From bedroom to boardroom: the science behind why rejection hurts (and 5 ways to come back stronger)
As an entrepreneur who loves to pursue a challenge, I’ve been rejected hundreds of times and in hundreds of ways. But looking back today, I place value on every single one of those moments. Without them, I highly doubt that I’d have succeeded in growing my business by 1000% last year, doubling the size of my team and raising $10 million dollars in Series A funding.
Although it’s never a nice experience, I’ve learnt over the years how to embrace rejection as a means to grow both stronger and wiser. Here’s how other entrepreneurs can do the same.
Why does rejection feel like a literal slap in the face?
Think back to the last time you were rejected. Perhaps it was a prospective client who closed a deal with your competitor, or someone you were dating who decided to call things off.
You might remember a twisting feeling in your stomach; the blood draining out of your face; a disconcerting feeling of shock or shame.
This visceral response is not an overreaction. In fact, studies involving MRI scans have shown that social rejection activates the same ‘pain’ brain pathways that being physically injured does. So that gut-wrenching is your body doing what it’s evolved to do: physically respond to the emotional trauma of being rejected by another person.
We react in this way because thousands of years ago, when humans lived in small groups, being socially rejected was a serious threat to survival. Being kicked out of the community could quite literally have resulted in you freezing to death, or being eaten by a grizzly bear.
Evolve to thrive
But we’re not living in the Stone Age, and rejection no longer puts us in real danger. And that’s pretty lucky for us entrepreneurs and founders, for whom rejection is a very common and unavoidable part of the job description.
The challenge we are faced with is how to remain motivated, positive, and committed to achieving our vision in the face of rejection and knock backs. Follow this advice to learn how to positively turn around the experience of being turned down.
Reframe the picture
In movies, myths and stories, the hero always experiences a setback before eventually saving the day. So their low point is never the end, it’s just an important plot point that pushes them towards their moment of triumph.
You can apply this to your own life or career ‘story’. When you hit a bump, reframe your perspective and consider it to be just a necessary stage in a long journey, rather than the end of the road.
Complement this reframing with a ‘growth mindset’ approach: a focus not on long term outcomes or on the dichotomy of failure vs. success, but on the value of what you’re doing right now and the myriad possibilities that could come from it.
Lessons to live by
Although it might help you save face, pretending that the rejection never happened is not a smart course of action. After you’ve processed the initial shock, set aside time to think about and reflect on the event.
Taking ownership of the experience is key to learning from it. Don’t second guess the motives of others or press blame, but reflect and think about your own actions and what you could do differently in order to secure a different outcome next time.
Remember, a reason for the success of the human species is our ability to modify our behaviour based on our experiences. Make it a reason for your personal success, too.Establish the limits of your control
Typically, entrepreneurs love to be in control. Indeed, to maximise performance, it’s often necessary to establish complete control over hundreds or thousands of variables. But in life, and in the business world, it’s impossible to control everything - including the reasons why you might have been rejected.
Understanding the boundaries to your control are essential to moving forward. Dating is an excellent example: you can only control how you present yourself, not what the other person is looking for or thinking.
When scaling a company, there are many things that founders do have control over, such as instilling a strong company culture or implementing robust hiring and training processes. However there are also things that can’t be controlled, like a supplier experiencing delays or the actions of a competitor. Don’t waste your energies trying to micromanage what you can’t reach.
The ‘plenty of fish…’ mindset
Have you ever been dumped, and had someone tell you that “there’s plenty of fish in the sea”? This is a classic example of using an abundance mindset to overcome rejection.
An abundance mindset means not putting one particular outcome on a pedestal, but instead considering options to be plentiful (and so moving quickly on following a rejection). This is crucial for securing VC investment, as most founders have to pitch around 50 different investors before succeeding. If you put too much weight on securing one particular backer, you’ll be disproportionately upset if it doesn’t work out.
Getting knocked down; getting back up again..
So you’ve embraced the positive perspective, reflected and learnt from your experience of rejection. Now you’re ready for the crucial final stage: getting back out there and trying again. Just like riding a horse, you need to get back on after a fall so you can tackle the fear response head on. And of course, you need a chance to put all those learnings into practice.
As the champion boxing coach Vince Lombardi famously said, “The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall”.
Overcoming rejection is hard, because it requires us to mentally overpower a very deep rooted emotional and physical response. But with practice, and persistence, it is possible. You just need to follow the above steps, surround yourself with people who will pick you up and encourage you, and most importantly, be kind to yourself. I promise that the more times you get rejected, the sweeter your eventual success will taste.
