726. Why You Should Learn to Love Rejection

Hello everybody welcome back to another episode of the way the world works. I have talked a lot about failure and my failure is a good thing why the best entrepreneurs the most successful people have learned to fail. I want to frame that in a different way and frame it in terms of rejection which is a kind of failure but it's a little different. So I want to talk about rejection today and let's be honest nobody likes being rejected it is horrible even just talking about it I'm like oh that feeling of being rejected is just awful but let's start with me just kind of telling you

a personal story so I love to sing I love to act I love to perform it brings me so much joy so much joy and I missed out on a lot of joy when I was younger when I was a kid when I was a especially junior high school or in high school or because something happens when you get to junior high and high school where you start worrying more about what other people think of you and let me tell you that is if you can master not caring what other people think of you you will be so far ahead other people we're just going to tie into what I'm about to say so I was so scared of rejection that

I used to panic before auditions right because the thing about performing is you have to audition to get a role to get cast that's just the way that's just the way it works that's the way it goes so I would just freeze I would get such bad anxiety because not because I didn't like singing not because I didn't like acting up because I was bad at those things but because I worried about them telling me no thinking about being rejected thinking about hearing them say no felt so personal to me it wasn't them just saying you're not right for this part you're not right for this musical because you know we

talk about the free market and everybody has preference right directors casting they have preference on who they want that's all it is right it's actually very impersonal but what do you feel when someone rejects you you think oh they hate me they didn't like me oh I'm a terrible singer I'm not a good singer I'm not a good actor so I'm just gonna stop singing I'm gonna stop acting and that got to my head that got to my head so much and I started doubting myself and the more I doubted myself the worse the auditions got like not even not even the auditions being bad themselves but I wouldn't even go sometimes I

would get to the parking lot and I'd have to go in to go audition and I would just turn around and go home because I didn't want to be rejected and that also goes with making friends like not for me personally but for other I know that this happens this is another way if you're not a performer making new friends when you're older and you start dating you're gonna get rejected by people it's it's about it's a numbers game to be honest with you you have to keep trying and hoping that you're going to be something that someone else is looking for whether that is a friend whether that is

you know finding a partner someday and dating whether that is auditioning for a role everybody has to get rejected it's an unfortunate part of life so I like I said really struggled with that and because of that I missed out I missed out on so much joy that I could have had from from acting and singing no later on in life I decided one day that I was just done being scared I was done being scared I wasn't gonna get everyone to like me nothing I can do nothing you can do will make everybody like you I'm sorry to tell you that it is the is the sad truth so I decided I

was going to do stand up comedy now stand up comedy if you want to be rejected someday every like when I know you're younger now but I think everybody should try a stand up comedy because nobody even the best stand up comic you have ever seen the funniest person in the world the most paid you know stand up comic has bombed has been rejected on stage and the feedback is really quick so if you're auditioning for a musical you really don't know if you got a callback if they like you if they want to cast you until they've seen everybody and that could take days right later

somebody who weeks for some things like more important like Broadway or something but so you don't find out right away let me tell you when you were on stage telling jokes you find out real quickly if you're gonna be rejected or not and there have been times again because every room is different you have different audiences some audiences are really gonna like your jokes some aren't and a lot of times when you're starting out with comedy there are two people in the audience I have done comedy for one person before one person and I gave it and honestly

it was fun show they left but you get rejected you get the feedback instantly because if they don't like your joke if they don't think you're funny they're not going to laugh and the way that you know you're you're doing well on stage is people laughing people engaging people smiling people clapping you know if you're successful in business people buy your product if you're successful as a comedian people laugh when you have something funny to say and I remember my first handful of shows were really good and I wasn't I wasn't bombing that's what you call it when nobody

laughs and then you have a a moment where you go and it's a it's a bad night and no one's laughing at you and you want to just crawl in a hole and hide and never come out again because five minutes seems very short but when you are standing on stage and you're the spotlight is on you and there's you know everyone's paying attention or room full of people and not one of them is laughing or worse like you just hear someone like cough in the background like they're like you can hear what's going on because there's no one laughing that is the worst feeling in the world and it was really hard the

first time guess what it was hard the second time to it was hard the third time and it was hard the fourth time I want to preface that I'm not saying in a row people found me funny I'm very funny but you bomb over and over again I was doing this for several years so you get used to it suddenly it's really bad those first handful of times and suddenly it doesn't phase you anymore not only does it not phase you it makes you go back to the drawing board and say what can I do differently you know maybe it was a bad room maybe just the audience was not

vibing with you if you if you want to say it that way but also maybe your joke wasn't funny maybe that wasn't the best joke maybe you need to change the wording maybe you need to tweak it a little bit maybe next time you go up try something else and so this rejection is an instant feedback it's actually telling you how can I do better and maybe not get rejected again again I think the interesting thing about comedy is you're going to be rejected no matter what like even the funniest person still bombs even professionals still bomb so it's it's nice because no matter how safe

or how good you think you are you're going to be humbled really quickly but this is this concept of rejection so rejection is one of the learning how to accept it and learning how to be rejected often was one of the most powerful and important lessons I ever learned in life and man I wish I didn't have to learn it when I was an adult it would have been so much better to learn it when I was a kid and get to audition for these musicals and I missed out on all these opportunities you know because I was so scared of someone saying no or someone not laughing you

know at my joke and it became empowering every time I could go on stage and do a set to do a five minute set I bombed I once bombed oh my goodness you guys I once bombed for 30 minutes 30 minutes if you think five minutes is a long time I once stood in a room full of people in Harrisburg Pennsylvania who did not find me funny at all and for 30 minutes I had to keep going it was awful and now I look back at that as one of the best performances I ever did not because it was good but because I learned so much about rejection and shaking it off shaking it off and

trying again and sometimes you don't want to go back you need to force yourself after you get rejected to go do the thing you were rejected from almost immediately after to show yourself that listen it happens things happen we're gonna we're gonna dust ourselves off and try again now there is this school I follow on Instagram and I don't even know how I found them I I love school choice I love different approaches to schooling you know that's the the teacher and me and so I found the school I believe they're called alpha schools I think it's more than one I

think it's alpha schools not school but they do this thing the video I found on Instagram was they do like daily rejection therapy maybe not daily I think but it's in their curriculum and the school is really cool they use AI to teach like your basic lessons like math and science and all that but then they spend the rest of the time really teaching you real world skills one of those is rejection therapy it's part of the curriculum and I just love that and I think the way they do it from what I watched is they have the students go to stores and ask them for free stuff and I

don't know if it's like well you sponsor us to do this or if they're literally just going into stores being like can I have free french fries or something and the people being like no you can't have free french fries and that might sound silly and like that's not a big deal but for people like me who've spent so long just fearing rejection that can that that oh I would never even now I can stand up and bomb for 30 minutes but I don't want to go any ask somebody for free stuff even that makes me but so this rejection therapy is so cool and I was I was watching this video I was

thinking wow these kids are going to be so far ahead of everybody else because they're not scared to fail and when you start applying for jobs or you know if you don't I hope all of you do whatever you want to do maybe that's entrepreneurship maybe that's being a writer whatever it is maybe it's being a stand up comic but for your people who just they have a career and they want to have a boss they don't want to necessarily own a business and they start applying for jobs that's you have to handle rejection that way too I remember I used to take it so hard when I would apply for jobs and

I'd get interviews I'd even get three or four interviews by then you think I'm locked in I'm going to get this job and then you don't and again you take it personally you think oh they hate me they don't like me they think I'm you know dumb they think I can't do this and it's not about you shocker it's not about you you just weren't a good fit so when you know and had a handle rejection and how to bounce back from it you are going to be so far ahead because these little setbacks like not getting a job or maybe not getting the part in that play but then

20 auditions later you get a part in an even better play that's life rejection is life you can't get everyone to like you not everybody can say yes to you not everybody is going to laugh at every one of your jokes and I have so much just I admire professional actors so much because again I love that I love to do it for fun but I think of like Broadway actresses who most of you know most there's a lot of actors and most never get cast in anything big but they're going to several auditions every day and pouring their heart pouring something is as personal as a song

you know and and showing people what they can do and then just getting shut down over and over and over again and it's really really hard and it takes a very special person but you can train yourself to be good at rejection you can train yourself to do it it took me again I don't want to talk about how old I was when I learned how to do it but I was not young but you can do it now you can you can find ways and maybe brainstorm this would be a really good family activity actually and I think you could do this for all age kids I think maybe you got to tweak the exercises

a little bit but find a way to get rejected find a way to put yourself in a situation where you are going to get rejected over and over and over again and you're going to find out something amazing you're going to find out that you're still okay people can say no to you people can not laugh at your joke you're fine it's going to be okay just keep going just do it again and do it again so it's it's like failure but usually when I've talked about failure I've been like okay sometimes you know the best entrepreneurs start a business that fails and it you know and that stinks

and they start again but this is a little more personal right because this is like no I want you to get rejected I want you to go do something that you feel so just vulnerable and someone says no to you and do it again and do it again do it until it doesn't hurt anymore do it until you actually start to look forward to it do until like like I got to a point at comedy we're like oh okay nobody liked that all right well I'm gonna go back and order a better joke that I'm gonna come back to the same room next week and I'm gonna make them laugh because it makes you want to try

harder so get rejected that is your homework assignment I want all of you parents to go get rejected that's my words of wisdom today I will leave it there as always don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast and until next time I will talk to you later