Still standing 😊
This was not a talk about despair. It was a talk about earned hope. And here are my hopes:
- Targets of bullying will feel seen.
- All of us will recognize that bullies’ power is borrowed from us — and we can refuse to give them that power.
- And that, as hard as it is to resist meeting cruelty with cruelty, we will never win by bullying the bullies.
(Before I walked on, I mouthed these words to myself over and over:
“Inspiration, move me brightly
Light the song with sense and color
Hold away despair
More than this I will not ask
Faced with mysteries dark and vast.”)
📷 @ted@ted #ted2026 #tedredcircle @gratefuldead
Girls’ body language tends to shrink when they get to middle school. Because girls are learning — from countless images and channels — that they are supposed to make themselves small.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We have the power to change it. By encouraging them to expand, to speak up, to share their ideas.
Let’s remind them what they were made for — to be proud, confident, whole.
For more of my discussion with @lisabilyeu on her @womenofimpact podcast, check out the link in my bio.
(If you comment, be kind to each other.)
Additional note: The children viewed 16 different pairs of these photos. Each pair included one doll in an expansive/high-power pose and one doll in a contractive/low-power pose — so they saw a total of 16 expansive poses and 16 contractive poses. They didn’t see only these two poses.
In recognition of International Women’s Day, I want to remind everyone that there are things we can do to ensure that all of our children are encouraged to grow their personal power. To share their ideas, to show their strength, to live the fullest lives they can live.
Our prescriptions and projections influence how our kids see themselves. And they internalize those messages, even if we’re sending them inadvertently. And I know this goes beyond the direct messaging between parents and kids. This is a cultural phenomenon. And we can shift it. We must shift it.
#socialpsychweekly #internationalwomensday #iwd2025
“Weir” together, missing you so much, Bobby.
It feels like a new stage of grief — a new wave of disbelief. You see a photo, you feel joy, and then you’re reminded… I’ve talked to a lot of you. Know that what you’re feeling makes sense. And you’re not alone. 🌹
@deadandcompany@gratefuldead@bobweir
I knew getting back on the TED stage and giving this talk — sharing this story, showing people how we move forward through bullying — would be a challenge. But I also know that I will rise to meet it. What other choice is there?
When I asked my now-dear friend Tina Opie why she’d publicly supported me and challenged my bullies before she even knew me, she said, “I don’t ask myself what it will cost me if I speak up; I ask myself what it will cost me if I don’t.”
This isn’t about punishment — it’s about repair. It’s not about the bullies — it’s about the rest of us.
And I’m still scared out of my mind. Wish me luck tomorrow… 🙏🏻
#ted2026 #tedredcircle @ted
If you've ever struck a Superwoman pose to hype yourself up before an interview, thank Dr. Amy Cuddy.
Her viral TED Talk "Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are"—the third most watched of all time—and her NYT bestseller "Presence" introduced the term "power pose" to our cultural lexicon and reshaped how we think about confidence. Next week, she returns to the TED2026 mainstage ahead of her highly anticipated book "Bullied" with equally culture-shifting ideas on repairing toxic workplaces through what she calls social bravery.
A world-renowned social psychologist and former Harvard Business School professor, Dr. Amy Cuddy has spent her career uncovering how body language, social dynamics, and nervous system responses shape the way we perform when it matters most. She continues this work as a contributing writer for The Athletic, analyzing how public scrutiny and high-stakes conditions affect the performance of elite athletes.
As one of the world's most sought-after keynote speakers, Dr. Cuddy delivers ideas that are both scientifically rigorous and immediately useful. She helps leaders and teams navigate pressure, conflict, and complexity—and build cultures where people can perform at their best.
#UTASpeakers #MeetingPlanners #CorporateEvents #CorporateCulture #PeakPerformance
March Madness isn’t just a basketball tournament anymore. It’s a real-time example of something bigger: what happens when human performance becomes financialized, publicly graded, and constantly evaluated, which I discussed in my new @theathletichq article.
This year, an estimated $3 billion will be wagered on the tournament. And increasingly, that means athletes aren’t just playing opponents — they’re playing inside thousands of individual bets on their personal stats. Every rebound, turnover, or missed free throw is tied to someone’s money. As one NCAA study shows, nearly half of Division I men’s basketball players report harassment from bettors. One player received a death threat before the game even started because of a prop bet.
What fascinates me as a psychologist is what this reveals about modern performance environments. Social-evaluative threat used to be episodic — a review, a competition, a big moment. Now it can be ambient. Continuous. Inescapable. And research suggests something counterintuitive: unlike many stressors, the body doesn’t fully adapt to chronic judgment. The nervous system keeps treating it as danger.
March Madness just makes visible something that’s spreading far beyond sports: more and more of human performance is happening inside environments where evaluation is no longer occasional feedback — it’s the atmosphere.
#sportspsychology #peakperformance #socialmedia #matchmadness @ncaa
I’ve had a lot of injuries. Traumatic brain injury. Multiple torn ACLs. But the one that has thrown me the most is the complex jaw fracture and dental trauma. And I’m really now clearly seeing how much it’s stopping me from doing this thing that I love so, so much. This thing that sparks my soul.
Working to figure out how to find the courage to really dive back into this. I know. It seems crazy. I’m not afraid to throw myself down a mountain on skis, despite having three ACL tears. I’m not afraid to be in a car, despite having been thrown from one at 80+ miles per hour. But I’m afraid to skate. And I MUST work that out. And I know I can. Because I know that other people can. And in this weird way, my belief in you becomes my belief in me.
(Also, in a deep Jeff Buckley appreciation phase. Seems to be cyclical. And also really appreciating this just mind-bending cover by @madicunningham Peak bittersweetness.)
“She’s the tear
That hangs
Inside my soul
Forever”
Some of you might be surprised to hear I’ve become a regular contributor to NYT The Athletic — writing about the psychology and neuroscience of sports. But I’ve spent the last decade writing about the darkest side of human behavior and how it affects all of us — and will continue to be talking about that for many years to come. This is a refreshing side project — applying and deepening the same work I’ve done for years on performing under pressure.
All of this is so transferable.
My second recent piece is about something that affects every single one of us — not just athletes. It’s about what I call micro-losses and micro-wins: the small setbacks and small victories that make up every single day, and what our bodies do in the seconds after each one. Those involuntary physical reactions ripple outward in three directions at once — into us, into the people around us, and toward anyone on the other side. The science is striking. And it applies everywhere — on a court, in a boardroom, in a classroom, in a relationship.
Here are some excerpts. For the full piece — including what Kevin Durant, Sue Bird, and Damian Lillard can teach all of us — head to The Athletic. Link in bio.
And stay tuned — I’ll be publishing something new every two to three weeks on sports, performance, and the science underneath it all.
@theathletichq
I wrote a column for this morning’s The New York Times about how neuroscience and psychology can explain why the world’s most dominant athletes can falter at the Olympics.
This is not a story about weakness. This is a story about what happens when the human nervous system confronts a challenge it was never designed to face.
Here’s the paradox: the body’s protective response to extreme evaluation can override the very skills it’s trying to defend. In an environment where millions are watching, judging, and narrating your worth in real time, the nervous system detects threat. Cortisol rises, shifting motivation from pursuing reward to preventing status loss. The vagus nerve withdraws its brake on the heart, reducing the flexible regulation that fine motor precision depends on. Attention moves from automatic motor programs to explicit monitoring — from letting well-learned movements unfold to consciously trying to control them. The same biological cascade designed to protect us from social danger can destabilize the fluid, embodied automaticity that elite performance requires.
Most of us will never face Olympic scrutiny. But we do face high-stakes evaluation — job interviews, first dates, auditions, performances, championship games, giving a toast at a wedding, posting something vulnerable online, trying a new sport, walking into a room where we feel we’re being sized up. The same approach–inhibition dynamics apply. Under pressure, our biology can shift from expansion to protection, from fluid expression to tight self-monitoring.
The hopeful part: the nervous system is trainable. Autonomic regulation can be strengthened. Pre-performance cortisol responses can be shaped. Reappraisal can convert threat into challenge. Practicing under realistic scrutiny can help preserve automaticity when it matters most. We are built for social evaluation — but we perform best when we understand what our bodies are doing and learn to work with that biology rather than against it.
@nytimes@theathletichq
I’ve always loved third places — in theory and in practice.
I learned the term from my ex-husband Matt — an urban planner, and Jonah’s dad. (We still get along great.) He gave language to something I’d always been drawn to: the spaces that aren’t home and aren’t work, but somehow feel just as essential.
Third places are the coffee shops where you linger because of the people. The corner bar. The roller plaza at sunset. The bookstore. The park bench. The small live-music room. The places where you don’t need an invitation or a role. You just show up. And if you keep showing up, you start to belong.
Robert Putnam wrote about what happens when we lose these spaces. In Bowling Alone, he described the slow erosion of civic life — fewer clubs, fewer leagues, fewer shared rituals. We stopped gathering. We privatized our lives. We traded common space for convenience. And the cost has been loneliness, polarization, and a thinning of trust.
Third places are where “weak ties” live — the casual connections that quietly hold communities together. They’re where you run into someone unexpectedly and leave feeling steadier than when you arrived. They are modest, ordinary, and absolutely foundational.
One of our dreams — Matt’s and mine then, and now Paul’s and mine — was to live somewhere we could walk to special third places. Not drive across town. Not plan weeks ahead. Just step outside and enter a web of familiar, human spaces.
Paul loves third places as much as Matt does. That continuity feels healthy. Whole.
And here in Venice, it’s become an embarrassment of riches. And we can easily walk to ALL of them.
Within minutes: coffee shops humming with conversation, the boardwalk glowing at golden hour, the skate circle, small live-music rooms, neighbors who wave, dogs who know each other. And these are just a few.
We’ve lost many third places over the years. But when they exist, and when we protect them, they change everything.
They matter for all of us.
Because belonging isn’t built in grand gestures. It’s built in places where we keep showing up and just being ourselves, with full acceptance (unless someone’s being a complete a**hole 😁)
#thirdplaces
