Ep 56 Is Amy Cuddy a Dr Oz-Style Fraud Feb 25 16

Is Dr. Amy cuddy a Dr. Oz style fraud?

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public, to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

Wow, am I going to get some hate mail for this, folks? First, a little background. If you're not familiar with her. Amy Cuddy is the wildly popular, successful psychologist at Harvard Business School who has made the second most popular TED talk of all time. As of today, she has 35 and a half million views on of her one speech on which is 31 million views more than I have. So why do I make the allegation that she is a fraud? A little more background. In her speech, she talks about things people can do to be more confident when giving presentations and like speeches, job interviews, other important events. Her number one takeaway, her number one suggestion, her number one visual at the end of the speech. Or that if you do a Wonder Woman pose, a power pose that will make your body feel confident and you'll be more confident, your body language will affect your psychology. You'll actually be more confident and do a better job. People love this. It seems like the magic bullet. Why am I saying this is a fraud at the level of Dr. Oz? Now, Dr. Oz, as you'll recall, got into a lot of trouble for peddling magic green coffee beans to help people lose weight. Now, if you read Dr. Oz's books, most medical experts say they're great. He has a tremendous reputation. He also went to Harvard. He has impeccable reputations as a professor, as a teacher, as a surgeon. The vast majority of his content on his shows is considered to be pretty good. But when you do a show on health and weight loss, you can't just say the same thing every day. You can't just say you want to lose weight. Here's the secret. Eat lots of fresh vegetables and fruit. Eat smaller portions and walk 10,000 steps a day and avoid a lot of processed foods and sugar and garbage. You can't say that every day. So he came up with new stuff. Oh, look at these magic beans. And it turned out to be totally bogus. I feel there's a great deal of similarity between what Dr. Oz did and what Amy Kutter's doing. Now, when I say fraud, I don't mean to suggest that she did this falsifying research. I don't mean to suggest that she's in violation of any SEC regulation or that she's lied to me. It's fraud in the larger sense. Just fundamentally misdirecting people away from what is important and actually helpful to Something trivial. People watch her whole speech and their takeaway is, oh, I've now got a magic bullet for my next speech. If I do the Wonder Woman pose for a couple of minutes, I'm going to be so much better. Here's the thing. It just isn't true. How do I know this? Amy Cuddy is a big fan of research, by the way. She has a whole new book. Her speech was so popular, she got a huge book deal. It is a fabulous bestseller presence. And I've read that too. It's not that there's any willful misinformation there. I just think she's missing the whole point and getting an awful lot of people to focus on the wrong thing. Now she says, if you want to give, for example, a better speech, the speech of your life, do this Wonder Woman pose. Here's the problem. If you still have a bad, boring data dump speech, feeling a little more confident isn't going to help. People still aren't going to like you. Here's my big problem with Amy Cuddy is she has a wildly successful speech. And what she points to as one of the main reasons for why it was successful. Is it valid? Hear me out. Here is my thesis. If Amy Cuddy gave the exact same speech she gave at TED but didn't do a power pose, I would contend it would still be a great speech and a wildly successful speech. Why? Let's look at her speech. Her speech. In her speech, she has a great powerful message. She doesn't do a data dump. She has a fantastic story, a personal story, where she talks in detail about a car injury where she was massively injured, where she had to relearn how to think and talk. She lost all sorts of IQ points. It took her four extra years just to get through college. She had a moving story. It was powerful. She had dialogue, emotion, setting, characters. All the things, in fact, that the Anthony Robbins of the world and the Zig Ziglar's of the world and the Dale Carnegie's of the world have been talking about forever. She comes across likable, charming. She doesn't do a data dump. Her slides are great. She has images, a Wonder Woman pose, not a whole bunch of text. So I would contend Amy Caddy's speech is wildly successful because she followed basic principles of good speech making. She narrowed her messages down to just a few. She illustrated her stories with powerful personal. Or she illustrated her points with powerful personal stories and she used images that weren't text based. Now you can't do a speech saying that and get more than about 30 views. I know I've made thousands of videos. If you actually tell people what it takes to give a good speech, it's not particularly interesting to people. They'd much rather latch on to some new magic gimmick. Oh, if I do a Wonder Woman pose. So here's the real test for Amy Cuddy's speech. If she didn't do her Wonder Woman pose, but gave her speech exactly as she did, compelling personal stories, likable, engaging, just a few points, great visuals. Her speech would still be wildly successful and effective. If she did a power pose, a Wonder Woman pose, but gave the traditional speech of lots and lots of points, no personal stories, lots of text on slides, I contend her speech would be instantly forgotten, would frankly be a bomb. She might feel more comfortable, but it would still be wildly unsuccessful as a speech. So that's my problem, is that she's fundamentally focusing on the wrong thing for people. And it's an easy out. It's a gimmick. Back to the Dr. Oz analogy. People are always looking for this new magic diet pill, a new magic coffee pill, a thigh master machine. Everyone is constantly looking for a new gimmick to lose weight. And they'll buy the latest fad diet book, the latest pill, because they want to ignore the fundamental real challenge of losing weight, which is you need to eat a lot more fresh vegetables and fruit and stop eating a lot of processed garbage and fat and sugar and exercise a little. You can't sell a book that says that. Similarly, when it comes to public speaking, people are always latching on to some new gimmick. Now, for years and years, a lot of speaking gurus have latched on to a 1972 study from UCLA that purports to show that 93% of all communication when you speak has nothing to do with your words. It's just your voice and your body language. That's not what the study actually says. If it did, that would mean you could talk to any person in the world in a different language from your own and understand 93% of what they said. That's not what the study actually showed, but people constantly misrepresent it. And by the way, for those of you tuning in for the first time, I am a full time public speaking media training coach. So that's why I care about this. That's why I feel obligated to point out the emperor is wearing no clothes in this situation, even though I'm going to get a lot of hate mail. But people are Always looking for some gimmick with public speaking. They want to be told, oh, this latest PowerPoint gizmo will work. This special effect will work. Take this beta blocker and you'll give a great speech. Use a teleprompter on your iPhone and you'll give a great speech. No, folks, the way to give a great speech is not to do what Amy Cuddy says, but to do what she actually did. What she did is had a handful of points illustrated with stories and gave the speech buried in her speech. She does point out that one of her mentors told her, you're going to take every single speaking opportunity you can. That's how you get to be good at speaking. You give lots and lots of speeches. You practice. Now, I'm certainly not Amy Cuddy's coach, but I have worked with enough TED clients or TED speakers as clients to know they make you rehearse, typically on video. They ask you to send videos in advance. That's the secret to being a great speaker, is to actually practice on video until you can see a video of yourself giving a great speech. The problem is, nobody wants to hear that. They want to hear some simple gimmick. Visualize your audience in their underwear. Horrible advice. Take a beta blocker, visualize a standing ovation. And now it's do a wonder woman pose. It just isn't relevant. It doesn't actually help you get to be a better speaker. It's kind of as Paul McCartney. Someone asked, Paul McCartney, what's your advice, sir? How did you get to be successful? And he said, oh, back in 1962, I went to a great hairstylist. We got a great haircut. And that's why the Beatles took off. Well, no, as Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in one of his books, before the Beatles were ever the Beatles, before they ever got their first record gig, they had played together for 10,000 hours, five hours a night, for years, honing their craft, building their skills. And that's how they got to be good. And writing lots and lots and lots of psalms. That's how Paul McCartney got to be good. So if he gave credit to all things being equal, is it better for Paul McCartney to have had a cute mod haircut in 1962 than to have been prematurely bald? Sure, but that's not why he's successful. And Amy Cuddy isn't successful as a speaker because of a post. She's successful because she gave a great speech. And this is why it frustrates me so much. It's kind of like Some celebrity who says, I lost 100 pounds by eating a brownie a day. And then they don't tell you, well, yeah, I ate a brownie a day, but I used to eat 10 brownies a day and I started running 20 miles a day. The reason they lost weight isn't because they ate a brownie a day. The reason they lost weight is they're now running 20 miles a day day. And they are exercising and eating less. That's the real reason. And to me, it's a fundamental misdirection and it's not helping people. If you want to do a great job in a job interview, sure, having good posture can't hurt. It might help an extra 0.1%. But when you get in that job interview, you need to have something interesting and memorable to say about why you would be an asset to this company. You need to have some sense of what you can say that's interesting about your own accomplishments. And the way to get good at that, to feel comfortable about it, is to practice on video. More on this in a moment.

For a free, no obligation online public speaking or media training course, go to media trainingworldwide.com and start learning today.

Now, some of you could say, well, T.J. you're just jealous about Amy. Well, of course I'm jealous. And for the record, let's point out she is wildly successful. She's much more successful than I am. As I mentioned, she has 31 and a half million views on her YouTube channel. That's 31 million more views than I have. I have a half a million. Her books are more successful. She is more credentialed. She's better looking, she's more charming. I mean, she seems like such a nice person in her speech and I'm sure she is. I'm sure she would be a great friend to have and someone great to have at a dinner party. So I'm reluctant to bring this up, but I tell you, I'm in the trenches every day. All I do is, is teach people how to give speeches and how to speak to the media. And I work with hundreds of people a year all over the globe, and I'm starting to hear from people referencing her as, oh, I know what to do. I need to do my Wonder Woman pose. That is so irrelevant. That is just not even 0.01% of what's going to help you be a better speaker. If you want to be a better speaker, figure out the five most important ideas that are going to motivate your audience to do what you want illustrate each point with a story. Ideally, you make it as personal and as interesting and as memorable as Amy Cuddy's story. If you're going to use visuals, do what Amy Cuddy did. Use a picture, not a bunch of text. And practice as Amy Cuddy says she does. But no one ever hears this part. Take every speaking opportunity you get. Speak, speak, speak, Speak. It's something she doesn't mention, but I'm willing to bet she does. Practice on video until you like what you see. The number one way to get confident when it comes to your speaking abilities, to actually practice on video until you see what you like. In that way, it's no different from other aspects of your presence. To use the name of Amy Cuddy's new book, if you had to go to a fanciest black tie ball of the event in your town, would you want to get dressed in the dark and visualize yourself perfectly put together? Perfect makeup or perfect tuxedo? Or would you actually want to look in a mirror? I'm willing to bet you don't want to leave the house or the apartment until you've looked in the mirror. You want actual visual confirmation that you're put together. Hair, face, clothes. The way you want. Speaking is no different whether it's giving a big keynote speech or speaking in a job interview. If you actually want confidence, look at how you're coming across. The only way to do that is on video. And folks, that's the equivalent of a nutrition expert saying you need to eat a lot of spinach broccoli salads without much salad dressing. People know it. They say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but they don't want to hear it and they don't want to take the act because it seems like hard work. I'm here to tell you there's no way around hard work. There's no simple gimmick of changing your posture or spreading your legs. She talks about as the sort of the male dominant position or putting your hands on your hips, the Wonder Woman pose. Could that make you feel a little bit better? Sure. But you can feel better and still be an awful speaker. You can feel better and still not say anything remotely interesting or memorable. So when you're speaking in a job interview, a board presentation, a new business pitch, remember, your goal is not to feel comfortable. Your goal is to actually communicate, to get people to understand your ideas, remember them, and therefore take action. And that's what all this research that Amy Cuddy shows fundamentally isn't relevant because it's not revolving around the fundamental question. The question shouldn't be what will make you feel a little more comfortable? The question is going to be what's going to help you actually accomplish your job of communicating? If you know you're doing that, guess what? It actually becomes virtually impossible to be nervous or uncomfortable if you know you're going to communicate. If you know people are going to understand you, remember your messages, it actually becomes extremely difficult to be nervous or uncomfortable. I'm TJ Walker for my regular viewers and listeners. I appreciate you as always. You know this show is a daily show and we always take your questions. This show is a little bit out of format. If you have questions, please send them to me infoediatrainingworldwide.com you can also post on the blog at mediatrainingworldwide.com or any of the social media outlets where you are listening to or seeing this. If you disagree with me, state your reasons. I know some of you love Amy Cuddy. You're going to hate me. You want to rip me apart? Fine. I won't censor you. Feel free to post a rebuttal on the website or anywhere where you see or hear this if you think I'm fundamentally missing something. Again, for the record, I'm not saying she's doing anything illegal or fraudulent in a security sense, but I think it is a massive disservice to people and frankly, especially women because I see so many women relating to her. It's a massive disservice when Amy actually knows how to be a great presenter and she knows the secrets and yet she's steering people to something that is just such a wasteful tangent. I'm TJ Walker. As always, may all of your speeches and presentations in life be a huge success.

Speaking with TJ Walker is the number one rated daily streaming TV and radio show devoted to all aspects of speaking and communication. If you received value from this show, then please subscribe to it@mediatrainingworldwide.com Please review the show, leave comments and share it with your friends and colleagues Today.