What's So Good About Being Awkward with Henna Pryor

H: So, Henna, I was introduced to you by a mutual and the moment I landed on your website and I saw that your signature subject is awkwardness, I had to reach out immediately so before we get into the deets, I wanna start with that. Why awkwardness, why is that your thing?

G: I love when people are like, you're the awkward girl, I'm like, yeah that's not one I set out to own when I was a youth right? Why awkwardness, so there's a two part answer and I'll try to keep it concise. The first part is I've felt awkward my whole life. I am a daughter of immigrant parents, any polish or confidence or self assuredness you think you hear or see right now always it makes me chuckle because I feel like it's a product of living into this version that did not exist for a very, very long time. I was constantly feeling as though the me I wanted to be was clashing with the person who was on display. I wanted to fit in, I wanted to assimilate. My name was Henna, I was born in the eighties. I wanted to be Jennifer or Samantha or Jessica so bad

H: Or Britney.

G: Or Britney. Sure, any of those. I would've taken any of them. Instead, I was Henna in the era of Hannah Barbera. There was constant sort of why do I have to stick out? My food smelled different, my clothes were different and so most of my story is one of craving assimilation and not standing out, and so I felt awkward about it every day. As many of us do, you know, I felt that way pretty much through elementary school, middle school, high school, got to college, things started to feel a little better, I found, you know, my people. There's a lot of people that really find their own little lane in that experience in life, but then I remember, professionally, this is sort of phase 2 of the conversation.

You know, every new job I had, I made a couple career pivots. I always felt that feeling again anytime I was in transition, and I would listen to podcasts to try to learn how to feel better about these things. And our queen, Brene Brown, would say at the end of her podcasts, she had a tagline she coined, stay awkward, brave, and kind. And I would think to myself, okay Brave? Yes. I know that's important. Kind? My parents talked to me about that one. Stay awkward. Lady, you had me until this right like, I don't want to. I've been trying to…

H: Hard pass.

G: Right this my whole life. And thus began just a deep curiosity about that specific emotion, the way it shows up at work, the way it holds us back, and that's why awkward. That's why I'm so interested in this emotion.

H: And you've done something unique with awkward, because there are so many people who feel awkward for the same reasons you did and for so many others. People who realize early on in life that they're queer or people who have learning disabilities or a physical difference or an invisible disability. I mean, there's so many reasons why people feel awkward but you, I believe, coined the term good awkward. And as a matter of fact, you wrote a book about it and have a TED talk about it and I think those 2 words I mean, we most of us get awkward. Let's be honest, including me. But good awkward, like, I don't even know what to say about that. Because that goes beyond a description and whether we're talking about a noun, an adjective, you know, what it am I awkward? Is this an awkward moment? It's not a diagnostic category. And as a licensed psychotherapist, I can affirm that it is not a diagnostic category. But the concern is that because we don't recognize how normative awkwardness is, when we feel awkward, it can quickly evolve into an identity that is extremely limiting.

G: Yes. Yes. You're exactly right in this and, you know, there's shades of gray right? This is not a black and white, you either feel it or you don't. Some folks, it becomes a true identity trait that they take on and it limits them. For other folks, they may feel it intensely and often leading to rumination, leading to other sort of unfavorable freezing in place, behaviors that don't serve. And for others to really do manage it as a fleeting emotion, they can feel awkward. You know, they're human, they feel it, but then their comeback rate is extremely quick. So to come back to your original question, what is good awkward? You know, the easiest way to answer that is, well, what is bad awkward? You know, I don't like good and bad always because it suggests something that's a little bit more pointed.

But bad awkward is, essentially, when we feel this emotion and it stops us from taking that similar risk or action or that moment of courage in the future, it kind of contaminates our future choices. That emotion grabs us and prevents us from taking the necessary risks or taking the necessary chances to improve versus good awkward is having the deep awareness and the understanding that those moments are natural in any sort of growth mindedness and also creating very intentionally the awareness, the tools, and the skill set for what to do with that emotion when it arises so that we can use it as a force and move through rather than having it hold us back.

H: Something that I think about a lot and talk about often, I believe you and I talked about it in our first conversation when we decided to record this interview is human beings are born equipped with equipment in our brains, mirror neurons for identifying with other humans. We are born I mean, babies, we see this in the gaze in the mother before their eyes are even fully developed. So it's normal, completely normal, for human beings to notice when they are different from others and what the reaction to that difference is, that's where things get dicey because we don't really understand. I think we should be teaching elementary school children how the brain works and how emotions work, like that Disney movie that was so popular a few years back. Because when we understand it's normal to notice things are the same and things that are different. It's normal to have a reaction to feeling different or observing your difference, observing other people's response to that difference, that's all normal. What we make it mean and what we do with it is where things can either go badly or, in the case of good awkward, we learn to take risks and develop our resilience.

G: Yeah. You're spot on here and I think where there's opportunity for us is twofold. So one that you just mentioned, which is creating the space for deep awareness of what are the stories we tell ourselves around these moments, you know, what is the internal narrative. I love when people are like, I don't have self talk like, everybody has self talk right? And when I ask you the question, do you have self talk, guess what you're doing? You're having self talk as you think about how. So everyone has it. It's not do we have it or not. It's are we aware of it, are we are we keyed in on what is the self talk we have when we have an embarrassing moment, when we have a cringe, when we have a misstep? Have we actually taken a moment to do a retroactive following that situation and think to myself, alright.

How am I feeling about that and why right? What are the stories I'm telling myself? So step 1 is that pullback. Step 2, though, and I think this is where you and I got excited when we first met, is this lack of conditioning, this weakening of social musculature, I love this beautiful concept that you just introduced of, like as babies, we're looking into our mother's eyes and we don't break gaze we could do it for hours. And then we grow up and around age 8 or 9, the Association of Psychological Science says around 8 or 9, and that early adolescence is when we start to become really attuned to other people's opinion of us, that's when self consciousness ticks up and suddenly, you know, Diann, I can't just stare at you without breaking gaze for too long lest you think I'm strange, lest you think I'm creepy right?

ft that happens. And today in: 2023

H: I love that perspective on it because you're right. It was something that you and I started nerding out about is our mutual observation and concern that human beings are losing their social skills. They are losing their ability to relate. People are preferring and choosing when given the option. Can I interact with a website or a chatbot? Or do I wanna interact with a real human? No to humans becomes the resounding response and that is weakening us in sooo many ways that are absolutely unnecessary. But all of this is reversible because we're talking about habit and practice. Whatever we practice continues to be part of our skill set and our abilities and our internal resources, without practice, it begins to erode. It begins to weaken and that's deeply concerning for humanity, wouldn't you say?

G: I agree. Especially in light of, you know, the data lately, we started to talk about the loneliness epidemic. You know, just like physical muscle can atrophy when not used you know, lord knows we've all had that moment of try trying to return to the gym after a long time away or trying to pick up a weight, we're like, oh, gosh. You're like, this thing's got nothing to give. Our social muscles, there is bodies of research that actually was done well before the pandemic on vocations that are naturally more isolated. So, they imagine people who have jobs like astronauts or polar explorers. There are certain jobs who their role, they are naturally more isolated.

And what these researchers found that when they were back in society, back trying to be in social settings, those abilities, those muscles, atrophied. They forgot how to read other people's gestures, social cues. Oh, are you talking now? Am I talking now? Those are things that over time we develop through practice. And in the pandemic, we all got to experience a little bit of what it felt like to maybe have that astronaut's experience because we came back into social settings for the 1st time and you remember. I remember I was, like, what are we doing? Are we high fiving? Are we keeping a distance? I'm trying to read your face right now. What's happening and we got out of practice. This is true for introverts, extroverts, ambiverts right? This is something that all of us need to practice to keep alive. And so I love the way you described this, which is it's a habit. It's a behavior. You can't expect to be good at something that you don't intentionally create space to do.

H: Indeed, something I talk about a lot is sensitivity to rejection. A lot of the people that I work with, have ADHD, and people in the ADHD community often talk about rejection sensitive dysphoria. I pay attention to larger groups of people, not just one segment. And I think we all have some level of sensitivity to rejection. Creative people do, introverts do, all different kinds of groups so if we normalize sensitivity to rejection, and we normalize feeling awkward or feeling just that there's not a coherence, there's not a fit between us and our environment. I think one of the biggest differentiators is whether we scribed that to our self or to the environment. Because sometimes we're just in the wrong room, and it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with us. But it's fascinating to me how quickly we internalize that. And you're right without exercising those social muscles in isolation, that mindset is going to foster.

G: Yeah, and it's our wiring. I mean, you know, as well as anyone in the work that you do, you know, we are creatures that crave social acceptance, and I don't think it's wrong to want that. You know, these are things that help us cooperate. They help us work together, it's not that we're trying to engineer all care out of people. You know, I wanna be empathic. I mean, at the time of recording, we are talking about a world crisis in which you're like, how are humans doing this to each other? You know, I'm not interested in engineering the fact that we should care about each other and care what other people think occasionally and when it serves.

The problem becomes when we become so obsessive over trying to engineer away our awkward moments, trying to stay so safe in our social belonging mindset that we do so little to step out of it, and then people wonder how are you know, just professionally, how are less qualified people leapfrogging me even though I have more competence, more skills. Let me tell you some of the things that are the most awkward, advocating for your worth, negotiating, bragging about your accomplishments, sharing your wins, these are all things people will universally say, gosh, Henna, they make me feel so awkward. I know, but guess what? The people who are doing it are lapping you even though you may be more qualified. And so there to a degree has to be a willingness to understand that this emotion is complimentary to your continued growth. In every inflection point, you're going to feel it. Elimination is a fool's errand, you're going to feel it.

H: Oh, that is such a mic drop moment right there. Because Henna, you are so right, we should not be seeking to remove awkwardness from our lives. By embracing the concept of good awkward, by being willing to experience moments of awkwardness, hitting the pause button and asking ourselves, what am I feeling right now? How does it feel? What assumptions am I making, what knee jerk reflexes are going on in my brain that are telling me what this means about me in this moment? Do I wanna change that story and am I willing to keep taking risks and experiencing moments of awkwardness so that I grow in my resiliency instead of shrinking in it. I mean, that's a choice, and it's a choice that we need to keep on making, it's not a one and done right? It's literally moment to moment.

G: Yeah, the choice to tell yourself a different story is 100% a choice, but, also, a choice to make micro moments of intentionality, part of the fabric of your day. So there's a behavior element to this too. So I'll make this very concrete, I wanna challenge your listeners. Today, if you find yourself at the supermarket or at the drugstore, when you're in line to check out, try to leave your phone in your pocket or in your bag right? Try to just make eye contact with someone briefly. If you're in an elevator, not everyone doesn't do this, but there was a study that about 35, I think, percent of people do this. Try not to hammer the elevator door close button shut. Try to just let someone on and see what happens. Try to leave your headphones out on the subway just for a few minutes right?

I'm not saying you need to go in guns blazing if you're not ready for this yet. If you're still feeling, hey, I need some baby steps, Henna, to ease into this comfort level, I honor that, but we need to start somewhere. So let those be your micro moments of, yeah, you know, this I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm inviting uncertainty here, I don't know how this person in front of me is gonna react to me catching their eye and smiling. But guess what, we're not celebrating the outcome. We're celebrating the fact that you did it, and that is a rep of social muscle. That's what I want you to celebrate.

H: That's one of the most important points about this whole discussion, is that it is a win because you made the attempt. Not being attached to the outcome, not expecting anything, like managing your expectations about what's gonna happen when you do this rep, when you flex this muscle, when you take this little risk of instead of staring at your screen, mentioning something to the other person. I'm in Starbucks, they got rid of the freaking eggnog latte, I want to have a tantrum. And just saying to the person next to you, am I the only person who's, like, really butthurt that they got rid of the eggnog latte and without asking me first? And they might look at you like you're the biggest weirdo. But you know what, I will not explode on spot, I will not dissolve in a puddle. I will say to myself, okay, well, this is a little awkward. But that's okay like being willing to feel that moment of awkwardness, I think that's where it has to start right?

G: Yeah and, Diann, I heard since you and I last talked, I actually listened to a beautiful podcast. My friend, Mitch Joel, has a podcast where he interviewed Pico Iyer, who is a prolific writer, and he just you know, not that the phone is the only culprit of numbing away our awkwardness, but it's certainly a big one right now. And he had a quote that I actually wrote it down because it was so beautiful. He said, when you're getting the world through a small screen, we can't really see the larger picture. And I just felt like that was so profound for the moment that we live in because the truth is your next truly meaningful, awkward conversation, whether it's with a family member, whether it's for a raise, promotion, whatever it is, is unlikely to be had through a small screen.

So best that you practice through the larger lens like, this this is the world we now have to prepare our people for technology is taking the place of many, you know, hard skills. Soft skills like this is where we all need to double down, and I, you know, I have mixed feelings about the term soft skills because it makes them less important than they are, but I think this is where our spotlight needs to be because technology can't teach us how to people. It can't, we have to practice that on our own and so the more we can make that a priority, the better off we'll all be for whatever comes next.

H: And I wanna be very clear that Henna and I are not anti technology. Technology, we are we are experiencing this interview and recording this podcast through the miracle of technology. And we are also not saying it's because of the pandemic that this is happening, and it's because of people spending so much time on their mobile devices that this is happening, those are contributors. What are some of the other contributors that are making it really difficult for people to want to take these kinds of risks?

G: Yeah. I'm gonna answer that question sort of on the 90 degree angle of it, which is what is also contributing to the weakening of our social musculature, which makes it harder to take the risks so, of course, there's technology. Frankly, as you said, before technology, people could numb away these feelings of feeling out of place or awkward through drugs, alcohol, cigarettes. I mean, gosh, think of TV, whatever you want but, also, there's some other interesting things happening. What we found in the research is that there has been a diminishment of public spaces. Again, meaning, we used to just convene without as much difficulty, and, actually, I listened to a podcast that talked about the sort of irony of success.

It used to be that successful, you know, folks with the big fancy jobs they used to live in cities where it was very easy to just run into people at the coffee shop or get they're randomly on a Tuesday night. And now in America specifically, so I'm speaking uniquely to the United States, it seems as though the pursuit of success means eventually moving to the sprawling house in the suburbs with the big yard where it's harder and harder to just bump into your neighbor or to bump into someone else in your community, it actually takes much more intention to say, hey, friend let's hang out. All of a sudden, we have to plan these things.

So we're just less and less inclined to have random social happenstance, a random run-in. And this is where those muscles for navigating social uncertainty get built and we just are optimizing away from them because of what our priorities as a society are so there's tons of contributors. We could also spend a whole another podcast on social media and how everybody looks perfect there, and that's not true, but I think most of us know that issue, but the diminishment of public spaces in the way we now live is another contributor.

H: Because we don't like you said earlier, we don't have to interact with anyone in person for almost anything anymore.

G: Not if we don't want to. I mean, today, Diann, if when I'm done talking to you, I can go put on my soft pants. I could go order DoorDash for lunch, they'll just leave it at my door, I don't have to talk to them. I could text my family and friends if I need something. We don't actually have to have a conversation. I mean, theoretically, I could avoid people all weekend. I am a mother with children, so that's not happening, however, if I really wanted to, many of us could do that, which is terrifying, just terrifying.

H: Especially with AI. And listen, I love technology. I love AI, I use AI. However, I try to use it with discernment and discrimination, not to replace people and relationships, but to enhance them. But it is a very slippery slope, even driverless cars, I'm like, I'm not interested. Hardcore, I'm not interested. I don't want to be that disconnected from something I'm doing where great harm could be done.

G: Yeah. I think in that statement, you know, it's easy to sound, like, depressed about it right? Like, that stinks, it's so sad and it is in many ways, but here's where maybe where I see the glimmer of light. I think a lot of times people don't feel a sense of agency over their choices when it comes to some of how the world has gone. But here's the best news in all of this, you get to choose how you work through this next phase of our society's existence, meaning you get to choose if you avoid calling people on the phone at all costs. So, you know, I playfully share, and I don't ever mean to call my husband out, but he knows I share this story. This isn't just my kids, this is my husband. We were trying to order dinner the other day, DoorDash wasn't working, so I said, hey can you call in our tacos and he goes, oh, I don't wanna call, let's just order pizza instead right?

And I'm like, what, I want tacos, we were just talking about tacos. I don't want pizza, I want tacos now. But this has become so much the fabric of our being that again, the moment of empowerment that I hope we can all come away with is in that moment, you do get to make a choice. And sometimes it's the one that requires a slightly bigger effort, but in that moment, I want you to say to yourself, okay, you know what? By choosing to make this phone call, even though I don't particularly feel like it, I'm setting myself up to be more easily able to say hi to that cute boy at the bar. Or to more easily be able to go to my boss who don't know that well and ask for something that I need as far as advocacy right? All of these are little reps in the gym, in the social gym towards the things that matter. And if you can make that choice with intention, that's highly empowering. We do have some control over this outcome.

H: And we also don't have to label so many things as awkward, I mean, maybe they're just not. Maybe they're not as awkward as we think they are. One of the things that I have, a lot to say about, but I will not to do it now, is it's and I think this is related, and I would be really interested to know your perspective. I feel that not only are our social skills getting weaker and more and more of us are opting out of taking the risk of being rejected or experiencing awkwardness or initiating uncomfortable conversations, or even participating in them. Because everything these days seems to have a trigger warning. And it's like, why does everything why do we have to warn people that they might feel something? Certainly there are things going on in the world right now that are triggering even for people who are not even remotely connected to them. But if that list just keeps getting longer, something's going on here that we need to get ahead of.

G: Yeah, it's such a complex question because you're right. You know, there's no, you know, there's no linearity to something like this. For some folks, triggers are extremely real they've had experiences that are so traumatic that they need to protect themselves at all costs, and sometimes it's hard to walk through a world where reminders are everywhere so I get that. I do agree to a degree that, you know, my thesis around conditioning is repetitions. And so how does one desensitize to things that might feel a little triggering if we're constantly avoiding them? Avoidance doesn't help us become comfortable.

So, you know, without a psychotherapy or clinical psychology background, I hesitate to say, you know, this this is what we should do, but what I would offer is I agree that conditioning is an important component. Awareness alone is not going to move us into a more positive direction and by avoiding if everything has a trigger warning and we're constantly avoiding the thing that makes us uncomfortable. For some folks is if they're doing that work separately with a therapist or something, then, okay, maybe you can avoid. Trigger warnings are helping you but for those that are just not doing the work and are avoiding it at all costs, then to me, it's just perpetuating the problem.

H: Agree, and I appreciate the distinctions that you drew. Do you think there was a point for you, like a turning point or an aha moment or a rude awakening where you thought, I have to start dealing with this awkwardness issue differently because it doesn't seem to be going away, and I need to change my relationship to it.

G: Oh, many, there's many, so I think that's, you know, why the book eventually needed to come out of me. But I'll share the one that I think has stuck with me the most, and so spoiler alert, it's really the opening story to my TEDx. I remember in my 1st job out of college, I worked for a big public accounting firm and the partner referred to me as Helen. He's actually called me Helen to my face, you know. My name is Henna, and I did not correct him. I did not correct him because I felt new, I felt uncomfortable and awkward correcting him. There was a power dynamic right lots of layers here, but I did not correct him for months.

For months, I allowed him to call me Helen because as each day went on, it felt more and more awkward to bring it up now. I didn't do it from the jump because I needed to avoid that initial awkwardness of correcting him and instead, it just grew and grew. And months later, finally, I was, like, you know, this is mortifying to say right now, but, you know, my name is actually Henna right? So not only did I have to deal with my own awkwardness, but also then his realizing what had occurred. But I think, ultimately, the realization that washed over me was by avoiding the feelings of awkwardness both in that day that it happened and all the days that follow by avoiding the risk of that emotion, I actually kind of ran an even bigger risk, which was the abandonment of myself.

Because to me, I'm someone who cares about being called the wrong name. You know, being potentially worried that he might find it odd that I was correcting him, yeah, that was a risk, but, also, abandoning what matters to me, which is being called by the correct name, was also a risk and so it was a choice that I realized I had made without knowing it. And once I realized that every choice has a trade off, everything is a risk, sometimes tolerating the awkwardness and saying the thing is actually the smaller of the too. And so that kind of unlocked, I think, the rest of it for me.

H: You were consenting to abandoning yourself without even realizing it.

G: I was, I mean, I, you know, over time, learned to love my name, wanted to be Jessica or Samantha for a while, and over time, you know, learned to love it. And I allowed my identity to sort of be put to one side for fear of risking his approval by correcting him. And so either one either one was a risk, and I chose one that I wish I hadn't. And so going forward from that experience, I kinda realized, listen, every time you're choosing awkward avoidance for fear of what may be on the other side, understand that there is a trade off every single time. And as long as you can own that trade off, then walk through the world in that choice. But often when I really take the time to think about it, it's worth enduring and embracing the awkwardness for it.

H: You came to the realization that your relationship with awkwardness needed to change through a series of events over many, many years. I'm curious to ask whether you think it's possible to get there sooner. Because in my experience and observation, most of the time we tolerate things and we tolerate them and we tell and our self awareness is growing along with the diminishment of our ability and willingness to tolerate something. Until we sort of reach a point, maybe in our life experience, our maturity, our confidence, where we're able to tackle this thing we're speaking to women of all ages in this audience. And I'm wondering what advice you have for women who want to get there sooner in their life, then, you know, like may do you think it would have been possible for you to figure this out sooner?

G: I mean, shamelessly, it's the only reason I wrote the book. Like, I am busy, I frankly didn't have time, but that was sort of where my head went, which is had I had multiple layers of awareness around what this emotion actually represented and potential tools, strategies, exercises, and techniques, man, I could have been heck of a lot, you know, easier on myself. I Coined this term awkward confidence. I think I could have accessed that a lot sooner, that cool confidence, she's never coming like, it that’s not for me. But that awkward confidence, I think I could have gotten there in middle school or high school had I understood what I was feeling a little bit more as often as I was feeling it.

So, really, you know, shamelessly, the book will help accelerate that. But I think the second thing that we can do, and I think it's maybe a bow on what we've already sort of discussed is don't experience your awkward moments and then push them away. Use them as data, that awkward emotion is a signal that there is something about that interaction, that person, that situation that is making you scan for that social approval. Awkwardness is social emotion. There's something attached to that experience that's giving you pause. Take some time to think about it and to dissect it and to ask yourself some questions. I've got lists of them in the book.

What is creating this emotion in this experience and then sort of double down on the intentionality. Not one of us currently operates in a society that is making it mandatory to create intentional moments of social interaction where certainty is not guaranteed. And so we need to actually be very proactive about finding those in those small moments. If we can do those two things, this will take a heck of a lot less time than it took me, hopefully.

H: I think I already know the answer based on what you just said, Henna, but I'm wondering if you are using what you've learned in how you're raising your kids.

G: Oh, yes my okay, this question always makes me a bit emotional, to be honest. My children our children are 13 and 11. So my daughter's 13, almost 14. Son is 11 a half so for the 13 and a half year old or almost 14 year old, is particularly poignant. I have an 8th grade daughter for whom social belonging feels like priority number 1 right now above all else. So when we talk about the importance of this topic, you know, my publisher and I actually teasing doing a young adult version of the book. But, yes, this is something we talk about constantly, and I'll just give one very tactical tip that we do with the children.

So at home, we've got 3 dinner table questions. So when we're sitting for dinner, 3 questions that we ask. The first is, what was the best part of your day? The second is, what was something new you learned? But the third, specifically, is what I would call the awkward primer, which is what is something that gave you butterflies today? That's our 3rd question, they know all 3 of them are coming. Not every day do they have a concrete answer for each one, but they know that when they've given us and the butterflies question, they understand it translates to when was the time that you kind of you raised your hand or you put yourself in a situation where you were like, I don’t know about this, but you did it anyway right? That's the intention of the question.

H: Yes.

G: Again, not every day has a big butterflies moment, but they know that when they share one with us, you're respective of outcome, right, regardless of how it actually went. The fact that they had a butterflies moment and they sought out a butterflies moment is going to earn our celebration. So what we're trying to do is both prime them for celebration of those moments, but also because they know the question is coming yes. Hopefully, it's helping them look for those moments in a given day. So this is our attempt at, you know, operationalizing some of this with our little ones.

H: And this is so fantastic and I would say, even though you're using this with puberty age kids, this is something every single person listening can do.

G: Sure.

H: Instead of avoiding moments of awkwardness, moments of disconnection, moments of doubt and uncertainty and self consciousness. What if we make a commitment to train ourself to watching for those moments and maybe that's where it starts. Maybe it just starts with paying attention and watching for those moments, and just observing your own reaction. Then maybe you can say, okay. So I noticed when I'm in these kind of situations, this is how I behave. These are the thoughts that I'm having. These are the emotions, these are the sensations in my body. And this is what I'm doing with it now and then just start calibrating it a little bit at a time. So the next time I'm in this situation, I'm gonna take this baby step.

G: Yeah. Exactly. I mean, simple, not easy. Just a reminder as people hear you say that, you hear it and you're like, okay. Got it right? Got it. Simple in execution, relatively speaking, but it's not supposed to feel easy. You know, just remember that you are a social creature who cares about being part of the group, and that is okay. If it doesn't feel easy, just heads up, it's not supposed to. It's not supposed to. Do it anyway. Do it anyway. I'm begging you.