Alice Draper: “Rejection threatens us”

Note: This is a rough transcript and may include errors.

Alice Draper (00:00)
Our brains are hardwired to fear rejection because our survival historically has depended on being accepted. So regardless of whether you have ADHD like I do or you do or you don’t, if you were rejected from your community, that signals that you could die. Historically, if you were kicked out of your tribe, you might not have access to food, you might not have access to shelter, you might have to swim to another island.

You’re listening to My Rejection Story hosted by Alice Draper. So I wanted to do something a little bit different today. Today I am going to release an episode where I am being interviewed instead of me being the interviewer. I didn’t plan on doing this until the interview concluded and I was like, you know what? That was pretty interesting conversation and I’d love to share it with you guys. So.

A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by Diane Wingert on the ADHD-ish podcast. I have been interviewed quite a few times about rejection, probably like a dozen or so times, and I usually get certain questions that I expect and, you know, that’s how it goes. It’s great. But that’s not what happened in this interview. Diane went a lot deeper than anyone has gone before, and she asked me questions that no one’s asked before.

And the results of this is that I felt a bit uncomfortable at times wondering, I qualified to answer these questions? But afterwards I was like, you know what? I think we covered some ground that I haven’t heard covered before. And I don’t think you will have heard covered before. It was a fascinating conversation. We explored a lot of facets of rejection. talk about rejection, you know, as a, whether it can…

Building rejection resilience can be a one size fits all approach or whether, you know, it needs to be individual depending on you and where you are in life. Diane is a former psychotherapist. spent, I think, over 25 years in the practicing psychotherapy and she has now turned into a business coach. And she’s just a wonderful person, a wonderful thinker, a wonderful interviewer.

So if you find this interview interesting, I highly recommend going and checking out her podcast ADHD-ish or her on LinkedIn. She’s just fantastic. And I, I know you’re going to love this interview. So thanks for being here.

Alice, before I hit record, we were trying to figure out where we initially met and we were able to pin it down to the fact that we met on LinkedIn. We established that we both have ADHD. We established that we both help people deal with rejection, but that was all between the two of us we could remember. So I know I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a very long time because rejection seems to be

of all the potential obstacles that can stand between us and what we want, rejection seems to be one of the biggest rocks. Would you agree? Absolutely. I mean, I have been writing and talking about it for over a year now. But yeah, I also just know that you’ve been in my orbit and I’ve really respected your work. And I don’t remember when that first moment where you came into my orbit was, but I am.

really excited for this conversation, And here you are at 9 p.m. in Dubai talking to me. So that’s proof of the fact. I’m really, really enjoying your new podcast, My Rejection Story, because as a publicist and visibility strategist for coaches and consultants and others who use a book as a brand asset to be more visible and spread their message, every single one of your clients has had to overcome issues.

with rejection and we can say it’s ubiquitous, but I like to remind people it’s actually your brain. It’s not your fault that you struggle with rejection sensitivity, whether you have ADHD or not. It is our brain. So why don’t we start with the science behind why rejection is so freaking hard? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I am not a scientist, so I am going to pull on stuff that I’ve learned from other people. But if you bring on a neuroscientist, that would be a fascinating episode. like our brains are hardwired to fear rejection because our survival historically has depended on being accepted. So regardless of whether you have ADHD, like I do, or you do, or you don’t, if you were rejected from your community, that signals that you could die.

Like, historically, if you were kicked out of your tribe, you might not have access to food. You might not have access to shelter. You might have to swim to another island. And so I think, you know, there’s that reptilian part of our brain that hasn’t evolved to where society is, like, I guess, to where we are as humans now that still screams like, danger, danger. If someone says something horrible, if someone rejects you, that signals danger. And,

Yeah, so there’s that. And there’s also the fact that we are still extremely social beings, like humans rely heavily on community. There’s lots of studies that show that loneliness is one of the biggest things that cause premature aging or early deaths. We thrive in communities and rejection threatens that threatens us being able to survive. But if we don’t work on it, we also end up kind of

becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy in some ways. We don’t really get to put ourselves out there and chase the goals that we want or struck like, know, whether that’s in your profession or in your dating life or in friendships, fear of rejection held me back for a long time. And I know that it can hold has does hold a lot of other people back to you. You’re absolutely right. And I think Ellis that it’s it’s always sort of puzzling in a way to me that

kind of people both you and I work with, coaches, consultants, speakers, thought leaders, experts in their field who know they have something to share, who believe that it is valuable for others to read it, see it, hear it, experience it. And they know that they have to put themselves out there and be visible, to be seen, to be heard, to be noticed. And all of that

comes with the risk of rejection. And I find it quite fascinating that we can have the audacity to step away from the herd and say, actually, I’m not interested in a stable job with benefits. I’m going to depend upon myself. I’m going to be where the buck starts and stops. And I’m going to have the audacity to think I can actually make a living with what’s in my brain as long as I can get it out to other people.

What do you think the number one reason outside of just this ancient fear that we will perish if people don’t like us? What are some of the other common reasons why you think people will know they have something to share and will even go so far as to write that book, record that podcast, create the thing, but then just choke and be unable to even

put it in front of one person? What are some of the things that you see with the people that you work with and even the people you’ve interviewed? Yeah, yeah. It’s hard to answer that because it’s very hard to pinpoint what makes some people put themselves out there and other people never put themselves out there. I can point to some trends. So the people I work with usually are miles ahead of the average person because the fact that they have this business model.

where they have, as you said, so beautifully decided to use their brain to make a living. They’ve taken a lot of risk and with risk comes, I guess, proof that you didn’t die, that you didn’t get kicked out of the tribe. there’s, it becomes muscle memory. So, you know, you do those hard things, you realize, I survived that. And maybe there was some also really awesome byproducts or consequences of

those risks that I took. And that’s at least been my experience with risk is every risk has been terrifying. But, you know, taking those risks and seeing them work out has been like, it becomes a bit of an addiction, like, okay, what other risks could I take? What other great things could happen? So I think one of it is doing it and realizing that the world didn’t end. But something else that I’ve noticed is that being more marginalized seems to make it and I

don’t have data to back this up. So if anyone wants to go look up, I’m sure there are some studies out there, but I’ve just noticed it with my clients is that the more marginalized someone is, it seems like the more they doubt themselves and putting themselves out there. So I would notice like two years ago, I had a black woman client who was really shocked at the places we wanted to pitch her to. And then she got accepted and she was shocked that she got accepted. And

I have noticed kind of like, for example, some of my white male clients can be a lot more audacious in their goals. So I don’t know if that’s, yeah, I think like societal conditioning of, you know, what risks you can take, what risks you’ve seen other people take. think that white men have seen a lot of other white men take really big risks and be okay. So just if you look at like examples of failure, we can point to examples.

of white men doing really audacious things that fire festival scandal comes to mind. Failing, going to jail, know, having a Netflix documentary made about how this thing you did, and then getting back up and starting another company and getting funding for that other company. And I think for more marginalized people, haven’t seen that happen. So it feels like the risk of putting yourself out there is a lot higher.

because there isn’t that path of kind of seeing other people take those risks and it fail and then pick themselves up and it works out. So those are some of the things that come to mind, but I’m sure there’s many other things. It’s hard to point to any one thing. You are absolutely right. And while this is not a feminist show per se, and I do have a diverse audience, which includes men, it is undeniable.

that if you have been culturally conditioned as female, or if you are marginalized in any way, or simply not part of the majority, whether you’re queer, whether you have physical differences, and if you’re biracial, bicultural, even people who move to different countries, they don’t look like anyone around them can feel marginalized. So all the intersectionality of this, if you are a person of color, if you’re female, if you are, you know,

a gender minority, all of these reasons stack the deck. And for the reasons you say, it feels riskier because you probably don’t have as much support or much room to fall back. And you don’t see others look like you. I’m reminded, succeeded. I’m reminding of why they finally created a lot more shades of Barbies because little girls had to choose.

Barbie doll that didn’t have her skin tone for decades before the company finally realized that was a thing to do. And each of us has our own individual risk tolerance too. Some people have a tremendous amount of risk tolerance, other people it’s very small. It can be based on past trauma, it can be based on all kinds of things. But I’m fascinated by the book, The Confidence Code.

I talk about it a lot on this podcast and refer to it often because two women interviewed successful women in literally every field from sports to politics. Every single one of them talked about imposter issues. Every single one of them talked about the fear of failure, the fear of making mistakes. And I came to the conclusion, Alice, that women are culturally conditioned all over the world to avoid failure.

to avoid making mistakes and to personally identify their worth with whether they succeed or fail. One of the conclusions of this book was that the typical average white man will apply for a job with confidence when he meets 50 to 60 % of the stated criteria. A woman will not even apply unless she meets 100%. So if you think about that alone, clearly the risks

of putting ourselves out there, the risks of being visible and the risks of rejection are not even across the board. And this isn’t even taking neurodiversity and other issues into account. But I know because of the work that you do, this isn’t just philosophical. You have actual actionable strategies for helping people deal with these issues. And it goes beyond the Nike slogan, just do it.

If only it was as simple as just doing I wish. And in some ways actually it kind of is like, cause you know, you’ve wrote up such a good point with, I haven’t read the confidence code, but the gendered angle and the gendered angle is partly, you know, the privilege and being able to fall back on things. But I think another big part of it is, is cult like, is our culture conditioning women to fail?

is our culture conditioning woman to get rejected. And generally it’s not. I mean, if we think of the dating context, many, many women in heterosexual relationships have never been rejected because the man is archetyped as the pursuer. But when you think of that from the male perspective, it’s that he, in order to find a partner, had to get rejected a lot. And he had to build that muscle and realize that he could.

get rejected and survive and keep going. And you wonder how that plays in other areas. And I think career wise as well, know, men are often encouraged to be go-getters, put themselves out there. And for women, it can feel like the costs are much higher. And I argue that the cost of not doing it, the opportunity cost is the cost that is much higher. But yeah, so when it comes to actionable strategies, the thing that I think of is I think of it as a muscle.

And so I often talk about building a rejection resilience muscle. And I’m just thinking now, like there are studies that kind of show that rejection can spark a desire to prove ourselves. So there is positive stuff that can actually come from doing the thing and getting rejected. I think there was a professor at Rotterdam University who did a study where he asked

his students to submit to proposals. they, I don’t know if it was a couple of studies across different universities, and some were accepted and some were rejected right away. But the people who were rejected were the ones who came back with more ambitious proposals. Like, they really kind of took that as a chance to harness their skills and work on it. So yeah, know there’s psychologists who’ve said that rejection can like prompt this rebellious part of our brain to prove ourselves. And I think when we think of that,

historical context of us being kicked out of the tribe, rejection can really spark a desire to get included in the tribe in a way. So yeah, so I think of it in the sense that building resilience would mean putting yourself in places where you can get rejected. And just like going to the gym, you might not go and do

like a huge deadlift with a hundred kilos. If you’ve never stepped foot in the gym before, you might pick up some dumbbells and do some other exercises that will prepare you for that big deadlift. So in a similar way, rejection can look like what are some micro rejections I can do on a daily basis that will prove to me that the world doesn’t end. I know that I find getting rejected from people I know a lot.

scarier, a lot worse than getting rejected from strangers, which I think kind of makes sense because that’s my community. I don’t want to be rejected from my community, whereas strangers are not really part of my community yet. So something that helped me a lot was when I was trying to build a career as a freelance writer, I did a 100 rejection challenge within a group of Facebook group of writers that everyone was doing it.

And the thing that really helped me, I think all of it helped me, one had helped me because I completely flipped the switch on focusing on getting accepted. So I stopped ruminating over every rejection. I became a lot more output driven, which is very useful when you’re trying to get your work out there and get visible. But also that there was a community of writers doing the same thing.

celebrating their rejections. And these were like veteran journalists who had been in the field for decades, writing for the New York Times and celebrating their rejection from HuffPost. So that means that when I get my rejection from HuffPost, it doesn’t seem quite so bad because I was like a young newbie journalist and there is veteran journalists. And then also that you can share your rejection story in that group and get a lot of moral support.

And that I think actually challenges that kind of reptilian part of our brain that is so threatened by rejection. Because when you reach out to community for support, it’s saying, I’m safe. Like actually people are supporting me in spite of this rejection. And I mean, I recently discovered a Facebook group called, it was a rejection sensitivity dysphoria Facebook group for people with ADHD. And it was 60,000 people and they just share their like,

things they took personally, basically, like my neighbor was rude to me. It’s really freaking me out. And the whole purpose of the group is really that people are rallying behind them and saying, it’s okay, you’re not a bad person. And that’s what we need, I think, to become more resilient to rejections is not only doing them and building that muscle to show we’re okay, but also having community and having that support, which shows that we’re not going to get rejected and actually

I’m not alone and I can do this with the support of someone else. There’s so many wonderful nuggets in that. First of all, I agree a thousand percent, Alice, doing something in community makes it safer, makes it more likely that you’re going to actually do it because the accountability piece is, especially for those who are ADHD-ish, the accountability.

and the group support because then you don’t want to fall behind. You don’t want to be the slacker. You want to be with the group. And as long as other people are knocking up those numbers, you’re going to keep doing the same. Whereas you could put yourself on that challenge. You could say, I’m going to do this a hundred times, but you’re probably only going to last at most two weeks because that’s about how long it takes for all the shiny, all the novelty, all the

the inner motivation to fade away, to dissolve, to evaporate, and then you’re back where you started. So I love that you can even leverage a little bit of competition because I always say that there’s four drivers that get a person with ADHD to take action. One is interest, two is challenge, three is novelty, and four is urgency. So by putting yourself in that group challenge and getting the support and the accountability,

you were actually able to leverage all of those drivers. Cause I’m sure that challenge didn’t go on indefinitely. It was probably for a set period of time. And so you had some parameters, you had some limits and it made it safe, but also a little bit of a friendly competition. Like I’m going to get to my hundred faster than this one over here, which ultimately serves everybody because they’re probably thinking the same thing. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. and I mean, like this, so this was a Facebook group, so it was a lot more of a kind of broader community, but I broke it down in the sense that I had actual journalists that I was working with where we would review each other’s pictures. And so it’s not a It’s not a rejection goal with no strategy. know, the rejection goal, there was also someone to like, kind of take a look at what we were doing, which was us to each other. We would peer review our pictures and share feedback.

but yeah, the accountability piece is huge for getting anything done for me. but I think on the rejection side, that helped me a lot from not spiraling and not thinking that every rejection was personal, which it had before. And so when I speak to, when I, when I used to sort of, I used to sort of mentor writers and authors, that was, I think the biggest thing that they would often get stuck is that they were doing it alone. And when you’re doing it alone.

you know, the imagination wonders and everything feels personal. And when you can flip to the other side, it’s actually not as personal as we thought it was because there are a million reasons why people reject you. it’s not most of the time, it’s got nothing to do with you. know, what, what I’m curious about Alice is that, you know, you’re working with personal brands, right? You’re working with individuals and experts and they’re building a personal brand and they have the book.

or in my case, they have the podcast, and there is always a chance of rejection. And I think there’s a part of it that always does feel personal because we’re talking about ourselves, we’re talking about our stories, right? And so there’s a little bit of this that’s like my brain is a little itchy around because we’re telling people it’s not personal. If you get rejected, it’s not personal. But sometimes it is.

You know, I’m thinking of, if somebody doesn’t open your pitch, like I get dozens of pitches every week to be a guest on the podcast. I invited you, you didn’t pitch me. And so I like to be able to choose my guests. And so do people feel rejected when I don’t open their pitch? Maybe, I don’t know. But sometimes a rejection is personal. Like somebody has said, I would really love to have you.

as a guest on my podcast, but Diane, my God, you swear a lot. And I’m like, yeah, that’s why I have an explicit rating. And they’re saying, yeah, but my audience would just not be into that. So I’m thinking, well, why do you want me then? You know, like, it’s sort of like I’m being rejected because of a facet of my personality, but I was more willing to be rejected by being true to myself.

And that’s been something that has taken a lot of time. Years ago, I would have been like, who do you want me to be? I’ll be that. bend me, shape me. I’m like the Gumby doll. Like, I will be whoever I need to be so that you like me, so that you accept me, so that I fit in. But I think by the time you’re really ready to be a thought leader, you’re really ready to be an expert, there kind of needs to be the understanding that sometimes rejection is personal.

You’re not just a number, you’re somebody that they don’t like what you have to say or the way you say it. How do we work with that?

Yeah, you bring up such an important point because, you know, I brought, have that story of my hundred rejections and now I run a PR company. So we get rejected all the time, whether it’s for like pitches that we’re sending about me or clients. And it’s like water off a duck’s back because I think we’re pretty resilient to getting PR pitches. And then I got, you know, I’m thinking of you getting, I don’t know if that was a real example that you getting told you swear too much. It is a real example. Yeah.

Yeah, it hurts. I got a rejection for one of it, like it was a partnership pitch for my podcast where someone accused me of using fake, creating fake familiarity using AI. And that wasn’t the case at all. It was a very real pitch and they concluded with how disgusting, is like, I, and that’s not a rejection that I get very often. I think that’s.

It took me by surprise. Like, you know, there’s no responses. That’s fine. There’s no thanks. That’s fine. And then there was this, which was attack. Really? I think that that goes beyond rejection. That’s like an attack on your character. That lands very differently, I think. So it hurts. And I think that that’s okay. Like whether, you know, you respect this person or not, it hurts.

so I think that the first step, at least this is, I’m not, I’m not a therapist, so maybe you give me better advice on this. But, the first step for me, at least when I’m kind of navigating how I would approach personal rejections or rejections that feel like an attack is to acknowledge that this really sucks. and then I think, okay, what am going to do about it? Am I going to hide and shame?

And not tell anyone, which is my natural instinct. Like that’s all I want to do because that feels extremely vulnerable to reveal that I got such a nasty rejection. And then I kind of like, I’m like, okay, well, that’s exactly the thing that would make me not do this anymore, whether it’s pitching myself and, know, this can apply and other things you might get rejected by a friend or a partner and.

instinct is like, I’m never going to put myself out there again. I’m never going to try and make new friends again. And that’s not really going to be helpful because of course you’re, you, you want friends generally. I want to have partners for the podcast. So then it’s kind of thinking back to that community aspect again. And it’s like, who are the trusted people? I actually wrote a LinkedIn post, but I wouldn’t recommend that for everyone. You know, it could have.

gone badly and no one engaged with my LinkedIn post. And then I would have felt even more rejected. So I would really think who are trusted people who I respect that I can share this with. And that helps a lot, you know, cause I like have a friend who is very level headed, not emotional at all, very neutral about things. So sharing it with someone like that.

he’d put it into perspective. He’d be like, that seems like a very weird thing for someone to say. You know, have you, maybe she was having a really bad day. Maybe she has mental health problems. it’s, would you, can you imagine yourself sending an email like that to someone? And so then there’s like a bit of perspective taking, which I can’t have in my emotional state. And there’s also like realizing, okay, I’m

I’m not alone, like I’m safe. I’m kind of getting comforted by this person who I respect. And so when I think of those people that you would open up to, would think like, who do I feel very safe with and who do I respect? Because of course, if you’re telling someone who you don’t respect and they’re just like, they’re silly and stuff, but you don’t think that highly of them, it’s not going to make you feel that good. So I would, yeah, like choose the people you respect and feel safe with and open up to them and they can give you perspective and comfort.

and don’t hide in shame. That’s just going to make it worse.

I really appreciate you saying Alice that it hurts and that’s okay. Because sometimes, and resilience is the topic I am most obsessed with. And just bouncing back from mistakes, bouncing back from failures of all kinds, bouncing back from rejections is something that I, it’s a skill, like you say, a muscle.

We all need it, even if we come from a disadvantaged point where we have genuine and severe rejection-sensitive dysphoria. Some people need to take medication for this. It’s a profound impact on their life. But we don’t need to pretend that it’s no big deal. We don’t need to say, I’m going to go out and get my hundred rejections. I have known people in sales organizations who are told by their manager to

get out there and get those rejections and consider them like a badge of honor and know that every rejection you get is gonna get you one step closer to a yes. It’s like, I understand why they do that. And I think to some degree, it can be helpful if you’re sort of programming yourself to think, I’m going for the no, I’m going for the no, I’m going for the no, but sooner or later,

the feelings get involved. are after all, this is what separates us from the animals. We have emotions and the more we try to ignore them or deny them or, you know, compartmentalize them as though they don’t matter, the more dysfunctional we become. So I love that you’re saying, you know what, it hurts, it fucking hurts. It’s always gonna hurt, but you get to decide.

how much you’re gonna let it hurt and for how long, and then what are you gonna do about it? I am famous for writing the flaming retort in an email and just saying everything I wanna say about how cruel and how petty and how foolish and how selfish and asinine. I can really go on and I got a lot of words, but of course I don’t send it.

because what I’m doing is I’m acknowledging my experience of rejection in a way that really takes the risk out of making the situation worse. I’m not gonna try to convince the person to give me another shot. I’m not gonna, why, why did you, you know, like, there’s no point in that, but I do have feelings and I do wanna get those feelings out of me. And I find that being able to compose an email and not send it sometimes is all I need.

But typically, as you say, I need to run it by someone else because rejection has a very powerful way of making us doubt ourselves, doubt our perceptions, doubt our reactions, and doubt what we think we should do next. So it’s really valuable. And I’m one of those people who likes people who will speak the uncomfortable truth. I don’t cultivate friends who tell me what I want to hear.

As a matter of fact, anybody tries to tell me what they think I want to hear, I’ll tell them to shut up and tell me the truth because it just doesn’t work for me. I know when I’m being, you know, patronized, I know when someone is treating me like a child, I want them to say, and you know what? Yes, they rejected you. You didn’t expect it and that sucks. And I’m sorry you’re going through this. How else can I support you? That might be enough. I’d be like, yeah, that did suck. It really did. It was not what I was expecting. And guess what?

that’s just part of being a grownup, is sometimes things that you expect don’t happen, and sometimes the unexpected does. And just learning how to accept that and tolerate it and work with it, I think it’s just part of being a human, no matter what business you’re in. Yeah, I love that. I mean, everything you said and the idea of…

Yeah. And also you highlighted a great point, which is to not talk to someone where you feel like you’re being patronized. And I think that’s really highlights what I was saying when I said someone you respect. Cause if you are telling, you know, I don’t know your mom and she says, everything you do is amazing. It’s not that you don’t respect your mom, but you know that she’s just going to validate you no matter what. So it’s choosing someone who you think would tell the truth, even if it’s not that comfortable, which can also be like, maybe your pitch wasn’t that good, but you still didn’t deserve that rejection.

That was a horrible rejection. And I don’t think that rejection was about you. you know, that’s valuable. I’m like, okay. also can level sets. So, so yeah, so I think that, yeah, I agree with what you said. You’ve interviewed some really noteworthy people on the rejection Chronicles. Do you recall?

Anything that anybody shared with you about their experience of rejection that surprised you or that you hadn’t really ever thought about before? Anything that stands out? feel like I’m constantly being surprised. So, the Rejection Chronicles is what I named the newsletter and the podcast is called My Rejection Story. And I’m just thinking the very first interview that I released and also the first interview I recorded with Geraldine de Reuter.

She has a bestselling book that is on multiple, you know, bestselling lists and has sold, I don’t know what her exact numbers are, but she has tens of thousands of followers and I assume her numbers are good. And then she had a New York Times review, which we actually spoke about. So what really surprised me about her is that she told me that one rejection still terrifies her and she

does a lot of things to avoid rejection. And she said just something as simple as like meeting up with someone for coffee is something that she doesn’t often doesn’t do because she’s too scared of a perceived rejection, them advising her for coffee. And it made me think, you know, she’s perceived as so successful online that I wondered, is she afraid that they are not going to like the real her as much as what they perceived her to be?

and that’s an interesting facet of rejection that I think of a lot is, I found it a lot easier to get rejected when I was earlier in my career, when I didn’t think that there was anyone had any expectation of who I was and what I could do. But then when you actually have something to lose, it feel, it can feel riskier because.

now you don’t know how they’re going to perceive this thing that you’re pitching or this favor that you’re asking. So that really interests me. And that’s something that’s been a recurring theme with a lot of the guests that I’ve spoken to is that they said, yeah, as they’ve kind of made, quote unquote, made it or been more noteworthy, people have had expectations that has made the fear of rejection, whether it’s people not liking their book or not liking their work or not supporting their next endeavor.

a lot scarier because now you think they think I’m this great person and what if I won’t live up to that? That’s such an interesting perspective because I think most people on face value, Alice would think, well, the more experienced you are, the less rejections you get. And the more experienced you are, the better you are at handling rejection. But your point is so well taken. You have so much more at stake.

that you might actually be more fragile in that respect. You might actually be more sensitive because you’re being compared to a lot more of your body of work. I think people are particularly difficult for someone who is prolific with their writing or musicians, for example. Every work has to be at least as good and let’s be honest, most people expect better.

than the last. And how abnormal would it be for a human being to keep exceeding themselves with everything they create? I don’t think most of us are capable of that. And I would imagine the really prolific people who’ve written many, many books are probably feeling the weight of that, which would make every rejection feel much heavier and scarier.

That totally makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, there’s this advice of like, get yourself out there and this content creates a world of post all the time, like share contents, do it imperfectly. And the thing is when people, when you have done it well and people have now like read your stuff and follow you and whatever is this expectation.

And I think when we’re initially trying to build that brand or that platform, the expectation isn’t there, which can make it feel easier. I’m wondering what you think about this. From what you’ve been saying, it sounds like you would encourage people to start with the smaller rejections and kind of, as you say, like your example of going to the gym, you don’t pick up the heaviest barbell, you go for something smaller. Would you ever encourage someone to go for the

big item first instead of kind of, I’m thinking like baby stepping your way up to the more risky rejection versus just dive in the deep end, even though you don’t know how to swim. Under what conditions might you, if ever, recommend that instead? It’s so hard to say, because every human is different. And also, like, I’m not an expert on human behavior. But I think that

Use your self-knowledge and something when I speak about those rejections, because you brought up, and I just want to go back to this quickly, you brought up a great point of how, you know, having a sales goal where you’re hitting a hundred rejections can feel very obscure and very demotivating to many people. And so one of the things I just want to clarify with hitting the gym and starting with the small asks is make sure it is a hundred percent integrity with you and your mission.

and what you want to be doing. You know, if you are just randomly asking people for free coffees or something, like there might be some value in seeing you can survive, but it could also just feel really torturous if you have a lot of social anxiety and you might find that it never gets better. But if you know that there’s something you really care about and you’re doing all these things to make that happen, whether it’s grow a platform or share a mission or whatever it is.

it, you probably will grow that resilience in a sustainable way because you’re seeing the results of you get doing the thing you really care about. so to answer your question about whether people should dive in the deep end or not, I kind of think it’s kind of like if you actually dived in the deep end of a pool, some people might drown and some people will figure it out and swim and they will learn a lot quicker that way than if they

we’re kind of going and paddling in the shallow end. So if you, and this is, I’m not an expert in this, so this is just my premonition. I think You have good intuitions. Alice, let me validate this for you, because you said several times that I’m not an expert in this or that. You have good intuition and good instincts, and I appreciate that you respect your scope of work and you’re not trying to present yourself as an expert.

But I asked you because I trust your intuition. So let’s hear that. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, because I mean, I’m not a psychologist. haven’t spent a lot of time working professionally and understanding human behavior. I just talk to people about rejection and research rejection a lot. based on your great judgment of me, thank you, Diane, my judgment would be that if you think that

you wouldn’t be able to recover from this huge rejection. if you look at it and you know, you might be biased, so this probably isn’t a foolproof thing, but I can think of some people who’d be very fragile. for example, I don’t think she would mind me sharing this example. My best friend went through a really bad burnout. That was post her first proper job and she

burnt out just really, really badly. And so her confidence was at an all time low during the burnout. So if she, I would never advise someone like her to go for this huge audacious goal that you really care about because that could almost confirm that very low confidence. You know, she’s in a really good place now and has like an amazing things. So in the place she’s in now where, you know, she’s

thriving and everything is going so well and like just on top of the world, I’d be like, yeah, shoot, like shoot really high. I know you struggle with rejection, but do it because you will prove to yourself that you’re going to be okay at the end of it. And she would be okay because she’s in a good place. So I think if you, yeah, perhaps are not, self-esteem and confidence is not in a great place. It could do more harm than good, but it’s.

very much on a case by case basis. Individual. I really appreciate your approach, which is someone who gets a lot of pitches and someone who pitches herself as well. I appreciate that you are encouraging people to develop their resiliency, to develop their tolerance to rejection in a strategic way.

that involves a lot of self-awareness. I think it’s the combination of those three things that makes it successful and also a little bit less scary. You’re not just telling people, you know, get out there and be visible, however you do it, just do it and you’ll desensitize yourself. No, that may be true for some people, it will be totally traumatizing to others. You’re saying,

Yes, this is something that you can develop more skill at and make it easier on yourself, but you have to know why you’re doing it. And you have to be able to do it in a way that really honors who you know yourself to be. And that’s both strategic and self-respecting. That’s what makes it work. Otherwise, it’s just another bit of advice that

doesn’t really land with people and might actually do harm. I really appreciate the approach that you use because there is a lot of individualization with it. Not everybody can do it the same way. And guess what? Not everybody needs to. Yeah. I mean, you explained that so beautifully. feel like you really put words to how one should approach putting themselves out there rejection-wise. And I’m just thinking.

Hailey Jacobson, one of the podcast guests that we had on, she was talking about getting rejected from the, initially she studied to in theater school and she was talking about how she gave up that as a profession, a potential profession because she didn’t think she could handle the rejections. Cause obviously if you pursue a career in acting, you’re gonna be met with an onslaught of rejections. Constant rejection, yeah.

Then she was talking about her process of getting a book manuscript published. She’s a New York Times editor’s choice for the Teen Awards or something. She said that she realized in that process that it wasn’t the rejections that made her give up acting, it was that she didn’t care about it enough. When she realized that she cared enough about writing and getting her work published,

She could, like it was tough, it sucked. And you know, she had to do a lot of work, a lot of work on herself to get through the rejections, but realizing that she cared so much about getting this published. And so she was willing to do that work. And I think that that has to be there. Otherwise we won’t give up. So, so, so good. I’m reminded of, you know, like knowing your why.

And if it’s worth it to you, if it really, really matters and the only way out of this feeling is through it, you’ll find a way. You’ll have to. Love that. Yeah, find your why. And I think also that the why doesn’t make the rejections not hurt. Like it’s still gonna suck. It’s just that you’re willing to tolerate, I think, more pain than you would have if you didn’t care about why you’re doing it. Know why you’re doing it.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me and letting me keep you up late at night. This conversation was just as delightful as I expected it to be. Thank you. Thank you so much, Diane. I really enjoyed talking to you and this was in a lot more depth than I’ve gone in other podcast interviews. So thank you so much for having me. Kind of known for that. should have warned you. I appreciate that. That’s what makes a good podcast interview. yeah.

Thank you for all your great questions.

This was My Rejection Story hosted by me, Alice Draper.