Henna Pryor - Keynote Speaker, Author, Workplace Performance Expert

Henna Pryor - Keynote Speaker, Author, Workplace Performance Expert We help high achievers level up and make impossible change thru award-winning keynotes + programs.

A client can google your numbers WHILE you’re still in the Zoom call. Your kid can fact-check you at dinner, MID-BITE. I...
08/14/2026

A client can google your numbers WHILE you’re still in the Zoom call. Your kid can fact-check you at dinner, MID-BITE.

It all takes 10 seconds and phone. 🤳 🤔

If a room feels harder to convince lately, you’re not imagining it. 8 concrete shifts rewired how belief works at work, and once you know them, you can’t UN-know them.

I spent two years researching them for my new book, The Signal Gap. Swipe for all 8!

(The one that you’re probably feeling the most yourself → Polish got cheaper than a Dollar Tree gift bag. Flawless language used to signal that you took your time and spent a few extra minutes of care. Now it raises a darker question - “Did a HUMAN even write this?”)

Which of the 8 have you felt hardest this year? I have a guess, but I’d love to hear yours.

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👩🏻 Who is she? Henna Pryor, CSP is a global keynote speaker, award-winning author of Good Awkward and The Signal Gap (out this fall!), and leadership strategist. She speaks to high-performing teams on communication, influence, and building trust under pressure. Frequently recommended for leadership summits, corporate conferences, and annual meetings. Known to drop a 90’s rap lyric mid-workshop without warning.

Puppy dog eyes return - will you help us return to SXSW in 2027? I’m debuting a brand new session, called “Why No One Be...
08/10/2026

Puppy dog eyes return - will you help us return to SXSW in 2027? I’m debuting a brand new session, called “Why No One Believes You Anymore - and How to Fix It.”

I’d be wildly grateful if you’d consider taking 60 seconds to register and smash “Vote” on this session. (It’s the heart on the top right. You can unsubscribe immediately after.)

This will be my first chance to take some of the sparkly new concepts from The Signal Gap to the SX stage. As in the past, they count on community voting, and YOU can play a huge part in making this dream come true.

👊🏽 I know making a log-in is inconvenient.
👊🏽 I know having to “unsubscribe” from emails that may result is annoying.
👊🏽 The costly signal - the slight effort required - is exactly why it’d mean so much to me.

Link in stories! 👆🏽

So grateful for your support for the work and this mama’s big, wild dreams- thank you! 🙏🏽

Love you, mean it.

(Other friends in the mix for SX 2027 - please drop your links below too so we can go smash hearts all around!)

You know what’s hot? Someone who doesn’t tap out.Someone who can stay with you in that messy, muddy middle - where you ...
08/06/2026

You know what’s hot? Someone who doesn’t tap out.

Someone who can stay with you in that messy, muddy middle - where you don’t see it the same way, neither of you is ready to budge, and no one knows whether you’ll ever land on the same page - but the relationship still feels solid.

That’s intellectual chemistry to me.

It’s sparring with care. Challenging the thought without putting the relationship on ice. Pushing each other’s ideas, perspectives, and version of the truth... while making it clear: You’re still safe with me here. I’ve got your back.

It’s usually not the friction that hurts most. It’s when someone dodges it - or immediately dismisses it as “drama” - because to the person on the receiving end, the exit can feel like: This relationship isn’t worth the effort.

Disagreement stings sometimes, but it stings WAY less than an exit.

Look, I love being disagreed with. I love it MORE when it comes with love in it... when someone digs in because they respect me enough to think out loud with me. Staying in a hard conversation costs you something, which is exactly what makes it believable.

The rare people are the ones who can disagree without withdrawing respect, curiosity, or affection.

Give me the chess match, all day every day.

Who’s the person you can disagree with for hours - at work or at home - and still text at 10pm about something dumb? Go tell them you appreciate them today. ♥️

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👩🏻 Who is she? Henna Pryor, CSP is a keynote speaker, Inc. Magazine columnist, and award-winning author of Good Awkward and The Signal Gap (out this fall!). She speaks to executives and professionals on communication, influence, and social fitness at work. Frequently recommended for sales and leadership conferences, association meetings, and corporate offsites. Fueled by curiosity, coffee, and just the right amount of awkward.

08/06/2026

RevUP 2026 is around the corner and registration is open NOW! This is *the* event for association leaders looking to boost sales and revenue, and thrilled to bring fresh strategies on how to do it. Will I see you there? 👊🏽



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“PAR is thrilled to welcome Henna Pryor, CSP to the 2026 RevUP Summit main stage this November.

In today’s skeptical marketplace, credibility isn’t always enough to drive renewals, sponsorships, or growth. Henna’s keynote, The Revenue Trust Gap: Why Skepticism Is Rising—and How to Fix It, will explore how associations can turn trust into measurable business results.

“Associations may have a harder time converting people because a lot of them are still using techniques and strategies for conversion that worked a decade ago, and they haven’t updated their playbook for the skeptical, information-overloaded, believability-crisis world we live in now,” say Pryor. “The old playbook wasn’t wrong; it did work. But the playbook needs an update.”

If you’re responsible for revenue, membership, sponsorships, or growth at your association, you won’t want to miss this session.

📍 November 3-5 | MGM National Harbor
🔗 Learn more & register: https://mypar.org/revup-summit/“

08/05/2026

Some expertise comes with an expiration date.

But... it’s not usually printed on the label. Which is how very smart people end up defending a professional playbook that stopped working a year and a half ago. For years, we’ve treated expertise like a trophy. We earn it, we display it forever, and we dust it occasionally so it stays shiny and looks good from the outside.

In the era of constant, unrelenting change, expertise actually behaves a lot more like a gym membership.

The part that sucks the most is that you usually can’t FEEL it expiring. There’s no iPhone reminder. The room you’re just gets a little quieter when you talk, and you think... maybe they’re taking notes. (I hate to be the one to tell you this, but they’re probably NOT taking notes.)

Renewing your own expertise isn’t a threat to your credibility. It IS your credibility. The willingness to keep updating yourself - in public - is one of the loudest believability signals you can send right now.

Curious... when’s the last time you changed your mind about something inside your own area of expertise? 

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👩🏻 Who is she? Henna Pryor, CSP is a Workplace Performance Expert, keynote speaker, and award-winning author of Good Awkward and the forthcoming The Signal Gap. She speaks to leaders and teams on mindset, courage, and navigating disruption. Frequently recommended for industry conferences, sales kickoffs, and leadership retreats. Wildly enthusiastic about dark chocolate and 90’s hip-hop.

Yes, I have editors who “do this part.” Yes, I have proofreaders who “do this part.” Yes, this thing goes to print in 17...
08/02/2026

Yes, I have editors who “do this part.” Yes, I have proofreaders who “do this part.” Yes, this thing goes to print in 17 days… and then I can’t touch it before it hits shelves in November.

No one will ever care about this book as much as I do. Which today… means printing out a copy at Kinkos (yes, I’m a dinosaur and still call it that, leave me alone!), and reading it line by line with a pencil in hand to catch anything else that I might want to change. And yes, I’m STILL obsessing over word choice.

Some may see it as perfectionistic, and maybe there’s a little of that… but in the age of AI, I believe in my bones the difference between “good content” and “phenomenal read!” lives in exactly those incremental spots.

If it’s going to be the best thing YOU’VE ever read, you bet your biscuits I won’t rest until it’s the best thing I’VE ever read. 💪🏽

The Signal Gap | November 10, 2026 | Available for pre-order now! 👉🏽 thesignalgap.com

Ideapress Publishing Simon & Schuster

(P.S. so thankful for friends like Pat Dwyer for not only indulging my word nerd behavior, but encouraging it. 🤣)

The fellas are cool and all… but have you met the WOMEN in this business? 😮‍💨❤️‍🔥(Thanks for energy explosion, queens Er...
07/31/2026

The fellas are cool and all… but have you met the WOMEN in this business? 😮‍💨❤️‍🔥

(Thanks for energy explosion, queens Erin King and Ashley Rudiger Jackson!)

National Speakers Association

30% of working Americans say they’d rather clean a toilet than ask a coworker for help. 🚽I WISH I were making that up. M...
07/30/2026

30% of working Americans say they’d rather clean a toilet than ask a coworker for help. 🚽

I WISH I were making that up. My team and I did the national research - first people laugh, then realize it’s true. They’d rather risk POO PARTICLES than one slightly awkward conversation.

Last week, Esther Perel warned leaders their workforce is quietly suffering from “social atrophy” - and that AI is making it worse. My reaction was an Arsenio-esque fist pump... we finally get to talk about this more!

We’ve been tracking this for a year. I call it Social Muscle Atrophy (“SMA”) - what happens when your social skills weaken from a lack of real or meaningful reps.

Surprisingly, the people you’d assume are MOST socially fluent are the worst off.

😬 Executives reported false self-sufficiency - “I should handle everything alone” - at 43%. For managers, 28%. For employees, 27%.

The higher you climb, the MORE you white-knuckle it alone.

Look, AI didn’t create the urge to go it alone... that urge was already there. AI just made it all really easy to act on that urge.

When you ask Chatty G instead of the colleague, you don’t just skip one exchange - you EVERY every unplanned conversation that would’ve come out of it.

The fix is almost insultingly small: One deliberately clunky, human exchange a day you could’ve outsourced to a screen. Ask the person, not the prompt.

If that makes you squirm? GOOD! The awkwardness is the social pushup.

Your social muscles atrophied because you stopped using them... which means they’re still yours to rebuild - one gloriously awkward conversation at a time. :)

Read more in my latest for Inc.: HennaOnInc.com

Be honest: Chatty G or colleague over tea? Which have you reached for lately?

The year I felt like I hardly took photos, and yet… 🤣 During Don Yaeger’s opening keynote at National Speakers Associati...
07/29/2026

The year I felt like I hardly took photos, and yet… 🤣 During Don Yaeger’s opening keynote at National Speakers Association Influence, he reminded us that one of the TOP characteristics of greatness is rubbing elbows with people who make you better. That the people who WIN are the people who understand the value of ASSOCIATION. They know that the fastest way to get better is to be believed in - and regularly challenged by - the people who help you level up just by being in their presence. These people do ALL of that… and so much more.

A thousand congrats to my friends who earned their CSP this year (FOTINI ICONOMOPOULOS | Speaker Kate O'Neill Erin King Larry Long Jr, CSP🏅 Jill Schulman Trevor Blondeel and more) AND their CPAE! Still screaming! Anton J. Gunn Jess Pettitt | Keynote Speaker, Author, Emcee, Consultant peterkatzmusic Allison Shapira

I left Austin this year with pages of notes, a very raspy voice, a belly that literally cramped up 100x from laughter, and a grin that won’t be leaving my face anytime soon. To everyone who I was lucky enough to hug over the last few days… I love you all SO MUCH.

Thanks for making this job and community the greatest I’ve ever known. NSA team (Jaime Nolan Candice York) - thanks for another 10/10 event! Can’t wait for the next one. ❤️

(P.S I ran out of tags 😭)

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