Have you ever stood on the edge of something new, only to allow fear of rejection to hold you back?
What if no one responds? What if nobody cares? What if they say no?
Where does that fear come from?
In this week's episode, I get vulnerable and share how an experience when I was 13 fuelled a fear of rejection that spanned years.
I also share:
3 recent rejections and how I responded to them;
how I reshaped my relationship with rejection so I could change the narrative, stop feeling stuck, and start living life lit; and
the mantra I recite whenever rejection threatens to hold me back.
You'll leave this episode thinking differently about your relationship with rejection and fired up to take the first step on your mission, whatever that may be and wherever that may lead.
Support the show
Buy me a coffee
Leave a review
Stuff to Light Up Your Life
🚀 Get my book, The Triple C Method®️
🚀 Work with me
🚀 Get Triple C 101
🚀 Do yoga with me
Connect with me:
Have you ever stood on the edge of something new, only to allow fear of rejection to hold you back?
What if no one responds? What if nobody cares? What if they say no?
Where does that fear come from?
In this week's episode, I get vulnerable and share how an experience when I was 13 fuelled a fear of rejection that spanned years.
I also share:
3 recent rejections and how I responded to them;
how I reshaped my relationship with rejection so I could change the narrative, stop feeling stuck, and start living life lit; and
the mantra I recite whenever rejection threatens to hold me back.
You'll leave this episode thinking differently about your relationship with rejection and fired up to take the first step on your mission, whatever that may be and wherever that may lead.
Support the show
Buy me a coffee
Leave a review
Stuff to Light Up Your Life
🚀 Get my book, The Triple C Method®️
🚀 Work with me
🚀 Get Triple C 101
🚀 Do yoga with me
Connect with me:
I've not quite pinpointed the genesis of this, but there's one particular incident, story, situation that sticks out in my mind as where that fear of rejection may have really taken hold of me, and I'm going to share that story because the story is subconsciously influenced by my relationship with rejection, but also subconsciously heighten my need for external validation, and I think this is something that many of you can relate to. You're listening to the Triple C Project. Welcome to the Triple C Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, use confidence and your courage so you can live life lit. I'm your host, ryan Spence, the big law dropout, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop and big, hairy, pervasive goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now, with friends, I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat and allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. Hey, hey, welcome to episode 90 of the Triple C Project.
Speaker 1:And as I record this, on the 29th of November, here in the UK, it is freezing, it's probably the coldest day, or feels like one of the coldest days of the year Around three degrees Celsius, going to drop to around minus one tonight. And yeah, it's been dark since about 4pm, so it's definitely hibernation weather as far as I'm concerned. And, yeah, we are coming into December. So there's the whole front and excitement of Christmas for those who look forward to and love Christmas. But this time of year also can be tinged with a little bit of sadness, regret, forlornness at what you haven't achieved this year. Because we can put all that pressure on ourselves, particularly with the whole new year resolutions, things of what we're going to do this year, where we're going to be, that we're not going to be in the same place next year as we were last year, and so when you get to this time of the year and you haven't achieved some of those things, it can feel quite demoralising, even though it shouldn't do. And as we delve deeper into the depth of winter and we come closer to the start of the new year, there can be that sense of what am I going to do next year, that sense of feeling a little bit flat, and I want to help you with that.
Speaker 1:So throughout the month of December I will be hosting find your spark sessions, and these sessions are designed to help you find your spark to, first of all, get you to stop beating yourself up and to actually recognise the things that you have achieved this year, how far you have come this year, but also to get you on track for next year. What do you want to do and how do you plan to make those things happen? Because it's all very well having these big, grand resolutions, but if we haven't got an idea of what we want to do, if we don't know what that first step is, and then the next, and then the next, how are you going to get there? So if you want to get to this time next year feeling in a stronger position, or just get there not beating yourself up, and you want to kick off the year or just get the idea end of this year feeling a little bit more alive, a little bit more beat, a little bit more optimistic about what's coming up for you, then you're going to want to join one of these find your spark sessions 75 minutes, me and you one on one, and we're going to get shit done and you're going to leave feeling amazing. So, to get in on one of these limited sessions. Send me a DM. Either on LinkedIn you can find me, ryan Spence or Instagram at I am underscore Ryan Spence or drop me an email. Hey, at I am Ryan Spencecom and in the subject line just put spark and I'll shoot you the link and the deets about what you need to do to get yourself into one of these sessions. So that's find your spark. Dm me the word spark and I will shoot you over at the deets and get you kicking off the new year. In fact, better than that. I'm going to get you ending the year and kicking off the new year in a way that feels good to you, that feels sustainable to you, that makes you feel lit.
Speaker 1:Let's get to the show. So this week this week's going to be I'm going to tell you I'm going to be a little bit more vulnerable this week, and not in in that horrible over sharing way that you see on social media. There is a reason for me sharing some of the things that I'm going to share in this week's episode, because this week I'm going to talk about something I haven't talked about before, a fear that looms large, that I see in my clients, I see in people I speak to and was very, very prevalent in myself, and it's a fear of, not fear of failure, which I've talked about a lot, but something different. I'm going to talk about rejection and how you handle rejection. So, for me, fear of rejection has loomed large in my life for a long time and, as I've been on my personal development quest and through coaching and through therapy and journaling and meditation and all of that, I've not quite pinpointed the genesis of this. But there's one particular incident, story, situation that sticks out in my mind as where that fear of rejection may have really taken hold of me, and I'm going to share that story because the story is subconsciously has influenced my relationship with rejection but also subconsciously heighten my need for external validation, and I think this is something that Many of you can relate to. And so I feel that sharing this story Make it be helpful to you, which is why I'm sharing it, and I'll talk more about that as we progress through this episode.
Speaker 1:But here's what happened. So I was, I think I was around 13. It's my 13th birthday as I record it. I was living in Nottingham at the time. I had a, some friends at school and and there's one friend who we. I was pretty, we were pretty tight together and we're supposed to meet in town for my birthday and at that age used to hang out in town, you know, maybe do a bit shopping, get a bit of food. You know it's pretty much fun, but that's kind of what the plan was.
Speaker 1:So I was waiting at the a lot of time at the bus stop and those days obviously know my bar phones or anything like that and and he was late, it's cool, people are late. I mean, you're getting buses in those days. You know things happen. So you know I remember how long went by maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes. I was like, okay, I'm gonna give him a call. So Went to the phone box again no mobile phones and called him. I was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm on my way, I'm on my way, I'm coming, coming. It's like okay, cool, cool. Went back to the spot, wait again. No, the 15, 20 minutes, this is odd. Called again yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming and coming. Wait again, and I think I Think it was probably about an hour, just over an hour, and then called the third time and he just said, yeah, sorry, I can't come. And that was it. No explanation, nothing, just didn't turn up. So that was me in town on my birthday Waiting for a friend that had just decided that they weren't going to turn up.
Speaker 1:And it's funny because it's not a story that I've carried around with me all of these years, but it's a story that has come up as I've gone on this journey and started to kind of really look at who I am and what makes me me. And I remember when it first popped back up and it's probably about a year, year and a half ago, during a therapy session, hit no therapy session and that pain of that 13 year old really hit home and really came back. And as I started to explore that, a lot of things started to become clear. They never wanted to feel like that again and so I would avoid rejection. But I would also seek external validation and I would do that largely by Performing. So if you've read my book, the triple C method, you know that I had these big dreams of being a pop star.
Speaker 1:But singing and performing was a huge part of my childhood. Whether it was drama at school, whether it was any event where they wanted someone to perform, I was there doing my Michael Jackson dancers or singing my own songs or whatever it was. And I did that because I Loved. I loved it. You know I love the actual actor performing. But I also realized now that I did it because I love the adoration and the acceptance. I love those sweet hits of of dopamine. I mean, dopamine is a hell of a drug Right just makes you feel so good, makes you feel on the high, and you just crave more and more and more of it. And that's what I got through performing.
Speaker 1:I was Accepted, not rejected, and I also frequently, as I said, try to avoid rejection. So some of the ways this came up and I was I was laughing to myself as I was thinking about this episode and some of the things that came up for me. But At school girls I was terrified to ask girls out, you know, and I had lots of Female friends I got on with really well and that's kind of carried on through life. But Looking back, I know there were girls who I was really attracted to and I got on with really well, but I never asked them out on a date because I was scared of rejection. And you know, who knows what would have happened if I had gone over that fear and gone ahead and asked and I always fell on On the fringe of most social groups that I was a part of and that wasn't necessarily to do with the other people in the group. It was really to do again with this fear of rejection because I Would put why I would participate quite freely in the group and you know, I mean respond to questions, conversations and take part in what was going on. I was too scared to actually initiate because by Initiating an event suggesting a particular thing, I Was opening myself up to People saying no to being rejected.
Speaker 1:And another thing, another thing which came up for me as I was preparing this episode is I'm Social media and again I talk about this a little bit in in the book. I was one of those, what you would call a lurker on social media and also in like the, you know, the various WhatsApp groups that you set up amongst friends or communities or whatever. I Was the person who I would there, I would read, I would respond, but I would rarely initiate. I would rarely initiate a conversation because the idea of that being crickets, of that humble. We sort of breezing through as people ignored in my mind what you shared and didn't respond to the conversation that you'd initiated. Again it was. It was terrifying. I think it was all tied back to that feeling of being that 13 year old boy who was let down by his friend on his birthday.
Speaker 1:I Remember this came up when I was Accepted into the squad for boxing for the white collar boxing match again, I talk about that a little bit in the book and Because it's for charity. When you're in the squad and as well as fighting you also have to sell tickets, so ideally kind of get a table or two of people to buy tickets and that money then goes to charity and that's the whole part of the point of the event. And I can still remember sitting in my condo in Singapore and agonizing over the message that I was going to send to people on the WhatsApp group in my condo. I had a couple of what's that groups, one for the condo, one for other people that I knew and even the email I was going to send around the office at the time and I didn't just sit down and write it. I literally wrote it, I rewrote it, I went back days later, I thought about it and I literally stewed in my own pool of anxiety, worrying about sending this message and nobody responding of again hearing those crickets and then not being able to send tickets and then having to walk out to fight without any of my own support in the room.
Speaker 1:You know the brain, the brain, likes to take you down these dog paths. Right, it's spiraling out of control, and mine certainly did, and actually what happened is that I sold two tables, I had a ton of support and it was a fantastic night. But again, the mind likes to play games. You know our brain likes to take us to the worst possible place. Oh well, it's what it thinks is the worst possible place.
Speaker 1:But the thing that I found is that the worst thing rarely ever happens. It rarely happens. And even if it does so, the worst thing that you might think of in some of the scenarios I've talked about is okay, you ask a girl on a date, she says no, or you initiate and set up an event and no one turns up to the event. But that's not really the worst thing in the world, is it? I mean, it feels like it in the moment. It feels like again that 13-year-old boy, that hit of rejection which really kind of gets to the core of your soul and your being. But in the grand scheme of things that could happen it's relatively minor. Nobody died, nobody got seriously injured, there was no major financial hardship. You know some of the worst possible things, some of the worst things that people go through. They don't actually happen when this rejection happens. And also, you never know if this rejection is going to happen, because the whole point is that you have to try to do a thing before you can actually get rejected for doing the thing. And what's the alternative? Do nothing.
Speaker 1:So my coaching and personal development quest, as I say, has led me back to some of these things and led me to explore them a little bit more, in fact, just explore them more than I ever have before. And what that has done, along with becoming a coach and selling off the business and many other things that I've done, is it's changed my relationship with rejection. So now, instead of staying stuck or allowing this fear of rejection to paralyse me or to stop me from moving forward, I now just get curious. I've let my curiosity take over, and for me, curiosity has been one of the strongest weapons that I've had against curiosity, because what that curiosity does is, rather than getting me to focus on the rejection, rather than getting me to get to a point where I initiate an event and maybe people don't come, or people don't respond or not as many people as I like turn up. Rather than taking that as a big hit of rejection and really sinking into that pain and allowing it to take me lower, I get curious what's the lesson to be learned here? So I asked myself, if I was to do this again, what would I do the same and what would I do differently? Because in my experience, every rejection holds a lesson, and if we get curious about what that lesson or lessons are, then that's what's going to help you to know yourself better, and that's what's going to help you to align closer with your values and who you are, and that's what's going to help you progress on your mission or towards your purpose.
Speaker 1:And so recently, I'm going to share three recent elements of what could be class as rejection, because I think there are two forms of rejection. There's the outright rejection, where you suggest something to somebody or some people and they say no, and that's a direct rejection. You're getting that feedback. But there's also the rejection where it can seem like indifference no one says anything and it feels just the same. It's still rejection, it's just not a direct no. And so there's three things I'm going to share with you, again just being open and vulnerable in the areas of rejection, because and the reason I can share them with you is because, again, where I am now and with the skills that I've learned and the work that I've done, I can now look at them from a lens of curiosity and take the lessons from them, as opposed to feeling really down, feeling like that 13-year-old boy again. So you would have heard, on the last episode I held all I was talking about legal zen, clarity through stillness.
Speaker 1:So meditation workshop and it's a meditation workshop that I've run a couple of times this year and it's been great. I've loved it, the attendees have loved it as well, and I really believe in the power of meditation. I really believe it can help you get that clarity and it can really have this positive impact on your life and on aligning with your values, on finding your purpose, on living life lit. So I really wanted to share this again and in my head I was like 10 people, I want to get 10 people. That's that really cool for me to have 10 people and share this practice with them would be fantastic. And see if you're on my email list or on social media. You would have seen that pretty much for two weeks straight I posted something about the session about meditation, about the value and the power of meditation, and I got 10 signees Just cool. It was all great. So I was looking forward to the session. We're finding the slides. You're finding what I was going to talk about, the message I wanted to bring, the meditation that I wanted to deliver.
Speaker 1:And then I sat at the allotted time, logged into Zoom, and one person attended and that one person couldn't even stay for the session because they were on a chain and it wasn't gonna work with the commute and the drop of signal and that kind of thing. So the session didn't go ahead. Now, if this had happened to three years well, two, three years ago I was gonna say, but two, three years ago I wouldn't have even done this, I wouldn't have even put myself out there for this to happen. But theoretically, if this had, that would have crushed me and that would have stopped me from doing anything else. But actually I just got curious, because now I can ask myself the question okay, so what happened here. So what was good about it? So I got the requisite number of people signing out and that was great, okay.
Speaker 1:So what else could you have done differently to maybe get more people signing up, to allow for people that then couldn't make it on the night, because that always happens. I mean, if you had a party, if you have a party, right, you always know that not everyone who says they're going to come is going to come. But you invite more people so that you allow for those people to drop out. So what can I have done to get to kind of appeal to more people? Is it the language that I used? Could I have talked about it in a different way? Should I have sent more emails? Should I have put out more posts? Should I have put out different types of posts? Again, just getting curious about it. But also I could appreciate the fact that by doing this, by at least launching this thing, it forced me to really hone in on what it was that I wanted to share, and so now I have an even better session than I did before, than the two I've delivered earlier this year, which I can then deliver again live. I could record and share. There's a lot of things that I could do, but the fear of rejection isn't stopping me from going ahead and doing this again.
Speaker 1:The second thing is a more direct rejection. So I've been applying for TED Talks because that's one of the things on my list of things that I want to do and I've applied for some, and you expect they always get tons of applications that you don't always respect your response, and so I haven't. But this one I actually got a response. I actually had an email which I guess you could dress it up, but basically it's a rejection email, right. And again it was like, okay, cool, it's a rejection email and I could look at that with curiosity. Is there anything I would have done different in terms of my application? Is there anything I could have done in terms of thinking more closely about theme and maybe adapting what I wrote more to fit in with the theme? Or is there not? Was it fine? Is it just a case of there were just hundreds of applications and there was only one spot? Who knows? But again, by asking myself these questions, it just helps me to kind of think differently and to potentially prepare an even better submission next time, or a different submission next time. I'll just think about how I submit differently next time.
Speaker 1:And the I guess the third rejection and again, this one isn't a direct rejection, but I talk about my book, the Triple C Method. So in my mind, my optimistic, gung-ho mind, I wanted to sell a couple of thousand copies in the first two years. Now, anyone who has put out a book, a self-published book or even a traditionally published book, will tell you that that is ambitious. You know, a number of people told me it was ambitious and I accepted that. But it was helpful to me to have an ambitious goal and try and hit that. And I didn't. I probably, I think. Last day I sold probably around 300 copies and again, that could put me into this spiral of rejection, of feeling down and deflated and what's the point of doing this?
Speaker 1:But actually by getting curious, by asking myself these questions, I could think, okay, well, if I was to do this again, what would I do? The same? Well, I wouldn't do anything differently about the book itself. I'm really proud of the book that I wrote. I'm really proud of the cover, of the content, of the response that it's got, of the reviews that it's got. All of that's really great, you know, and I mean, the average self-published book sells around 250 copies, so I'm above average. So you know what I mean. That's not to be sniffed at. But what would I have done differently? Well, I would have approached my marketing differently, the strategy differently. There are things around that, things that I learned in the process of putting out this first book, that now I can think okay, for the next book, this is what I would do differently, this is how I would approach it this time around. And so it isn't stopping me from going forward. It's allowing me to learn the lessons of what I did before so that I can do it the second time around ahead of a lot better.
Speaker 1:So just share three rejections, as well as my 13 year old boy story, which is quite a vulnerable one as well. And so why? Why am I sharing all of this with you? I mean, shouldn't I be playing the role of an expert? I mean, I'm the coach here, right? So I should be telling you how great I am sharing, that I have no flaws and no fallibilities, and how I can help you be the same, and all of that good stuff.
Speaker 1:But if you've been here for a while, if you've been listening to the show for a while or read any of the things that I put out into the world. You know that's not my style, right? I recognize we are all human and no one has all of their shit together, no matter what training you've got, no matter what skills you have, and I'm the same. So I'm telling you this, so you know that. You know that I still have, I still feel the same way sometimes as you do.
Speaker 1:But I'm also telling you this because I got over my fear of rejection. Doesn't mean that I don't still have that fear, but I've got over it. I don't allow it to hold me back and I need you, I really need you to get over your fear of rejection and I need you to get over it because I need you to stop letting it hold you back from what you have to say, from the things you have to do, from your mission, from what it is that you want to put out into the world, because you can't live life lit until you do. You can't be good at anything until you do, you can't be great at anything until you do, because to be good, to be great, to live lit, you've got to do the damn thing and you've got to keep going and keep doing it, and the more that you do it, the better that you get. The more lessons that you learn, the more that you can share, the more that you can help other people around you.
Speaker 1:So how do I deal with this now, when that fear of rejection comes up, when I'm about to launch an event, a workshop, and that voice in my head says no one's going to come, no one cares, it's not going to happen, what the hell are you doing it for? How do I get up and go ahead and do it anyway? Well, here's what works for me. So I have a saying, a saying that came up for me very early on in my coaching career, as I had to start to step away from that 13-year-old boy mentality, stop being the lurker and actually start putting myself out there and start being visible. And the saying that I now live by and I say it to myself whenever I feel that fear of rejection rear its ugly head is very simple Three words service over ego, service over ego.
Speaker 1:And what that means is that the service of others, or being in service to others, or being in service to my future self, to myself, is far more important than my ego. So if you try the thing and you get rejected, your ego is going to be bruised, it's going to be hurt for a short time, right, it's going to feel like it's shattered into little pieces and that's going to be painful. But enduring that short-term pain, embarrassment, whatever it is that you feel, however you want to call it, is worth doing in order to be of service to others. So, in order to inspire somebody to do the thing that they want to do, in order to be of service, to get somebody to think differently about themselves or about what they're capable of, about what it is that they want to achieve, to change someone's mood for the better, to be a positive impact on somebody's life, whatever it is that service, what you get, what you put out into the world through being of service, it's far more important, far more valuable and far more powerful than my ego. So I've learned to live with a bruised ego. I've learned to be like yeah, okay, that didn't really work out, but it's not about me, it's about the people that this has impacted. The people that have read this, have listened to this, have done this, have seen this and maybe haven't said anything to me but have thought, actually that's really helpful, that's really inspirational, and so that's why I do what I do. That's how I continue to do what I do.
Speaker 1:So this episode is really to encourage you to do the same, if you want. Steal my mantra service over ego and focus on the service of what you're doing instead of the damage to your ego. So you want to change your life. How can you be of service? How is doing the thing to change your life going to be of service to you or service to the people around you? You want to go for that promotion, you want to go for that job at the new company. That sounds amazing and far better than the toxic environment you're in now, but you feel that, well, you know they're not going to take people like me. I mean, I don't really have all of the skills that they're looking for. How is it of service of you to go for it anyway? And how is that service more important than damage to your ego if you do get rejected? I start to ask yourself those questions. You may have your own mantra and because really all of this ties back to, really is coming back to well, why, why do you want to do the thing. And why are you going to let this fear of rejection stop you? Because if the why to do the thing isn't strong enough, if it isn't something that's inherent within your soul that you feel that you absolutely must do, then the fear of rejection is going to win. But if you just have this burning desire to do the thing, this innate need within you, that's going to override everything else.
Speaker 1:I look at it now with many things, but let's say writing. I just have an innate need to write every day, and it doesn't really matter what People think about the writing, as long as I'm writing from a place of service, from a place of. I really feel that this could help somebody right now. I really feel that somebody could benefit from this right now, because I could have done a few years ago, or I shared this with a client recently and they really got some value from it. So I think somebody else will.
Speaker 1:I have to do that. It's no longer a choice. I just have to do that. I just have to get those words down on paper, on a screen somewhere and get them out into the world. It's just who I am now. It's not even what I do. It's who I am and my ego is just gonna have to suck that up, because this is service and that service is more important. Service over ego, that's the mantra. Whoo, that was a ride.
Speaker 1:It took me back to some feelings, for sure, but I can share them with you because they're things that I'm over and I'm no longer in the pool, and so I can share the benefit of my experience of being in that pool of despair, of anxiety, and I hope that by sharing it you'll be able to see where you've been in that and how you can start to pull yourself out of that, so you can start to do the things that you wanna do, you can start to live the life that you wanna live and you can start to inspire the people around you that you want to inspire, by not allowing that fear of rejection to hold you back, by not allowing that potential damage to your ego to keep you stuck, to keep you paralyzed, by remembering why what you're doing, or how what you're doing, is of service to those around you, to yourself now, to your future self. Because once you recognize that and once you really dial in, really lock in to the reason for doing the thing that you've been thinking about doing. Then that fear of rejection is no longer gonna be this big brick wall that you can't break through. It's gonna be like a little picket fence that you can just step over and keep on moving. Thank you, as always, for being here with me this week. I really hope that you gain valuable insights from this episode. If you do, let me know. Hit me up Instagram at I am underscore Ryan Spence, or everyone linked in Ryan Spence or email, hey, at I am Ryan Spencecom, and let me know what's one key insight or one key thing that you've taken away from this episode. How has it made you think differently? Is there something which you've been putting off doing that you are now thinking, okay, I'm gonna push over that fear of rejection, I'm going to at least try, I'm gonna give it a start. Let me know. Let me know so I can cheer you on and just, yeah, just give you that proverbial high five for getting started and breaking out of that paralysis that keeps us all stuck when we fear we're going to be rejected. And again, if you want to join me in December for your own one to one find your spark session, shoot me a DM or an email. Subject line spark, and I will shoot you the link with the deets and all of that good stuff so you can get that spark and hopefully start to nurture it and turn it into a roaring frame so that you can start to live life lit. Okay, that is me. I will see you again here next week for another episode of the Triple C project. Until then, stop living a life of lethargy, start living life lit. Thanks for tuning in to the Triple C project.
Speaker 1:In the spirit of the Triple C, these three things that you can do to support the show Head to ratethispodcastcom. Slash triple C or over to your favorite podcast app and leave a review. Reviews really help people checking out shows to see what they can expect and how the show can help them. Second thing you can do share this episode, share a previous episode with a friend, someone who you feel could benefit from what I'm throwing down on this here show. And number three, head to Iamryanspencecom. Get on the mailing list. I'll be sharing news about the show, news about what I'm up to my new book, start writing soon. So to be the first to be in the know, you need to get yourself on the list. Really appreciate you being here and until next week. Stop living a life of lethargy start living life lit.