DB BedfordFounder/ CEO, Ei365 · Chief Civility Strategist| Founder of Civility Intelligence | Workplace Civility Expert| Civility Ambassador Academy

Ei Performance Coaching 2.0

13 Jun 2023 · 2 min

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1:30

In this segment of the Ei Performance Coaching 2.0 session, the speaker addresses how outdated beliefs about rejection can hinder a person’s willingness to pitch ideas, propose projects, or make asks. He explains that clinging to old narratives about rejection creates fear and reduces activity. The coach advises listeners to shift their mindset: instead of seeing rejection as a personal failure, treat it as data—ask why the rejection occurred, identify improvement areas, and reposition oneself for future opportunities. He also introduces a reframing of the word “no,” suggesting that a “no” is simply a cue to move on to the next prospect rather than a final verdict. Finally, the speaker highlights the importance of managing expectations when making requests, recognizing that answers can be yes, no, or maybe, and that people often assume a positive outcome without clarifying the possible alternatives. The overall message is to update limiting beliefs, use rejection as constructive feedback, and adopt realistic expectations to increase pitching frequency and success.

Chapters

If you haven't updated your belief about rejections, then all those feelings show up and you don't want to experience that anymore. So it slows down the amount of pitches you do, the amount of proposals you do, the amount of asks that you create, because you're still looking at rejection from an old belief, outdated version of yourself. Instead of listening to the rejection, Why did they reject you? Where could you improve? And how can you reposition yourself so the next person doesn't use that as a ground to reject? So you can learn it, you can take it and leverage it, right? And understanding— some people have used the cliché of NO, right? And NO is not like next opportunity or something to that nature. They found a way to be like, okay, no doesn't mean that, just means on to the next one, if you will. And also understanding, like, you don't get everything that you ask for. See, the other thing is an expectation. I'll pause after this. If you ask someone a question, or if you ask for anything, there are options to that answer. But we normally go in with thinking it's going to be yes. Mm-hmm. But it can be like yes, no, or maybe. But think about it, most of the time you never really ask what the expectation is not.