly, I'm more active on my Facebook fan page, which you can find pretty easily, and on Twitter and on LinkedIn. But, you know, do check out the book, which is called Presence, bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges. And you should be able to find that just about anywhere.

Yeah, and again, I can't make a strong enough recommendation for the book. It's been life changing for me as an individual and a creator and as a father. It's just great. So pick up the book, Amy. Thank you so much.

Isn't it a bit odd we went from math to science to history, but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule.

Of course, it's too late to go.

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