The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 312 - Rejection

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jennifer.

Jen: I've been wanting to talk to you about something, but I wasn't exactly sure if I could turn it into an episode, because I don't really know what I want to say about it. I just genuinely am curious to hear your take on rejection.

Pete: Oh my god, I had no idea where that was going, and I definitely did not expect it to go to rejection.

Jen: Sorry...

Pete: Huh. A little like butterfly just appeared in my tummy, so I guess that means we need to talk about it. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Rejection. Is everything okay, first and foremost?

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Have you been rejected? What's going on?

Jen: It's all good. It's all good. No, I have found this coming up quite a bit in the last couple weeks with some of my clients, because part of what we are doing together over the summer is taking bigger swings, taking bigger risks. You know, they're putting themselves out there, introducing themselves to people, rekindling old relationships, asking for favors, offering favors, like it's a big risk-taking time. And I've noticed that there really is a dividing line that divides the group into sort of two groups. One is the people who hear, "Now is not the right time," or, "I can't help you with this," or, "Can we talk about this in a couple months," or whatever as rejection. And then, the other group that sees it as context.

Pete: Yeah. Oh, love that. Can you articulate how you think about the difference between those two, before I do? I have some thoughts.

Jen: Yeah. Well actually, it's funny because I said in the intro that I don't know what I'm going to say, and now that we're talking about it, I'm like, "I have so many things to say."

Pete: Here she goes.

Jen: So rejection, I don't know if psychologists would agree with me, but I think is an emotional take on a situation. That this idea that I've been rejected feels extremely personal. And context, to me, is just information that's not necessarily emotionally tinged.

Pete: Yeah, I tend to agree. When I hear the word "rejection" and I think about the emotional butterfly that I had in my stomach, I think about, I mean, I guess there's a bow to be drawn between biologically, we are wired to feel like we belong or are part of a group, and to be rejected from that, hundreds of thousands of years ago, would mean risking your life because you might be cast out on your own and there's wild animals out there that could kill you. Like biologically, I feel like we're hard-wired to crave connection and belonging.

Jen: Right.

Pete: And so when I hear "rejection", I can see how one might get triggered into that space or caught up in that space, and I have done it myself many times. And I think knowing that, and how somewhat comical it is when we're thinking about the context that we're actually dealing with now in 2024...I say somewhat comical because like we're not at risk, at the moment, of getting eaten by a live animal, at least most people listening to this podcast. And so, it feels comical. And so I feel like the goal is, in my mind, "How do I create in my own brain or move towards some version of seeing these things as context?" And I wrote down "process". That like to me, I think modern day rejection (which maybe we can define what we're actually talking about, what we mean by that) I think about as like, if I'm as a business owner, if I'm putting out a bunch of proposals to possible clients for leadership development workshops or coaching or whatever it is and someone says, "Now's not the right time," or, "Can you get back in touch with us in a year," or, "No, you're not the right fit for us," one might perceive that as being rejected. But I tend to spend a lot of my time, and I think this is what you're getting to as well, trying to frame that as, "That's the process." That is the process of starting a business or running a business, is, inherent in the process is people are going to opt out, people are going to opt in. And to me, opting out and opting in, or saying, "Yes," versus, "Not right now," is different, just mentally, than, "You are rejected." It just feels so intense and emotional. Did that make any sense?

Jen: Yes, and I tend to agree with you. You know, I've heard people say so many times, "Actors are in the business of being rejected. All day, every day, they're putting themselves out there and they're being rejected." And I have to tell you, when I was an actor, I just never framed it that way. I don't know why, maybe I had a great supportive team around me, protecting me from falling down that rabbit hole, but I just never really viewed not getting a job after an audition as being rejected by the people who are working on that project. When they cast someone else, it was because that person fit their vision. It wasn't because I was bad or I was wrong or they didn't like me. And that's where I start to get nervous when I hear people using the word "rejection" in relationship to a risk they took to put themselves out there, because a lot of the time when the context is delivered back to them, there's nothing in there that's personal. It's not like, "This isn't a fit for us because we don't like you or we don't like your work or we think you're a bad person or we would rather never be around you."

Pete: Right.

Jen: I was going to say nine times out of ten, that's not what it is...but I actually have to say like ten times out of ten, that's not what it's been.

Pete: Right. "We have a job to do and a criteria to hit, and we made a decision that fits with that, that we think, and that is not a personal attack on you." So, my gosh, you just sparked so many...I have so many thoughts now. Okay. Firstly, this literally happened to me yesterday. I'm realizing now that, I guess you might call this a rejection. I did not perceive it to be one. But I, two weeks ago, was called by a large company in Australia, who, one of the people working in that company was in a session that I ran like two years ago and remembered me, and thought, "Oh, we need to run a leadership development program with one hundred and twenty people here in this giant company. And so, let me talk to Pete about that." So two weeks ago, I got a phone call from them, and she was amazingly transparent (which I really appreciated) about the process. "Look, we're talking to three different possible facilitators about this giant project we have. And it is a really, really big piece of work, and we'd love you to be one of the people that puts together a proposal about how you would approach this." And I was like, "Great." So, I put together a proposal based on how I would think about solving this challenge. And one of the unique things that I assumed would become part of their decisionmaking process, but I didn't know for sure, is I, for most projects, operate as a one-man band, and I am the sole facilitator, sole executive coach, sole driver and creator of the programs that I run. It's very deliberate. I have a whole bunch of reasons why, I'm happy to go into them on a separate episode. And I do collaborate with certain people, like yourself and a couple of collaborators here in Australia, if and when it makes sense. I chose to not include a collaboration as part of this proposal. So, I made a decision. I took a risk, if you like. I got a call yesterday, and they said, "Pete, we absolutely loved you. The GM who's making the decision really wants to work with you at some point in the future. However, we've decided to go in a direction, where there's multiple facilitators with a slightly larger company. You're a one-man band. We kind of love that about you, but also this project feels too big for us to take that risk." And I was like, "That makes total sense.”

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: "You have criteria. You made a decision. And if you want a team, I'm not the person for you. Because I proposed to not have a team in this project, because I thought, actually, that would be a unique and valuable way of approaching it. You decided otherwise, and that's okay." So just to share with like you and the listeners, I guess, is like, I mean, that's a live example that happened to me yesterday. And it didn't even...I don't know, maybe we have this unique perspective because we spend so much time thinking about this or reading about this or I've consumed so many books about process. And I have a couple of examples that I want to get to in a second from people that I've learned from, but to me, I just was like, "Yep, that's the process. Moving on."

Jen: So I think it was you who shared this quote with me at some point, but I don't think you were the one who originally said it. So, you know, call me out if I'm making this up. "Without information, we create stories." Is that something you said to me?

Pete: Yeah. I definitely would have said it, and I'm 98% sure that's from Brené Brown.

Jen: Okay. So what this person who was reading your proposal did for you that was so kind, "Clear is kind," is provided you with the information, so you wouldn't create a story.

Pete: That's very true.

Jen: And when I'm thinking about some of the actors I'm working with, they go to an audition and they never hear anything. They don't get any even small nugget of information about what went down during the post-audition casting conversation. And so, without that information, they create stories. Now, the challenge with that is you can't demand that people open up their internal conversations to you. And even though it would be nice to say, you know, "It would be so great if you would let me know where we stand," they don't have to do that. So it's on each of us to ask what internal mechanisms we have in place to protect ourselves when we don't have information, to keep us out of the rejection storyline. I mean, one of the things that I share with my clients is, "When you get that far in an audition process, it's not about who's better. It's about who's preferred in that moment."

Pete: Right. That's interesting. I have some thoughts on a mechanism, a mental model, a reminder that we can give ourselves when we don't have the information. I also wondered if it was useful to share a story about a time when I created a story, based on not having information.

Jen: Yes. Both, please.

Pete: Okay. So a few weeks ago, I did this keynote for one hundred and twenty leaders in a company, I guess you'd call it an interactive workshop. It was about four weeks ago. And I did my usual pre-call where I tried to understand, "Who's it for? And what's it for? And like, tell me about the audience." And I got a bit of information about who these individuals were, and so I thought I had the information. And so, I got up on stage and I did this sort of riff. And I started it, and about fifteen minutes in, I was like, "We need to do some interaction, so I'm going to ask a question of the audience and get them to give me some input, and then like take that input and kind of turn it into something." Anyway, and I asked the question...and one hundred and twenty people sat in complete silence.

Jen: Ooh.

Pete: Like not one person, not even the person organizing the event raised their hand to share. And I actually kind of had this out-of-body experience, where it was like I was a witness and I was like, "This person's bombing right now. Like, this guy on stage."

Jen: Oh gosh.

Pete: And then, I was like, "Wait, I am the guy. I'm the one bombing. So, this is hilarious." Anyway, so I sort of was like, "Alright," and I made some joke about the fact that no one wanted to share. And I went on for another five minutes, and then I was like, "I'm going to try again, but I'm going to change the frame. I'm going to change the prompt." And so, I said, "Turn to the person next to you, and answer this question." So they turned to the person next to them, and all of a sudden, they all started speaking. And I said it was going to be a five-minute breakout, and after like ten minutes, I couldn't shut them up. They would not stop. And so, I was like, "Okay, so they are engaged in some capacity. I'll keep going." And anyway, by the end, we did a Q&A and people were shouting questions, and we didn't have enough time. So after the fact, someone came up to me and said, "I'm so glad you did that, 'Turn to the person next to you,' prompt, because I was sitting on a table of people that I've never met before. And we were two hours into this full-day conference, and not once had we been given an opportunity to speak to the other people on the table. And so, it kind of felt like we were all sitting there as strangers in isolation, awkwardly not knowing each other." And so, that was the information that I didn't have at the start, which created the story from my perspective, in the first fifteen minutes, of, "You are bombing." But it wasn't actually that I was bombing. It was actually that these people didn't know each other and didn't feel comfortable saying anything. And so, once they broke that, they then were willing to speak in front of another one hundred and nineteen others. So anyway, just a long-winded version of me saying, yes to this idea that we create stories without information. It is everywhere.

Jen: Yes, yes, yes. Okay, there's this famous line from The Sound of Music, "When God closes a door, He opens a window."

Pete: Mmm. Oh, I like that.

Jen: And I've always said that I would rather hear, "No," than, "Maybe." Because when I hear, "Maybe," I keep pouring energetic resources, creative resources, etc., toward that thing. But when I hear, "No," I go, "Great, I can move on to this other thing." And I don't know like what the actual mental model is around that, except to say that...well, you've said many times: Feedback is a gift.

Pete: Right.

Jen: That if we look for the gift in whatever the circumstance is, "Now, I get the gift of my time back. Now, I get the gift of my creativity back. Now, I have other options. Now, I can start pursuing other things." I was once accused by someone of being a Pollyanna, and maybe this is an example of that. But I find that rejection can really send you into...or the concept of rejection or feeling rejected can send one into hiding.

Pete: Right. Interesting. And you're saying that's not a good thing?

Jen: You know, my clients are people who are working in a pretty public way. And so, hiding is not going to be great for them.

Pete: Right. So, I love this. I would summarize what you said by saying...I can't even remember who originally said this, but like, "Saying no to something or being told no to something, gives you permission and space to say yes to something else."

Jen: Correct.

Pete: Like, "A no now creates space for a yes tomorrow." I find that a useful mental model. Funnily enough actually, to continue on the theme of the story of me getting rejected, I got an email from a complete stranger, completely out of nowhere, from another large company in Australia, that was like, "Hey, Pete. Are you based in Brisbane? We have this workshop in two weeks time, on this particular date. Are you free?" And I am, and I'm going to be doing the workshop. So like, it just, it's hilarious how these things work.

Jen: Right.

Pete: However, before all that, so you mentioned the, "What is the mental model? What is the thing? How can we give ourselves a reminder, when we don't get the information so we start to create a story?" So I have to be a little bit name-droppy, because I've seen two very high-profile people do the same thing in two separate contexts that I've observed, and I have found it so unbelievably helpful. And it's the four words that I tell myself every single time something like this happens, and the four words are: It's not for them. And so, the context. When I was working firstly closely with Seth Godin and his team on the altMBA, we would have, at any given time, one hundred to three hundred (depending on how many cohorts we were running) students take part in this online workshop. And inevitably, in any session, there would be a really small handful (maybe five, probably not even) of people that would get a week or so into the program and for whatever reason, based on their own context and their own story, they would start to either criticize a particular aspect of it, or they would just disengage, or they would say, "No, I don't want to do it this way. I want to do this." They would essentially cause a bit of a ruckus. Maybe they would reject the program, if we were using the language that we're using in this episode. And rather than try and fix it, or solve it, or make it perfectly okay for them and take onboard all of their feedback and their changes, Seth was unbelievably good and so unemotional at saying, "Give them a full refund. It's not for them. That's okay. Let's serve the people who are here." And that's what we'd do. We'd go, "Full refund. Appreciate you taking part in whatever you did. Not for you, that's okay."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And so, I saw that in action from someone who undoubtedly has had to deal with series of rejections and requests for a long period of time. Cut to like two years later, I was helping Margaret Atwood run another course, completely separate, that was about building practical utopias. And she was such an incredible person to work with.

Jen: Wait, wait, I'm sorry...you just said, "Building practical utopias," like it's like learning how to wash a car. I mean, like, what?

Pete: I know, I said I had to be name-droppy. I said I had to be name-droppy.

Jen: But, "Building practical utopias."

Pete: Right.

Jen: Okay. Moving on.

Pete: Seriously, Jen, that program was so cool. Anyway, the same thing would happen. There were thousands of people, I think, that took this course, this workshop. And some of them got into it and go, "This practical utopia thing is not for me. This is crap. I disagree with this. I disagree with that." And rather than take it personally, rather than try and solve it for this person, Margaret would just literally say, "It's not for them. Give them a refund. Get them out of the program. Let's focus on the people that are here to take part in what we're here to do." And so that phrase, those four words, "It's not for them," I find to be the way that I navigate situations where I don't get the information and I go to tell myself a story that, "I'm not good enough," or, "I'm an idiot," or "It's all about me." Actually, I try and remind myself, "Huh. Clearly, it's not for them, or I was not for them, or the thing that I did is not for them. And that's okay."

Jen: That is quite helpful. And Pete, when you and I sit down and are working on something new, we do our, "Who's it for? What's it for?" And then, we also do, "Who's it not for? And what's it not for?"

Pete: Right. Yeah. Exactly. And then, celebrate when someone matches that criteria and decides it's not for them, because that was what you intended to do.

Jen: Wow, it feels like we have just scratched the surface of this.

Pete: Not bad for a topic that you didn't think you had anything to say about.

Jen: Right? I'm so fascinated and excited to bring this idea of, "It's not for them," to some of my clients this week. So, thank you so much for that.

Pete: Well, thank you for not rejecting my idea. I know we think out loud when it comes to these podcasts. And so, sometimes the ideas land, and sometimes they don't. And when they don't, when the ideas that we even talk about are rejected by one another or even our listeners, we can just throw our hands up in the air and say, "That's okay. It's not for them."

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.