Henna Pryor on How to Get Good at Being Awkward | EP 701

26:35Our face might feel hot. The illusion of transparency is that we believe everyone can see all of that. Everyone is looking at us going, look at how nervous John is. He is losing his mind right now. That is an illusion. Most people can't see through us to that level of intensity. Again, not the outliers who are bright red and sweating and need to work on some physiological techniques, but the majority of us who are just feeling nervous, feeling anxious, people are not looking at us with that level of intensity. We are not as transparent in all of that. And when we know that, we can relax a little bit.

27:13Their opinion is not what we think it is in that moment. I'm going to just take a little bit of a detour based on what you said. When I was at Arthur Anderson, back in the day, they used to fly us all in. both Accenture and Arthur Anderson, to a campus outside of Chicago. And while I was there, one of the St. Charles is what it was called. They took an old, I think it was a girls' private school and turned it into a campus for both institutions after they split. But while I was there, we went through this course and there was a former CIA consultant who came in and what she focused on was helping us look at our own nervous habits, but also recognizing what subtle signs mean for someone who was buying our services.

28:05Meaning she would tell us, how could you pick up if someone was saying no, or someone was lying, or someone was not believing what you were saying? And then what are signs that you're giving off, even in subtle ways that you're not confident that you're unsure of how you're presenting or you're awkward in the moment. And it was really eyeopening. I bet. Yeah. Have you ever been through anything like that of someone like critiquing your speaking or other things? Have I ever? I went through an intense public speaking training when I decided to become a professional speaker and I knew that there were certain things that I was mindful of, right?

28:47So I was told pretty early on, don't, you know, erratically pace the stage unless you have a reason to do because it can be distracting, right? If you want to appear confident, either stay centered and grounded or move with intention, right? You can walk a little, but pacing makes you look nervous. So there were certain things I was aware of. Here's what I wasn't aware of. I was trying so hard not to pace and I was taught, try to keep your feet hip width and try to deliver the message while being still. Well, John, apparently my nervous energy still needed someplace to go. So I remember my public speaking coach telling me, well, Hannah, now that you're not pacing, you are swaying.

29:25Your feet are grounded, but you're doing this. I'm moving back and forth for those who are listening. I was swaying like a tree. I didn't even notice that I was doing that until it was pointed out to me. So this is part of, I think, the takeaway way of what you're describing is sometimes this work can be really reflective and done on your own. Sometimes this work is really helpful to do with a partner, an accountability buddy who can help you bubble up some of the things that are your own personal tells or your opportunities. I had no idea I was swaying until someone told me that. Now I get into habits where before I go give a talk where I might be a bit nervous, I perhaps do some jumping jacks or I work on taking some really deep breaths.

30:09Or if I get a little bit nervous mid-session, here's a little secret. If you ever see me do this, now you'll know what I'm doing. My hands might go behind my back for a moment. What you don't see is that I'm squeezing my fingers with all of my might to try to release some of the nervous energy that is built up in my body, but I'm doing it in a way that no one can see. Right? And so there's little techniques we can use to help release some of that energy so that we don't appear awkward. We might feel it. You might feel it, but the goal is to not appear that way in certain settings. Last year, I was the one MC for the podcast hall of fame.

30:47And as we were prepping for it, as you're probably familiar at most keynotes that you do, their monitors in front of you so that you can see what's coming up next. And in this case, I had to introduce a lot of people and thank a lot of sponsors and do this and do that. So I get up there after about 30 seconds, the screen goes black. Been there. And it's not coming back. And I am just like, what am I going to do? And you can't let that on. But those are the things that I think people never think it's going to happen. But man, this stuff does happen. And luckily, I had practiced. And so I went through it long enough that it eventually came back on and I was able to get through it.

31:33But man, was it an awkward moment. I love that story. And it brings me to two thoughts. Number one is preparation. That one thing that will help you feel less awkward about anything where possible is prep. There's going to be unexpected moments that we'll have to deal with in real time. Then we work on our comeback rate. But for the things that feel awkward that we can prepare for a presentation, a difficult conversation. Preparation is underused, even though it's obvious. But the second thing your story reminded me of, there's a great story that Simon Sinek tells, and this comes back to our asking for help.

32:07He tells a story about how he was speaking on stage and in the middle of his remarks, blanked completely, just blank. He forgot what he was supposed to say next. And you know what he did in that moment? He asked the audience for help. he said, this is embarrassing. I have just completely blanked out. I completely have forgotten what I'm talking about, what I'm supposed to say next. Can someone remind me what I was just talking about? So an audience member shouted out and said, you were just talking about this. And he's, ah, yes, it was that. And he got back on track. He then goes on to share later.

32:42That was one of his most highly rated speaking events that he's ever done. The audience loved that he had this human, admittedly embarrassing, awkward moment on stage, but rather than be Mr. Expert Tough Guy, he let them in and he asked for help and he moved through it. And that to me is where I think the world is headed. We are over this curated perfection. We are over, not to take this in a left turn, but I think we're a little bit increasingly getting over this AI incongruence of people sounding so expert-y in the written format online. And then when you speak to them, they don't sound a thing like that.

33:24There's a total incongruence. I think we're going to be returning to this space where the stumble and fumble has such deeper value when we acknowledge it and honor it in a way that actually pushes our confidence forward. I was just talking the other day to Scott Anthony, who, if you don't know him, he grew up for the past 25 years working with Clay Christensen. He now teaches at Dartmouth, but he was talking about how the papers he's received have never been better in the classes that he teaches. So now he's taking it to the next level and he makes the students then come in and present their material, but they have to do it without notes or anything else.

34:04I love this. Because he's finding that people aren't retaining at all what they're presenting in these papers. And so he wants them to really learn the information. So he's making them take this next step, which is you've got to go beyond using AI to really authentically understanding what you're talking about, which I think is really smart. I love this idea. And again, that's at its sort of master scale of taking entire paper and then resynthesizing it. But I think every leader who is trying to develop a team right now should take some version of that lesson into their teams. It's not even just about, many of us have seen that new MIT Sloan research study about people who use generative AI regularly are having retention issues.

34:50They do it and then it's done. They're not retaining the information, like you said. But more than that is the synthesizing of information. We're not even taking the time to make meaning out of what it is that we've read. And so what I love about Scott's exercise is if they don't have notes, they're not just retaining the information. They're actually being forced to make meaning out of what it is that they read and created because meaning is what helps you remember and then create a version that you then repeat to the class. So Scott, Anthony, thank you. I will be borrowing that exercise in my workshops.

35:25So that's fantastic. I'm going to switch gears here. You recently released a 2025 national study on social muscle atrophy. A lot of words there, but you say it's the silent organizational crisis. For listeners who are hearing this term for the first time, what is SMA and why should people care? Yes. So social muscle atrophy is the gradual weakening of our social skills due to underuse or a lack of meaningful practice. So sometimes thinking about that in the reverse is helpful. We can build social muscle strength in a few ways. It's through repetitions. So more opportunities to talk to people, to have a difficult conversation, to ask for help.

36:18But also not just reps, meaningful practice, meaning the quality of the conversation saying, hey, how was your day? And you, John, say, hey, it was good. Yes, technically, that's a rep versus John, I feel really embarrassed. I really wanted to answer that question differently. Could we consider rerunning that segment? Because I don't like the way that I showed up. Right? All of a sudden, in the span of one sentence, I asked you something that was a little bit vulnerable. You got to learn something about me and the way that I like to show up in the world. That's a much more meaningful interaction than, hey, how are you?

36:56How was your day? So these are the types of things that in the hybrid, in the AI world, in the technology world, in the generational world, we have started to see decline. There's just not as much need to do these conversations in this way. And when you don't pick up a weight at the gym for a year, two years, three years, that next time you do, that weight feels very difficult to pick up and you certainly aren't going to pick up a very heavy one. Same thing metaphorically applies in our social skills. If we don't use them, we lose them. And if we don't try to have meaningful conversations from time to time, then it will be really difficult for you to ask for a promotion, to give difficult feedback, to ask for guidance from someone.

37:37We need to practice in the small ways. Jonathan Haidt has really been focusing on the anxious generation and the lack of risk-taking that so many boys and girls, young adults have walked into. And I think in some ways, this kind of correlates to this social muscle atrophy in the form of risks. And so I wanted to ask, based on your research, how is this showing up differently across generations? And And do you think that Gen Z is really reporting significantly higher struggles in this area? Yeah, I wanted to make sure I had this stat right. 44 % of working Americans in total find their workplace relationships to be superficial.

38:21But when we think about Gen Z, that number actually shoots up to 52%. So the highest of any generation, more than half of Gen Z look at their team relationships at work as superficial. Now, why is superficiality a problem? I'm not saying everyone needs to be best friends at work. I think that's an unrealistic standard. I don't think that's necessary. But when they're all considered absolute surface level and superficial, you don't know who at work has your back. You don't know who at work is safe to go talk to and say, I made a mistake. And it's one that might really affect our bottom line. And I don't know who to tell, right?

39:00Superficiality consistently through every peer is dangerous. The other interesting Gen Z statistic was we know that weak social skills actively drive turnover, meaning people will stay at a job even if they're making less money, if they have friends at work, if they feel like they have people who have their back at work. And while it is the number one challenge tied to organizational turnover, for Gen Z in particular, Gen Z reports 27 % more social muscle atrophy related struggles than boomers. 27 % more than boomers. This is a retention crisis. If this is the driver of turnover and Gen Z is struggling with it over a quarter more, then we need to think about how this actually plays a role in retention and turnover.

39:51Because again, boomers are experiencing it a little less. And so they may not see it as clearly as the data shows. I want to do a follow-up on this. So a lot of my work is focused on the science of mattering or belonging. And I really believe, as you were citing, weak social skills are actively driving turnover. I also think that the way an employee feels, do they feel seen, valued, and connected is also driving an undercurrent here. And as part of the mattering deficit that is happening to so many companies. Would you agree with that? A hundred percent. I feel like you and I could link our work with a four-word phrase.

40:35How do they know? How do they know? If they're seen, valued, respected in the organization, if you want them to feel that they belong, the intersection between belonging and social skills is how do they know? It requires you to tell them. It requires you to have a conversation with them. They won't just get the vibe, right? How would my teenager say it? Catching vibes? No, we're not catching vibes. You actually have to communicate to someone. I respect you. I value you. I appreciate what you do here. I see how hard you're working. That's where that social structure has to exist. And for some people that comes naturally.

41:16I jokingly tell people that I love to be people's hype girl. I will tell you, John, you're killing it on that podcast. Love that. I love the way you said that. I'm vocal with my appreciation. For others, it might need to be systemized. So my friend Neen James refers to it as systemized thoughtfulness. If you're not naturally someone who does, that's okay. No shame needed, but systemize it. Maybe on your calendar once a week, how can I reach out to a few key members of my team and make sure that they know they are seen, heard, and valued? There was something that they did this week that I'm going to call out.

41:53Make it part of the fabric of your week if it's not something that comes naturally, if you want people to belong. I want to talk about one of the most striking stories I found in your book. It was about a CEO who became beloved during the pandemic, not because he was nailing his speeches or anything else, but because he let his kids interrupt. The dog was barking and I've got two sitting here besides me who I'm glad are not barking. And we just stumbled through Zoom call after Zoom call. What did all of that change for his employees? So this CEO, just for context, was very buttoned up. Nobody ever saw him stumble on his words.

42:34He was a, I say this with love and no judgment, he was a teleprompter CEO. He was a much similar to a politician. We're very structured, very planned. And that was what people had come to expect from him. He always had on a suit. He never dressed down. He was a formal CEO. And what happened in the pandemic is many of us who didn't have our home offices ready, which was many of us, you know, got thrown in. They're using whatever space in the house that was available. I believe he lived in an apartment in New York City. So there wasn't an extra room for him to dive into. So he was taking calls from the kitchen table and there was no time to curate the background.

43:14So he may have thrown on a jacket, but like you said, the kids would run into the kitchen unexpectedly. The dog would bark. The shot behind him would be somebody moving back and forth. And he struggled with this at the beginning until he started to get feedback from his executive team that the company was loving it. So when he was delivering all hands messages or recording videos, again, he had to do what he had to do. It was early days of the pandemic. And everyone was like, oh, this guy does have a heartbeat. He does have some humanity. He's one of us, right? There's an old, I don't read this magazine anymore, but when I was in my teens and twenties, I used to read Us Weekly.

43:57And there was a column called Celebrities. I think there still is. Celebrities, they're just like us. And it's literally a column of celebrities just doing things, right? Going to the grocery store, wearing sweatpants. It's ridiculous, John. It's ridiculous. And why do we love that column so much as a society? Because we put people on pedestals that they didn't ask for. And so these moments of just shared humanity, what he deemed an awkward moment, for us, felt very equalizing. It felt very encouraging. It allows us to then realize, oh, we have a kid pulling at our leg. We have a dog that's barking.

44:37And it's good business. And it actually improved his ratings measurably at the end of the year. Well, the reason I brought it up since we were talking about mattering is I think that CEO story really is at the heart of the mattering deficit inside organization, where so many of the leaders I had worked with seemed so distanced, polished, and unrelatable that it made working for them difficult. So how do you think good awkwardness helps close that gap? We just talked about this CEO, but how could other people like embrace this and in turn make people feel like they matter? So I think again, we'll revisit a word we used earlier, which is ownership.

45:17What I don't want is fabricated awkwardness, right? And oh, this is very difficult for me when it's not something that is actually difficult for you. I use a term in the book of faux vulnerability, right? So awkwardness I view as a stepping stone to vulnerability. And what we don't like and what we can all feel is when someone is creating a narrative unnecessarily. But what I do wanna see leaders doing more is just letting their misgivings, their flaws, their blunders, have a little bit more airtime rather than keeping them behind the curtain. So if you mispronounce someone's name and no one heard you, yeah, you can take that with you.

45:57You can have that lay back and no one will ever know. But let's say you're in a meeting and there's another mispronounced name. That person feels embarrassed by it. Maybe you can then say, you know what? When I was preparing my notes, I brutally mispronounced this name. I had to practice it three times before we came into the meeting. That's an embodiment of good awkward, having a moment that goes sideways in a meeting and then owning it in real time. There's a, my friend, Bob Russo worked for IBM for years. And he says a great story about how his boss made a joke in a meeting. So head of the company executive made a joke in a meeting that did not get a laugh.

46:32Just, I don't know if it was off color or it just wasn't there. And the next thing out of his mouth was, well, that just went over like a fart in church, which I thought was just great. So everyone laughs. It pops the tension, but the bigger learning is he swung and he missed and he made it okay for that to happen. And Bob said after that, the rest of the meeting, people tried stuff that they didn't normally say out loud because he made it okay. So embracing awkwardness, taking all of the bad out of it, trying to find the good in it is in my opinion, a way to operationalize that psychological safety we talk so much about is lean in, don't shy away, lean in, own and model what you want other people to be doing.

47:24Hannah, you and I haven't had a chance to talk about this, but when you were younger, you grew up feeling different. And I understand your hair, your lunch, your music tastes all made you feel different. And yet you transformed all that awkwardness into your superpower. For someone who's listening, who's still in that cringe paralysis, what's one small step they can take this week to step into their awkwardness? I'm going to give you my favorite reframe just to, if one thing, if this is all you do, I want you to leave this conversation thinking of this differently. There is no such thing as a factually awkward person.

48:06No such thing. By definition, awkwardness is an emotion or a characteristic and it is subjective. There is no such thing as a factually awkward person. So the very first thing I want you to do is choose the language you're using to describe yourself. If you are walking around this world saying, I am awkward. I am so awkward. I am too awkward to have this conversation. That is a limiting belief of your own design. What you're actually doing, and I would like you to change this language right now, is I am feeling awkward right now. I'm feeling awkward at this networking event. I'm feeling awkward about the comment I made in the meeting.

48:43I'm feeling embarrassed about the way that went down. A feeling is transient. A feeling is real, but it will pass. It does not define who you are. At a very minimum, before you get into the steps of naming it and using humor and all of that, I want you to please spend a little energy believing you are not an awkward person. You are a person who feels awkward from time to time. And that truth will set you free. And maybe a follow-up to that is, is there one word you'd use to describe good awkward? Brave. Brave. I think if you can embody what it means to be good, awkward, you are unstoppable. Every risk is in your reach.

49:24So brave. Okay. How about this? The best leader you've ever worked with who showed their awkwardness, how did they do it? Oh God, how do I choose? I'm going to say recent. So this is somebody I have a partnership with now, but my friend, Harry Wilson, he and I partnered together with a firm called Limitless Minds and it's a startup. So there has been ups and downs on this journey. And there was a meeting that we had. And what I admired so much is after the meeting, we got on a call and he said, Hannah, I didn't really love how that meeting went. And I value your opinion. What could I have done differently?

50:02How could I have let that meeting go in a different direction? What could I, as a leader, have improved on? I know asking that felt incredibly awkward, veering on vulnerable, right? There was some emotional exposure there. But to me, a leader that has the courage, the willingness to stay in the discomfort of a question like that is the marker of a leader who is adaptable, who is willing to adjust. And I was extremely impressed by it. So that was the most, probably the recent one I can think of. If leaders and organizations continue to treat social skills as soft skills, what's at stake for their innovation, retention, and culture?

50:44Oh gosh, I laugh that people still ask this question, right? In the age of AI, hard skills are becoming easier to outsource, automate, become repeatable through machines. Soft skills are not soft anymore. Soft skills are power skills. I think today we've seen some data that suggests that the three power skills are going to be communication, ability to hold and maintain boundaries, and public speaking, which is a form of communication. But these are the things that are going to be uniquely human when automation and AI can support the rest. And so I think anybody who considers these soft skills are going to find themselves very surprised when the very human nuances come into play and people work for people.

51:32I don't think that's ever going to change. So whatever skills are uniquely people skills, we all owe it to ourselves to see the future clearly and know that those will require, again, I'm in my mid forties. They're going to require a level of development that may have not been necessary in the past. We played on the streets. We figured out conflict negotiation. We figured out things. Today's leader are going to need to prioritize development of these skills. And I think that is going to become more and more apparent. And lastly, Hannah, where can listeners go to learn more about you? Oh, thank you.

52:06Hannah Pryor in all the places. LinkedIn is my primary playground, but Instagram at Hannah Pryor as well. And hennapryor.com is my website. You can find my ink articles. You can find my LinkedIn learning courses. It's all there at my website. Hannah, it's such a joy and honor to have you on the show. Thank you. Thank you so much. That's a wrap on today's conversation with Hannah Pryor. What I love about this episode is how it flips something we often avoid, awkwardness, into a powerful green light for becoming. Because growth never arrives fully assembled. It arrives shaky, sweaty, unsure, and new.

52:44Here are a few reminders worth carrying. First, if you're uncomfortable, it means you're expanding. Second, awkwardness is evidence that you're actively becoming. And confidence is not the starting line. It's earned on the way. If Hena's message helped you today, please share this episode with someone who's holding back because they're worried they won't look perfect. And thank you for making episode 700 what it was and for helping PassionStruck hit number one in health and wellness worldwide. This is your movement as much as mine. If you want tools and guidance to apply these conversations in your life, join us at the ignitedlife.net, my sub-stack community for deeper intentionality.

53:23And if you wanna help kids grow up knowing they matter, then consider pre-ordering a copy of my new children's book, You Matter Luma, at Barnes & Noble or umatterluma.com. Next week, I'm sitting down with Boris McGuire and Ali Raisin of Safarini Leadership, a transformational leadership program based in Kenya. They take executives out of the boardroom and into the bush, walking side by side with Sambura elders to relearn belonging purpose and what leadership looks like when connection is a survival skill. I think in the West, we are obsessed with time, right? And we're obsessed with who's first and who's the youngest.

54:01We can all name entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg, who became billionaires at 19 or 20. There are many successful entrepreneurs who build multi-million dollar businesses, but they don't achieve it until they're 50 or 55. And that's just not interesting to us. It's not sexy. It's almost like we're overly fetishized this idea that speed is the most important thing. But, and I think it speaks to the fact that in the West, we are destination driven. Whereas the Samburu, it's much more about the journey. It's the life's path and how you get there is more important than where you end up. Until then, becoming isn't about looking polished.

54:42It's about choosing growth, even when it feels awkward. I'm John Miles. You've been passion struck. Now go So live like you matter.