Dr. Aziz (speaker) presents a practical technique for handling public embarrassment based on his experience running "embarrassment inoculations." He argues that when you respond to an embarrassing moment by owning it—smiling, laughing it off, and taking it with grace—people tend to respect you more because they see confidence. The chunk includes examples (failed jokes, doing push-ups on a sidewalk, falling) and the explicit instruction: "Own it."
Most people are terrified of embarrassing themselves in public. But, you know, there's a crazy trick I've learned about embarrassment after doing thousands of embarrassment inoculations myself, and then helping lots of clients do that. Over the years, I've seen that when you go out and you do something embarrassing in the world, you laugh when you're not supposed to, or you make a joke and people don't really get it, or you go do something strange like push ups on a sidewalk street, people might look at you, people might notice. But if you don't crumple and say like, oh, God, don't look at me, and you just kind of smile, you laugh it off, you take it with grace, people actually respect you more because they know, oh my God, I'd be really scared to do that. And he just did it. And they respect you. They see confidence in you. So it's not about trying to pretend like it didn't happen. Own it. Yeah, like that just happened. I just fell over there. Or no one laughed at that joke, okay? And if you own it and you smile and you take it with grace, people are going to respect you even more.
