#HR #RRHH Making love and making personal #branding #leadership

Around half the population of the United States woke up on Wednesday morning to enormous disappointment. In a stunning upset, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the race for president, leaving Trump supporters elated and many Clinton backers devastated.

But in my work as a coach, I've found that even the most crushing defeats can ultimately be channeled into energy for forging ahead. Regaining confidence is an uphill battle, and it takes a crowd—or at least two people, talking things out—to pull an someone out of a funk. Here's how it can be done.

Feeling like your confidence could use a boost? Don't stress about it; we all feel anxious and less than fully confident from time to time. When we're in that situation, what we really need to get ourselves moving again with confidence is actually to do just that--to change the way our bodies are moving.

Here are five body-language tricks to make you feel instantly more confident. Check them out to turn down your insecurities while you turn up your positive self-regard.

It seems silly to smile for no reason, but somehow, our brains are able to be affected by the emotions we tell it to feel more often than not. Even if we smile to no one but ourselves, cracking a grin instantly boosts our self-esteem levels--maybe even subliminally reminding us of times that felt better. When your confidence is lagging, try smiling and see what happens.

Unless you're abnormally tall, making yourself feel taller in front of anyone can be a useful way to feel bigger--and better--even if its temporary. Don't slouch or roll your shoulders forward. The hunching down tells others, as well as yourself, you don't mind making yourself small.

We can't be the alpha dog all of the time. Whatever our personality, most of us experience varying degrees of feeling in charge. Some situations take us down a notch while others build us up.

New research shows that it's possible to control those feelings a bit more, to be able to summon an extra surge of power and sense of well-being when it's needed: for example, during a job interview or for a key presentation to a group of skeptical customers.

"Our research has broad implications for people who suffer from feelings of powerlessness and low self-esteem due to their hierarchical rank or lack of resources," says HBS assistant professor Amy J.C. Cuddy, one of the researchers on the study.

In "Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance", Cuddy shows that simply holding one's body in expansive, "high-power" poses for as little as two minutes stimulates higher levels of testosterone (the hormone linked to power and dominance in the animal and human worlds) and lower levels of cortisol (the "stress" hormone that can, over time, cause impaired immune functioning, hypertension, and memory loss).

The result? In addition to causing the desired hormonal shift, the power poses led to increased feelings of power and a greater tolerance for risk.

"We used to think that emotion ended on the face," Cuddy says. "Now there is established research showing that while it's true that facial expressions reflect how you feel, you can also 'fake it until you make it.' In other words, you can smile long enough that it makes you feel happy. This work extends that finding on facial feedback, which is decades old, by focusing on postures and measuring neuroendocrine levels."

We all want to be more confident-it's a personal quality that helps us build strong relationships with others, get things done, and move forward in our work and life. However, sometimes we can go overboard, and our confidence can become something much darker: arrogance.

In their book, Why Leaders Fail, authors Peter Stark and Mary Kelly explain how leaders sabotage themselves-and their organizations-when they project arrogance instead of confidence. According to the authors, the defining factor of a strong leader is rooted in the relationships he or she builds with followers, and how effectively he or she propels the organization toward great achievement.

In honour of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, here are 4 important leadership lessons we can learn from the crew of the Starship Enterprise.

Need a rapid-fire self-esteem boost in the next five minutes? While we all know that true inner confidence takes time and practice, sometimes we just need something with immediate effects. Here are seven ways to instantly build your confidence that you can use anytime, anyplace.

1. Pay attention to your posture

Stand or sit up straight. Flatten out your lower back. Let your shoulders fall down broadly by your sides. Even if you don't have enough time to change anything else about your appearance, shifting your posture is enough to make a huge difference.

2. Smile

Our brains are wired in an interesting feedback cycle that allows us to tell our muscles what to do--but it's also a cycle that reacts based on what our muscles actually do themselves. If we do something that is associated with an emotion, the action itself will somehow trigger the same emotion in our brains.

3. Give yourself a pep talk 

Pep talks can feel forced, especially if you're giving one to yourself. There is, however, a method to the madness: Telling yourself you're great is an easy way to remind yourself you are. Go through some of the positive qualities you value most about who you are. You'll feel like a million bucks in a couple seconds.