The Mindset Mentor - Are You Afraid Of Rejection?

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

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Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're listening to this and you've never actually seen this podcast, if you go onto YouTube, if you've ever used that little thing called YouTube, you can actually type in my name, Rob Dial, on YouTube. You can subscribe to us on there. I get tons of videos of people that are watching me in their living room, on their TVs, through YouTube app and all that stuff. So if you want to actually see through what we're doing and see us here in the studio, some behind the scenes, go ahead and follow me on YouTube as well. Today, we're going to be talking about rejection. And I'm going to be talking to you about what most people are afraid of, which is in some way being rejected. And then I'm going to teach you,

number one, why rejection happens and why we're afraid of it. But number two, why the power of no is so important for you in your life and your growth. Because here's the thing, let's be real. At some point in time in your life, you will be rejected here's the thing, let's be real. At some point in time in your life, you will be rejected. You will, unless you literally just sit inside of your house from this moment on throughout your entire life, you will be rejected at some point in time in your life. There's no real way to get around it, whether it's a job application or a scholarship, or you go up to that person who you've been seeing at the gym for a really long time, and she's kind of cute, and I think she thinks I'm kind of cute, and you walk

up to her and you get rejected. Whatever it is, let's face it, you will eventually face rejection, and rejection can hurt. It doesn't actually hurt us. We hurt us when we're thinking about being rejected, because what happens is it can bring up the feelings of unworthiness. We can bring up the feelings of doubting whether this is what we're actually supposed to be doing with our life. It can bring up the feelings of loneliness. But what if we could look at rejection in a little bit different of a light? What if instead of letting it bring us down or allowing ourselves to bring us down is probably a better way of saying it. We could use it to actually grow ourselves, learn from it and improve. What if we could use rejection as one of our strongest facilitators, strongest, like I think the way I think about it

is like doing sets at the gym, right? And you're lifting really heavy. If you want to lift really heavy, then you want to grow, you're going to need a spotter. What if you could have like rejection be your spotter? Like you can think of rejection as your sidekick on your way to success, whatever success means to you. And so that's what we're going to explore today is the power of no, the power of being rejected. But before I dive into it, let's talk about why in your mind rejection feels like it hurts. Why are we so afraid of it? Well, it's very simple if you go back to the fact that 200,000 years ago, we were tribal beings.

And if we were rejected, if we were kicked out of the tribe, there was pretty much no way we were going to live. Rejection basically meant death. But today, rejection does not mean death at all. You could be rejected a hundred thousand times and not be killed, not face any sort of death. But it can also bring feelings of like loss. It can feel those. So it's like rejection can feel like, oh my gosh, there's something unsafe here. But rejection can also feel like you lost something because you were so excited about that job and you didn't get the job and you feel like you lost it even though you never actually had it. It could be the relationship as well. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to ask her out. And then she rejects me. Oh my gosh, I've lost that thing that I thought I was going to get. It could be a raise where

you're rejected for a raise. Oh my gosh, I thought I was going to make more money. And now it feels like loss because of the fact that I didn't get that raise that I had my, I didn't get that money that I had my mind set on. And it shines on rejection and its core shines on one of our biggest securities, biggest insecurities. And that insecurity is unworthiness. Rejection shines a light on one of our biggest insecurities, which is unworthiness. I am not worthy. And if I'm not worthy, I won't be loved. That is one of our biggest fears that we have. And so what we do is we have internalized the belief that our worth is tied to some sort of achievement. Like if we don't reach our goals, then we're not good enough. If she doesn't say yes when I ask her out, then I'm

not good enough. If my boss doesn't give me a raise, then I'm not good enough. If she doesn't say yes when I ask her out, then I'm not good enough. If my boss doesn't give me a raise, then I'm not good enough. If I don't get this job that I apply for, then I'm not good enough. When in reality, those two things are not attached in any sort of way, but we think that they are. And so we've internalized the belief that our worth is tied to our achievements. And if we don't achieve that goal, we're not good enough. And we're a piece of shit. And we didn't end up getting what we wanted to and all of this stuff. So when we start to think about that and we take a step back, what can we do instead? So to not take action would mean that we don't feel those feelings. And so what do I do instead of feeling those feelings of insecurity, of unworthiness? I'm just going to do nothing. I'm just going to stay where I am. So we do everything except what we need to do to move forward on our path in life

so that we don't come in contact with rejection. We will do everything, every other action, except for the thing that we need to do to move the needle forward because we don't want to possibly be rejected, possibly feel unworthy, possibly feel like we lost something, possibly feel our insecurities. And so what do we do? Nothing that moves our life forward. We settle for safe and comfortable. But before we dive into the benefits of rejection, it's important to know what we're getting rejected for, like what we feel like we're getting rejected for, right? So it's really funny because we actually take these insecurities and place them on something where insecurity doesn't need to be

there. So I'll give you an example. For me, this is very easy to talk about because I've trained thousands of salespeople. And thousands of salespeople, almost every person struggles with making phone calls. Almost every person struggles with making phone calls and they don't know why. And so they'll do everything that they can. They'll organize their numbers. They'll research these people, do everything that they can to make them feel like they're working when in reality, they're just being busy instead of productive when the most productive thing they can do is make phone calls.

And so having trained thousands of salespeople, almost everyone struggles with making phone calls. Not because of the rejection of somebody saying no, but because somebody saying no would make us feel like we're getting rejected as a human. And so it's not that we're afraid of the no, we're afraid of the no making us feel like we're not worthy. And we think, and that's why it's important to be like, what am I actually being rejected for? If I'm a salesperson and I go and make a presentation, I get in front of somebody and they say no to me, are they saying no to me as a person? No. In reality, all they're doing is just saying no to a business proposal. The no is just the sales process. That's it. They're saying no to the business proposal. They're not saying, no, Rob, you suck. But we think to ourselves that that's what's actually

happening. And so we try to avoid it. We personalize something that shouldn't be personal in the first place. It's just no to buying a product. Is every person going to buy a product from you? No, of course not. But we take this and we change it and morph it subconsciously most of the time. Most of the time we're not even consciously thinking about this, but we take no in this example, and there's many examples, and we change it and we morph it and we make it all about ourself because all people are narcissists in some sort of way. How is that so? Don't have time for it in this podcast, but we think everything is our fault. The world revolves around us. And if somebody says no to our business proposal, they're actually

saying no to us. So we morph it and change it and thinking that I'm not enough. And I don't want someone to, I don't want to think that I'm not enough. So we avoid it. We avoid making the phone calls. We avoid doing the things that we actually should do because we're afraid of what will happen if we actually step out into the unknown. But there's many benefits of no. There's many benefits of getting rejected. And that's what we're going to cover today is the actual benefits of going out of your comfort zone and actually getting the phrase no and being uneasy with the feeling of unworthiness and uneasy knowing that these things will probably come up with, I don't feel like I'm enough and feeling those and going, this isn't true. The person just said no to my business proposal. So the first thing that's really important about the benefit of no

is it gets us out of our comfort zone. We have to feel the feelings of fear and do it anyways, because fear never actually goes away. Someone asked me the other day, I was on a Zoom call with one of the programs that I teach. And one of the ladies there said, Rob, like, what's the secret, like, what's the secret sauce to overcoming fear? And I was like, well, if you can figure that out, please let me know because there's no magic pill. There's not, there's no magic pill. Like, hey, if you do this thing, you'll never feel fear again. Fear will disappear. No, fear is always going to be present. Expect that fear is always going to be present. But feel the fear and do it anyways.

Feel your fear, whatever that fear is that you're feeling inside of your body, and do it anyways. If you never get rejected, you never leave your comfort zone, and your destiny is to have the same life you currently have. That's just the honest truth. If you never leave your comfort zone, you never get rejected, you never put yourself out of your comfort zone, your destiny is to have the exact same life that you currently have. And if you're listening to this podcast, I don't think that you want the same life that you currently have. And if we never hear no, it can mean that we're not taking enough

risks and it doesn't mean that we're not good enough or smart enough or pretty enough or not a good parent or any of those things. It just means that, hey, you're sitting in your comfort zone and you're not going and taking any risks. So how can we use this to go, you know what? I got rejected. I put myself out of my comfort zone. That's a good thing. I was, you know what?

I did feel fear before actually making that cold call. Did the person hang up on me? They did. But you know what? I did something that I was afraid of. And that right there in itself is a win. So how can we turn rejection into a positive force in our lives? I had a video I saw years ago.

And I remember it was a TED Talk and a blog that this guy had. And this guy was afraid. Like he decided to leave his job and become an entrepreneur. And with being an entrepreneur, you have to be rejected a lot of times. And he realized he was holding himself back because he was afraid of rejection. He was 30 years old and he heard about this idea called rejection therapy. And rejection therapy is what he was reading a book about. He said, you know what? I believe in this. I'm going to try for a hundred days just to go out, ask for something completely

ridiculous and just be rejected. And so his only goal was to go out and be rejected every single day. And then he filmed it and he blogged it. Like he did crazy stuff too. He went to a burger place, he ate the burger, and then he walked up to the front and said, Hey, can I get a burger refill? And we're like, no. He decided one day he was going to walk into a dog groomer and ask them to cut his hair like a German shepherd. He walked into a Superbowl party with chips for people that he didn't know. He just heard a party going on one time. He went and got some chips, knocks on the door. They opened. He goes, hey, I brought chips. Can I join your party? They ended up saying yes. And so he just did these things where he was like, I'm going to

get rejected and be okay with rejection. Okay with rejection. Okay with rejection. And he got a lot of no's and he became better with rejection. But what was really surprising about the entire thing is he got a lot more yeses than he was expecting. He knocked on a random person's door and asked them, he had a soccer ball in his hand, knocks on a random person's door and just asked a guy if he could play soccer in his backyard. And the guy said, yeah, sure. Come on in. The guy just let him play soccer in his backyard by himself. And he was like, he didn't expect him to say yes, but he's like, screw it. I'll go ahead and do it anyways. He walked up to a police officer in his car and he said, hey, can I drive your, he said, hey, can I drive your car and pretend like I'm a cop? And the cop said, yeah,

go for it. And took pictures of him pretending that he was a cop in his cop car and let him drive it. He was on a plane one time and he asked a flight attendant if he could read the safety announcement and they said yes. And so he read the safety announcement. He went into a Krispy Kreme donuts and asked them, hey, can you take five donuts and link them together to make them look like the Olympic symbol? And she's like, yeah, I guess that I can. And so she did it. And then at the end, he's like, okay, how much do I owe you? And she's like, no, this is free. This was fun. I like doing this. And so he was blown away at how kind people were and how many times he was afraid of being rejected and thought for sure, I'm definitely gonna be

rejected for this thing. And people didn't. And what he says is when you open yourself up to the world, the world will open up to you. When you open yourself up to the world, the world will open up to you. If you think about like C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis was rejected 800 times before he got yes for his first manuscript. And if he had given up, there would be no Chronicles of Narnia. Think about that for a second. 800 no's before he finally got a yes. So what are some other benefits of no? First off, the thing that I think is great about no and being rejected is we can actually use it as a positive feedback mechanism. We can see, oh, I was rejected. If you're in a sales process, what could I have done better? How could I have

listened to my prospect more? How could I have presented it to him better? What did they say that maybe I missed? And we can learn and we can improve. Like the first thing I think about, the first time I felt rejection in this podcast, years and years and years ago when I first started it, the very, it was like, I would say like four or five months in of this podcast.

And I got my first negative podcast review. And the first thing that popped in my head was, fuck her. Who is she to tell me that I'm not a good podcaster and all this stuff? And then I thought about it and I was like, maybe she's right. Because what it actually said, I don't remember specifically what it said. It was something along the lines of, for running a motivational podcast, this guy has the most unmotivating voice. And immediately what I thought was like, screw her. Who is she? She doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. And then after my feelings that insecurities and unworthiness went away, I went, hmm,

I wonder if she has a point. Like, let me listen back. And I realized because of fact, during a podcast back in those days, there was no cameras that we use any of that stuff because of fact that someone can't see me. Maybe I need to be more emphatic in the way that I speak. Maybe I need to use my tone better to get across what I'm trying to say. And it was really, really positive feedback. And I think back to being really insecure in that moment, but taking it as positive feedback and thinking, how can I become better? And I'm super grateful for that lady that left a shitty review. That's why we need more people to give positive reviews to this podcast. So if you do love it,

please do so. But how can we use those rejections as a chance to reassess our goals and to make sure that we're doing what we need to do to get better? You know, are we pursuing what truly matters to us or are we just chasing something that doesn't really align with our passions because we're just trying to go for money and we're not really following our true passion? You know, rejections can be a really good wake-up call to make sure that we're not settling and we're doing something that really does make us happy. Another really good way to turn rejection into a positive is to use it as a motivator. When we get rejected, it can be tempting to throw in the towel and to just give up. I've thought about it many times, but what I tend to do is actually use rejection as a motivator.

I love having a chip on my shoulder. I love seeing like an event with people who are whatever podcasters or influencers that I was not invited to. And feeling the feeling of rejection going, well, they're going to know who I am one day. I love the feeling of seeing all of these, you know, oh, these are the top podcasts in the world. And I look and I don't see my name and I'm like, okay, 10-4, let's go ahead and keep on going, right? We can use it as a motivator. We can have a chip on our shoulder to prove other people wrong. So instead of giving up, we can use rejection as a fuel to actually motivate us to work harder and to improve ourselves. Like rejection can be a really tough pill to swallow. It can. It brings up all of the

feelings of insecurity and when you, you know, the thoughts of when you weren't picked for the kickball team and you were the last kid and nobody picked you, like it could bring up all those feelings of insecurity. It can be a really tough pill to swallow, but it could be a great opportunity for us to learn from our mistakes and come back even stronger than we were before. Another thing that we can do, we can use rejection as a way to build our resilience. You know, when we're faced with failures, we're faced with messing up, we're faced with any of those things, it's really easy to get discouraged. Like getting discouraged and losing faith in yourself is an easy thing to do. But it's harder to go, I'm going to continue to keep going anyways. I'm going to build this resistance, resilience. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to use this as fuel to keep me going.

But instead of letting those rejections that come at us define us, we can use them as a chance to actually develop resilience inside of us and learn how we can bounce back whenever times get tough. Because there will be tough times, no matter what. You're going to be rejecting life. People are going to die. Things that you thought were going to happen are not going to happen. How can we use those rejections as a chance, the power of rejection, the power of no, the power of not feeling good enough as a way to actually bounce, like really get ourselves to be good at bouncing back when we get into tough times. And we can learn how to handle rejection. We can handle setbacks. We become more resilient and better equipped to handle all of the challenges that we might get in the future.

So when you start to think about this rejection, can it be scary? Yes. Can we not want to do something? Yes. Can we feel unworthy, unlovable that we lost something? Yes. Can we not want to do something? Yes. Can we feel unworthy, unlovable, that we lost something? Yes. But we can also look at it in a completely different light and say, 10-4, let's go. This is what I was built for. Continue to reject me, to continue to think that I'm not good enough, continue to doubt me, continue to give me feedback so I can learn to get better. So the next time we're faced with rejection, don't let it get you down. Use it as a chance to grow yourself, to learn, to find new opportunities. Remember, every no is just one more step closer to a yes. And who knows, the next yes could be the one that completely changes your life. But if you just decide to fall away and not take action,

your life will never change because you didn't go for that next yes. So instead of letting rejection hold you back, embrace it, learn from it, and use it as a way to grow and improve yourself. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.