Have you ever gone out and gotten rejected…completely on purpose?

That sounds insane, right? Getting rejected is never anyone’s goal.  We are wired to avoid getting rejected…which is exactly why I’m going through rejection therapy.

Rejection therapy is a practice where I go out every day and do something to intentionally try getting rejected.

Why? Because I feel like I’m never going to ask you to do something that I’m not willing to do myself. So if I’m teaching you how to be the most confident bitch in the motherfucking room, then I need to show you what it takes to actually be confident. And part of that is knowing that getting rejected is not going to kill you.

Not only that, but it turns out risking getting rejected has given me more unique experiences and opportunities I could not have imagined. Like, some of my asks have been crazy.

I went to Subway and asked if I could make my own sandwich—I experienced getting rejected on that one. I was in a grocery store and I asked a stranger for a hug—she said no as well, and getting rejected that time stung. But I’ve also gotten a surprising amount of yeses, and a few of the nos actually resulted in a different experience that was even cooler.

My favorite one so far was going into a shop at the mall and asking if I could be a live mannequin…and they said yes! I got to stand in the store like the mannequins they have on display and model some of their clothes, and that was so much fun that I actually went to another store and asked if I could be a mannequin in the shop window, and they said yes too.

Getting rejected fucking sucks. But here’s the thing…

If You Don’t Ask, You Don’t Get

If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

For example, one of the days, I asked to go behind the bar and make my own cocktail. And even though that one was a no, the bartender followed it up with, “But if you sit right here, I’ll give you a little cocktail lesson.”

So while I didn’t get to actually make my own cocktail, he literally broke it down and showed me how to make the cocktail step by step, as well as explaining the reasoning behind each step.

Guys, you literally have to pay to go get cocktail lessons. So it was really cool that getting rejected ended up turning into an even cooler opportunity.

Oftentimes, even if you’re getting rejected, people are willing to negotiate with you. I’ve had so many experiences in the last week that I wouldn’t ever have had if I didn’t ask for that thing. So even if it’s scary, you have to risk getting rejected and ask, or you’ll never get.

How much more stuff would you get if you just asked? Would you get the promotion if you just asked for it? Would you be in a committed relationship if you just told the man that you’re seeing that you want it? The list goes on and on and on.

There are so many people who are so afraid of getting rejected that they never ask, therefore they never get. Instead, they just sit and they complain about how they never get what they want, and it’s like…well, did you fucking ask?

And if the response is, “Well, I shouldn’t have to!” then I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but you’re not going to get anywhere with that attitude. So let’s just drop that, shall we?

Getting Rejected Still Stings

Now, like I said, some of these exercises have ended in “yes” or “no, but”…but some of them have ended with me actually getting rejected. And a couple were hard to swallow.

For instance, on day seven of rejection therapy, I went up to a stranger and asked for a hug.

When I saw her hesitation, I quickly jumped in to say, “It’s okay if you want to say no.”  And she said, “No, I’m not comfortable with that.”

Getting rejected on this one hit a little bit harder than others, because firstly, I was in my luteal phase. But secondly, I think asking for a hug feels quite vulnerable. It feels almost intimate.

So that one stung. But here’s the thing…rejection in and of itself is not the problem. At the end of the day, it’s what we make getting rejected mean about ourselves that is the problem.

When I got rejected in that moment, all that really happened was I felt sensations in my body. We could talk about it and say, “Well, you feel embarrassed when someone rejects you. You feel shame. You feel humiliated,” but how do you know that you’re feeling that? You recognize that because of the sensations in your body.

After getting rejected, I noticed myself getting hot. I could feel tears welling up. I just wanted to get the fuck out of that grocery store as soon as I possibly could.

We can take those sensations and make it mean that we’re embarrassed. We can make it mean that person humiliated us. They rejected us.

That’s fine. Now what does rejection mean?

If we then go, “Well, it means I’m not good enough. They don’t want me. I was being too forward. I’m too much. That’s too aggressive. You shouldn’t ask people things like that. That’s inappropriate. I probably ruined her day. Now she’s freaked out and she feels unsafe.” Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

We can make rejection mean those things about us…but the truth is, when you dissolve the story around what rejection means, all that happened is that you made a request. Someone said no. You felt sensations. The end.

Instead of making rejection mean negative things about me, I sat in the car after, I rubbed my chest over my heart, and I told myself, “It’s okay. That was really brave. Not a lot of people would do that. A lot of people would chicken out. A lot of people would quit the series here—in fact, most people wouldn’t do this series in the first place. Nobody would fucking sign up for this. That is so courageous. That is so brave. That makes you so special.”

I really took the time to gas myself up in that moment, because…

Confidence Requires Courage

You cannot be confident without being courageous. And everyone wants to be  confident…but no one wants to be courageous.

What people don’t understand is that courage and confidence are one and the same. They go together.

It’s actually really special that I’m covering this subject now, because I’m just about to do my first public speaking event.

I’ve done public speaking before, but that was years ago, and I was on panels both times, so I was being asked questions.

This event is going to be more like a TED Talk type of thing. It’s called Fuck Up Nights, and it’s a bunch of successful entrepreneurs sharing their biggest fuck-ups in business.

It is one of my favorite events. It’s all real-ass people sharing their real-ass stories. But even though I’m excited for it, I am also fucking nervous.

Here’s the good news, though: this is the worst it’s ever going to be. It could be amazing, it could be a disaster, but my public speaking can only get better from here.

I have fears just like everyone else. The only difference between me and someone else is that I’m still fucking doing it.

I’m still going to do the public speaking even though I’m nervous, whereas most people would fall victim to their fear and say, “Well, I’m just not going to public speak until I feel more confident.”

No, no, no, no, no. You become confident by public speaking. You become confident from doing the very thing that you’re fucking afraid of. It’s not the other way around.

This is why it requires courage to be confident—because you have to be brave enough to do the thing you’re afraid of in order to become confident in it. So if you’re afraid of rejection…

Maybe you have to be brave enough to ask for what you want before you can be confident in the face of potential rejection.

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