Your body language may shape who you are

[Leena]

www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are/transcript?language=en

The results of her study was that people who took a high power pose for two minutes had a 20% increase in testosterone and people who took the low power pose had a 10% decrease in T.

I experimented a little with doing this back when I was working in sales. It really did help with my confidence levels, too. It was also one of the most masculine periods in my life. I didn't do it because it increases T, it was more the idea that people are more likely to buy from a salesperson that appears confident.

I got away from it when I started working in IT and sitting behind a desk all day when I shifted to a whatever reduces my back strain pose. The idea that T levels could be somewhat self regulated is quite interesting.

 

[Ativan Prescribed]

Forgot to post back on this.
It is absolutely true as far as I am concerned, a lotta T in that entire thing, big ticket sales.
I had one of the other sales guys telling me how to do this and that to just have the look and posture.
He was an asshole most of the time, but made a lot of sales, so just mimicking became the thing until I found my own groove.
I was still a pretty introverted person back then, but was a lot smarter than the crew there and most of the customers as well.
There was a point that personality wise, I snapped into this extroverted person that I could do without problems, but this went full time.
My sales numbers shot up, I was tagging the most sales bonus all the time, I sold even when I was at the bar, where the T just took over.
Started running with the big boys and dating woman I thought of as unreacheable, I learned to use all that T ans learned how to talk to them.
It wasn't like I didn't know how, it was a matter of bringing the NB stuff along and having it right behind the T in overdrive.
I could talk the talk and was walking the walk, in the world of people who were the big time, at a few bars I went to, I had my own stool to sit on.
They would just politely tell whoever that I always sit there and they would look at me and just get up and sit somewhere else, sometimes not though.
But that was just the way things got to be, I pushed this stuff to the limits, I thought, only to push it farther.
There is no end to the stories about it all, almost a decade and I had a name for myself and was known around in the big players circles.
I had down and dirty friends who were just neanderthals, to some of the richest people in the state, dated the daughter of the highest paid CEO for a time.
That was a world of personal jets and flying to somewhere while getting drunk and having a great time that was all paid for.
Couple times went to the Indy 500 and had pretty much center front row almost seats, all paid for, I don't think I spent a dime.
That kind of stuff, gnarly friends to super rich, and they all treated me with respect and liked who I was, was offered business deals at one time.
All because I just changed the way I was presenting myself, changed it up from introverted to being that obnoxious outgoing person, but getting away with it.
And once I walked away from all of that to raise my daughter, that posturing went away as well, but I still had that overbearing sense when I needed it.
Some of it came from a life I lived at one time, other parts came from just trying to be better than my friends were when it came to daring kind of stuff.
But were just pumped to the max short term things, life and death in a heartbeat, sorta.
But I was able to find and take those kinds of things and amplify them into this personality that went to the edge a lot of the time, one leg hanging over it.
But most definitely the way you present yourself, the way you walk and talk, the gestures and swagger at all times in overdrive, lot's of fricken T.

[Leena]

I still was not all that outgoing, even as a salesperson. I don't think it is as useful as some of my co-workers thought, they'd often have the sale, and then keep talking and the client would change the subject and they'd talk about something else for awhile and leave without buying.

Even if I didn't know the word for it then, I was nonbinary and introverted and the guys I worked with initially tried to push me to be more like them, but I sold way more product than everyone else so they stopped doing that after awhile.

It somewhat concerns me that I do have a positive response to T, even if I hate some of the long term effects of it like MPB and body/facial hair. I spent a lot of time thinking I was binary trans, though I don't think that path is for me, though it is the right path for others.

Just because I do like how I feel on T, doesn't mean I have to be like cis men though. Really, so much about being a man in this society to me is counterproductive. I want nothing to do with all that, though it doesn't really mean I have to be totally like a woman either.

[Ativan Prescribed]

Yah, it pays to know how to work a customer and when the sale is in hand instead of rattling off crap to be impressive.
I played it pretty smart, the other guys would give me crap all the time saying I was the worst salesman they had ever seen, couldn't figure out how I got the sale.
I am pretty good at observing people and can predict their moves fairly well, there is a point where they are tipping over the edge and all you have to do is hold their hand while they spend money.
I could prompt the moments by how I presented, if they were ready, then the pitch is over and the relaxed laid back usually got them to do the same and then buy.
But it was the draw for the customer to talk to the person they saw as the real thing related to the product, and I had mostly referrals.
I also had people from the same groups locked up and the who's who people came directly to me, if it was my day off, they might stay and ask questions, but wait for me to be there to buy.
Took a few years to get that all going, and the other guys spent their time picking off the walk ins.
I had those as well, but I had other responsibilities too, I managed the things going on, I was the go to person to get things done, a manager but not a area manager.
If there were irate and shouting customers, I was the one they called on the intercom, the rule was if their hands went higher than their shoulders, call me in.
For some reason, I could walk right into it and ask the company person to go do something else and then have these guys get a coffee with me and get the treatment of being in the office, where my chairs were pretty plush, the laid back place.
I'd let them talk it all out and hardly have to say a thing, and once they were done, I could tell them how it was going to go down, who I was going to talk to and I'd see to it that the problem would be fixed as best possible.
That's all they wanted, just someone to spill it all out on and then get an answer they could see was going to help them.
So same in sales, all they wanted was someone who they could trust to be their salesman, but also the person who they could depend on to help them later on, or just stop in and drink coffee with, I was the pumped up person to be sure, but I had that laid backness of I wasn't the person to fuck with.
It was all just playing the part, and I could do that as opposed to the other salesmen who thought they lived the part, but I'd hear them also using my best stories and lines, trying to get a sale.
They just tried to hard to be that person who they thought they were, while I was just playing the part but in a realistic way that didn't come off as overdoing it.
I had the high end people as customers, and I also had the rough ones to work with, but not as much.
It was then that I would do the presentation of them, a mirror image and it worked, it's what they wanted, a salesperson who they could relate to.
And that would fire me up, a few of them in one day and I was lighting it up on the way out of the parking lot on the way to the bar, having fun.
But that was all there was to it, just being the person they expected and wanted to work with, a mirror so to speak of who they were.