Rejection is redirection
& other things I keep telling myself in order to get out of my own head
The past 2 months have been filled with more career highs than I ever could’ve imagined. I’ve interviewed guests (Jason Kelce & Camila McConaughey to be specific) for my podcast that I never thought possible when I started my show 5+ years ago, one of my episode clips got picked up by People magazine, I was featured on Hoda & Jena’s segment of the Today Show and even posted on both the Today Show and Hoda & Jenna’s IG feeds, I hit 100K followers, I went to the freaking white house, and the final draft for a super exciting upcoming project was submitted. My natural inclination is to worry about when the other shoe is going to drop (why do we do this???) and a constant thought loop of “this is too good to be true”. I really really tried to combat that and remind myself to ride the high and that good things can happen without being followed by negative ones. And, to be very clear, it is!!!
All that being said - I feel like I’ve shared a lot of highs recently (to the point where I kept thinking, “have I hit annoyance level of 100? how many wins can one share before people start thinking ‘jesus shut up already’ to themselves??”), so it’s also important to share the reality of some lows. Most importantly, rejection. I actually talk about this a lot in the episode with Camila from last week, but this job consists of a lot of “No’s”. Sure, I’m living out some of my wildest dreams and am blown away by some opportunities that have presented themselves to me, but I also am told “no” very often. There are hundreds (and I mean that when I say it) of brands and guests that I have pitched to either work together or have on my podcast that have turned me down. Hundredsssss. Because of the over exposure to rejection, it starts to get easier. The reality is that not every brand has the capacity or is going to be interested in partnering with me and, similarly, not every person who I want to have on my podcast necessarily wants to come on. When you boil it down to that, it’s seems obvious that’s the reality. We can’t all get everything we want, right? Where’s the fun in that? How would we build character or resilience?
That being said, I received a rejection this week that hurt. One that got under my skin deep and made me feel itchy and uncomfortable and icky and embarrassed. I took some time to process it on my own and then brought in the big guns to unpack further: my little sister (who happened to be staying with me so we were able to discuss it in person), my husband, a person on my team who was well-versed on the scenario at hand, and a friend of mine in the industry who I knew would have good advice and could be a helpful sounding board. After speaking with all of them I realized what really hurt the most: my ego. While this feels extra specific to my job because so much of my work is literally “me”, I think it’s applicable to all areas of life. Rejection triggers feelings of inadequacy, questioning your belonging, emotional pain, vulnerability, and challenges our self-esteem. It hurts because it threatens our need for connection, self-worth, and emotional security