IDL123 Season 3: Good Awkward with Henna Pryor
How awkward are you? Why is feeling awkward a good sign? What is the huge reframing that you should do in your company to unleash your team's highest potential?
I’m delighted to have you here listening to my conversation with Henna Pryor. Henna is the ‘queen of awkward’. She’s recently authored the book Good Awkward and is also a performance coach and keynote speaker. Our conversation centers on the importance of being awkward. Together, we dive into what feeling awkward really means and how you can make it your strength.
Meet Henna Pryor
Henna Pryor, PCC is a highly sought after Workplace Performance Expert and an award winning 2x TEDx and global keynote speaker, virtual presenter, team facilitator, and professional executive coach.
She’s known for her science-backed approach to improving the performance, habits, and actions of hungry high achievers – in her fun, no-nonsense, no-jargon way – to move them from their first level of success to their next one.
Henna has been invited to speak twice for TEDx in New York City and Wilmington, DE and brings her expertise to a variety of global organizations including Google, Workday, FIS Global, and Johnson & Johnson. She has also been featured in articles for media including Forbes, Real Simple, Fast Company, and more.
Henna founded Pryority Group – a fast-growing performance growth firm – to expand on her belief that the key to most people’s success is leaning into awkwardness a little bit longer to skyrocket strategic risk-taking and be braver in the work that we do.
Her highly anticipated book, Good Awkward, publishes in September and is available for pre-order now.
Visit Priority Group and connect on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
The freedom of embracing awkwardness - 05:51
Overcoming awkwardness can soothe insecurity - 08:00
Avoidance makes it worse - 14:02
Henna’s tips for overcoming awkwardness - 27:37
The freedom of embracing awkwardness
“You can’t eliminate awkwardness because eliminating awkwardness implies eliminating uncertainty. It implies having nothing unplanned ever happen in life [and] part of living as a human being on this earth is [that] things are going to happen that you don’t expect. ”
If you live life with no risks, you are not living because you are not putting yourself in situations that might challenge you, change you, and develop you further. You stagnate and stay the same.
Any uncurious child would not survive. Curiosity is the tool that humanity has to continue living because that fear of risk would have kept us stuck at the level our ancestors were at.
In that light, awkwardness seems like a fair trade-off for developing yourself as a person and actually making progress in your life and the world.
“Embracing [awkwardness] is truly the key to being able to do anything in life that involves even [a tiny] percentage of risk, because any time you put yourself in a situation where growth is on the table, you are inviting that. So, we have to start welcoming it in instead of trying to eliminate it. ”
Overcoming awkwardness can soothe insecurity
Awkwardness is experienced mostly in two places in life:
- Unplanned moments
- Planned moments that involve a risk
Most of the time, insecurity stems from a pattern of conditioning that comes from experiencing moments of awkwardness where someone calls you out on it, making you feel like a fool.
Those moments, if they are repeated, can cause a person to avoid experiences that could be awkward to avoid that uncomfortable feeling.
“Awkwardness is an emotion of discomfort … it is not a comfortable emotion, we’d rather avoid it. Our body’s instinct is to avoid it, but when it happens over and over, slowly that accumulates and it turns into a [thought], “I am that person” … we become conditioned to believe that which, over time, becomes insecurity. ”
Release yourself from awkwardness as a defining trait of yours, because you probably gave it to yourself when enough people labeled you as awkward because they were not comfortable with it either.
No genuine, confident, or kind person is going to make you feel bad for doing something awkward.
Good people will encourage you for doing something that took a risk, whether awkwardness was involved or not, because they know that you value that chance of growth.
“If we embrace awkwardness as an event rather than as a person, we can disassociate our fears and our insecurities from awkwardness. ”
Avoidance makes it worse
If you avoid being labeled “awkward” at all costs, you risk your authenticity and genuineness, and people will struggle to connect with you because you will be too afraid to take the risk of being upfront.
When you avoid being awkward, it makes it even more obvious. When you ignore it, it becomes the elephant in the room. This is true both for situations and for people.
On the other hand, calling it what it is when it happens and laughing it off completely diffuses the situation.
“When you let a bit of your awkwardness show … people actually view you as more trustworthy, more generous, more kind, and the reason is … your lack of perfection puts other people at ease, and you want that for your team. ”
Henna’s tips for overcoming awkwardness
- Name it when it happens
- Separate the trait from who you are
- Every muscle, mental or physical, needs training
- In the office, share failure stories, and awkward moments, and get people comfortable with making a mistake so that they can truly focus on doing the best they can
- As the business owner, work to create environments of psychological safety in the workplace
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
BOOK | Henna Pryor – Good Awkward: How to Embrace the Embarrassing and Celebrate the Cringe to Become the Bravest You
BOOK | Susan Cain – Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
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About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast
The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.
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