This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Chasing Rejection: The Wild Strategy That Works with Alice Draper | 316

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Let’s face it—rejection sucks. Whether it’s a gut-punch text, a polite but painful “no,” or the opportunity you swore was yours slipping through your fingers—it all sucks. But if you’re putting yourself out there (pitching, applying, risking anything at all), rejection isn’t a bug in the system. It is the system. Enter: Alice Draper. She’s the host of the My Rejection Story podcast, founder of Hustling Writers, and a woman who knows how to turn every “no” into a bigger, better “hell yes.” Her work makes podcast guesting and publicity accessible for anyone brave enough to try—and yes, that includes you. In this episode, we’re talking about flipping the rejection script. We explore the concept of “rejection goals” (like actually tracking your no’s), the power of micro-rejections, why a rejection community might be your secret weapon, and how embracing rejection can build the kind of confidence that doesn’t crumble the minute someone doesn’t like your pitch, post, or personality. Alice doesn’t do fluff, fake positivity, or waking up early (same, friend), but she does deliver actionable, unfiltered insights for anyone ready to stop fearing rejection and start using it. So grab your strongest coffee and join us—because if we’re gonna get rejected, we might as well make it worth it. Connect with Alice:  Website: https://hustlingwriters.com/  Podcast: https://hustlingwriters.com/podcast/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/alicedraper/  Related Podcast Episodes: How To Build Courage with Dr. Margie Warrell | 273 Perfectionist Burnout with Dr. Tiffany Moon | 306 The Ambition Trap with Amina AITai | 309 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's TIWW for 40% off sheets and everything else. Sleep cooler, lounge lighter, and stay cozy. [♪ music playing—no audio for this part.] Let's face it, rejection sucks. Whether it's a text that feels like a gut punch, the polite but painful no you didn't want to hear, or the it's not you, it's me conversations, or the opportunity you knew was yours slipping through your fingers, it all sucks. But here's the thing, if you're putting yourself out there in any way, whether it's pitching

your ideas, your business, or even yourself, rejection isn't just likely, it's inevitable. Which makes logical sense, but then why are we so afraid of it? Why does it seem like we've been taught to avoid it? And why, for the love of all things holy, do we make it mean something so much bigger than it actually does?

Because the real question isn't whether or not you'll get rejected, but how you'll handle it when you do. Will you let it define you, or will you learn to see rejection for what it really is? A step on the way to success. A them problem, not a you problem, or an opportunity for something better. I am Nicole Kalil, and on this episode of This Is Woman's Work, we're diving deep into how to face rejection. And I promise this conversation isn't about slapping on a smile

and pretending that it doesn't suck. We're talking about real practical strategies to build resilience, reframe rejection, and maybe even start seeing it as an asset. Yes, I said asset. Though you may still want to call the person doing the rejecting an ass hat. And I'm good with that. So to help us navigate the sticky, ego-bruising topic is someone who's not just familiar with rejection. She's built an entire

career around it. Alice Draper is the host of the newly launched podcast, My Rejection Story, and the founder of Hustling Writers, a company making podcast guesting and publicity accessible for anyone who's willing to show up and try. Alice knows how to turn rejection into opportunity. Her clients have landed spots on some of the top podcasts in the world. Plus she's interviewed big names like Neil Patel,

Jason Van Ruler, and Tina Wells, digging into their toughest rejection stories and the golden nuggets of wisdom they've mined from them. Today, you'll get to hear her unfiltered insights on how rejection can actually fuel your growth. We'll talk about the idea of creating a rejection community, why micro rejections matter, and how setting a goal of 100 rejections could be the key

to landing your next big opportunity. Oh, and she hates small talk jargon and waking up early, so I feel like we're destined to be friends, though I could be setting myself up for rejection. So grab your strongest coffee, settle in, and let's get into it. Because if we're going to face rejection, we might as well do a confidence strategy and maybe even a little bit of humor. Alice, thanks for being our guests. And I want to dive into just asking you about your perspective of rejection. Does

it suck? Have you reframed it in a way where it doesn't suck for you anymore? Like, what is your experience being so singularly focused on this topic of rejection? Well, firstly, thank you so much for having me here. I love that introduction. And to answer your question, it sucks. And when it sucks, I feel like a fraud because I'm, you know, built this whole thing about talking about rejection, normalizing rejection. And then I kind of have to think about it and be like,

well, actually the science says it's gonna suck. Like that is literally an evolutionary response that's hardwired into all of us. We don't wanna be rejected. We'll do anything to not be rejected. So it's going to suck. But just because it sucks doesn't mean that we shouldn't put ourselves in the wake of rejection.

We just need to figure out strategies to deal with the suck. Okay. So you heard it from the expert. You're not doing it wrong if it sucks. There's not like where you have a bad mindset or something like that. It sucks when you're in it, but we have an opportunity, as I'm hearing you say, to think about it differently, interact with it differently Maybe use it differently in our lives then

may seem natural or Easy. Yes. Yes. Yes, absolutely I think that our natural inclination in the wake of rejection at least as my natural inclination and based on discussions I think it's many people's, is to hide in shame and to sort of hide in the corner and not ever tell anyone that this thing happened. And there are studies that show that people who sort of bring in their community when they're rejected have a much quicker bounce back than people who do it alone. And so bringing in the community feels like the opposite

to what we actually wanna do. We don't wanna go tell our community about a really horrible rejection that just happened from a client or a boss or a colleague. But when we do that, we realize that we're not alone and that we're safe and that our tribe is not gonna kick us out because the whole evolutionary function

of hating rejection is that we don't wanna be rejected by our tribe because that would have meant in rejection is that we don't wanna be rejected by our tribe because that would have meant in the past that we would have died. Like if you're a dependent in your tribe for shelter, for food, for security, it poses a huge threat. So when we bring in our community and talk to them and realize that they're not kicking us out,

the shame of it and the hold it has over us diminishes hugely. So a lot of what you're saying aligns with what I've learned through my research about confidence, meaning I think this inclination to hide and to protect and to not share, it reminds me of what I see when we look at perfectionism, right? This idea that we're supposed to have it all together. So we don't want to let anyone know when we don't. And the reality is perfectionism creates distance in our relationships and in our lives, whereas vulnerability creates connection, intimacy, and all the things that we're actually looking for. So I don't know if I'm reading too

much into it, but is part of the reason why having a community that you share your rejections with, is part of the reason because of the connection that it creates, the intimacy, the feeling like you're not alone part of it. Yeah, yeah, I think that's the crux of it. And I think it ties very closely to perfectionism in the sense that someone who is very rejection-averse is probably more on the perfectionist side of things, wanting to get things right.

And so I'm interested to know your research, but being able to connect with the community and realize that you will be accepted, even if you don't show up perfect, is a huge part of it. I think our greatest fear, because we're so hardwired for connection, is to not be connected. Being afraid of rejection or being afraid of being vulnerable ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy where you actually can be less connected than if you were vulnerable and put that part of yourself out there

for people to connect with. Yeah, it's also counterintuitive, right? Yeah. So let's talk about this rejection community. I would imagine there's some semblance of being selective about it, right? We're not just gonna go and blast our rejections out to everybody all the time.

What does a rejection community look like? How do we build it? I love this question. I think it can look different for everyone, but you're totally right that you probably don't want to blast it out to everyone, because that could do the opposite of what you intend. So for example, and I mean, I've done this,

but I wouldn't recommend everyone do it. If you were to write about a rejection on LinkedIn or Instagram, if you don't have a highly engaged audience there, you may feel more rejected after that. If you're not getting a lot of people reaching out. Often the opposite happens. People are inspired by your connection,

but it's still a risk. It's not always gonna happen. But if you talk to someone and talk to someone who you respect, so you may not talk to, like, I don't know if your mother is someone that's just gonna give you affirmations no matter what, you may not feel like that's an opinion that is,

I don't know, gonna be totally honest. But if you have a discerning but good friend, people you really trust and you know they'll tell you the truth, I think that can level set because in the wake of rejection our emotional brain takes over so we're not seeing rationally. For example, I once got a really, really rude rejection when I sent a pitch to someone to partner with my podcast. We've been doing this for a long time. Our rejections are generally very nice. Or there's no response at all, like, almost never get a rude rejection. But

this one, someone accused me of using AI to create fake authenticity, and then concluded with how disgusting. And like, that was a rejection that came six months ago and it still makes me feel sick, it was so harsh. And so when my emotional brain took over getting that rejection, I was just like, oh my gosh, I messed up, I went and crossed a line here, I did something really terrible, how could I have pitched this person?

Did I pitch them in the wrong way? And those are the sorts of ruminating thoughts that I think that would come up when anyone gets a bad rejection. And for me to involve my community, it would be talking to my partner who is very rational and logical and I know is not just going to tell me what I want to hear. That would say, this sounds like more of a them thing. You know, even if someone sent me a really like bad pitch, I can't see myself, I can't see anyone reasonable responding in that way. You know, the most you would do is say like, sorry. No, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, no, thank you. Probably reflects more on them. And so when you have someone. Yeah, no, thank you. Like, probably reflects more on them. And so when you have someone like that, someone that's not just going to say what you want

to hear, but is going to come in with a voice of reason and logic, I think that can calm that emotional brain down a bit and be like, okay, it's not me. It could be them as well. It's the end of the world is incoming. I'm not going to be rejected by everyone I know. I'm safe. Yeah. So I like the idea of having these people be somebody you respect and who will be truthful.

Because I do think there could be the inclination to just go to the most positive person who's going to tell you what you want to hear. But somewhere deep down, I think we know that we're not getting the whole truth and it still sort of sticks with us. Whereas I often think in coaching, one of the hardest parts is that you can't read the label from inside the bottle. So when you're the one experiencing the rejection,

you go all over the place. You make it so much bigger and you make it mean more. And just having that person who can come in and from the outside see things a little bit more clearly and help you like rein it back in is so important and so helpful. And as you said, help stop some of the ruminating that we're likely to do. Yeah. And I don't think I fully answered your question. You said, how do you find that community? I mentioned in the beginning that it can look different for everyone. So you may struggle to find that person for whatever reason.

And I think that's the beauty of the internet is you see community come up in so many ways. There is a Facebook group that I came across, all about rejection. There's thousands and thousands of people in this. I can't quite remember the name of the group, but people basically share their rejection stories in that group. And they get hundreds of responses of everyone just saying, you know, it's not use, it's, you know, just sort of affirming them. And if that makes someone feel less alone, then I think it serves the purpose of community. Reddit's where people can post anonymously. So I think that rejection holds a lot of shame. And, you know, depending on how personal the

rejection is, maybe, you know, you got fired late off and you don't want to publicly share that because that could have effects on your future career and your future job. It could actually have very negative ramifications. And so maybe if you don't have those trusted friends, or you don't think that your existing community will understand, you can post anonymously on a forum like Reddit and connect with other people who've gone through something similar and can offer you the support and advice there. Be discerning. Not all of it would be good advice.

Right. But I mean, I had never really thought about it. My inclination would be to avoid the internet. But the way you frame it, that could be a really good possibility to get some unfiltered. And like if you have 100 comments, you can kind of look through and see what am I hearing the most or what doesn't make sense and sort of filter that out, which brings me to my next question. doesn't make sense and sort of filtered that out. Which brings me to my next question. You said this, and I just want to reiterate, I think we all have the tendency when we get rejected is to first internalize it and think about what it means about us, as opposed to

what it might mean about the person doing the rejecting. If somebody's being a dick, that's a them problem, not a me problem, right? Like there are so many ways that we can reject people with kindness and clarity is an option. Being a dick is pretty unnecessary unless you started by being a dick, right? So all of that to say, are there any tips when we're experiencing rejection to get a little bit more objective about it, to not go into the spin automatically of what it says and means about us? I think trying to create as much distance as possible.

One of it is, I think, bringing on your community. I'd say that's the first step in whatever shape or form, once you are not ruminating completely alone and you're involving trusted people, I think you can just level set a lot more quickly. Aside from that, I think it could be things like journaling, taking a pen and paper, getting a story down, doing any kind of like reframing exercises, rewriting a story, trying to get out of your emotional brain. So you know,

that tendency to take things personally, you're going to immediately kind of jump into it's because I, for example, someone rejected you for a proposal you sent or a job application you sent, you could immediately say it's because I'm not smart enough. I don't have the capabilities. Clearly, I'm a weak link in this domain or whatever it is. You would challenge that idea. So ask yourself what else can be true? What else could be happening?

Track with yourself in the person rejecting shoes. So I had a background in journalism. And when you pitch articles, you get rejected a lot and you immediately assume that your idea is not worthy. And the minute you speak to an editor, you get on the other side, you realize there's a million reasons why you get rejected. You get rejected because they're out of budget. You get rejected because they just commissioned a story very similar last week because they

only have enough budget to focus on these specific topic areas. So it can so often have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the work you're doing. So I think trying to get that perspective and just shift the focus away from yourself and question what's happening on the other side. Yeah, great advice. I like the idea of creating some distance. I often think like, what would I tell my best friend or my daughter or whatever she was in this situation? Like if somebody I loved was experiencing this exact same rejection in this exact same way, what would I tell them?

Because I have noticed that I tend to be way kinder to the people I love than I am to myself, and that has worked for me. I also love the ideas that you shared. So pick what works for you, give it a try. One thing I say often on this podcast is that the way we get good at anything is to practice, but it seems counter intuitive to practice being rejected. How do we do that? So one thing you talk about is how micro rejections play a role in getting us more comfortable with rejection. Tell us

about that. Yeah, yeah. I'm a big advocate for practicing rejections. So in my own journalism career, I set a 100 rejection goal. That was like my first kind of entry point to the term rejection, I guess, in a professional sense, where it was a challenge that was set up by a group of journalists to aim for 100 rejections in a year. And that really reframed the way I look at pitching and getting myself out there. And getting rejected by editors for publications are micro rejections. I define micro rejections as rejections that are not going to have a huge impact on your life, your reputation, the way the world views you.

So a non micro rejection would be going to your boss and asking if you could have a massive pay raise. That could have, I mean, I'm not saying it would be a negative outcome, it could be a really great outcome. But it has the potential to also have more impact on your life and your reputation. But if you're pitching a stranger to publish your article, if you are pitching the hotel you're staying at to upgrade you to a free room, if you are pitching a proposal, a keynote address, you

want to do a keynote for an organization, the likelihood of that having a long-term effect on you if it goes wrong is very low because even if you are rejected, people generally don't remember who they rejected. Like the number of times, I'm sure, as a podcast host, you have to reject lots of people. And I don't know that you would remember everyone you rejected unless they were really rude and offended you in some way or shape or form.

But if it was not a great pitch, I think that it would be easily forgettable. So- That was in percent true. Actually, yesterday we got a pitch, I think that it would be easily forgettable. So that was in percent true. Actually yesterday we got a pitch and I was, gosh, that sounds familiar. And I went back and looked, we had rejected this particular topic in this pitch from the same person four times already. And that's why it sounded familiar. But outside of that, I mean, literally this is the fifth time I never remembered, I never

made that connection. That connection. So to your point, we hold on to it sometimes, but the person doing the rejection probably moved on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the person sending it, like if it wasn't a PR agency, if they're sending it themselves, I know a lot of people would be like, I could never pitch someone more than once. Like I could never pitch someone once. You personalize it so much, where in reality, it's so forgettable, I think, on the receiver's end. But yeah, so I think micro rejections are a great way to normalize just that muscle, which I like to think of as a muscle. I like to think of it as like going to the gym and how you might not go straight for the deadlift. You might pick up some dumbbells and start with smaller things before you go into the really big workouts. Microrejections are the

dumbbells of rejection before you can make those big audacious asks, which come with risk. A big audacious ask comes with risks, but these micro rejections come with very little risk. I love this concept so much. I wish somebody would have taught it to me very long time ago, because to me, there's a double benefit. First, you're practicing and developing resilience around rejection. And second, as you're collecting nos, as you're getting these hundred rejections, you're bound to increase the amount of yeses you get, right? Just the act of putting yourself out there

over and over and over and over again is how we get yeses. Yeah, yeah. And it's how you get good at something. Like you're gonna get better at whatever you're. If you're doing it over and over again. Totally. But it's so again, I feel like counterintuitive is sort of the theme of this topic is almost to focus. Well, you're saying to set a rejection goal, a hundred rejections, we're focusing on, and I'm putting in air quotes, the negative when we're so much taught to focus on the goal or the outcome that we want.

I love this concept. It feels like collecting a bunch of nos so that we yes, get better, yes, get more resilient. And in the process of collecting nos, you're bound to collect more yeses. Yeah, yeah, I think, and I may need to be corrected on this, but memory serves. I think HBR did a study on sales targets, like the way people working in sales go about meeting their targets, and found that there was like a 30% increase of deals being closed when people focused on collecting nos, then collecting yeses. And I don't know if that's a psychological thing where you are no longer stressing and

so that comes across as a more natural sales approach. Or if it's the fact that you're just getting out there more often because you're not worried about like, but I think on your earlier point of perfectionism, it breaks down perfectionism. There's no room for perfectionism when you're out chasing those. Like, and in the process, I think it can create just a more like audacious and genuine and authentic approach in the way you go about doing your putting yourself out there. Yeah, and it triggers the thought that I think often we have unconsciously that when people are uber successful

or when they're really good at something or really talented or really smart, that they don't get rejected, that they've somehow figured it out, right? When the reality is there is no evidence that shows that like, you know, baseball hitting analogy often comes up. It's like the best of the best of the best hit the ball 30% of the time. I know I should never use sports analogies because I don't understand it. But like, you're going to miss more than you make. I know from my background in finance and on the sales side, it was for every 10 opportunities,

one. And that was considered good, right? So you got nine rejections to get the one yes, and that was built in as a success model. And I think we often forget that. We forget that we forget that there is no out-talenting or out-working or out-performing or out-successing rejection. It's just an inevitable part. Is that true? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. I think it's because I think we have a natural inclination to share our wins. Humans do. I have it. Everyone has it. If you land a sale, you might go to your colleagues and say, hey, I just closed this great deal. But every time you didn't, every time you got ghosted, you're probably not going to them and saying, oh my gosh, I just got ghosted for the seventh time this week. It's not fun. It

doesn't bring you dopamine to share that. No one can put you on the back. And so as a result, we end up seeing the wins. And so we see the successes. If you see someone who's extremely successful, we always assume that that's, they've got this winning streak. Things are just going right for them. Right.

My theory is that they're much more rejection resilience and they have been able to tolerate a lot more nos. And that's why we're seeing all of these wins and successes. Yeah, I'll also tell you, interestingly enough, and it's anecdotal, but with my email community, I often share stories of personal rejection or failure or things like that. I get so much more outreach and response and connection

from those emails than anywhere I share any type of win. Like I shared a really embarrassing story and I got, I can't even, people are still talking about it. Like I ran into somebody a few weeks ago and they're like, oh my God, I'm still thinking about this, right? And then I sent an email about the success of the podcast over the last year. And I got a couple little congratulations

but nothing comparatively. So it's really interesting, again, anecdotally, that sometimes that's actually what creates that connection and that thing that we're looking for. Okay, I have two more questions that I wanna make sure we get to. The first is how can someone assess their current relationship with rejection and then

sort of put a plan in place for whether it's 100 rejections goal or microaggressions or lifting the dumbbells of rejection? How do we figure out where we're at with rejection and then put a plan in place? This is a hard question because I think it takes a lot of self-awareness. I wish there was a one size fits all when it comes to this, but I don't and this is just my theory. But for example, for you, you might be able to go and do the deadlift up rejection, essentially. You might be able to go and make the biggest, most audacious ask ever and get a very public rejection. And that might be good for you because you might have the confidence and resilience already to survive that and then go for the next thing. And so I think the self-awareness bit comes into like, where are you with your confidence

right now? What kind of background, what has your relationship with rejection been in the past? If you are someone that thinks you will crumble at the thought of someone saying no to you, then I would definitely say go for those micro rejections, go for the very small asks that are going to have non-consequential, those no's are going to be non-consequential. If you are someone that is just like, I need to get to the next level, I'm tired of doing tasks that are not moving the needle, I want my next big contract, I want my next big role, I have been doing this and you just feel very confident and very impatient and you know that you can handle being told no,

then go for bigger ones. I think it's just assessing kind of what your relationship right now with rejection is. Yeah, as you were talking, I was kind of thinking about like, how have you handled the rejections you've gotten in the last 30 days or in the last seven days? And if the answer is I haven't been rejected in the last 30 days, well then friend, you're avoiding it, right? Like I was rejected this morning. I was rejected yesterday. You know, like I think kind of doing a quick assessment

of how often or how frequently are you being rejected, that might just give you some insight into how much you're putting yourself out there. And that could be a starting point. And then as you were talking to like the, when you're rejected, how do you handle it? How quickly do you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back into action?

Is it depending on the rejection, obviously, like there are some that knock me down for sure, but there are some that it's like, okay, back to it two seconds later. I like the self awareness. I think a little bit of self evaluation to just looking at how you've responded recently can maybe give you some insight into where your next action items are or your next opportunities to put yourself out there.

My last question, I'm going to think out loud, but you had said this when you were talking about pitching articles. I sometimes think that rejecting people can help build your resilience and your relationship with being rejected. As you said earlier, we say no to probably 80 to 90% of the podcast pitches we get. And I know because we do that, that it is almost never personal. Like it almost never has anything to do with the person or even the pitch to a certain

extent. It's mostly, we already covered this topic, we're not interested in this topic, it's too vague or too narrow or there's bazillion reasons as you said. So my question is, is there something to be said for practicing rejecting and building your rejection tolerance? And when we're rejecting, are there any best practices? We talked about being kind, right? Like that helps. Are there any things that we should be mindful of so we just get better with reframing rejection in general? I love this.

I mean, I think if you can't ever be in a position where you're the one rejecting, it's great for having empathy for others and having empathy for yourself in the same situation. So like talking about the articles, I remember I worked just kind of on a voluntary basis as a submission reader for publication, like back then, I don't know what it was, a couple of years ago. And I was the one rejecting like a lot of submissions. And so that

teaches you all the millions of reasons why you get rejected. So you have a lot more empathy for yourself. But on the topic of, and I think, you know, if you think like a dating context, just to go back, if you had to, like, I don't know if anyone's been in a position where you've been rejected by prospective partners, and then found yourself in the position where you rejected, and suddenly you understand them a lot better. You understand because when they rejected you, it was so personal. But then you realize like when you're the one rejecting that actually these things can just happen because you're not compatible. And that's not because they're a terrible, terrible person that rejected you. Um, that's, that's an experience I've had, but, um, best practices for rejecting, my advice would be

being as clear as possible. And I know that that's hard if it's something that you have to do a lot. Like if you are, you know, for example, running your podcast, you can't really send a detailed email response to every single person. But maybe you know the reasons why, the common practices why you reject. So maybe you can write like a template response that you have an assistant send out, where it's like, you know, we're inundated with pictures at the moment, we are accepting a very select few, and these are the, this is the criteria that

usually they meet. And then you've got a list of criteria of very specific topic as related to one's work. Here are some examples of very successful episodes. So I used to love it when editors would do that. If they rejected me and said, this is great, but blah, blah, blah, here are some examples of some really successful articles. If you can get something that's a bit closer to this, that would work. And you some examples of some really successful articles. If you can get

something that's a bit closer to this, that would work. And you can do that in a templated way. So I think being clear, that removes, I think, a lot of the personal rumination that someone might have with the imaginary reasons why they got rejected. 1000%. And I couldn't agree more. I think we often do a disservice when we get rejected and when we're doing the rejection of hiding behind typical excuses like, oh, we don't have the budget. Sometimes I just want to roll my eyes in the back of my head and it's like, maybe that's true but more likely this wasn't a priority for whatever reason, or you didn't want to direct a budget toward this for whatever reason.

I'd be more curious about that. Trying whenever possible to be clear and kind. I couldn't agree more. Our best practices. Okay. I could ask you questions all day, Alice, but I want to make sure people have the opportunity to find and follow you and learn more. Alice's podcast is called My Rejection Story.

And correct me if I'm wrong, Alice, but you just interview people about their big rejections, right? Yeah, yeah. I talk to them about their personal rejections, their professional rejections. Most of them are authors, so often about their books, their journey to getting their book published,

because that's a journey that's marked by a lot of rejection usually. Yeah, I love that. If you're trying to build this rejection resilience muscle and you want to let go of the idea that successful people aren't being rejected, that is where you should go. And then of course, her website is hustlingwriters.com. We'll put that and all other ways to find and follow Alice in show notes. Alice, thank you so much.

This has been a really eye-opening conversation. Thank you so much, Nicole. This was fantastic, and I really appreciate you having me here. My pleasure. All right, friends, before we wrap, let me remind you of a few takeaways from today. Rejection isn't a reflection of your worth. It's a step toward whatever it is that you want. Building resilience isn't about avoiding rejection. It's about learning from it and moving forward. And sometimes the biggest opportunities are hidden behind a whole lot of no's. So make it a goal to gather those no's, track them, celebrate them, wear them like a badge of honor, because every rejection is proof that you're putting yourself out there, that you're taking risks and doing the hard, messy, and important work of chasing your dreams.

Because rejection doesn't define you. But how you respond to it does. So go get rejected. Go gather those no's. Go hit that rejection goal. Because contrary to what we've been told, that is absolutely woman's work.