PepTalk
Everybody needs a cheerleader...somebody in their corner hyping them up to perform their best. That's me. Everybody also needs a Coach...somebody in their corner giving them tips to tap into all of their potential so that they can make the most of their life! That's also me! This podcast is where those two elements converge and I speak to you about ways to work hard, pray harder, believe better, and live life to the fullest in every single way on every single day! It's time to level up, elevate, and slay the day! Have you had your pep talk yet?
PepTalk
Transforming Rejection into Resilience
Have you ever been paralyzed by the fear of stepping into the unknown, worried that rejection might strike you down? Let's take a journey together through the often unspoken trials of anthropophobia. In this deep-dive episode, we talk about the fear of rejection and how it hinders us, but also how it can help us!
This episode uncovers the subtle art of distinguishing our self-worth from the acceptance of others. By embracing 'no' as an avenue for growth, we can redefine rejection as an ally in disguise. So, whether you're facing a string of job interviews or pitching your heart out, remember, your worth is steadfast, undiminished by the opinions of others. Tune in and transform your approach to rejection, bolstering your confidence and propelling you toward the success that awaits on the other side of fear.
So it doesn't matter whether you are in sales, you sell a digital product, or are just trying to make it through another day, this episode is sure to give you the boost and insight that you need to not just get through this week, but on a pathway toward a more fulfilling life.
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On this episode of the pep talk podcast. We are talking about anthropophobia and how it can help you. But first, have you had your dose of pep today? No, don't worry, I've got you. Now let's get into it. Welcome to the pep talk podcast. I am your host, coach J, a life coach in Dallas, fort Worth, and I'm just so happy to be here with you for episode 24 of season two. It has been a great season so far. We're going to keep it rocking and rolling. If this is your first time listening to the podcast or watching it on YouTube, I want to say welcome.
Speaker 1:The mission of this podcast is to cheer you on and to coach you up. We believe we are the shadow of a doubt that you are great, but there's always a new level of greatness for you to go to and that you should be aspiring to, and so that's why we do this podcast and that's why we bring this pep every Monday without fail, because we believe in you and we really believe in the highest, best version of yourself, and so we want to encourage you to be that. And it's okay to see how great you are. It's okay to act in that greatness. It's okay to believe and have expectations for that greatness, but we all understand that we can all get better, including myself and a lot of the things that I talk about on this podcast. If you haven't listened before, I usually have stories about myself to go along with. To go along with these topics, because I'm talking to myself too. A lot of people think and they ask me you know, when people have questions, they're like so surely you don't deal with this stuff anymore, do you? I'm like, oh, I'm human. I totally, totally, totally still deal with some of these things, but we're growing together and that's the important thing. We are growing together. We are a pep squad. We are deputized to go and be hope dealers in our homes and our schools and our businesses, and we are also deputized to bring pep that's positivity, right, that's positivity, and so we are doing that every Monday.
Speaker 1:If you are a returning member of the pep squad, I'm so glad to see you. Hey, y'all, do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button on YouTube. Hit the subscribe button on Apple podcast. Leave a rating, leave a review, hit the like button. Hit the notification button, hit all the buttons, okay. Also, remember to share this episode with your friends, with your family, with your friend, any one that you, anyone that you believe this message of positivity, encouragement, motivation, inspiration, anybody that you believe we can help, we would gladly welcome you sending this episode to them. Also, I want to hear from you. Let me know. Hit me up on Instagram, at underscore, jb speaks, or email me at the pep podcast at gmailcom. I love hearing from you all. It gives me a boost and I love responding to the messages. So thank you all for rocking and rolling with us, and now it's time to get into the meat of this episode.
Speaker 1:So what even is anthropophobia? All right? So I'm going to tell you a story real quick. When I was in eighth grade, the art teacher was the basketball teacher for for my middle school, and so I remember one day he came up to me and he said hey, I want you to come out for the basketball team. I was like, I mean, I loved basketball. Basketball is my favorite sport. I love the way they jump up and down the court. Anyway, I digress, I love basketball. I've always loved basketball. But I remember when he came to me and said hey, I want you to come try out for the basketball team, all right. So I thought long and hard about it. And I remember I'd been to a game and I'd seen how well the, the, the, the players played. They were so athletic, you know, they could do all of, do all of the tricks and the crossovers and all of that stuff. And I only played in the neighborhood and during gym and middle school Now, I mean, during gym I was I was okay, you know what I'm saying. I had my defense was on point right and I was the kind of player that I would always look to set people up. Thus, I would have been a point guard, setting other people up to get their baskets or to get points, but I was so afraid of the cuts, I was so afraid of them putting that paper up on the wall and everybody getting to see that I didn't make the team. It's a matter of fact, I was cut and so at the end of school, the day of basketball tryouts, I had my stuff, but I didn't go try out.
Speaker 1:Anthropophobia, the fear of rejection, my fear of being rejected and not accepted onto the basketball team, kept me from trying out for the basketball team and, if I'm going to be honest with you, this fear of rejection has almost been like a best friend for for a great deal of my life, and I know that I can't be the only person who listens to this podcast who deals with anthropophobia. That's probably the last time I'm going to say it, because I'm going to mess it up at some point but so many of us deal with this fear of rejection, and so I thought that an episode on it would be pretty incredible to do. The question came up where did this even stem from? At what point in our anthropological history did this fear of rejection actually come into place? And some psychologists have theorized that it actually stemmed from the need for survival, back when we were hunters and gatherers. You know, going out to hunt after something and not getting it was a threat to your survival. And so it's that coming back into the fold of your people, them looking at you, expecting you to have something and you don't then in many cases you might have been cast out of the tribe. So it was an issue of survival. And what? Me not fulfilling my obligation to the tribe, to the clan, what it might actually mean for me being accepted as, continuing to be accepted as a part of the clan.
Speaker 1:Now we know that right now, for 90% of us being rejected has nothing to do with whether we survive or whether we continue to live Right Now. For probably a good 10, maybe 15% of the population, yes, yes, it absolutely. It has an enormous bearing. But for a great deal of us, you know, if we are rejected from a relationship, are we going to die? Probably not. If we are rejected from a job, are we going to die? Probably not. I mean, there there are some other things there that could impact that. But, honestly, if we really break down this fear of rejection, I think what we're really talking about is this whole idea that, in a relationship, me going up to a woman and I'm married now, of course but me going up to a woman and saying, hey, I like you, you want to go out, you know, grab a bite to eat and she says no. What does that mean in the grand scheme of things? Or if I go for a job and they say no, what does that mean in the grand scheme of things? Like for, for example, I I interviewed for a couple of positions last summer because I knew that being a classroom teacher wasn't necessarily the thing that I wanted to continue to do.
Speaker 1:I felt like that part of my life had run its course and so the district that I work in I interviewed for a couple of positions and one of them I was completely outmatched for and I knew it I killed. I was really good at the spoken part. Then they gave me a performance task and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was not going to get that job because I could not even begin to complete that performance task. It had to do with Excel and something that I cannot even remember now, but I didn't feel bad about that one. But then there was another one that I was really, really hoping for and I had a preliminary interview and it went really well and they called me and said we're going to go in a different direction. You didn't move on to the next, to the next phase of the interview process. Now that one, that one, kind of crushed me because I knew that I would be a great fit for that job. Now, ultimately, another position came available and I'm working with an incredible group of professionals who love kids like I love kids, and it's really, really cool what I'm doing now. However, not getting that job while it wasn't a threat to my survival, like I, would have still had an opportunity to to teach, but some part of it would have left me and actually I did feel a little bit less than because that job that I really wanted, I didn't get it.
Speaker 1:And I think when we talk about fear of rejection, we're talking about a couple of things, but I think the biggest, most prevalent thing that we need to address is the elephant in the room. What does rejection actually mean To you, like when you don't get the job, or when the woman or the man tells you that they're not interested anymore? Or, you know, when you audition for American Idol or you're auditioning for a team and you get told no, what does that mean to you? When something that you're really wanting doesn't happen, what does that mean to you? Well, for many of us, what I think it means is this it means that we are deriving our worth from someone telling us yes, or we're deriving our worth from what we do based on whether or not we get a job. And there's a problem with that. And I can say that there's a problem with it, because I know that there's a problem with me when I'm feeling those, when I'm feeling those, when those feelings are hitting me, and I can say that I'm feeling those feelings.
Speaker 1:But there's a problem with me when I'm feeling those, when I'm feeling those, when those feelings are hitting me, when I allow my feelings of self-worth to come from what I do, then, when what I do is not recognized, I feel rejected and then I feel less than when I allow myself first to be based on what somebody else feels about me. And when they tell me that I'm not doing good enough, then I think that they're saying that I'm not good enough. Do you see what I'm saying? Like this whole fear of rejection is? It's almost like a test to see where you're placing your own value, your intrinsic value to yourself. Are you allowing it to come from people to you? Are you allowing your work to define your worth, or are you allowing it to come from a solid and concrete and foundational really sense of who I am, who I believe I am, because I remember my wife and I trying to get into into sales um, a skincare company.
Speaker 1:I know right, I know right, crazy, but I was always the worst sales person because I was afraid of people telling me no. So even when my mentors would be like you need to be making calls, you need to be talking about this to everybody. I'm like I can't really do that, cause I, I, I just can't do that because I don't want people. I didn't want people telling me no, because I internalized the rejection. Then rejecting the product was them rejecting me, and there's something wrong with that. People listen to me. People can reject what you do, they can reject your product, they can reject your good in your service, but they can still love you. And that's something that I've had to learn over the years is that in you know, an audition, they can love you, the person, but not love your skills as a fit for what they do.
Speaker 1:And and here's the thing, y'all, we have to be okay with that we have to learn to parse out what we do from who we are. We have to learn to parse out how other people see us versus how we see ourselves. Because when we allow external things to define an internal person, then we are always going to be afraid of rejection. And here's what a fear of rejection gets you Nothing. Because after enough times of being told no, after enough times of feeling rejected, we begin to feel like we will never be accepted as a part of this collective humanity. We begin to see ourselves as separate then, as apart from the very people that we're supposed to be fitting in with.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile they're over there looking at us like why is his face so long? I just told him that I didn't want, I don't want your coaching services, jay, but I still love you as a person, and that's a very real conversation. Like, just because someone doesn't want to support what you do, that has no bearing in how much they might love you. It is truth, and it is necessary to be said, that probably your friends and your family won't be the chief manner of support for anything that you're trying to launch or anything that you're trying to do. Does that mean that they don't love you? No, should you look at them like they don't love you and support you because they wouldn't fall in line and get behind your good or service? No, yo, that's small Thinking and I'm convinced that's the reason why so many relationships end up just in a really, really screwed up, chaotic place, because we are placing our self-worth on the affirmation of someone else or replacing our self-earth in what we do, and over time, that causes us to get into a situation where we will never ask anybody out again, we will never apply for a job again.
Speaker 1:We will never audition for anything again. We will never audition for a show. We will never audition for American Idol. We will never try out for a basketball team, even though even though there is a place for you in that realm or with somebody, you just have to find the right person.
Speaker 1:But fear of rejection causes you to be paralyzed in place and when I talk to people who deal with who come to me saying I don't know what to do, I don't know how to move forward, I feel stuck. My first initial question is do you feel rejected? Who rejected you? Did someone reject you or did they reject what you had to offer? Because, again, what you have to offer is not necessarily you. You define, you define who you are, you define what you have to offer and you protect that. You lock that away, because that way, when the no comes, it doesn't penetrate, because you've internalized your sense of self, you've internalized your sense of identity and you refuse to allow anybody else, no matter what they say about your good, about your service. I get it, trust me, I understand.
Speaker 1:I've been in so many positions in my life where I have been rejected and, if I can be personal for a minute if you listen to last week's podcast. It was a letter to my to my younger self, and one of the things I talked about in that episode was dealing with the whole issue of my biological parents, because I'm adopted. I dealt with a sense of rejection from that because I thought that they didn't want me. But what I didn't understand that I understand now is that they were doing what they felt was the best thing for me. They loved me. They weren't rejecting me. They were rejecting the situation. The situation was messed up, but they wanted me to be in a spot, in the position where I had a chance to become this special person that the whatever doctor said. This kid's going to be special. They wanted me to be in a position where that would be the thing.
Speaker 1:But when we allow rejection to become our default and our defense mechanism, it keeps us stuck in place because we never go after anything new. We never. We never grow, we never. We never develop, we never begin to optimize ourselves and see. That's the benefit of rejection. That's the benefit of rejection.
Speaker 1:I heard on a podcast about this guy who went on this quest to be rejected as many times as he could over a 100 day period, and so he was asking for everything. He asked for a refill on his hamburger at a burger joint. He, he, he asked for his dog groomer to give him the same haircut that the dog groomer gave to his German Shepherd. Of course the dog groomer said, uh, no, sir, he. He showed up at somebody's Super Bowl party randomly with the back of chips and say hey, can I join your Super Bowl party? They said no, and then he said that he noticed something really interesting happened Asking. While at first it was hard, it became easier because he wasn't afraid of the nose.
Speaker 1:In sales person training they tell you to make all the calls. Make them all, even if you know that it's going to be a no before it happens. Make all the calls because what sales persons understand is that if you don't make the offer, people can't grab the offer, and so a big part of sales person optimization training is getting them attuned to understand they might be. They might tell you no because they don't want our offer, but they're not rejecting you. Separate yourself from it, like pull yourself completely out of the equation. Take your feelings out of the equation, because when you take your feelings out of the equation. You were better able to do your job because you're better able to separate the fact. But I'm making the offer. They are rejecting the offer. They are not rejecting me. So this is not. This is not reflect back on me. Maybe it reflects on my sales skills, but that skills that's not me. I can improve those skills and the more sales people are told no, the better they become and making their offer.
Speaker 1:Myron Golden talks about this very thing and he made it again to see how many noses in a row he could get, because soon the nose turned into yeses and soon the nose he became, he became immune to the nose. And the beautiful thing about rejection is that it teaches us how to grow, because when we're told no, if you're trying to, you know, find the perfect mate, the more times you're told no, if you are astute, you begin to learn that there are things about yourself that may need to be fixed before you're ready for the person that you are Destined to be. With that, that that one. If you were going on multiple interviews and I tell people this all the time you should always be applying for jobs. You should always be interviewing, if not to get the job you should be interviewing to hone your skills. But if you're not applying, if you're not interviewing, if you're not being told no by employers, then you're going to think that you're always perfect and you're ready for the next thing, when really you're going to be able to do that. And you're going to think for the next thing when really an interview will tell you if you are ready for the next phase in your in your career. Being no will tell you if your offer is tight enough. Being no will be being told no will tell you if you are the right person for the opportunity when he present, when it presents itself.
Speaker 1:If you don't allow yourself to get into your feelings and believe that, oh but gosh, the whole world is out to get me. Nobody likes me, man. Forget these people. Y'all know how we do. Forget these people that could take their job and they can shove it. I'm too good for their job, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe you're not good enough yet for that job. Maybe you're not good enough yet to get that coaching client, but if you never put yourself in a position where you could be told no, where you could receive that rejection, you'll never know and you will always have a faulty viewpoint Sometimes. Sometimes it's inflated, sometimes it's deflated. You'll always have a faulty viewpoint of yourself because you never put yourself in a position where you're told no Again. Understand that no is not a rejection of you, the person, because we're not allowing our self worth to be tied up in the job that we get, in the person that we end up with. We're not allowing our feelings of self worth to be tied up into getting the next sale, because, again, this is not an issue of survival. Get that out of your head. There will always be a next one, there will be a next person, there will be a next job, there will be a next client. There will always be a next one.
Speaker 1:As long as you understand that, who you are in here, nobody can take that away from you. Nobody else can define it for you, who you are in here. You've got to be solid with that from the jump, and I think this also needs to be said. We all want to be accepted. Nobody wants to be the pariah. Nobody wants to be the last person chosen for the team. Nobody wants to be the person sitting on the outside of the inner circle. Nobody wants to be that person. It is a human condition to be accepted, to want to be accepted. But might I posit to you that you need to accept yourself first. I need to accept myself first. I have to be okay with me first.
Speaker 1:And a lot of the worst rejection that we face doesn't come from other people. A lot of the worst rejection that we face comes from ourselves. I told myself that I wasn't going to make that basketball team before I even tried out. I told myself that I wasn't going to make it onto the voice or to America's Got Talent before the audition even came. I told myself that nobody would want my coaching before I even put the offer out there. I told myself that there are so many photographers here that nobody's going to want my services because they don't like my pictures. Because really, in reality, I was already rejecting myself before anybody.
Speaker 1:And see, this is what we do. We think that we're sparing ourselves by rejecting ourselves before we even give anybody else a chance to hear what we have to offer. And that's a problem, because if nobody else is going to ride or die for you, you have to first ride or die for yourself. But for anybody else is going to love you, you have to first love yourself, for anybody else is going to see you as a great potential replacement for a great potential solution for their problem. You have to see the solution within yourself and understand that, yeah, you could feel that gap. That way, even if they don't want you, you still know what you have inside of you. That part of you is safe, that part of you is secure.
Speaker 1:But again, we can't be out here in these streets while life is already life and we cannot. We cannot be in the position where we're already rejecting ourselves and saying that we're not good enough. Because even if in the position and I've been there before when someone tells you yes and you've told yourself no, your inner no is always going to prove itself to be true. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe that you are not good enough for the job and you get the job eventually, you will not be good enough for that job. Everything within you is going to flame out and you will have successfully self-sabotaged yourself out of that job. If you tell yourself I'm not good enough before the audition and they somehow let you on, that self-sabotage is going to eventually it's going to expel you from whatever that audition is for because, yo, we can only be Fugazi for so long, we can only be fake for so long. We can only put on a front or wear a mask for so long before that mask begins to crumble and the truth of who we believe ourselves to be, yo, it's always going to manifest. Who you believe yourself to be, at your core, is always going to manifest. And when you live your life rejecting yourself, when you live your life rejecting, you're rejecting you. You cut yourself off from opportunities, you cut yourself off from relationships, you cut yourself off from the very best that is out here in this world for you, because you don't believe that you deserve it. And so now it doesn't even matter who rejects you, because you've already rejected yourself when, at your core, you want to be accepted, you want people to like you, but if you really want that, then you've got to accept yourself.
Speaker 1:I just helped somebody. I just helped somebody because somebody's listening, and you deal with the constant state of rejection, but it's not from everybody else's voice, it's from your inner voice. And remember what I said at the front your acceptance, your feelings of self-worth, cannot come from anybody else. It has to start with you. And I have my eyes closed because I'm speaking to myself right now, just like I'm speaking to you. These weekly messages are as much for me as they are for you.
Speaker 1:Listen, even as a teacher, there are things that I knew would have been great for my kids, but I was afraid that they would reject the lesson, so I didn't do it. There are some students who are going to be listening to this podcast and they're going to be like wow, you, mr B, don't totally. I'm human and I talked myself out of those things, but I've had to learn. I have had to learn that nobody can reject me like I can reject me. Nobody can psych me out like I can psych me out, but also nobody can accept me like I can accept me. And when we get to the point of self acceptance, of a definitive self-worth that we carry on the inside of us, then we become bold and we become courageous and we become less fearful.
Speaker 1:I understand that fear of rejection never completely goes away. It's always there. But our ability to outsmart it, our ability to shout it down, that becomes stronger, that becomes the loud voice, that becomes the prevailing voice, that becomes the default mechanism rather than the defense mechanism. Instead of I can't, now it's I can, and it doesn't matter who else says I can't, because I know within me that I can and because I say that I can, then ultimately I will. It may not be with this opportunity, it may not be with this client, but no, it's come on. Come on.
Speaker 1:The no's are just teaching me. The rejection is just teaching me All of these things. They're just teaching me. They're teaching me how to be better. And it's not the goal. Because when we understand that rejection helps us to become better, all of a sudden rejection becomes a cheat code, it becomes the life hack. All of a sudden we're not afraid of the no from somebody else, because we take that no and we can flip that no and we can break that no down and understand it and pull the best parts of that no to help make us better so that when that no comes around again, we can outsmart it, we can wiggle our way through it. So, first thing, you can take that initial no and begin to work it from a no to a maybe, from a maybe to a firm signature on a doubted, on a doubted line.
Speaker 1:Come on, I'm talking to the person out there who keeps telling themselves no, stop it. Stop it, just stop it and this week, begin to tell yourself yes, I'm worth it. Yes, I'm favored. Yes, I have the discipline to do this. Yes, regardless of what anybody else thinks about me, I'm good. Yes, no matter whether they say yes to my goods or my services. Yes, I'm still going to talk about it. I'm still going to post on social media about it. I'm still going to ask for reviews about it. I'm still going to talk about it.
Speaker 1:Yo, when I started the podcast, whether I had five views, I'm still going to post on Facebook and Instagram about my podcast. You bet I am. It's going to be in my stories. It's going to be in my conversations. Why? Because I understand that people don't want to listen. They're not going to listen and that does not reflect on me because, regardless of whether people listen or not, I like me, I love me and I do want the podcast to be accepted. I do want coaching clients to contract me to help with their life and mindset, personal development and growth needs. And if that's you, I'm your boy. Holler at me. I got packages for you.
Speaker 1:However, I'm not going to let it stop me when external lack of validation tries to penetrate my skin. I'm in my thick skinned era and I'm inviting you to join me there. So we are leaving anthropophobia behind. We are leaving this fear of rejection. We're leaving it behind, knowing that we're still going to have to wrestle with it, but we're not going to make it so easy for it to win. Not anymore. Not anymore, because there's so much more for us to do, and I want you to become all that you were destined to become, and for that to happen, I want you to go through all the nose. So start making the offers, start pitching the offers. Start pitching your products, your goods, your services. Go through all the nose. Find reasons for people to tell you no. Ask for a burger refill, ask for a pizza refill. I love pizza. Ask for a pizza refill. Ask someone for a million dollars, a hundred, a thousand. Just ask and get the nose out of the way so that the law of averages begins to work in your favor, because at some point, all those nose are going to become yeses and then your income is going to be exponential, your impact in your influence is going to be exponential, but it's never going to get there until you get comfortable with the rejection, until you get comfortable with the nose because you've insulated a yes in your heart. Y'all hear me, y'all hear me, Y'all.
Speaker 1:This has been episode two, season two, episode 24 of the pep talk podcast, and I want to know what you think about this. Do you suffer from rejection and how are you planning to get over it? I want your comments on the social posts, I want your emails. Talk to me, talk to me, and if this is something that I can help you with, I'm a certified life coach and I would consider it my honor and my privilege to help you walk through this season, because it's nothing but a season to begin to unlock you, so that you can master what you have for you and become who you are supposed to be. I want to help you level up, all right, so holler at me, let's get to work, all right. So we have talked about the fear of ejection. We've talked about how it can be good. We've talked about what it means for us as far as our feelings. We've talked about how we need to internalize, what we need to do to get over it. So now the ball is in your court. The ball is in your court and I need you to get busy working on it starting this week.
Speaker 1:Y'all, this has been episode 24 of the pep talk podcast. I'm your host, coach JLIFE coach in DFW, and it has been my privilege and my honor to be here with you today. Again, remember, leave a rating, leave a five star rating and an awesome review to help people find us, but also help people find us. Share this episode. Share this episode or tell somebody about it. I love you. Y'all know how we end every episode Keep it love, keep it light and keep it peppy. Haha, it's pep talk podcast with your boy, coach J. I'll see you next week, y'all. Peace Bye.