Embracing the Awkward: A Guide for Teens to Succeed at School, Life and Relationships

Find Friends. Build Confidence. Gain Self-Esteem.

"This is one of the best guides out there today." ―Sean Covey, bestselling author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens

Find friends and earn self-confidence by taking awkwardness head on

Who are you? As a young adult you struggle with lots of issues―finishing school, finding a career, finding a partner, and most importantly figuring out who you are. That can be overwhelming, especially when you feel like the people all around you have it all figured out. Don’t worry, you don’t have to navigate life alone.

Become your best self. Figuring out how to find friends, develop relationships, and to be confident is a step-by-step process. Now help is available in Embracing the Awkward, written by the popular teen-advice-YouTuber, The Josh Speaks. This isn’t another dry instructional book written by a boring adult disconnected from the millennial reality, it’s a guide, a workbook, an empowering step towards trying things out, discovering who you are, and becoming your best self.

Embracing the Awkward gives you ideas for developing your own unique style of speaking and engaging with others. It contains infographics and workbook elements that offer a step-by-step checklist of activities, along with examples of things to say, topics to talk about and ways to lead into situations.

Learn how to:

• Approach people
• Lead into conversations with groups
• Make strong friendships in school
• Approach your crushes and ask them out
• Deal with failure and rejection
• Maintain family relationships

Young adult self-help books such as 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, Living With Intensity, The Science of Making Friends, and The Gifted Teen Survival Guide have helped people navigate the teen years and build self-esteem. Now Embracing the Awkward is here to take you to a new level of confidence, self-esteem and success.

Joshua Rodriguez is a motivational speaker on multiple digital platforms including YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram. Starting his YouTube channel in 2011, he has built a mass following of middle school and high school teens looking for advice in different areas of their life: • self worth, • relationships, • academics • and family. His videos and content has been featured in prominent marketing publications and has also been used in many different schools across the country. Josh was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York where he has worked in the education technology field for over 7 years communicating with teachers, principals and students all across the world. Josh is currently the digital media specialist at Hapara, designing digital media campaigns for teachers and school leaders in the education technology space. After graduating college, he noticed that more and more students were turning to the internet to learn about life issues and to ask questions they may have been too afraid to talk to their parents or friends about. From there Josh began to look at other motivational content creators online and saw a need for someone to be speaking to teens directly about these issues from a place of non-judgment and acceptance. Josh’s teaching approach is inspired by the late Fred “McFeeley” Rogers who taught children they are special just the way they are and Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh who speaks about cultivating peace in every step.