Power Poses (10 minutes)

Goal: Use Power Poses to give yourself a confidence boost

Some psychologists have suggested that doing “Power Poses” for two minutes before a stressful event - like a presentation or a job interview - can help you boost your confidence and, therefore, help you perform better.  (Don’t do power poses during an interview! You’ll appear arrogant.)

This isn’t 100% scientifically proven, but many people to feel this exercise helps them, so let’s see if you can benefit from it.

Possible Power Poses are:

• “Victory” - Arms up in a V shape
• “Wonder Woman” - legs apart, hands on hips, head high
• “Obama” - sitting down with feet up on the table and hands behind head
• “Salutation” - feel firmly planted, chest out, arms stretched wide
• “Superman” - one arm ahead, fist clenched, ‘flying’ through the air

In contrast, low-power poses are those where you make yourself small, protecting yourself with your hands and arms. Avoid these.

Steps:

1. Choose someone to be the timekeeper (preferably a volunteer)
2. Spread out in the room, giving yourself plenty of space
3. Everyone chooses one of the Power Pose and holds it for 30 seconds. Be BIG. 
4. Repeat THREE times with a different pose each time

How do you feel compared with how you felt at the beginning of this exercise?

Public Speaking (30 minutes)

Goal: Practice your public speaking in your groups

Split into roughly equal groups of about 8 to 10 people. Take turns to be the speaker and give the three-minute talk you prepared to the other group members.  

Listeners, practice your active listening skills (give full attention to the speaker, reflect in your body language, nod, smile, and look puzzled as appropriate). At the end of each talk, each give the speaker ONE positive feedback about their talk.

Circles of Influence Discussion (15 minutes)

Goal: Discuss the Circles of Influence you created as prep, focus on changes you can make to waste less energy/worry on things you cannot affect and more on things you can control or influence.

Find a partner, and in your pairs, take turns to answer the following questions about your Circles of Influence (5 minutes each)

1. Looking at some of the items in your outer Circle of Concern, 

   • What could you do to move them into your circle of influence? 
   • What could you do about them that is within your control? 
   • Which ones can you do nothing about? Practice accepting that you can’t do anything about them and shift your focus and energy to the things you can influence and control. 

2. Looking at some of the items in your Circle of Influence,

   • Can you break any of these down into smaller things you can control?

As a whole group, spend 5 minutes sharing your learnings from this exercise. Were there any interesting ideas that you had to worry less about some concerns or changes you might make to gain greater control or influence?

The more you focus on and operate within your circles of influence and control, the bigger these circles will become. You are becoming more proactive and developing a growth mindset.

Create groups for JS3 (5 minutes)

Goal: Create groups for the next module’s group work

Interacting with diverse groups fosters empathy, enhancing interpersonal skills for handling others effectively. So, focus on grouping with people you might not have interacted with so much.

At least two people must define the groups together. You must consider trainees’ availability. You must also consider how many hours of coursework or prep work must be done in groups.

1. Define the groups for the next module. Look for diversity, so people that haven’t worked together should give it a go, ensure you don’t have gendered groups, etc…  Don’t forget to check availability again.

   Tip: You can use this link to help you allocate people randomly

2. Open the existing spreadsheet for pairs/groups, create a new tab called “JS3 Groups”, and add the groups to the “JS3 Groups” tab

3. Share the spreadsheet on Slack, so it is visible to everyone