Evoke Greatness Podcast

Good Awkward: Transform Your Discomfort into Growth with Henna Pryor (Part 1)

• Episode 140

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🎧 Episode 140: Good Awkward: Transform Your Discomfort into Growth with Henna Pryor

In this powerful episode of Evoke Greatness, I sit down with Henna Pryor, performance coach, two-time TEDx speaker, and author of the bestselling book "Good Awkward: How to Embrace the Embarrassing and Celebrate the Cringe to Become Your Bravest You." We dive deep into transforming social discomfort into a catalyst for personal and professional growth.

Henna shares insights on:

  • The difference between "good awkward" and "bad awkward" in personal development
  • How social muscle atrophy affects workplace dynamics post-COVID
  • Understanding healthy versus unhealthy self-doubt
  • The role of empathy and judgment in experiencing awkwardness
  • Building stronger team connections through embracing vulnerability

🔑 Key takeaways:

  1. Awkwardness is a universal experience - even the most confident people feel it
  2. The most growth happens outside our comfort zone
  3. Social muscle atrophy is affecting workplace collaboration and team dynamics
  4. Healthy self-doubt can drive preparation and growth
  5. The "spotlight effect" makes us overestimate how much others notice our mistakes
  6. Vicarious embarrassment can be a form of judgment that limits our own growth

💡 Quotes to remember: 
"The most confident person you know feels awkward from time to time. They've just learned how to come through it faster." - Henna Pryor

"Not all self-doubt is the same. Healthy self-doubt can actually inspire you to prepare harder and grow stronger." - Henna Pryor

"We are not everyone's main character. They're their own main character." - Henna Pryor

📚 Resources:

If you're struggling with workplace dynamics, feeling stuck in your comfort zone, or wanting to transform social discomfort into a growth opportunity, this episode provides practical strategies and profound insights to help you embrace the power of good awkward and level up your personal and professional life.

A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!

Check out my website: www.evokegreatness.com

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Evoke Greatness. We are officially entering year three of this podcast and I am filled with so much gratitude for each and every one of you who've joined me on this incredible journey of growth and self-discovery. I'm Sunny, your host and fellow traveler on this path of personal evolution. This podcast is a sanctuary for the curious, the ambitious and the introspective. It's for those of you who, like me, are captivated by the champion mindset and driven by an insatiable hunger for growth and knowledge. Whether you're just beginning your journey or you're well along your path, you're going to find stories here that resonate with your experiences and aspirations.

Speaker 1:

Over the last two years, we've shared countless stories of triumph and challenge, of resilience and transformation. We've laughed, we've reflected and we've grown together. And as we've evolved, so too has this podcast. Remember, no matter what chapter you're on in your own story, you belong here. This community we've built together is a place of support, inspiration and shared growth. Where intention goes, energy flows, and the energy you bring to this space elevates us all. So, whether you're listening while commuting, working out or enjoying your morning coffee, perhaps from one of those motivational mugs I'm so fond of, know that you're a part of something special. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your curiosity, your openness and your commitment to personal growth.

Speaker 1:

As we embark on year three, I invite you to lean in, to listen deeply and to let these stories resonate with your soul. I believe that a rising tide raises all ships and I invite you along in this journey to evoke greatness. Welcome back to another episode of Evoke Greatness. Today, I am thrilled to welcome Hannah Pryor, a renowned performance coach, author of the best-selling book Good Awkward how to Embrace the Embarrassing and Celebrate the Cringe to Become your Bravest you, hena is also an award-winning two-times TEDx speaker and founder of the Priority Group. With over 15 years of experience in talent acquisition and development, hena has made it her mission to help high-achieving professionals and organizations unlock their full potential. Her unique approach combines cutting-edge performance strategies with both practical and actionable advice that have transformed countless careers and businesses.

Speaker 2:

Hannah, I'm so happy to have you on today. Welcome, I'm so happy to be here. It feels like it was a fated thing to happen, given our little Chicago stomp around a couple months ago, so I'm so happy to be here with you again.

Speaker 1:

Yes, well, I want to. I'm just going to hold up the book here. This is a book that y'all need to make the time to go get Good awkward. It's something that we all experience but, like, for whatever reason, we all keep it secret because we feel like everybody else doesn't feel that way. And what I love the fact is that you know, at the events that I've been to for your book, just the engagement that we've had in kind of this sisterhood has been like we are all about the good awkward, the cringy things, like let's bring them to the table and talk about them.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, I love it. And this is you, probably named. One of the biggest number one takeaways people have is it is universal. The most confident person you know feels awkward from time to time. They've just learned how to come through it faster. Their comeback rate is faster, but they are no more exempt from it than you are, and I think even just starting from that place is really freeing, like, oh good, it's not just me, I promise you, dear listener, it is not just you.

Speaker 1:

That's right. Well, I'd love to start by hearing the backstory. What's kind of led up to the current version of Henna. What does that journey look like?

Speaker 2:

Oh, current version of Henna. Little Henna was first born of immigrant parents, so my parents are from India and Pakistan respectively, and I was the first one born in the United States, and so you know my origin story. When people hear me as a speaker, they're like awkward really. I'm like, um, my clothes were very strange compared to my peers, my food smelled funny, my name was Hannah. I was born in the early 80s Hannah Barbera was like the thing and so it was just constant mispronunciation of my name.

Speaker 2:

Everything felt awkward and I felt like every single day was this fight of presenting the me I wanted people to see versus the me that I felt like they were actually seeing on display. There was this constant tension and not a day went by that I didn't feel awkward about my name, my food, my dress and everything else that went with that and that, honestly, probably carried a good way through, definitely through middle school, probably a good way through high school and then ultimately in college. I think, like many, do you sort of find your own lane. There's a lot more people you don't feel as much like. You need to assimilate to some specific in-crowd and I sort of developed my first taste of confidence there.

Speaker 2:

But then, when I went into the professional world, those same familiar feelings of awkwardness crept up again. Every time I was in a place of transition or something new or, frankly, craving approval from people who I didn't know if they liked what they were seeing, all those emotions came back again. So, fast forward, our queen, brene Brown, who I know that your listeners are probably enthusiasts of as well. I remember she was closing her podcasts and her interviews for a while with stay awkward, brave and kind. That became her little tagline and I just remember so viscerally in my body feeling man, brene, I love you, but like stay brave, yep, stay kind, got it. Yes, know that one. But I don't know about this stay awkward. I've been trying to fight this my whole life and it just made me very curious about this emotion that no one was giving a ton of airtime to. And that's kind of how we got here. That's where it all began.

Speaker 1:

Well and you've coined the term good, awkward just by way of your book and really I think, probably getting to the roots of your story and really formulating like getting this book to print right, you had to go through the journey and you had to experience that and really kind of get all of that together. So let's unpack the concept and how does it relate to personal and professional growth?

Speaker 2:

Yes. So when we think about good awkward, it helps sometimes to first think of its inverse, which is bad awkward, which is what most people think of. I don't think many people would think awkward is a good feeling and, to be clear, the feeling is not. It is a social emotion of discomfort. So discomfort universally. Most people wouldn't say like, sign me up, you know, I love it, I love it, you know. I think people are appreciating now, in this era, the value of it, but most people wouldn't describe it as good.

Speaker 2:

The problem with awkwardness being perceived as bad is, again, it comes with inevitability. So it is a particular form of discomfort, but it exists in social settings. So you don't tend to feel awkward when you're by yourself. Even if you mispronounce someone's name, even if you trip over your own two feet, you might kind of laugh at yourself, but you're not going to feel awkward about it because no one saw you, no one heard you.

Speaker 2:

Awkwardness in particular being a social emotion, it requires another, and so a lot of the specific emotion of awkwardness or embarrassment or cringe, some of these related ones have to do with approval expectations, what do other people see? And when we start to feel that form of awkwardness, we feel like there's a gap between the person we believe ourselves to be someone who can walk down the street without tripping over their own two feet and the person that for that moment, we feel like they saw on display. It can become bad awkward when we start to let that feeling control our future behavior. So we tried to raise our hand in a meeting to make a suggestion. It was not met well. We feel embarrassed and then we never want to raise our hand again.

Speaker 2:

Bad awkward is that type of awkwardness that it dictates our future. That feeling in the present starts to affect how we behave in the future and it is catastrophic to our personal development and our professional growth. Good awkward, on the other hand, means starting to embrace the feeling, as typically when I feel this way, it's either because I'm trying something new, taking a new risk, I'm innovating, or that I'm hey, surprise a human where something went sideways and expectation went sideways. And what I'm hey, surprise a human where something went sideways and expectation went sideways. And what I'm gonna vow to commit to working on is my comeback rate. Knowing that those things are gonna happen, knowing that I can't avoid them, I'm gonna work on my comeback rate, so embracing it as a catalyst for growth is really where the book is in deep exploration.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I love that because, as you bring this about right, that awkward feeling comes from being surrounded by others. It's sometimes those fears right, but then being able to weave that in. I am someone who places high value in team building from a leadership perspective. Chapter eight of your book is titled Infuse Good Awkward into Teens with an Improv Mentality. So not only are you showing up and embracing good awkward right just as a human and letting your guard down to say, look, I'm going to be okay with being awkward and being human sometimes and how this feels like I'm going to get more comfortable with it, but taking a step forward and take it to your team at work. How can leaders put this into play to really bring a good light to this and encourage their team to embrace it?

Speaker 2:

I am currently in the middle of we're on week two and by November it'll be completely finished in the middle of a research study, a nationally executed PhD-led research study that is going to be on social muscle atrophy in the workplace, and this really speaks to teams, right? What is going on on teams, and so what I'm observing and I'm sure you're observing it too, Sunny, with your leaders that you work with is people keep saying to me, hannah, our people won't get out of their silos, right? I think I keynoted six conferences this year where the theme was one XYZ company. Right, everyone's so desperate to work again as one. And what I tend to hear is, when you talk to individuals on these teams, I'll say, hey, you know, communication and collaboration is important. You know innovating and brainstorming is important. What's stopping you? And I hear things like well, everyone's so busy, I don't want to bother people, right, teamwork has now become bother people, right, and so what I believe to be true is, yes, there are some skills around communication and conflict that we need to strengthen, and that is part of the conversation.

Speaker 2:

But also, when so many of us went hybrid, we went remote, we actually started to experience this atrophy of muscle. The same way when you pick up a weight for the first time after a year of not doing it, it feels very uncomfortable and you don't really want to do it. It's the same way when we have to find that gumption, that activation energy to have a conversation with somebody that we don't normally have this type of conversation with. Increasingly, we're using Slack, we're using texts, we're doing things asynchronously and people are finding even extroverts that this is increasingly tough.

Speaker 2:

And this is not new research. We study astronauts, we study polar explorers, we study prison inmates, people who are naturally isolated by function of their situation, and data is unequivocally supportive of the fact that that muscle, that social muscle, can weaken over time. And now we are seeing it at work. We're seeing people unable to collaborate, to communicate, to work as one, to get out of their comfort zones when it comes to social stuff, because they don't do it very much. And so this is where tools like an improv mentality not only are nice to have, I think they've always been nice to have are now non-negotiable, mission critical if you want your people to actually work as a team.

Speaker 1:

It's almost like BC and AD right, like pre-COVID and after COVID, because it really is two different worlds. From an engagement perspective, from a societal engagement, professional engagement, it's like two different worlds. It's like there's a line drawn and post or throughout COVID, I was running a national healthcare company with thousands employees all over the country and what I found was the silos that maybe already existed a bit became increasingly strong, because then people were no longer in the office, right, then they were kind of behind a video screen and and they lost the sense of connection. And so as I went around the country speaking post-COVID, it was talking about three things that really impact the way someone shows up at work the engagement, the fulfillment.

Speaker 1:

And that is communication. Right, because just historically organizations have been terrible with under-communicating. So communication, connection and community. And if you have communication, if you have connection with people and you have a sense of a feel of community, a sense of belonging, you are less likely, from a retention perspective, to put your notice in right, because you feel connected, you feel a sense of belonging. The moment that you feel like you're behind a video screen, you've lost your connection with your team or your community, it's way easier to text or email your resignation saying I'm done today and so like this whole shift. So it makes me think about that. When we don't have a sense of connection and those silos become a thing, it doesn't just hurt us in one way, I mean it doesn't hurt us just individually or organizationally, like it's big picture damage.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're exactly right, and it's funny that you say it that way, because A spot on all three of those factors are suffering because of this new friction or resistance that is coming between us. But I would say, in addition to that part of what we're actually exploring in this research study, because I think you know, when it comes to social muscle and social fitness, not many leaders would argue yes, we want our people to feel connected to one another. Yes, it would be nice to have a best friend at work. Yes, we see the value of feeling like you belong. You know those things.

Speaker 2:

I'm not going to get many people fighting me on that, but what is interesting to explore and the data is going to shake out on this in the next few weeks is some of the more non-obvious or unexpected impacts on teams that you started to mention.

Speaker 2:

So one of them is when we are increasingly working in our silos. This is actually potentially especially dangerous for high achievers, because they will double down on working on what they know in their high achievement, which actually is dangerous for cross-functional work. So if that person goes down and they are having very little cross-functional collaboration, then continuity business continuity becomes a fresh challenge to levels that we've never seen before, right? So there are some really interesting downline trickle effects that we're gonna start unpacking and playing with that, frankly, extend even beyond the importance of those really deep, important things that you just mentioned, those three things. What else is it costing us? And I think it's a little bit more than some of the warm and fuzzy, and so this is where I really hope, with both of us, that, like leaders, take this seriously, because it is not a laughing matter, it is not a joke, it is not something to be taken lightly anymore.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely Staying on the note of high achievers, you've worked with a lot of organizations. You've worked with a lot of leaders individually from a coaching perspective. What have you found is the most common barrier holding high achievers back from really getting to that place of achieving their full potential? What is it that just keeps drawing them?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean there's probably 20 answers to that question, but I think, as it relates to what we've been talking about, I think one really helpful distinction, which we do explore in the book, is, you know, the feeling of awkwardness or embarrassment is often associated with, not synonymous with, but associated with, self doubt. Right, and we can, you know, for women, we can have the conversation about that term that I hate, that's been weaponized on all of us the imposter syndrome. But really what we're talking about is self-doubt, and I think that one of the things that holds high achievers back is they don't know that there's a difference between healthy self-doubt and unhealthy self-doubt. Not all self-doubt is the same. It's a little bit of the same as the difference between bad awkward and good awkward. So unhealthy self-doubt is when you are so unsure of your ability to execute on something that it paralyzes you. You freeze, you don't raise your hand, you don't put yourself in the room, you don't attend the networking event, you don't engage. That is unhealthy self-doubt. On the other hand, almost every high achiever I have ever met, myself included, you included has some form of healthy self-doubt, which is okay. I don't really know what I'm talking about here and I have to go into this meeting tomorrow, and so I need to read about this a little bit more. I need to practice what I'm gonna say a little bit harder. And let me just talk to my friend, who probably knows more about this than I do, and let me run this by my mentor Healthy self-doubt tends to actually inspire you to rehearse a little harder or over-prepare or make sure you are that much more ready.

Speaker 2:

And here's what sometimes surprises people. I am not here to engineer self-doubt out of you. In fact, I welcome it. It can stay, because if it's driving you, hell yeah, hang out, self-doubt. I don't want you to go away. What I don't want is unhealthy self-doubt, and so I think for high achievers in particular, sometimes they don't make the distinction clear enough and when they start to feel any self-doubt, they're like maybe this is a sign that I just shouldn't right, or maybe it's a sign that you just have a little more to do to feel comfortable in that room and ultimately, of course, that you're not going to feel comfortable entirely. Starting to befriend the butterflies, to celebrate the cringes really a lot of the thesis of the book. It means you're playing in a bigger space, it means you're shooting a little higher, and if that gives you the butterflies, then yay, hang out butterflies. I don't want you to go away and I think that that reframe is very helpful for folks.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think it's when you get stuck in that, in the pause or the fear, where it does, as you said, where it paralyzes you and you don't push past that, yeah, that's where it becomes dangerous.

Speaker 1:

That's where it becomes where it's going to hold you back, where it's truly not going to allow you to go forward because you're going to be so stuck in your own mind and your own fears around that. But I think the willingness to see that for anyone, for every single one of us, at one point in time or another we weren't great speakers, we weren't great on podcasts, we weren't great leaders but I think it's the willingness to be bad at something for long enough to get good at it and then to get great at it. And that is not overnight, that is by repetitions, and that is by practicing, and that is by making sure that you have the research, making sure that you have rehearsed. All of those things, reaching out to people who are resources for you, having wise counsel All of those things are really what will progress you from being level one to your level two self.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. And I would also add, you know, if we do have the inevitable blunder or misstep, which spoiler alert you will I'm sure you've had a million already I have. You know that they're coming is also using those same, you know, kind of mirror friends, colleagues, to just actually level set the reality of the thing. You know, awkwardness and embarrassment happen when our expectations go sideways, meaning mentally there was something that we expected, that interaction was going to go a certain way and it didn't. And typically it happens in front of people. So then we have this emotion that we have to contend with. But almost always, when you ask someone else who was in the room was that as bad as I felt like it was they're like nope, we already, like we moved on, it was nothing, it was no big deal versus you're playing it back in the shower in the car, right, you're thinking about it for hours on end. This is Tom Gilovich from Cornell, the spotlight effect, where we just think people are paying much closer attention to us than they are. And also there's another piece of psychological terminology called the illusion of transparency, which is we also think people can see it all over our face, right. Well, my gosh, I'm turning red, I'm sweating. People think I'm an idiot. Actually, most of the time they might notice that, you know, not all the time but they might notice you're a little flush or a little fidgety. But are they analyzing your every move? No, they're already back to themselves, they've already moved on.

Speaker 2:

I'll just confess to you, just because I think it's funny, I went and got a massage like two hours ago. Okay, it's Friday, my friends are coming into town. I went and got a massage, sunny. I still have like a. You know, I started on my back and then I was face down. I still have like a line on my forehead and on my cheek and I came into this a little bit going is this beyond the video? Right? Are they going to see and they're going to go? What is? What is? This is so unprofessional.

Speaker 2:

She's coming in with literal dents on her face and in that moment I had to practice what I preach. I had this moment of self-talk of A. Probably not even going to notice. I've got a bright green jacket on. Are they really paying attention to the lines on my forehead? And B? Even if they see it, they don't care that much. They've already moved on to the next way, more important thing in their life. And so just a healthy reminder that these things that we think are on display are just small moments in other people's day, a little bit of that main character energy needs to dissolve away. We are not everyone's main character, they're their own main character. We are supporting acts. They just don't care that much.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and we are our own worst enemy. Right, we can pick ourselves apart better than the best of them, better than our biggest haters out there. We can identify all of those things. I think when people come to the realization and it's like you have to chip off all the ego and you have to kind of really get to that bare soul place to realize that you're just not that important, and I mean that like in the most endearing way but when we feel like someone has put the spotlight on us and they're picking apart what we're saying or what we're doing, like we're just not that important they're busy thinking about their own issues and their own things and how they may have flubbed in their last meeting, like they're not focused on it. And when we can come to the realization that we are just not that important, like not everybody's thinking about us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I think that's true 90% of the time. I think it is nice to acknowledge that there probably is, you know, a 5% or 10% of the time where someone is picking it apart. But I'll tell you what if that's happening, it's because that literally just touched their own insecurity.

Speaker 2:

That's the only reason they are paying you extra attention because if that was them, they would have a really hard time with that right. So, okay, you have toilet paper in the back of your pants and you just walked up on stage with that right. The people who are mortified on your behalf A and there's a whole chapter in the book about this probably are a little higher on a specific type of empathy where they're like, oh my gosh, like I'm feeling it too, but B really it's because of the way they would feel about it. It's still, in that case, not as much about you and your competence. So let's you know, release some of that power and narrative.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, how does empathy play into that sense of awkwardness in how we're experiencing it and then how we're actually like navigating in the world of it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So one of my favorite kind of fresh pieces of research I stumbled upon in this book is this concept of vicarious embarrassment. And so once I read about it, I'm like, yep, I know these people. Or you know, I'm married to this person, or my children are these people? So vicarious embarrassment is a very specific type of embarrassment that is actually a function of a certain type of empathy.

Speaker 2:

So again, let's just make it real. Let's say, sunny, you are on a stage and you brutally mispronounce someone's name, but you don't know it in that moment, and I am sitting in the audience going, oh my God, oh my God, I'm just crawling out of my skin. I can't deal with this right now. It's because I'm high on a particular type of empathy. I have literally taken on your embarrassment as though it's my own. But here's the little twist of that example In this moment in time, you don't know that. Yet You're not embarrassed right now, only I am.

Speaker 2:

So I'm actually not embarrassed with you, I'm embarrassed for you, and that particular form of empathy is actually a bit of a form of judgment, right, I'm assuming that you are going to feel a certain way about it. And so, again, I'm not here to engineer empathy out of people. But what becomes dangerous is if we are prone to doing that a lot for other people when they're unaffected or not as bothered by it. It actually makes it really hard for us to take chances ourselves because we're constantly self-policing, worried that other people are judging us the same way for every little misstep. So it's kind of a good initial temperature check, right. How embarrassed do you get for other people Again, empathy is a beautiful thing. We need more of it in this world. But certain kinds in excess can actually stop you from taking chances because you're creating that same narrative back to you even though it doesn't quite exist that way in all ways.

Speaker 1:

I've never thought about that from a judgment perspective, because as soon as you said that, I'm like I can 10 things come to mind where I've been like just mortified in the moment for someone yeah, again, not that they were, not that they knew did they become afterwards, who knows? But in the moment, and to think of that as a bit of a judgment, that's exactly right. But I've never actually connected those two things together. So it brings a different level of insight, shines a little bit of a different kind of light on it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and there's other little nuances that play into it, right. There's things like proximity, meaning if somebody's sitting near you and their cell phone goes off, you're a little bit more like oh, oh gosh, oh gosh, versus if they're far away, less so. Same thing with social relationships. If this is your best friend who flubbed on stage, you might feel that at a different level of empathy and potentially judgment than you would a stranger who you're like oh bad, look, but then you've moved on right. Really, all these things play into it, but it's just a useful exploration as you consider how these things impact your own ability to take chances and grow.

Speaker 1:

You know the routine. This is where I hit the pause button. I hope you guys are really enjoying part one of this interview with Hannah Pryor. She is amazing and brings so much insight. Join us back next week for part two, where she talks through the universal truths about human potential, how to better embrace the suck, balancing ambition and well-being, and what her take is on the future of professional development. Hope to see you all back then.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for listening and for being here on this journey with me. I hope you'll stick around If you liked this episode. It would mean the world for me if you would rate and review the podcast or share it with someone you know may need to hear this message. I love to hear from you all and want you to know that you can leave me a voicemail directly. If you go to my website, evokegreatnesscom, and go to the contact me tab, you'll just hit the big old orange button and record your message. I love the feedback and comments that I've been getting, so please keep them coming. I'll leave you with the wise words of author Robin Sharma Greatness comes by doing a few small and smart things each and every day. It comes from taking little steps consistently. It comes from making a few small chips against everything in your professional and personal life that is ordinary, so that a day eventually arrives when all that's left is the extraordinary. Thank you.

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