LadyGang - LG QUICKIE: Rejection Leads to Redirection

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Even though it hurts, sometimes being rejected, whether it's work or love, is actually the best thing for us. In this heartfelt episode, the ladies get real about their biggest rejections and how they redirected their life in a good way. If you're feeling uninspired or having a case of the sads, this is a must-listen. Check out our great sponsors!! Qualia Senolytic: Resist aging at the cellular level! Go to QualiaLife.com/lady for up to 50% off and use code LADY for an additional 15% off! Also available at select GNC locations near you! Bon Charge: Curious about red light therapy? Go to BonCharge.com and use code LADYGANG to save 15% LadyGang is brought to you by BetterHelp! Visit BetterHelp.com/ladygang to get 10% off your first month! Huggies: Get your baby’s butt into Huggies’ best fitting diaper! Huggies Little Movers. We got you, baby.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's time for a quickie. Podcast one presents the Lady Gang, the Hollywood girl posse with Lady Gang Quickie. Here's Kelty Knight, Becca Tobin, and Jack Vanek. Let's make this quick. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Lady Gang Quickie. I am Becca here with Jack and Kelty. Hello, girls.

We had a meeting today. Yep. It was a good one. That's why we look like this. Oh. This is the most formal we've ever been. i mean not me well well i am you're never in a pair of pants with zippers on this thing these are cargos though but no i'm saying like a zipper like you're always in like a legging or a sweat

pant yeah i'm definitely we're elevated we're in business mode i mean kelty kelty looks like a secretary from 1994 because do you know this is the hairdo of the year yeah oh it's the business woman special from romeo michelle romeo michelle oh i didn't see this and the side part with the bang coming down and then the little messy top knot french twist is the look okay i have been debating i want like a little side swept thing not a bang but like a lot like a face framing layer no because you like to wear a wave yeah and it really doesn't work it doesn't work when you want to wave but like i love it when you put it up and you can kind of have some pieces falling out but my pieces are like down to my boobs the trade-off is that you either get to have it look

cute up if you were a girl that did more of like a blow dry then i would be like do the face framing yeah thing but because you do a long wave i'm stuck it's just not going to be what you want it to be i'm so i know because i would do it and then i'd be so screwed for like a year yeah and you've worked really hard to get where you're at right now it's so true jack no i actually love us being in our business woman special because i just want to quickly shout out that this is a dress pant um for marshalls and i have it in blue black and beck actually borrowed my green today because she was traveling are they stretchy it's stretch high-waisted you can wear it with or without the belt loop pockets length is perfect like it is honestly like wearing a legging oh it's a it is

quite comfortable wouldn't you say as far as a dress pant oh yeah a real dream and we look very very cute. Okay. Today is, I had this interesting idea. So a bunch of months ago, um, you know, sometimes I work with Marshalls and they brought me to Atlanta and they were like, I always think stupidly that they're going to ask me to talk about fashion at their conferences and stuff. And they're like, no, no, we want you to inspire. And so I essentially made up this topic, how rejection leads to redirection. And it was this idea of, I can't remember if it was RuPaul on the podcast or someone had, or maybe it's my therapist. I can't remember, but someone had played this game called, and then what happens? Which is like, basically like, okay, I lose my

job. And then you're like, and then what happens? And then what happens? And it, I play it with Chris now all the time because he'll be worrying about something like worst case scenario. Oh my God. Like this person hates me. They're going to fire me. And I'm like, and then what happens? you still work at this company. You'll get a new client. Like, and then what happens? I get fired from the company. And I was like, and then what happens? He's like, someone else hires me. Cause I'm great. I'm like, yeah. And so essentially you always get back to the redirection that doesn't make the rejection any easier, but I did this whole thing and we played it. It was actually really cool. We played a game in the audience where the girls came up and I was like, and then

what happens? And that what happens? But it really got me thinking. And then as part of that, I shared a bunch of my rejections and redirections. And I've never gotten more comments on anything in my life. Like this clearly hit a note with people that like, we're not talking about our rejections enough in detail, you know? And so I thought this would be such a good episode for us, especially since we're sort of wrapping up the year, we're starting to think about what we want for the new year and rejection can come in so many forms. It's like rejection of Ford. When I went to Austin and Ford did not want to be my friend. He only wanted to be friends with Jack. Like how do I redirect from that. But in all seriousness, it's like, it can be work and can be love. It can be all

these things. And so I just, I thought it was such a good topic. And sometimes people that listen to this podcast, like it when we're less talking about stupid stuff and more talking about our hearts. So welcome to the episode. That was a very long story. Sorry. Hi. Are you so bored? Sorry. No, I'm just wondering which rejections to choose from. Yeah. And then your brain goes, right? Can I start? Yeah. So it's, I've been talking so much, but I'll keep going. So I was going to choose a career thing. And then I think what I really wanted to choose was not to bring it up again, but I would say like the big heartbreak of my life. And, and I'll tell you this because our mutual ex-boyfriend, Ryan Ross, hi Ryan. Um, when we broke up, it was, it was the

last serious relationship I was in before I met Chris and, and married Chris. And the interesting and thing about it is that I had all of these patterns throughout my entire life, being in high school, in my twenties, like I was so codependent. And I was thinking about this a lot with like everything that's gone on with JLo this year, when you actually look back and you're like, wow, you've never been single in your adult life ever. Like you've been in a relationship and they're married in relationship, married. And I was on this, like this thing of where I had no self-confidence in myself. I didn't think I was really worth much. And so I always had to have a guy around. So the minute that I would break up with one or they would break up with me, I would

instantly rebound because I was like, I'm going to make sure they know I'm okay. And like, I'm wanted and I can stay. And so literally like broke up with my marriage immediately in another relationship, immediately another relationship, then dating like seven guys at one time and then in another relationship. And then in that relationship, right until I met, like I was never alone. And so people are always like back in the day, got after me. Cause they're like, you just took this breakup so hard, but it wasn't a breakup like necessarily with that person. Like it wasn't that it was that person that broke my heart. And I was like, so sad about a specific person. It was the realization that like, I was 27 years old and had no idea how to be alone.

I was able to be successful in so many other areas of my life and had no idea to spend a night with myself, like what that would look like, how it would be alone. And, and so the reason you guys broke up when you were 27 or no, Oh, 24. No. Cause I met Chris when I was 27. Yeah. There's 20, I was 24 because on my 23rd birthday, he got me a cake that said happy 21st birthday. Cause I was thought being 23 was so old because everyone, all of them were so much younger than me, you know? Yeah. 24, 25. I can't remember. Um, well, I was going to say, cause then that's like return to Saturn years, but then you met Chris during my return to Saturn. Yeah. But that rejection, and it was so crazy because I remember like when we broke up, it was kind of messy because,

because he cheated. And then I was like you, and then I came back to get my stuff. And then we had this like, come to Jesus conversation. I was like, should I, why should I forgive you? And he was like, I don't want you to forgive me. Like you shouldn't be with me. I'm terrible. I, I am incapable of being good to you. And then he said the like real douchebaggy thing of like, I, I don't want to date you, but I don't want anyone else to date you. Cause like, I know you're great, which is like such a douchebaggy thing. Right. But at the time, like if he had said, I'm so sorry, I'm not going to cheat on you anymore. I'm going to be a good guy. I would have taken it back because I was so afraid to be alone. And I remember driving off in

my shitty car packed with stuff from his house, going to my friend, Kristen, thank God she was there. And then I lived with them for two months. Cause I know where to live. I was living with him and I was the lowest I'd ever been in my life. I was so scared. I was so alone and I was so messy and shitty and terrible and inconsiderate. And like all of those things was the first time my life ever went to therapy. Cause I was so rock bottom after being rejected in that way that I was like, I know this is a me issue. Like this is going to keep happening. And I was so disappointed in myself that I didn't know how to be alone. And so I went to therapy and I remember the first time I sat down, this is a random Las Vegas therapist. And she was like, well, you're

codependent. Like you, you, you're codependent. And so she started making me do all this homework of like, you know, the lists of like, what, what do I need? What do I deserve? Like, what do I want in a partner. What do I like to do when I'm alone? Like blah, blah. And so those like messy years I had after were the best as far as like growth. And I don't think had I had such a messy rejection that I would have been ready to like meet someone and be able to meet them in, this is going to sound like, I'm going to sound like such a dick, but like meet them in my greatness. I sound like a dick no but like if you're if you meet someone in your patheticness they're just building you up and everything you are is there because well then the codependency keeps on going right yeah like

because your value is tied to what they are bringing to you exactly and so the fact that i had done all this work on myself then when i met chris and he was like you're gorgeous you can do anything you're going to be the most successful person i've ever met like all these things, I actually could like believe it. And it's crazy because now I know everyone was like, she's so confident. She's love up. But like, I had to work at that, you know, like I was kind of Shelly human. So I just think that like that heartbreak, that rejection was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was such a redirection. And so as mad and as shitty as I was to him when we broke up and like hurt, I'm like so thankful. Yeah. Like I'm so happy. Like, thank

god he wasn't like you're right i'll fix myself and then we got married like that would have been a such a bad life it would have been even worse the ending of that yeah the lady gang julianne huff was just on a podcast talking about she wasn't sure if she's ever really been in love with these partners of hers but she loved feeling loved by people yeah you know yeah and that was first of all a really honest and vulnerable thing to share but i think a lot of people, a lot of women especially can identify with that feeling because when you don't feel amazing about what you have to offer or about yourself, it's the same thing where you're like, oh my gosh, this person, he really thinks I'm great. Like, this is amazing. Of course I love

him. It's like, you're loving the feeling of being loved versus loving the other person for who they are. You know what I mean? It's like, she never was like looking back at the person questioning, do I love them? What do I love about them? It was just, I love the way they make me feel. Well, and I feel like women in general, like we were just so much more like dynamic than men are in ways. And when you think about like any friends that have broken up with their partners, it's never like, oh man, like you really missed a good one. You know what I mean? And I think we fall in love with the idea of love all the time and fall in love with the idea of what your life could have been. Cause I think about my last relationship before Jared in the same kind of

way. It was like my big, huge breakup that totally rocked my world. And it was all, I was so upset because I like lost the idea of what could have been in my future. It wasn't, had nothing to do with him. Now looking back, it's not a single thing. It was the idea of life. Like you're like grieving a whole life that you lost. You planned. You're like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. It's going to look like this. It's going to, and it was never about exactly what you just said. It was never about how I feel. Cause like, I actually feel terrible. I'm not sleeping. I'm not eating anxious as hell I'm anxious as hell I don't know where you are like I don't feel supported I don't feel loved I have to ask you for every like it's not a good feeling yeah I

actually look at the women that are single and you know not like spring chickens but you know like women that are single in the late 30s early 40s they actually are doing something much that we kind of never even did, which is creating a life. Like, you know, we always fantasized about this life, but it always had to do with having this partner. We never actually had the time to build a life that we loved that was our own. So you're like, you know, like the way that you fantasize about your ex, it was like, you fantasize about the life that you were going to have because you're just waiting to have to start your life for the person. And these women who don't meet their person until later or ever have this like beautiful ability to create their life to be

exactly what they want it to be so that they're not actually waiting for life to begin. Well, and then that like now your standards are so high, so high because it's like, if this person is not making my life better or if I have to change all of these non-negotiables about something just to be with somebody and then you're like frontal lobe is fully developed, like you're in such a better spot yeah when does my frontal lobe grow 26 is when it's full fully developed yeah i feel that but i feel i also feel i feel not bad but like i also think it's so much harder to meet somebody when you're so happy oh my god i have a friend who just had her 44th birthday she's so successful can travel anywhere she wants has her own beautiful home she bought tan france's old house

Oh my gosh. Like it's insane. So beautiful. You know, but like, who do you meet? Everyone's a bummer after that. I know. Then it's like almost impossible because at the end of the day, it's a lot of people settle like, and then are just don't want to leave because they don't want to be alone. So it's like when you're actually single and actually know who you are and actually have these standards, it's like, it really is hard to find somebody that you want to bring in. I think you would have ended up with your person if you met them five years after you met them. Oh, not before. Like if you had actually gone on and been single and created a life, a fulfilling life.

I don't think I would have gone for Chris. No, no. Like, but if my career had taken off the way it was, I would have been smart enough to know that I needed a PR relationship to get famous and that would have trumped everything. So I would have never dated a normie. I would have just been like, um, there's a couple of people in Hollywood. I'm not naming names right now, but they just go like celeb, celeb, celeb. Cause they know that's like what's keeping them in the zeitgeist. Yeah.

Um, I was like at a good, I was changing from being a dancer to TV. So I had no money. I had nothing really didn't have a good job. And so like, Chris was so such, such a rock that I was like, ah, perfect. A rock. Like, you know, I still wasn't perfect in my codependency. I was still like slightly codependent, but no, I would have like, I don't know. mine's so hard because of Jared's career like thinking about meeting him or reconnecting with

him like now because it's been six years of where I am in my life it was hard for me back then to be like okay musician yeah let's like I don't know if at this point in my life I'd be able to get over that which is ridiculous because it doesn't matter at all right but yeah I don't know I we definitely our timing in our relationship is so insane like even if we I like reconnected with him like a month before we wouldn't have been together. Like I was just in a different spot. It was crazy. Like if it was any different than when it was. That's the same with Zach. I truly believe like there was a little tiny, tiny, tiny window and it was closing, closing. And like he slipped through right then. And it was like the divine timing of that happening. Cause it would

have never happened before. And I actually don't know if it would have happened after, like it would have been, it would have made no sense to me logistically. And it would have just been such a strange i don't know it's very it's weird but i guess that's a reminder to girls that are still single and who have built these beautiful lives that i know it you should never settle but i do think that there are things you get very rigid in once you've been alone for so long like i have a really close friend who admits it herself she's like i've been alone for too long and i've set my life up too much to me for me. I haven't compromised that much. So it's really, really, really hard. So I always have to give her a pep talk of like, these are things we can get over.

You know what I mean? Like these are things, if that's what you want, if what you want is a life partner in all this, like these are, these are negotiables. These are non-negotiables. So it's also like needing to be reminded of it. Cause I'm sure it's really challenging. Yeah. Okay. Becca, do you have a rejection? Pick one. My entire career. I actually just saw a Elise Lunin. I keep name dropping on all these because I'm part of her newsletter and I follow her on Instagram and she, these nuggets of wisdom are really incredible. And she was talking about rejection recently and how we don't exercise our muscles for rejection. Most people, because we're all just trying to avoid it because it feels so icky. But there was this, this guy who was afraid to ask

women out and he was newly divorced and he was just like so defeated. And he was like, I haven't asked a woman out in 10 years, 20 years, whatever. I'm so afraid. And they're like, what are you afraid of? He's like rejection. So his assignment was to go to a mall and the escalator, stand at the bottom of the escalator and ask a hundred women out on a date that every a hundred women. And he got, of course, rejected many times. And so it was this practice of being like, see, it's not so bad. It's like falling off the bike and getting back up. And like the, you know, the fifth time you get rejected, you're like, Oh, it stings, but it doesn't sting nearly as much. Cause I've been practicing this feeling of being rejected. And I watched

that and I was like, wow, I don't need any more practice in the practice rejection at all whatsoever. Um, I mean, I, I don't know if I'm necessarily in a place in my career where I believe all my rejections were meant were meant to be like, I don't feel grateful for all my rejections anymore. I did, you know? Yeah. I'm like, no, it actually, it's not, well, everything is not like, I mean, I know that it, there are times where you're like, it's man's rejection is God's protection or whatever. But I'm like, no, there had to have been one of those doors that could have opened and it would have been fine. And if not better. Right. So I don't, you know, she's not redirectioning. She's just living in rejection. That's okay. Less

inspiring for sure but like but that's okay if you're feeling that way if you're dating right now and you're in the dumps and you just have been dealing with rejection after rejection like you can also have a moment of having um a little like pout about it well yeah i don't though i'm not gonna say toxic positivity because that's not exactly what i think about it but like yeah it's okay to just be like yeah this freaking sucks yes and maybe it doesn't have a feeling and it's not gonna lead me to be this or this or that and it would have been better if it was the other way Right. It's kind of like when people would say to me that only the good die young, like the song, you know? And I was like, well, no, that's not really, doesn't make anything better.

No. It's actually just pretty shitty. It's pretty shitty reality. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Do you have a rejection? I mean, the one that I was thinking about is just like at the very beginning of my career, everything goes back to Warped Tour. And it was the first, I mean, my dream when I was young, all I wanted to do when I was older is go on the Warped Tour. All of my friends were on it like all of these guys like it was it was like so attainable and in such near like the near future yeah you didn't plan past warp tour no no that's it I'm like how do I make out guys how do I try love about you well it was like how I had all these friends that were in bands I'm like you're all traveling the world you're living your dreams like I want the lifestyle

I want that I want to be able to do this but like I don't know how anyways I like applied for this job on warp tour when i was graduating college and it was for a sponsor of the tour i talked about it in one of our books but it was a sponsor of the tour and it got around some rumors of me to like the people that yeah we're hiring for the job and this woman was i i had the job she's like you got the job blah blah blah what was the job it was like to like sell shit for like a sponsor i don't even remember what the actual company was um and she was like you got the job blah blah and then comes back like a week later and she's like oh so we've actually heard these like rumors that you've been like having sex with all of the band members and we just can't have that like in

our in the company and this is when i was still a virgin and like whoa and is but the rumor about was crazy because it was like the beginning of online things of me or whatever but anyways i ended up losing out on that job. And it was so devastating to me. Cause again, I was like 20 years old. I'm like, this is my, like, my life is ruined. Um, and then that's when I started my Jack Vanek brand. I was like, that's when I started making the bracelets and selling them. And then the next summer I ended up going on the tour with my own brand and selling my own things. And I outsold like every band on the tour. So I'm like, if I didn't get rejected in that one, I probably would have been working for sponsors. Cause I wouldn't have had the drive of like to

do anything different so it kind of like that's such a good that's such a good rejection to redirection story well it's the only one i could think of that actually had a redirection that made sense and yeah like had a happy ending when you didn't get that job were you like i'm gonna come back next year on the warp tour or did you just it just kind of happened i mean it was it wasn't like a complete like response to it but there was part of me that was just like screw you like number one these are lies so like that's unfair and number two it's like i am gonna make something of myself kind of a thing isn't it crazy that in that time you were legally allowed to tell a woman she didn't get a job because there were rumors about her being slutty isn't that well

and i'm and the it's so crazy because i'm like okay but all of the band guys can have sex with whoever they want yeah and that's like part of being a rock star that's literally like stay on the warped war but you can't but i can't because i'm a woman i mean that was like it was like such sexism very illegal now i feel like no one would ever be able to tell you that's the reason that you're not getting a job. Yeah. That's insane. Wild. And you know what? I went back on the tour and I made out with everybody. Yeah. I was like, screw you. Like I have my own tent. I'll be making out with whoever I want. I don't have HR here. People are setting up appointments. Come make out with me now. Bye. See you. Well, this was great. And I just, we're very proud of all of

our rejections and our redirections and what a great time. I feel like we did some soul searching and it was great. Look at us now. Look at us now. In my basement. Here we are. I was like, I know, I'm like, look where it led me now. Here we are.

You're like, well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions. Anyway, we weren't here for a long time. We were here for a good time. Lady Gang is produced by Podcast One with podcasting production assistance from Steve Delameter, Derek Haley, editing by Jared Monaco,

and social support from Kali Carrera, and mastermind evil genius from Kelty Knight. We'll be right back.