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witness into a private space in the last few minutes before court convenes withinstructions to stand with her feet spread and her arms raised over her head to makeherself as big as possible will raise her confidence. Much as cats arch their backs andraise their fur to enlarge their power, people who adopt powerful postures look morepowerful and become more powerful. They are more willing to take risks, they speak upmore in class, and they are more successful in selling venture capital projects. 64Theybecome leaders the tribe will follow.We project confidence in other behaviors as well. Studies show that success in sellingventure capital projects is strongly predicted by “calmness,” “passion,” “eye contact,”and “lack of awkwardness.” 65Eye contact may be the most compelling indicator ofconfidence, and of sincerity and trustworthiness. When we listen to people, most of uslook directly at them about 75 percent of the time. When we are talking, most of us lookat our audience only about 40 percent of the time. Upping the percentage when we talkjust a bit, to around 50 percent, can make a significant difference in how the audienceresponds. Getting our witness, or ourselves, to make eye contact 50 percent of the timepresents an air of authority. (But don’t get carried away; staring can be creepy.) 66Another way to increase our influence is to modulate our speech patterns – not thewords we choose, but the harmonics of pitch, frequency, and timbre. Researchers havefound that business leaders and successful politicians around the world “all share keyvocal qualities that strongly affect how people respond to them, independent of the64 Id. at 52.65 Id.66 Dutton, supra note 5 at 55.33