How to learn and grown from rejection
I have never been salesperson, but one of my mentors always said that one day he was going to put me into a sales role. I never understood why he thought that was so amusing -until I started to raise money for my start-up. Like being in sales, as a founder who is seeking funds, I hear a lot of no’s or worse yet, silence. The constant feeling of rejection at this level was not something that I had ever felt before. As someone who thrives on being positive and optimistic, I have found this whole process to be somewhat soul-crushing.
At first, my thought was to push through the feelings of rejection and move forward, but as the CEO of a personal growth company, I am choosing to use this as a growth opportunity. After some self-reflection, here is what I have learned:
1. Resist the idea of changing to get people to respond.
Once the feeling of rejection hit, my first thoughts were that I needed to change my product or how I was approaching potential investors. I started thinking about how I could change something that might trigger them to respond, but then I would not be authentic to both myself and my company. This is a deep-rooted issue for me that I’m guilty of both in personal and professional relationships. I am grateful that I have people around me who have helped me to recognize that I do this. I do NOT have to change my product or myself.
2. Sit with the feeling, but do not dwell in it.
If you can say that something feels “heavy,” I would say that the feeling of rejection is heavy. My mood slumps and the world get a little darker when I feel it. My brain goes to the negative and for a moment I feel like all is lost and that Veraki (my start-up) will never move forward. It is not a feeling that I enjoy. I discovered that I need to get up and do something fun to change things up, even if it is only for a few minutes. My co-founder, Sandy, gave me the great idea of dancing to a few songs. It might sound a little crazy, but it really helps me to change up my mind set from negative to positive, and it helps me move forward more productively.
3. Rejection is not a reflection of the future potential of the business.
I have started to think about fundraising the same as I think about dating. In both cases you are looking for someone or something to invest in. There are not many people who marry the first person that they ask out. Dating is a process and the same is true for finding investors. Rejection does not mean that my business is not worthy. It just means that I have yet to find the right person or investor that is a match for us and what we want to achieve with Veraki.
4. Every road is an opportunity for a connection.
I just got a nice note from a group saying that they loved what we are doing, but they were not interested in investing in us at this time. They had spent time reviewing our materials and gave me some great feedback. I decided that I would ask them if they had any connections that might help. And guess what, she connected me to a group that was a better fit for what we are doing than they were!
5. My fear of rejection was stopping me from moving forward.
The feeling of rejection was so powerful that it was stopping me from following up with contacts. I am great at sending out one message, but I realized that I was not sending out a follow-up because of the risk of feeling rejected again. I had to sit with this for a while until I realized what I was doing and could change my behavior moving forward.
I learned a lot from using the feeling of rejection to grow personally. Most importantly I learned not to just push through, but rather use the uncomfortable feeling as an opportunity for self-reflection. Sometimes a rejection can be a blessing in disguise.
