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Good Awkward: Transform Your Discomfort into Growth with Henna Pryor (Part 2)

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🎧 Episode 141: Embracing Good Awkward: Transform Your Discomfort into Power with Henna Pryor

In this episode of Evoke Greatness, I welcome Henna Pryor, renowned performance coach, two-time TEDx speaker, and Author of the bestselling book "Good Awkward." Born to immigrant parents from India and Pakistan, Henna shares her journey from experiencing constant awkwardness in her early years to transforming that discomfort into a catalyst for growth and success.

We dive deep into:

  • The concept of "good awkward" versus "bad awkward"
  • Post-COVID workplace dynamics and social muscle atrophy
  • How silos affect team performance and business continuity
  • The crucial distinction between healthy and unhealthy self-doubt
  • Understanding vicarious embarrassment and its impact on growth
  • The spotlight effect and why people aren't as focused on our mistakes as we think

🔑 Key takeaways:

  1. Awkwardness is inevitable and universal - even the most confident people experience it
  2. Social muscle atrophy is creating new challenges in workplace collaboration
  3. Communication, connection, and community are critical for employee retention
  4. Healthy self-doubt can drive preparation and growth while unhealthy self-doubt paralyzes
  5. High achievers need to recognize the difference between healthy and unhealthy self-doubt
  6. Vicarious embarrassment can actually be a form of judgment that limits our 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

"It's the willingness to be bad at something for long enough to get good at it and then to get great at it." - Sonnie

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

📚 Resources:

If you're looking to transform workplace dynamics, build stronger teams, or turn your social discomfort into a superpower, this episode offers practical strategies and profound insights to help you embrace the power of good awkward and level up both personally and professionally.

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. 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. 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.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to part two of my interview with Hannah Pryor. In this episode, we're going to talk about how silos affect team performance and business continuity, the crucial distinction between healthy and unhealthy self-doubt understanding, vicarious embarrassment and its impact on growth and the spotlight effect, and why people aren't as focused on our mistakes as we may think they are. Let's go ahead and hop into it. You've worked with a diverse range of professionals and organizations. When you think about just even on the line of empathy or anything else you've been talking about, what's one universal truth about human potential that you've discovered?

Speaker 2:

Oh man, our ceilings tend to be self-imposed, would say just off out of the gate. A little mantra I've actually really taken to in the last six months is your ceiling is not my ceiling, your ceiling is not my ceiling. So I'll just give you a very recent example. I actually don't know if I'm allowed to fully announce this yet, so I'm going to talk in code. I was just offered an opportunity to partner with an organization to do something really exciting, and so I reached out to do kind of some research before I applied. It was a blind application, I wasn't referred in.

Speaker 2:

I literally applied to this thing and I reached out to a bunch of other speaker, author, friends who you know I thought maybe would have some insight. One or two I know had done this before. A bunch of others were like this is really hard. I've tried for years. This has not happened for me. I wouldn't bother, I don't know that it's really likely. Like truly was discouraged from trying this thing and I've always taken this stance of shoot my shot, shoot my shot. I spent 14 years in sales, so I already deeply believe in my bones that, yes, lives in the land of no right, there's going to be no's. Of course, I just got rejected for something last Friday that I really wanted. I made it to the finals. I was not selected. Oh well, right, I shot my shot, and I think a lot of people will talk themselves out of things before they shoot their shot because of either their own perceived ceiling or potentially letting someone else's ceiling becoming theirs, and because rejection is awkward because not getting it is awkward, especially if you really wanted it, if you declared it. The more public it is that shot, the harder it is right. But what I've come to learn, based on exactly what we just talked about, is I've had a lot of failed projects. So last year I ran a mastermind. I decided to try again towards the end of 2023.

Speaker 2:

And, honestly, I did not give it much attention, like I didn't really post about it enough, I didn't let enough people know about it and I wasn't really trying to fill it. Honestly, I think I threw it out there as a thing to do. The first time. It filled up like that, I got my full enrollment within probably two weeks. Second time, I was like, okay, there's only two and I have 12 spots, right, I could have viewed that as a failure. I hadn't announced this on social media. I had made a thing about it. I could have sat there and called that a fail, called that embarrassing, called that whatever. But instead I was like you know what? I threw it out there and now I'm like I really didn't do probably enough to make that a success.

Speaker 2:

Where is the lesson? Where is the gift? In the garbage? I cannot rely on luck. I think I was giving it a little more intention and heart the first time versus the second time, and I didn't do that the second time. What could I have done differently? So the next time I try again, which I will. I will be more intentional and carve out more time for it, but I'm not in regret that I shot my shot, even though other people saw it. It didn't really work out. By the way, I don't think one person besides the two that I was like, hey, can we do one-on-one coaching instead? Right, the two that ended up. But I don't think one person since then and I can, no, not one person has said hey, what happened with that round of your mastermind that you were going to do Ten years? Nobody's paying attention, right? So just don't take yourself out of the arena before you put yourself in. Your ceiling is not my ceiling, in fact, your ceiling is not your ceiling. Just shoot your damn shot.

Speaker 1:

Well, you have another chapter in your book called Embracing the Suck. What does the process look like for us to better embrace the suck?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I like words that are spicy and suck is, you know, on purpose, intentionally provocative a little bit. And actually you know there's a few people, a lot of Navy SEAL folks talk about this idea of embracing the suck, and O'Brienne Brown has used it as well, but I like to use it as an acronym. So suck stands for embracing small, uncomfortable, cringe, chasm moments while keeping perspective as you go. So we already talked about the last part. The keeping perspective is really people are not watching you as closely as you think, right. So level set your brain a little bit there.

Speaker 2:

But on this quest to becoming more comfortable, owning our awkwardness again, we're not eliminating it, we're learning how to just own it, lean into it so that it passes faster. We can't go full tilt right Anytime. Something is really socially uncomfortable, it's hard to want to repeat it again. So the same as physical fitness. We need to do these little social pushups right. How do we start? Really small. So maybe, if we're trying to get better at speaking up in meetings, maybe we start by sharing an idea with our small group of peers that we wouldn't normally speak up in front of. You know, the next phase of making it small and uncomfortable might be in that slightly larger meeting where that you know slightly more judgy leader is participating. We share the idea that our peers said, hey, that was a good idea. Right, we want to say that out loud. But then cringe chasm moments are these moments where you got a little fire in the belly, you feel a little bit like a little nauseous, right, I don't know about this, but you know that taking this shot or trying this thing or speaking up on behalf of someone who can't is important to you that your values around this outweigh that temporary discomfort and so kind of saying to yourself this is a cringe chasm moment. But what's important about this embracing the suck process, finding these small, uncomfortable cringe chasm moments is it's much more about process than whether it worked.

Speaker 2:

So my favorite example is she was a former CEO of Unilever but now of Chanel. Her name is Lena Nair and she has this great practice where she knew that she needed to speak up more in meetings. And again, she's Indian by descent and so it wasn't a culture that really encouraged a lot of speaking up boldly. This was a big growth edge for her. She felt very awkward at the beginning when she had to do it, so she always brought a little piece of paper or notebook with her in the meetings and every time she spoke up she would write down a little star, and her goal for each meeting was to have five stars.

Speaker 2:

Now, if someone actually liked what she said, if they were like, oh great idea, I love that great contribution, she would give herself two stars. But the goal was five stars, no matter how they came. So in that way, she was conditioning herself to just speaking up slowly and with frequency. Not did it work, right? And so this is really the key when it comes to these small moments Are we properly celebrating our little micro attempts? Are we properly celebrating these micro discomforts of you know, today I'm giving myself five stars because I smiled at two people in the grocery store line and told the grocery store cashier to have a great day while staring him in the eye. If, for you, that is a small uncomfortable moment, give yourself a damn star, right, like do something that helps you encourage your own behavior so that when you do get to a cringe chasm moment, it's not the first time you've lifted the weight today. Right, we can practice in small ways throughout the day.

Speaker 1:

And I just released a podcast this morning talking about how to change your habit loops and kind of your brain chemistry and what makes up the neuroplasticity, and talking about that habit loop which is the cue, the routine and the reward, right, until you recognize what you're doing which was not, you know, maybe for her was not speaking up in meetings like, okay, how do I change this? What is the cue to be able to do this? What is my routine? Like okay, and then what is my reward? And nobody has to know about it. It can be a very personal, private process that's the beauty of it but you are giving yourself your own dopamine hit every start. Yeah, maybe it was, maybe it was it felt huge and maybe it was small, but it doesn't matter. You're giving yourself your own little reward there to say, okay, I'm going to make this a little bit more automatic by maintaining the fact that I'm consistently doing this in every single meeting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love this distinction too. In her case that wasn't for anybody else, right, she was kind of doing it for herself. But I'll give you one more example where there's a social encouragement. So I am a guide, a facilitator with a group called CHIEF that's for women's executives and one of my groups, facilitator with a group called Chief that's for women's executives and one of my groups. Actually, we were trying to encourage one another to celebrate our small wins more readily, whether it was.

Speaker 2:

I did this, I had this conversation. It didn't work, but I did it. I got out of my comfort zone, I climbed the cringe chasm and one of our members, holly, said something about stars on a helmet. So I guess in her son, her high school son's football, there's something that happens that when they do something well, they put a star on the helmet, which I'm not an athletics mom. My kids do tennis and volleyball, but there's no stars on the helmet. So this has actually become, within our group, code language. So when someone does something that wasn't necessarily an outcome-based win, but we know for them it was a stepping into that discomfort, even though it was in front of other people cringe chasm moment, literally.

Speaker 2:

The chief members in my group will say to each other star on the helmet, star on the helmet right, and in that way we're encouraging each other. And so if you are fortunate enough to have an ally in that team meeting, somebody that knows what you're working on, you know, you can A use them to help invite you into the space If they know. Hey, you know, hannah, I'm struggling to speak up. Can you please invite me into the conversation if you don't hear me? You know. Hey, jess, do you have any ideas about that? Right, she can tap me. But also, if she does, like you know, again, we might have a little shorthand. Like star on the helmet, right, good job, right, you just need to encourage the right thing, so it can be on our own, or you can enlist the help of a champion or a friend in the space. More than one way to do it, but all important ways to celebrate the process.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that and being a football mom like I completely get it, you get it, you get it.

Speaker 2:

You probably understand it better than me.

Speaker 1:

And loving football, like inside of, like team meetings and quarterly strategy meetings, like I always open up with some like powerful sports snippet of a video in locker room and you know, with the concept of, like our wins and losses are by inches, right, that touchdown or the loss of that game or the Super Bowl is by inches, and so I love that because it makes it the light comes on in my brain completely.

Speaker 2:

I love this and you might like this term. This actually comes from my friend, sarah Kernian, so I want to give her credit, full credit, for this term. But she speaks on neurodiversity. Her children are both on the spectrum two or three of them are and she uses the term inchstones. So, rather than getting so focused on our milestones, you know what are those inchstones, and I think that the little stars or the star on the helmet, these are all examples of how do we celebrate the inchstones, because that's the stuff that keeps the momentum, not just the occasional big win.

Speaker 1:

In a world that we all live in, that's so busy and has so much going on and has, I think, for a while, kind of glorified that hustle culture, how do you help people find the balance between the ambition side of things and the well-being side of things? How do those two things, how can they merge together?

Speaker 2:

Working process for me. So I don't want to pretend to be the absolute guru on this, but what I will tell you has been extremely freeing for me, just from a mindset standpoint around balancing ambition, and just a rest and a solitude and a quiet that I think is needed for everyone in this chaotic world, is the permission to understand that no day is ever going to be in balance. I've completely abandoned work-life balance for my vocabulary and I think I've heard you talk about this on previous episodes and I know a lot of the people you you know kind of consider friends probably feel the same way. I'm a firm believer in work-life harmony and I really do very much subscribe to what I call the tightrope walker metaphor is, if you look at a tightrope walker, if you were to take a picture at a moment in time, if you are lucky you will catch that balancing pole in exact balance. But that is truly a snapshot in time because if you were to look at them closely, you would see that they are constantly left and right, adjusting their balance, constantly adjusting their weight, constantly adjusting, and sometimes it's like a whoop to the right, sometimes it's a whoop to the left. I'm going to whoop in some direction on any given day, and I need to be okay with it because, ultimately, what matters most to me is you know, did I feel like I spent enough time in certain places in a given week, in a given month? Right, and if I start to feel I've been going a little too far to the right with work, then let me just make sure that this Saturday morning I've literally put my phone and my computer away in a place where I can't get to it. I'm gonna double down on focusing on my kids, but I think the permission slip to just abandon this idea of balance for the ambitious is a must, because every time I'm in balance, I move the goalpost again, right.

Speaker 2:

Every time I start to feel like, oh, I'm really killing it on both fronts. I'm like, oh, I'm really killing it on both fronts. I'm like I could be doing more. I could be making my kids organic baby puree. They're now 14 and 12. But I remember when I was in the throes of working really hard, I was like I'm not momming well enough, I'm going to boil all of their vegetables and make organic baby puree. I made myself crazy. I made myself absolutely crazy, chasing this proverbial balance, having it all. And now I just recognize that. You know, some days I'm going to be making them a homemade meal and some days it's going to be DoorDash. Some days work is going to be killing it and other days I'm going to be like what did I actually do today? Productivity stuck, that's okay. I try to zoom out and say how was the month, how was the six months? If I'm proud of my general accomplishments and all of my different buckets in that zoomed-out view, then I'm doing okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. I liken it to those little toys I don't know if you remember these. It's like colored oil and water. I used to love those things, yeah, yeah. And I liken it to just like fluid balance, right, because sometimes you're going to lean super heavy into professional, sometimes you're going to have to pull back out of that and you're going to have to lean, but it's like this constant, just kind of fluid balance that's going to go back and forth and I think that releases us from the pressures of I always have to have it.

Speaker 1:

The simple fact is, I do believe I do subscribe to the fact that we can have it all, but it just looks different for everybody. We each define that a little bit differently, based on what season we're in, and that season can change throughout our lives. To your point. Maybe it used to be like, oh God, I need to try to make this organic baby food. And sometimes it's like, yes, used to be like, oh God, I need to try to make this organic baby food, and sometimes it's like, yes, they're alive, I've kept them alive. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they slept last night. Can I build on your metaphor? I have not thought about one of these things in like two decades. But do you remember? There was also those glass things where you held onto the bulb on the bottom and then the water would rise and it would boil, yes, yes, in the glass you held on to the bulb on the bottom and then the water would rise and it would boil and the glass thing at the top right.

Speaker 2:

It clearly wasn't like boiling, boiling, but you did. Yeah, but do you remember how you would make it stop boiling?

Speaker 1:

You would let go of it right. It would release the temperature.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you let go. And I'm like what a metaphor for the way we try to over-function and over-control. Oh, it's boiling.

Speaker 1:

Just let go, just let go for a little.

Speaker 2:

You can always grab it again if you're ready to start boiling, but in that moment, if it's getting too hot, just let go. Do they still make those things? What were they called?

Speaker 1:

I don't even remember I think they do and what it actually is. They kind of created something after that and it's like it measures the temperature and barometer like pressure, barometric pressure, and they've got all these little like mini globes inside. But yeah, you'd be able to if you held it. It would actually like increase these things because it was increasing the temperature, yeah, but they do because I've seen them, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I love it. I love it.

Speaker 1:

I just remember as a kid you're like I have all the power. My hand is so hot.

Speaker 2:

But really it's such a great metaphor for trying to over-control and for the ambitious that's hard.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I love that. I absolutely love that. Well, you are someone who thinks futuristically. You are someone who is not just like in the moment of how can I make an impact from a research perspective. You're thinking about like futuristically. How can we shift whatever it is that we need to shift? How can we trend? How can we find out more about it? So, when you think about that, five to 10 years from now, how do you see professional development evolving and how can people prepare for what that could look like, what that landscape looks like in a few years ahead of time?

Speaker 2:

I will just confess that I'm probably future focused to a fault, right? So if anybody's an enthusiast of the Enneagram, I'm a seven. I'm like what's next? I'm on vacation, planning my next vacation. I'm a little bit of that.

Speaker 2:

So my personal growth edge has always been continuing to have a future orientation, because I think that's important in business, but also savoring and celebrating think a lot of the research will back this up which is in this tech super cycle that we find ourselves in, with the future of work changing more rapidly than we've ever seen.

Speaker 2:

This is the era where we are going to need to not forget about double down, quadruple down, quintuple down on those human skills. So I saw, I think last year, Brene Brown, Simon Sinek, came out with some data that said the three number one skills were going to be boundaries, vulnerability and public speaking. None of those things can chat, GPT or CLAWD or any of these things do for you. I would add to that strengthening social muscle, because increasingly we don't have to do it. And so there's a really interesting study that just recently occurred. So US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy went to the UK and was studying teenagers in the UK, and he found that UK UK teenagers are struggling to talk offline because they are so used to talking online which is terrifying and unsurprising, right, because we're seeing it.

Speaker 2:

We're seeing it all the time, and I think we're even seeing it in adults. We're seeing it in young adults, in young workers, and so I think we really have to be careful about not letting that become such an issue that it becomes irreversible.

Speaker 1:

Oh, absolutely, and I mean social media and so many of the things that have people engaging behind a screen where they have actually lost some of their social skills. I mean, I could go down a rabbit hole, but, like you, look at handwriting, right, Because so many things are so much more based on electronic and behind a screen now. So, just as we think about the technological impact and we have kids, a generation that is used to really, it's not even just kids anymore, right, it's gone up to people, middle-aged people, where they are used to consuming these tiny little snippets of information, like the attention span, handwriting has decreased social engagement, interaction, but it has really impacted things and just as we think about that, like gosh, that real engagement and really kind of getting back to that place from a satisfaction, from a fulfillment, inclusivity, like all of those things, a sense of belonging just so insanely important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think this is exactly right. And when I think about the future of work you know I am a huge fan of Susan David and her work around emotional agility I think our next wave is social agility. I hear you know relationship therapist Esther Perel talk about. We've lost what many of us that we used to do as kids, right, which is this? Creating social constructs outside without rules, right, that's not something kids really do anymore, and so what they're losing is this ability to be socially agile.

Speaker 2:

When things are constantly asynchronous, I can think about my response before I give it to you. I can think about whether I want to like this or swipe on this. That's not real time, right? So when you then need to look your boss in the eye and advocate for yourself for a promotion or a raise, that's going to feel incredibly uncomfortable because you have no experience with having to be in the moment, right? So this is not not necessarily. Everyone should return to office, but this is what we've lost in water cooler chat in hallway, knowledge transfer, right? We don't have these things anymore. And so I think that level of intentionality around, how do we deliberately create space in our leadership, in our team structures, in our day to rebuild these skills, Because if they're not doing them on a personal level, it is now up to leaders to intentionally carve out spaces where those things now become more of a priority, because we can't rely on them being developed on their own. Unfortunately, they're just not not at the same rate.

Speaker 1:

Well, as we wrap up, one of my favorite questions, I say for the very end, and that is if it were your last day on earth and all you have learned, you could only share one piece of advice or guidance with the world. What would you impart on that?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I have to pick my favorites. I got to pick my darling. Honestly, the biggest takeaway I've had from the last five years and I'm hopeful this maybe resonates with someone else. So I'm going to give you some context and I'm going to give you the one line takeaway.

Speaker 2:

The context is I was speaking to one of my friends who is a coach and we were talking about fears and she said, hannah, you're not afraid of failing anymore. And I said, no, I think you're right. I used to have more fear of failure. I don't think really I'm that afraid of failure anymore. And then she said to me and it still makes me almost emotional every time I say it out loud she says you're not afraid of failing, but you are terrified of not meeting your imagined potential. And I said, yeah, I am Like that's what makes me lose sleep at night as a high achiever, as an ambitious person.

Speaker 2:

That's what makes me lose sleep at night. So my piece of advice that I would give is, if you're not afraid of failure, if you can handle awkward moments, consider how the way you currently orient your life or the way you could structure your day might actually be driven by a fear of not meeting your imagined potential and, knowing that, what's the next choice that you might make differently. I know that that piece of advice, wisdom, insight changed a lot for me, so perhaps it'll do that for someone else. It's daily work for me to go there, right, because it is easy for me to say one more email, one more this, one more that, and I'm like what am I actually afraid of if I don't send this?

Speaker 2:

It's not fear of disappointing someone. It's not fear of failure. It's that I believe this can be level 10, great, and right now it's 9.5. And if I don't live at my level 10, then what am I even doing with my life? So, henna, you are enough is a mantra of my next 10 years, next 20 years, but work in progress 10 years, next 20 years, but work in progress, Mike, freaking drop right there, that is.

Speaker 1:

that's like a. It's a bit of a gut punch from an introspective lens. Right, if you're, if you're willing to go there. Well, I want to thank you so much for just taking the time. We've had this in the works for a while and I've been so looking forward to it because I think you are such a wealth of knowledge and experience that you like so openly impart on others, and so I love to be able to kind of go through the book and just your life experiences, your professional development experiences, want to make sure that you share. Where can everybody find you and follow you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm henna prior in all the places Instagram and LinkedIn, although I did, linkedin is my bigger playground and henna priorcom will redirect to my website any of your community members. I'm happy to be connected and just thank you for creating spaces for this kind of type of conversation. I know that it is your life's work and mission. I've seen you, I've watched you just prioritize all of the unique challenges that we face and giving voice to the unspoken in a lot of ways, and so just thank you for including me in this and doing the work that you do.

Speaker 1:

My absolute pleasure. Everybody. Go pick up a copy of Good Awkward. You will not. You will not look at life the same after you have this lens kind of washed over you and it's in the most beautiful way, so I highly encourage it. Go pick up a copy of the book and a thank you. Go have an amazing weekend with the girls and I appreciate your time. 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.

Speaker 1:

It would mean the world for me if you would rate and review the podcast or share it with someone you know Many 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.

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