Rejection is Just a Stepping Stone!

[SPEAKER_00]: good hope you have been a good week so far take this out let me know in the chat how you doing how you doing let me know in the comments if you're on YouTube how are you doing now one of the things that's important as we kick off today in fact thank you so much for your time thank you for subscribing for liking all those great things you know because our stats are still telling us
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some of you all are still dating us, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's go ahead and make this thing official.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead and subscribe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure you share and make sure you tell folk about the Eugene Hamilton podcast because I believe that great things are happening here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe this is as we're growing as we're learning as we're continuing to move forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is going to do some amazing things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for being here today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk today a little bit about
[SPEAKER_00]: a topic that some of us have, including myself until I learned and realized and became more mature in life, I didn't realize it was for my good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't realize that it actually worked in my favor, but I'll tell you a little bit about it in just a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go ahead and pray God, we thank you for this moment in time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this moment right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: this time where we can come together where we can, whether we're viewing, whether we're listening, we can hear from you, here next steps, and just dialogue as to how we can navigate the world that we live in now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bless my friend, whatever they might be going through, give them what they need to continue to make it through another day in your name, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: The topic of discussion today
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if I could put a title to it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It probably would say something like rejection as a stepping stone, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me do a heat check right quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many of you have ever been rejected?
[SPEAKER_00]: My hands up first, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: How many of you have a face rejection?
[SPEAKER_00]: There are lots of things that we've heard throughout life where
[SPEAKER_00]: successful people were not born successful but they had to go through rejection, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We heard about if you're a basketball fan, Michael Jordan, who was cut from his high school or junior high school basketball team and he's always talking about the guy that made the team and he didn't, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And how that rejection kind of lit a fire in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: that rejection him, not being able to participate on the varsity team and have to settle for the junior varsity of which he thought he was above.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing wrong with being on the junior varsity team.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's where your skills land you, but MJ was like, my skills are better than junior varsity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in his mind, he took that moment of rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Check this out and use it as an opportunity for growth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took that moment of rejection that time in which he thought, there's two things that are happening in the moment here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can hear me kind of in my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to say one thing, thinking one thing, let me slow down and break it down the sound bite.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes you and I are guilty of thinking that we are ready and we're not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, come a little bit closer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we think we're ready for certain opportunities, ready for certain stages, ready for certain rooms, ready for certain job titles and promotions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we haven't taken it the time to learn the lessons in our current role.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes rejection doesn't really come from other people, it comes, we've rejected ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've not allowed ourselves to take advantage of the opportunities in front of us to level up, to learn all that we can, to gain all the knowledge that we can, so that when the door opens for the next row or the next step up, we'll be ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's some of us are rejected.
[SPEAKER_00]: for other reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as an African-American man living in America, I do know that there are some people who are rejected because of their skin color.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people are rejected and it's funny because we've heard countless stories over the years of people who have lost out.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a story not long ago of a couple whose house was appraised.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may have seen it on social media or somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: It got a lot of buzz within the last nine to twelve months.
[SPEAKER_00]: This couple appraised their home and you know, they did not lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were African-American couple, living in this nice suburban area and their house appraised at a certain number, which was far lower than they thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then they came back with another company and posed as a Caucasian couple, saying everything else was the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same job, same amount of income, same neighborhood, and the house almost doubled in value.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we see that kind of rejection all over the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: But today I want us to hone in on the fact that rejection sometimes we can't control number two.
[SPEAKER_00]: We said there's some rejection that we bring up on ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's another kind of rejection that is based on timing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've got to start using it as, well, if you want to be successful, you don't have to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would suggest that if you want to begin to reframe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would suggest, as you start looking at it as a stepping stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, there's this research that was done about the, check this out, the psychology of rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what the research says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Research shows that experiencing rejection can strengthen resilience.
[SPEAKER_00]: A study published in the journal of personality and social psychology indicates that individuals who have face rejection learned to cope more effectively and develop a stronger motivation to pursue their goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing like facing someone
[SPEAKER_00]: that has constantly been pushed down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, when I look at boxing matches, I'm amazed at the underdog.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one who is not favored because they come out with a fire that sometimes the person who's not the underdog don't realize that they underestimate this person because this person has been rejected, they've not been able to get their division tired of whatever it was and they come with a different fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: They come with a different kind of motivation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's difficult to stop someone that has learned how to use motivation, I'm sorry, that has learned how to use rejection as motivation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, jot that down.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing like being in a fight with somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: who's been there, done that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've heard every excuse in the book, but they kept on fighting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing like someone like a Michael Jordan that's been told you're not good enough, but I know I'm good enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm going back to the gym.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm using spotlights and streetlights at night to shoot three pointers because I'm working on my game because you told me I wasn't good enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to prove to you that I am good enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing like someone who has all the degrees.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've done all the certifications and they are well-qualified of poor position, but because of whatever they don't get the role, man, they're going to knock until somebody opens their door.
[SPEAKER_00]: And research tells us that, hey, there's nothing like a person that has been rejected and has learned how to turn rejection into this type of resilience.
[SPEAKER_00]: that age down and facing whatever, man, listen, listen, it's, it's interesting because we're raising a generation of young people, I believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: that have a strange relationship with rejection, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I watched some young people, I don't know if it's Gen Z, I've lost track of the alphabet, forgive me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gen X, I don't know which generation is rolling through middle school and elementary school right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll figure it out in a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I will make sure I put the right handle on the right title on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what happens is this, I see that we are, because this here's what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me preface it by saying this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Extreme fanaticism or extreme conservatism, oftentimes produces extreme liberalism.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that if my generation, right, was raised in a very conservative home, right, we were made like I was made to work for everything that we got, made to appreciate a dollar, made to appreciate everything that came on our table right from from from working hard to to just to making sure we're providing those kinds of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They know the value of hard work.
[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes they don't want their keys to face with their face, with their face so they go the exact opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to raise my kid that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to provide for them and I get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes we ruin them because oftentimes, especially some of my peers, they don't let their kids get any of the lessons.
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand making life easier or better.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we do, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Every generation is supposed to get better and stronger and have more resources to aid their family and their offspring.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But right now, we are dealing with a generation of young people that are being raised by individuals who had it hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because they had it hard, they don't want their kids to have any parts of hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because they have no parts of heart because they don't understand anything about getting out the mud, right, for those that are not from our neighborhood that that simply means working really hard to get what you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now we see a generation of young people who don't understand that rejection
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes, oftentimes, if you view it the right way, is fuel for the fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: They buckle under rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: They throw on the towel under rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: They lose it under rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: They get emotionally torn under rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't understand that under this banner of rejection, you find out who you really are.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't understand that oftentimes when we are rejected, when we are cast down, when we are pushed to the side, we really figure out all this talking goes out the window.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we'll push down, we really see if we are who we say we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stasics, sorry, statistics goes on to say this.
[SPEAKER_00]: and sales and entrepreneurship, successful individuals often encounter more rejection than their less successful peers.
[SPEAKER_00]: As an entrepreneur, I hear a healthy amount of knows every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I'm pitching my services as I'm pitching things, individuals who I think can benefit from what I have to offer through, speaking through coaching, through consulting.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are lots of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear, let me put it this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear way more knows than I hear, yes, or yes is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which simply means I've got to build up this kind of
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to say shield because it's not a shield.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to build up this kind of thick skin that allows rejection to sting me just enough to keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't let rejection knock me down, but the sting of rejection puts life into perspective for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sting of rejection for me, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: When someone tells me, oh man, thank you so much for your pitch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for your offer, but we'll pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I got to email this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kid, you're not, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: If this is in real time, I got to email a few days ago, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is not a real time, I should say a couple days, I got to email from somebody who I thought I knocked the ball off the park.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, they sought me out.
[SPEAKER_00]: They went to my website.
[SPEAKER_00]: They submitted an inquiry form.
[SPEAKER_00]: They requested my services for an event later on this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: They requested my speaking services.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got on the phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of went through the whole process.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told them what I'm going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, they were excited.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were, they were through the roof.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were head over heels.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool, you're the guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that person wasn't the final decision maker.
[SPEAKER_00]: The person I talk with, they had to sail what I sold them to their boss.
[SPEAKER_00]: And their boss said, cool story.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a good guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I liked his video.
[SPEAKER_00]: I liked his website.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, he's active on social media.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the hard part about it for me was that several weeks have passed, but I normally just wait for them to reach back out to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I said, you know what it's been about?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, four or five weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me reach out to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I reached out and got an immediate reply.
[SPEAKER_00]: So sorry for the delay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like they've been sitting on the email.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't know how to tell me to let me down.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not let me down.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's let me know what the real deal is.
[SPEAKER_00]: They finally hit CNN and said, hey, we're going another direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll keep you in mind for future events.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stung.
[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't feel good.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, wasn't ready for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I reached out just thinking that oversight got busy right quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: But hey, here's the, here's the agreement form, please sign it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that thought was going to happen next.
[SPEAKER_00]: To what happens in life is, we've got to learn how, let me say it a better way, because sometimes rejection does knock you down, you just gotta learn how to get back up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gotten strong enough, I believe, over the year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, some rejection, it does knock the wind out of me, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because I hear no so much, because I hear, oh, we'll pass on this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, because I hear, oh, wow, nice proposal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and I try to, you know, come back with no, no, no, but we're just going to the direction this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear that so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: It lights a fire in me to keep going until I find that yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get rejected so much throughout the day, or throughout the week, or throughout the month.
[SPEAKER_00]: It stinks.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why I tell people a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know there's a whole wave of pushing people to be entrepreneurs, but can be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You say it's not even a part of the show today in this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: But entrepreneurship isn't for everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people have a bad relationship, but if you don't know how to take no, yeah, you ain't gonna last long.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because you're not a good person, not because you're not skill, not because you're not smart, because you don't have that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just because you don't have that, that mean you're less than, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's just something else for you to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Learning how to view rejection as a stepping stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: can become your superpower.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you find a learn how to look at rejection as have you ever been, Mac, this, have you ever been interested in someone, maybe you dated them, maybe you're trying it out, maybe you went on a couple of dates and the other person was like, I'm, I'm cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't die, we don't jail, we don't connect, like where I thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, we know thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Has it ever happened to you before?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm being nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: The conversation could have gone a whole not the way, but for the sake of the listening and viewing audience, I'll keep it the way I'm sharing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And ask yourself, doing those moments, have you completely lost it?
[SPEAKER_00]: and say it to yourself, I'm not good for anybody?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or did you come to the conclusion that I'm not good for that person, but I am good for somebody?
[SPEAKER_00]: See, when you learn how to unpackage, how to look at and through which blinks to view rejection, you begin to see life in a different light.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not good for that person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not good for that somebody, but I'm good for another somebody I'll keep looking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not good for that job.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got that application that interview didn't go right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to stop looking for a job.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody's going to hire me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_00]: That contract didn't work for me for this season.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to stop looking for another contract or another opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: That one wasn't for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll land the plane in just a minute, but check this out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is where many people miss the mark, and I don't want you to miss the mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: People oftentimes, people that I coach, people that I'm in conversation with, people that I mentor, whoever it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: People that I'm just cool with, sometimes I hear stories of their rejection experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I ask this critical question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna ask you this question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the rejection process, after you sat back, after you took a deep breath, after the rejection pass, did you sit down and take notes?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, many people missed the mark because they just let rejection pass without letting rejection be a critical lesson for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just let rejection be an experience of a moment, and they say, oh, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, I got through that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But did you sit down and say, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: This person gave me some things that I should consider as to why I was rejected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me check on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, if a job in many cases, in fact, when I used to look for jobs and somebody rejected me, I asked them why I straight up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why aren't you hiring me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I didn't go to the right school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay, I didn't have enough qualifications.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay, you didn't see this experience on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, I need to work on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I can't change the school I went to, but the other things that whatever I can work on, let me say it that way, I'm willing to work on if it makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you gotta make it makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm gonna, well, actually, it was someone, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it be a friendship, whether it be romantic, whatever it is that you're in, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that thing doesn't work out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The friendship doesn't continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's, it's, it's much more of you to ask the person why didn't this work out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you begin to look at yourself in the mirror.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be self aware.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's twenty twenty five.
[SPEAKER_00]: Self awareness is invoked.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's actually okay to look in the mirror and tell yourself, you know what, you got some eye bookers to get them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay, look at yourself and say, hey, I got some hair in this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I need to fix it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay, look at the mirror and say, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: My attitude isn't in the right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I need to fix it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way I handled this person was improper.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, oh, that's why I didn't work out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to fix that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't let rejection simply pass by.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's a bar.
[SPEAKER_00]: take lessons from rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be a student of rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't sit in the back of the class, sit in the front row, right in front of the teacher, right in front of the Permitian board and ask all the questions of rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get all the lessons that you can about rejection because your know is coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't want anything to block that, I'm sorry, your yes is coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't want anything about your rejection process to stand in the way or to block the yes that's on the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you heard nothing else I say during this episode, I leave you with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rejection can be your friend if you let it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, chew on that for a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rejection can be your best ally if you let it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rejection can be the best teacher you ever had if you let rejection do it's working your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So start looking at rejection negatively.
[SPEAKER_00]: Start taking notes and lessons from rejection and watch your life sore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for tuning in today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really hope that through rejection, you learn how to go growing low.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that through rejection, life is full of rejections.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your yes is coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't hang your hat, don't hang your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I hope and pray that through rejection, you become everything that you will bond to be and don't let rejection break you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, this episode out with somebody who's having a tough time with rejection, somebody who lost their job, somebody who lost their relationship, whatever it shared this episode with that friend of yours and let them know that there are some nuggets that need to take from this episode and keep on giving as that's the gift that keeps on going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you again for tuning in today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for your time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Join me next week for another episode of The Museum of the Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take care.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peace.