46. The Illusion of Rejection

Rejection can be an illusion! Sometimes, we anticipate rejection so much, that we actually assume it’s already happened!

Maybe not consciously, but we’ve all been there. Think about that time you wanted to ask someone out on a date, ask your boss for a raise, or ask a lead to join your program and become your client.

You anticipated the rejection so much, that you might as well have made it happen yourself!

This week we dive deep into the fascinating topic of rejection. It's amazing how often we create this imaginary rejection in our own minds before anything even happens in reality.

Do you know what's even crazier? This fear of rejection can seriously hold us back in so many aspects of our lives, whether it's our business ventures or our personal relationships. It's like we're trapped in a cycle of anticipating rejection, and it's time to break free!

You'll learn how to:

• Tackle objections before they come up
• Reframe your fear of rejection
• See rejection as a redirection for growth

Book your FREE discovery call with me!

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Chapters

• 2:00 The illusion of rejection.
• 4:18 Rejection and self-sabotage.
• 6:51 Dealing with rejection.
• 13:40 Overcoming fear of rejection.

Transcript

0:58

Hello and welcome to the Profitable Nomad Couple podcast. This is a show where we share all of our secrets about building a sustainable location-independent lifestyle. We're Austin and Monica. We're a digital nomad couple here to help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset, ignite your passions, and develop a purpose-driven online business. Get ready for weekly insights and inspiring stories to empower you to live life on your own terms. So are you ready to unlock the nomad mindset and embrace a life of limitless possibilities? Let's dive in. All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Profitable Nomad Couple podcast. We are, as always, we are so excited to be here with you and we are just really excited to dive into this topic. Again, this is a topic that we ourselves have been diving into, have been learning a lot about, and so we are really excited to share with you what we've been learning. Yeah, so the illusion of rejection. We call this episode the illusion of rejection because we've noticed that a lot of times when, we've noticed that a lot of times rejection that we face is not actually reality. It's not real. The rejection that we face is, for the most part, in our own heads and we create this reality of rejection before it even happens. What happens is we get so worked up in our heads and we are afraid and fearful of being rejected by somebody, whether that means offering, being on a coaching call or being on a sales call or something with a potential client or even just putting up a post on social media or promoting your business in any way or maybe like a personal rejection. Maybe it's you going out to eat lunch with a group of friends and there's some new people there that you're going to meet and you're worried in your mind, you're worried that they're going to reject you. And so because of that fear, that's how you show up. You show up as if they've already rejected you. So you may be a little bit slouched. You're anticipating that and that creates the reality of rejection because that was in your head. And so it's an illusion in the sense that we self-sabotage ourselves and we don't give ourselves a chance to actually put our best self out there and let the other person decide to accept what we have or not. Yeah, and it's so sad because it means we're missing so many opportunities that are right in front of us because we're too much in our own head and we have made decisions based on a reality that doesn't exist. We're making decisions based on a future that hasn't happened and we don't even know if it's going to happen. So we really want to dive in today about and talk about how we can reframe this fear of rejection and how we can move forward. I think especially for online business owners, we face this fear where we are afraid to put ourselves out there. We're afraid to sell our services because we're afraid that people are going to reject us. We're afraid that people we know are going to laugh at us and be like, oh, I remember when you were just a dorky little kid, like who do you think you are now to offer this service or... To our point, we don't know they're going to say that. We think they're going to say that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The biggest problem with this is that we are making decisions and we are acting on a future that doesn't even exist, on a reality that doesn't exist. We're assuming that we're going to be rejected in the future and so we start self-sabotaging. That's what he said. So to continue talking about rejection, I want to share the story that I read in a book I was reading the other day. So to continue talking about rejection, I want to share the story of Jung. And what happened with him is he had this dream of starting up a company and life kind of ended up taking over. He wasn't super and he didn't actively try and create this life where he had started up this company and instead by default, he ended up getting a job at a different company as an employee, got married, had kids, life kind of took over. And then he realized that he wanted to start up this business and he knew that if he didn't, he was going to die with regrets. And so he talked with his wife and they agreed that they would give him six months. If he didn't, there were no signs of progress, then he would go back and get a job. So he quit his job, starts the six months, about four months in, he's been working with different people and organizations trying to get funding for this company and he finally has his offer and he's going into a meeting, he's getting prepped for it and then he gets a call that the funding fell through, that it wasn't going to work out. So he's super dejected and he's having a really hard time handling this rejection that he received and his wife comes to him and says, like, I gave you six months, not four months, so go continue to make it happen. And that put him on this new track of realizing that he internalized so much that rejection that it crushed him. And so he started what he called the 100 days of rejection experiment. And so every single day for 100 days, he would do something so absurd that he knew he was going to be rejected for it so that he could practice being rejected. So he would go ask strangers to do really weird things. He would ask cops if he could jump in their car. He would go up to airports and go to pilots and ask if he could fly their airplanes. And he discovered that he was so surprised how many people actually said yes to his request. And I mean, the idea was they would be so outlandish and so bizarre that people would have to say no, but people actually said yes to him. And so throughout this experiment, he discovered what we started with this episode with, that rejection is in our heads a lot of the times. And because we anticipate that rejection, that's what ends up happening. So a lot of times we feel like it's crazy to me to think about how many opportunities we miss because we are afraid that we might possibly be rejected. And then when I stop and think about that even further, I think it's crazy that we don't ask because we're afraid of a no. Like that's the worst case scenario. Someone says no. Like what's when you really take a step back, like that's that's not really that scary. So because we are so afraid of being rejected and we internalize that rejection so much, we miss so many opportunities. And Austin was telling me in this book, he was reading this Jenguy was able to fly planes and meet new people and go on these wild adventures just because he was willing to ask. Yeah, I mean, the alternative is what if you ask and they say yes, what crazy life path could you be on and what goals could you accomplish and what crazy life could you be living if you have the courage to ask and they say yes to your request? So I would encourage you just to sit and think about that for a little bit. What if they say yes instead of no? So we want to give them some practical tips, some advice on how to deal with rejection, how to think about rejection so that it's not as terrible of a monster in your minds. Our first one comes from the story and it's the idea that rejection is inevitable. Like as much as we create it in our heads, like there are times that you will be told no, you will be rejected. You'll put an offer out there and someone will not want to take it. And so instead of not taking action because you're afraid of that practice being rejected, do a Jeng did and practice being rejected. Like go about your day as if people are going to say yes. And then when they say no, don't internalize that. But instead use that as a learning opportunity to find out why they said no or to find out what you can do differently and get comfortable with people saying no because the more you get comfortable with it, the less it's going to hurt. As an online business owner, it's especially important for you to get really curious when you get that rejection. Start asking them why. Start digging into the reasons why they're saying no to your offer. This is super helpful in your marketing because then you can include these reasons. You can tackle these objections before they ever come to you so that when people come to you, they're coming already prepared to say yes. So many times we are so deep in our own business and we're making these really great offers and we're super excited about it that we don't think about all of the other reasons people would have to say no. To us, it's such an obvious yes. So when people come to us and they say no, it feels like they're rejecting all of this hard work we've put into it and it's really, really painful. So if instead we can kind of reframe and just get curious and be like, okay, no, but why no? Tell me, like explain to me, is it the price? Is it your partner? Is it just not good timing? Is the program too long? Is it too short? Do you not understand the benefits of it well enough for it to be an obvious yes? And then as these people start explaining to you why there's a no, number one, there might be a couple of issues that you can address right there if it's price. Maybe you could offer a payment plan or different things and maybe you can turn that no into a yes or you can take all that that you learn from that no and you can better prepare yourself for future clients to turn that into a yes in the future. Yeah. Also, work on separating the rejection of your offer from the rejection of you as a person. I know I do that a lot. When someone says no to something that I offer, if I'm on a call with somebody or something like that and they say no, then it's hard not to take it personally. You feel like they're saying no to who you are, to your character, to your personality. But that's not what they're doing. They're saying no to your offer. And so if you can separate those two things and realize, okay, they're not saying no to me. It's not a personal attack. It's not a personal rejection. They're not interested at this time or they're not interested in what I'm doing, what I'm offering that makes that rejection less painful. And it makes it so that you can continue putting out those offers and it doesn't hold you back anymore and continue to create that fear of future rejection. Well, and it's important to note that just because someone's saying no now doesn't mean that it's a no forever. I never ever want to work with you. It's just a now is not a good time. So the more we can kind of separate ourselves from our offer and we can say, look, I have this offer that can help you take it or leave it. Then it's on them to realize that they need to get their act together in order for this to really be helpful or they're ready for now. It's also important to note that just because they're saying no now doesn't mean that it's a no forever. It might just be, I'm not ready for your offer yet. And I think the more that we can kind of separate ourselves from our offer, which I mean, in all fairness can be really hard to do because we pour our heart and soul into this offer. The more we can kind of separate ourselves from this offer and have confidence that this offer will actually bring good things to people and be really beneficial from people for people, we can realize that some people just aren't ready for our offers right now. We just had an experience where we got in a call for a website design. We were super excited about it. We like laid out all the things we were going to train her on the website. We were really going to help her help her business take off through this website. And we've seen these results for other clients. We're really, really confident in them. And you know, she seemed like she was going home and she was like, yeah, that sounds great. That sounds great. That sounds great. And then a couple of days later, we get a text from her and she's like, I'm going to go in a different direction. And actually, I wasn't upset about it because I know that what we offer can help her business. I know that our web design service is super bomb and would do such amazing things for her business. But she herself was not ready to take her business to that level yet. She herself wasn't in the mindset of a business owner yet. You know, it's still just kind of a fun part time gig for her. So I recognize that maybe down the future, she's going to be ready for a website and she'll come back to us. But right now, she's not ready. And that has nothing to do with me. And I'm totally at peace with it. And it's not even it hasn't even affected me because I've been able to separate myself from my offer. Yeah, that's a really great example. So remember that rejection can be an opportunity for growth, for reflection, to optimize your services, to optimize your business. Rejection of your offer is not a rejection of you as a person. Get comfortable with rejection. Practice it. And when it happens, don't let it bring you down. Just try and separate yourself from that a little bit and then continue, you know, hurtling that fear. Don't let that fear hold you back. And then most of all, my biggest takeaway for this and hopefully this means a lot to you is don't anticipate rejection and therefore don't even take action. The worst thing you can do is not even put yourself out there and offer or take action towards progress in the first place. If you're afraid of that, then you won't take action. So don't let that fear hold you back. Yeah, we know that as you work really hard to reframe this rejection, this fear of rejection in your head to be an opportunity for you, that you're going to feel freer, you're going to show up better and you're going to actually get more yeses. You're going to get so much less rejection than you are thinking that you're going to. Right now, your mind is thinking worst case scenario. That's never going to happen, right? It's going to be so much better than you're thinking it's going to be. And you're going to be able to show up from a place of confidence instead of a place from fear and you're going to attract people to you. People are going to want to work with you as you are constantly working on getting rid of this fear to show up. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Profitable Nomad Couple podcast. We appreciate you listening to us today. If you enjoyed this episode, share it on Instagram and be sure to tag us at awesome and Monica. Together we can inspire others to embrace a location independent lifestyle. And while you're there, we'd love to connect with you. So make sure you follow us for more tips and inspiration on living your dream location independent lifestyle. Until next week, remember that you have the power to shape your own path. So stay curious, stay adventurous and stay connected.