Sunny Lenarduzzi: You're going to get told no.
Sometimes it's temporary.
Sometimes it's permanent.
Some doors close.
Some doors open.
But the best way to continue to move forward is to get better at handling and bouncing
back from rejection.
And how do you get really good at handling rejection?
You need to get rejected more.
Seriously.
So as I was listening to an interview recently and it was a Tim Ferriss interview and he
talked about the idea of a rejection challenge, that you put yourself in scenarios where you're
going to get told no.
The easiest way to do it is you go to a coffee shop and you get your normal order but then
you ask for a discount because most likely people are going to say no.
So I figured you know what?
Might as well give it a try.
Good.
Can I get a green tea?
I'm going to do the Jasmine.
Jasmine?
Yeah.
You'll get it to go?
I'll get it to go please, yeah.
[
Yes.
How much is it?
2.65.
Could I get a discount on that?
No, sorry.
Are you sure?
Okay.
It's 2.65.
SunnyLenarduzzi: Yep, no problem.
A little awkward, a little uncomfortable, kind of like ripping a band aid off.
But overall not so bad.
Hearing the words no or having your work slammed by a stranger doesn't really feel good, but
the truth of the matter is if you want to be successful and if you're putting yourself
out there at any capacity unfortunately it is inevitable.
It's all about figuring out how to navigate that feeling and navigate that kind of attention
because it doesn't feel good and you're human so it's going to affect you, but making sure
that doesn't affect you to the point where you just stop trying because that's the truest
tragedy of all.
I wanted to breakdown some of the ways I've gotten used to dealing with rejection and
with hate all while having a smile on my face.
What the first thing is that you really need to understand and know about rejection or
hate is that it's not personal.
Really truly and honestly it's not personal.
Facts are facts, rules are rules, and preconceived notions are preconceived notions.
You have no idea what the person who is rejecting you or criticizing you or throwing hate your
way is going through in their own life, or what their set of rules and judgements and
whatever it is that they've been built and created stories around for their entire life,
but they're just projecting them on to you.
It has nothing to do with you, it's not personal, and you can't take it to heart necessarily.
It actually has nothing to do with you.
Now what you can do that's really constructive is when you do get any sort of negative feedback
or criticism or you are rejected from something, you can objectively take yourself out of the
situation, separate from the emotion of it, and kind of question, “What can I take from
this?
What's the opportunity?”
The greatest way that I've learned to handle rejection or any kind of hatred coming my
way is to look at it and figure out if it's useful.
It's not, I let it go.
I just leave it.
I have a moment.
I shake it off.
But I will also try and always see the opportunity.
Seeing the opportunity in pain, seeing the opportunity in a negative situation is the
best way to see real growth and real change for the positive in your life.
Try and see if there's an opportunity.
If there isn't, if it's truly just a harmful thing being thrown your way, you don't need
it.
Tip number two, and this is something that I have dealt with recently, is something I
mentioned in the first part of this video is that it's a projection.
So it has nothing to do with you.
It's not personal.
A great book on how to really achieve freedom in your life from feeling this sort of negative
energy from other people is The Four Agreements.
I can't recommend it enough.
It's basically my bible.
I read it all the time as a reminder, and one of the agreements is not to take things
personally.
Part of how you don't take things personally is understanding that a lot of what comes
your way is a projection of other people's beliefs, there are stories, whatever it might
be.
I wanted to give you an example of how this showed up in my life recently actually right
here on YouTube and it came through a comment.
I'm going to read you the comments.
This is pure proof that most of the time it's not about you.
It's about what the other person is projecting onto you.
I got this comment on one of my most recent videos and it said, “I owe you an apology.
I've been feeling a bit resentful towards you for shifting your brand, as you've obviously
shifted from strategic in the physical perspective to the emotional and thought perspective.
The reason for the resentment I believe is likely just to do with you moving from comfortable
for me, i.e., what I know and can understand really well, to what I do not.
I almost did not watch this episode but I'm so glad that I did, and I want to thank you
and myself for pushing me outside of my comfort zone.”
Pretty powerful.
If every troll in the world left comments like that, it'd be a much better place.
I have so much respect for that person.
I'm not going to name who they are, but I have so much respect for that person because
they understand that their feeling of resentment towards me or hatred towards me or whatever
it was, was coming from a place of, uh, she's doing things that maybe I want to be doing,
or she's talking about things that maybe I want to be talking about, or maybe there are
things that I'm so uncomfortable talking about and I don't want to dive into, so she's now
someone that I hate.
But you see how that happens?
It wasn't about me.
It was about their own interpretation of what I was talking about.
What I want you to do and really an important part of handling rejection and hate is knowing
who you are.
This is a safe community as I always say and in the comments below what I want you to do
right now is pause the video.
Come back to it.
Pause the video right now and comment with one really amazing trait that you have, because
the more that you're able to take pride in who you are and what you do, the less this
stuff is going to bother you.
Tip number three is you are your own best advocate.
Like I said, comment below with the best part about you, the best trait about you, what
you're really an expert at and what you know to be super, super true about yourself because
there is good in each and everyone of you and you have to celebrate that and it will
outshine the negativity or anything anyone else is going to come and throw your way.
One of the things that I do is that I have actually started repeating and reprogramming
loops in my brain.
What I mean by that is I mentioned a book a few videos back and will link to that in
the cards about mind hacking, and mind hacking is all about treating your brain kind of like
a computer and hacking a computer.
Something that you have to do when you're coding is create loops.
What I've done is created positive loops in my brain.
Reiterating things that I want to believe about myself or create in my life, and whenever
I have downtime I'm repeating these five sentences every single moment.
Now my five sentences are probably very different than what yours would be, but they can be
things like, “I am the pinnacle of a happy, healthy relationship and coupled with my partner,
and our friends and the people in our lives admire us for that.”
So even if you're not there in the reality right now, reprogramming that loop in your
brain will actually help you start to work towards that.
You can also say things like, “I'm a multimillionaire entrepreneur and I'm creating massive impact
in this world.”
Write just down a few sentences, five sentences maybe about what you want to create and your
life is going to actually help you visualize it and achieve it.
Be strong and steady in your own beliefs about yourself as opposed to listening to what other
people have to say.
Number four, rejection ultimately is protection.
Now I know that might sound really weird because it hurts, it doesn't feel good, but sometimes
when you're rejected from things or sometimes when people leave your tribe or leave your
circle or whatever it might be, it's the best thing that it's ever happened to you.
It might not feel like it in the moment, but a lot of the times when rejection shows up
it's actually protecting you from something.
Whether you know it, whether it shows up later it's usually always the case.
So when you can look at rejection as a sign of protection as opposed to this hurtful,
mean-spirited thing, it's a much easier thing to deal with and it takes the emotionally
out of it as well.
Now number five, if you're not in the arena getting your ass kicked I am not interested.
This sentence came up in my life when I was going through a really challenging growth
spurt and some growing pains both personally and professionally.
I remember sitting at this conference, it was at South by Southwest and I believe it
was 2016 and I was listening to Brene Brown on stage.
If you don't know Brene Brown, she's got one of the most viewed TEDx Talks or TED Talks
of all time on vulnerability, highly recommend checking it out, I'll link to it below.
But the reason this is impacted me so much is because it's really easy to put weight
into what other people say, and especially if you're just starting out.
If you're watching this and you're just starting your business or your career or you're just
starting to put yourself out there in a really new way and you're feeling vulnerable and
fragile about it, I'd love to know, and I would love for you to put thoughts in the
comments below because this is when you need the most support and this is when you really
need to hear this sentence and it's when I needed to hear it.
I remember tears streaming down my face going, “Oh my gosh.
I'm in the arena.
I don't need to give a … about what other people are saying who are not."
Prime example I get comments left, right, and center about my videos on YouTube.
A lot of it is positive, but oftentimes also I have people saying to me, “Oh, you might
want tweak this shot,” or, “You might want to change the imagery,” or, “You
might want to fix the audio.”
Then I'll go and look at that person and they never posted a video in their life.
So they're not in the arena, so I'm really not interested.
If you are someone who is creating videos on the regular and you have so much experience
in this, I'm going to listen to you and I'm going to take that because there's always
something to learn.
But if you're not in the arena again not really interested.
That quote actually came from Theodore Roosevelt and a speech he did in 1910.
I want to read it to you because it's really, really impactful.
Whatever you're doing right now, pause it and take these words in because they could
probably change the trajectory of where you are right now if you truly take them to heart.
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles
or where the doer of deeds could've done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again
because there is no effort without error or shortcoming.
It is he or she who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the
end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails
while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
neither know victory nor defeat.
Because like I said at the beginning of the video, if you're not playing the game, you're
neither winning, nor losing.
Seems like a pretty boring way to live your life.
So you're actually doing the things, you're actually in the game.
If you're receiving any kind of backlash or negativity, know that it's probably because
people are a little jealous that you're actually putting yourself out there.
And you right now, I hope you're giving yourself a pat on the back.
If you just did that, give me a like below or put pat on the back in the comment section
because I hope that you are.
It takes a lot of courage to do what you're really meant to do in this life, so you should
stop and pause and recognize that and know that a lot of the negativity is coming from
a place of jealousy.
And don't forget about #bossclub and comment below with that hashtag with a thoughtful
comment about the content that you just watched and you'll be entered to win BYO Boss swag
or a shout-out in one of my videos, which I'm going to do right now.
ScienceGal Aquatics left a really great comment on one of my recent videos.
She said: You are my absolute favorite channel to learn from.
Thank you for the video.
Thank you for watching and for commenting.
Like I said, don't forget to comment below with the #bossclub and I will see you in the
next video.