How to Use Rejection to Build Confidence with Alex Grodnik, MBA

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute here at A&I. We believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Alex, thanks for joining us today.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. I'm excited to be speaking with you.

Likewise. Well, how about we start off by telling the audience a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Yeah, sure. So I'm sitting in Los Angeles now in my office. It's not so much a sunny day here, a little June gloom. But yeah, I'm a startup guy now, but I haven't always been a startup guy. I mean, I grew up that way. I was like the lemonade stand kid, going around selling stuff door to door, just always having businesses. And then somehow it got into my mind, society put it there that said, oh, I need to go get one of these prestigious jobs on Wall Street. So after school I went and worked for a couple different investment banks, basically working 100 hour weeks and helping companies buy and sell one another. And it was a cool experience and I made lots of money, but it was never, never my calling. It wasn't what I was put on this earth to do. And so I kind of had this realization where society really valued the job that I was doing. And they kept saying, you're doing it so prestigious and important. But there was this disconnect because I never really thought that it was very fulfilling. So then I was like, man, I don't know what the hell I should be doing. So I went to business school, I went to ucla and I was like, all right, I'm going to go figure out what I should be doing. And it was in a leadership type class where the professor had us do this exercise where he said, we're going to think about who your authentic self is. And he said, your authentic self is when your brain is firing on all cylinders. You're feeling really confident, fulfilled. So he said, go back through your life. Pretend like your life's a DVD and go rewind through it. And as you're seeing these moments in time when you're feeling authentic, fulfilled, motivated, confident, just write them down. So fine, I wrote down all these times, and then afterwards, I'm looking at this list, and then every single one of them was when I was doing something entrepreneurial, all those businesses I was talking about growing up or side things or whatever, and I was like, man, this is the light bulb moment. What am I doing chasing all these prestigious jobs that society says are so great, when really I just need to be starting businesses? And then so from that point on, I started a couple of businesses. I started the podcasting business. I now have a fintech startup, and I've got my hands in all these different startups. And I can't say that the money has been quite as good as the investment banking yet, but I'm definitely on the path to getting there, and I'm way more fulfilled every day now.

Well, that's what really matters. And I'm excited for you because you have a really a fascinating journey and a very fascinating story. So I'm excited to see where things go for you, but I'm also happy for you that things are going well right now and you're already feeling that fulfillment.

Yeah, that fulfillment is like waking up feeling engaged, excited to go to work and just crush every day. That's part of it. And I'm lucky that I have a wife that's got a great job that can make money, and so I can kind of have these jobs where I can swing for the fences. But startups are really tough. The whole entire world is against you. You're not making money. It's like everything in society is telling you, just give up. Go get one of these jobs that all of my buddies from business school have that are paying them lots of money. And that would definitely be the easy path, but something inside of me wants to go the hard way.

Right? Well, I mean, as long as you're feeling that fulfillment and you're moving in the right direction, that's what really matters. And I know after getting to know you over the past couple months, I know that one of your special tools that you use is strategic rejection when it comes to advancing your business. And I thought that was really fascinating because I know that Embracing rejection has a lot of benefits for people when it comes to their ability to negotiate and improving their negotiation skills. And so there were three main things that you wanted to talk about. Can you give us a quick overview?

Yeah, yeah, happy to. So, you know, what we're talking and we're going to talk about here is rejection therapy. And really what that is is desensitizing yourself to the fear of rejection. And it's just like any other form of desensitization. You're afraid of germs. And every day you go touch some door handle that everyone else is touching. Over time, you're going to start to see, hey, I'm still alive. I'm not sick. Maybe germs aren't that bad. I recently had a buddy that was really afraid of spiders, and he was just traveling for a few months in South America, backpacking and hiking through jungles and stuff. And he's like, alex, I. I'm around spiders that are the size of my face now. When I come back to Los Angeles, I could really care less about these little bugs and spiders that are here that used to terrify me. And rejection is no different from anything else. You can work on building the muscle that tells you to be afraid of people telling you no. And that's just natural. Every human being doesn't want to be told no. We're all afraid of that. It's evolutionary program into us that you get told no, or you get. Make the wrong turns, you get eaten by a lion. So these are all. These are all natural things. But by systematically exposing yourself to rejection, you can, over time, and not a long amount of time, I'm talking about days or a week, you can remove the fear of it. And it's a pretty simple process of actively seeking out rejection. And we can go into how you can seek it out. But over time, you get some benefits. And really the benefits are confidence. As you're putting yourself out there in the world and you're asking for things and you're getting told no. Obviously your confidence is just going to ramp right up. And so that's awesome. I mean, who doesn't want more confidence? The other thing that you get is a sense of humility because we're all so caught up in ourselves. And is today a good hair day or a bad hair day? For me, I mean, when was the last time you realized that someone else was having a bad hair day? Probably never. You're sitting in a meeting or a class or something and you're thinking, should I ask this question? Are people going to think I'm dumb for asking this question? The reality is no one cares. No one cares. You ask the question, no one's going to remember. So as you're out there racking your brain of, is someone going to hate me for asking them for something? The answer is no. No one's even going to remember it. And in two seconds, they're going to totally forget. So you get the confidence, you get the humility. And then the last one is, as you're going through this and you're asking people for stuff and you're going through life, it's amazing how many yeses you get. And so while the goal of the exercise is to get rejected, get a no, humans are awesome. And you start to see that people really want to go out of their way to help you. And so as you're going through this, you end up getting a lot of yeses. And I've got some incredible yes stories as I go through this. But, yeah, those are the three things. Confidence, humility, and then you just see the world in a really positive light.

I love it. Perfect. So let's dig deeper into confidence. And you started to touch on this a little bit when it came to the benefit with regard to desensitization of the thing that you fear. Let's dig deeper into that and talk a little bit more about your journey and how rejection therapy helped to get you more confident when it came to these difficult conversations.

Yeah. So the way that it started for me in my life was basically just trying to get that investment banking job on Wall Street. It took. I graduated from school in 2009, in the middle of the financial crisis. Our career fair was the day after Bear Stearns collapsed. It was just pretty much a joke trying to get a job. So it took. I mean, I can't tell you how many hundreds of resumes I had to send out emails and cold emails and triangulating, networking, and you're going to get a ton of rejection. If you're lucky to even get the rejection, most of the time you just hear nothing. So you can't let these rejections impact you. It's the same thing now with my startup. I mean, Kwame, I can't tell you how many investors, venture capitalists and angel investors and things like that have told us no. And if we internalize that and said that, oh, this person's telling us no, maybe what we're doing is not right or we're bad, it'd be awful. But instead, you have to look at it as Each no gets you one step closer to a yes. That's the way that I look at it. So really, the way that the strategic rejection, the rejection therapy, the way that it works is you start off by asking people for super small, small, insignificant things like saying, hey, can I have a high five? Can I have a stick of gum? Can I have a hug? Can we take a selfie? Can I have a dollar? And people are probably going to say yes to high fives and selfies and things. Maybe they say no to a dollar, maybe they say no to a ride across town or whatever. But by putting yourself out there and asking for these really insignificant things, all of a sudden it starts to build up where you're not afraid to ask for more important things. And the easiest way to do this for me of what I found is when I was buying lunch every day at the office, I would ask the same person every day, hey, can I have a discount on this sandwich? And the answer was no, every day. But in life, I'm telling you, you ask for discounts on things, you'll get them all the time. I recently got 15% off at Bloomingdale's buying a pair of jeans. So you end up getting a lot of those yeses. But it's a super easy way to do it. And now, actually, when I'm out to dinner with my buddies, we all fight over who's gonna get to ask the waiter for a discount. And I would say, I don't know, maybe third of the time or something. We get it. So this is the hack. You find these easy ways to put yourself out there and get rejected. And then over time, and I'm not talking about a long time either. I'm talking about days or weeks. By asking people for easy things, you start to not to fear asking people for anything. So you can walk right up to the opposite sex at a bar and say, do you want to go on a date? You can walk into your boss's office and say, can I have a raise? Can I have a promotion? I'm not saying those things are ever going to just be easy, where you're going to walk in and a cartoon character and slap your feet up on the desk and light up a cigar and say, hey, I'm due for my raise now. But they definitely become easier once this muscle is started to work and practice. Just like anything else, you practice getting rejected a few times. You're just not going to be afraid to go put yourself out there and ask for what you want.

Does your company invest in Professional development training. If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable, and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing, and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more and we will be right back after this. Exactly. No, I think this is brilliant. And the thing is, it's very simple to say it's a lot harder to do, but then once you start doing it, it becomes a lot easier. And that's the thing about confidence, is that it is a positive feedback loop. First, when you start, it's hard to do, it hurts, it's difficult, it's scary. But then you do it, you get braver, it doesn't hurt as much. That desensitization that you described starts to occur, which makes you more likely to take the step to do whatever the thing in question that was scary the next time, which makes you more confident. And so it starts to roll. And so I can hear there might be somebody out there saying to themselves, really, Alex, a stick of gum? But really, that is a brilliant way to start, or with a high five, whatever it is, something incredibly small, because that is a small victory. And it starts to generate momentum, which makes it more for you to take the next step and ask for something bigger. So then when you find yourself in a negotiation or a difficult conversation and you need to make that request, it is a little bit more automatic. You don't have that hesitation, because in negotiation, if I hear hesitation on the other side, that tells me that they are not as confident in their position. And if they're not as confident in their position, that tells me that I can use my persuasive skills to get them off of their current position. And so I become inspired. Right on the other side. And so it really matters. Taking these small steps every day matters because you're building that muscle. So when the big conversation happens, you're ready to go.

Yeah, it's super natural. Call me. It comes very, very quickly. But just like on the other side, once you stop doing it, the confidence goes away too. It's like you have to keep it Going, I mean, the way that I did a report for this on business school, in business school and I did rejection therapy for 30 days and I kind of plotted my perceived courage. And after day four, the courage is just ramping up off the charts. And then at the end of it, after you're done again, I'm starting to be afraid to ask questions in class again. So it's a muscle that you have to continually work, but like I said, it's easy to work and oftentimes you end up getting what you want. Just recently I was walking past a, I live in la and I was walking past a film set and I just said, hey, can I call action on the film set? Kind of wanting to, wanting to do it. But also if they say no, then fine, no, but sure. So they gave me the slate, I walked in front, I clipped the clipboard, and then I'm on with my day. And it was kind of a cool two minute process. And I've had so many times like that where I'm at a restaurant and I say, can I come back in the kitchen and see where you cook the steaks? Can I cut some massively long line for this ice cream pop up thing? All these things you end up like getting a ton of yeses. And that's cool. If you get the yes though, you're still on the hook for the no for that day. So you got to find some other way to get rejected. But it's like no one's going to give you anything in life if you don't ask for it. And if you ask for it, a lot of times you can get it. So it's kind of this amazing process that starts to form in your brain that's phenomenal.

I love it, man, this is great. And one last point on this. When it comes to generating the confidence that comes from rejection therapy, sometimes you might be asking yourself, when should I do this? What is the thing that I should ask for? If you're doing that, recognize that it is your brain procrastinating in order to prevent you from doing the thing that's scary. So don't fall for that number one. And the next thing is use the fear as the guide. When do you feel like, oh, I shouldn't do that, oh, this would be scary to do. Okay, that's the trigger. Now you need to do that thing in question. And if you let your fear guide you and you turn it into, you change it from an emotion that stops you in your place to an emotion that causes you to investigate Whether or not I should take action, leaning towards taking action. That's when you start to really see the benefits in these conversations.

Yeah, that's exactly right. You have some big decision or coming up, something you need, some tough conversation you need to do that you're afraid of. Just go out there and get rejected a few times before it, and your conference is going to start to skyrocket. You're going to have more humility, and it's all just good stuff.

Absolutely perfect. Well, let's move on to humility. How does strategic rejection lead to more humility?

Yep. So you start. We're also caught up in ourselves. That's pretty much the moral of this story. Everyone's so concerned at how they look, how they are perceived in the world, when actuality, I mean, we're all just kind of animals. We're all just deer running around the forest, right? And one deer is pretty much not concerned with the other deer because we're all for survival purposes, we're all just concerned with ourselves. And so this is what I was talking about earlier. When was the last time you realized someone else had on a weird shirt that didn't fit them correctly or something? But when you put on your shirt in the morning, you're staring at the mirror, you're saying, is this good here, is this good there? No one else is realizing any of these things except for you. And as you're out there going through your strategic rejection process and putting yourself out in the world, starting to hear yeses, starting to hear no's, you start to realize that that no that I built up in my mind was such a big deal to ask for. Like, oh, this person's going to think I'm so weird that I'm asking for this. And they're not going to want to be my friend and they're not going to want to sit next to me at lunch. People will forget that you asked something strange or funny or dumb in 15 seconds. It's just like, next, on to the next. Now how can I focus on me and how can I get what I want in my life? It's this funny thing that we end up putting so much buildup in our heads. And then you do it and you're like, oh, wow, that wasn't so bad. And that's the case every single time. It's never as bad as you build it up in your head. And so outside of the confidence, you start to feel like, okay, I'm not the center of the universe. No one cares really, what I'm doing. So what's holding me back? Why aren't I just doing this more often?

That makes a lot of sense. And it's really interesting how impactful a modicum of humility can be in these difficult conversations. Because when you're feeling arrogant or self centered or anything else, that is the antithesis of humility. The problem is that you're focusing on yourself. That's the issue. And when we are humble, we put the spotlight on somebody else. And that pays significant dividends in these conversations because once you overcome the fears and you do what you need to do in these conversations, you're making it so that your ego is no longer a barrier to your success.

Yep, that's exactly it.

Definitely. Perfect. Great. Any other thoughts on humility as it relates to the rejection portion?

I mean, you tell me where to sign up to get some more humility and it's just going to improve my life. What do I need to do to get that? So pretty, pretty straightforward.

Good. Yeah. Well, you have a kid, that'll do it. That would do it. I was talking to somebody the other day and it's like no matter what you accomplish in your life, if you have like an infant, you, you do this amazing thing. Let's say you land that $5 million investor and then you come home, you're changing diapers, you are handling somebody else's fecal matter and they don't even say thank you. If you want humility, that's how to get it.

Yeah, I hear. I have an 11 month old daughter. And so you're right. That's the way you go. You come home and I mean, it's, it's great to be around her, but yeah, she's not so appreciative of all the things I do for her.

Right? Not yet. Not yet. Well, perfect. Good deal. And we touched on this last part and this is finding more yeses through this, through strategic rejection. Tell us more about that.

Yeah, actually I have a recent example. I love golf. Now that I have a baby, golf takes a long time and it shouldn't take that long, but it does. Especially in Los Angeles. The course is so crowded. So anyways, my wife is always like, why is it 18 holes or nine holes? Why can't you just go play five holes or 12 holes? And I'm like, well, it's just not the way it's done. And so when I was paying, I said, hey, instead of 18 holes, can I play 11 holes? And the guy just looked at me, he was like, no, sure. I mean So I got to bring that one back to my wife. That's not the yes, but the yeses, they just start to come and you're still on the hook for the no for the day if you get the yes. But you just. People want to go out of their way to help you. And most of the time, everyone doesn't have the confidence to ask for it, or they're so caught up in what other people will think of them that they don't ask for it. So when you do, people are like, oh, yeah, sure, come on back. Let me give you a tour of the donut factory. Let me show you how the sausage is made. Come cut me in line. Come. Do people want to help? No one's out there asking for it. We're all just heads down going about our business. And when you put yourself out there and you ask for that connection, you make that ask. People want to be helpful for the most part. I'm not saying it's going to happen every time you're in New York. Everyone's so caught up in their self and busy. It's like, why are you asking me for this? But for the most part, people want to help. And so you start to get a lot, a lot of yeses. And it really just starts to reaffirm that humanity is so good. People want to help. And that's just a cool, cool way to see the world and go through life.

Right? And you know, when we talk about the benefit of confidence kind of circling back to number one, it allows us to. It makes it more likely for us to take advantage of these opportunities and ask, which means we're taking more shots. And if we are asking, we're going to ask with confidence. And confidence by itself is persuasive. So most likely the benefit is we're going to take more shots and we're going to have a higher shooting percentage because we're more. We're more confident. And so I think about it in terms of basketball. James Harden is a basketball player that a lot of people like and think is incredible. And I say to them, it's like, look how many points he put up, 50 points or something. He should. Look how many shots he took. Look how many shots he took. And so the thing is, but he's successful for the most part. He's scoring a lot of points. And when it comes to these conversations, the person who shoots the most shots is going to find more success and find those yeses, like you're saying, because they're seeing more opportunities. And so Just from a statistical point of view, if you take more shots, you're going to make more shots.

Yeah, I mean, in basketball, it's totally true, but it is a zero sum game. You know, LeBron takes a shot, someone else can't take a shot. In life, it's not like that. You can take shots, other people can take shots. There's an infinite sum game here, so it doesn't. There's no detractors to doing so. It's like, take as many shots as you possibly can. Ask as many people to be on your podcast or to invest in your company or for a job. It's a numbers game. If you're just throwing a bunch of crap out there, you're going to get a bunch of crap back. But if you're targeted and strategic about it, then the outcomes can be incredible.

I love that. And going back to the example of it's not a zero sum game with regard to the shots that you take, I really love that point because sometimes we don't take those opportunities because we say, well, what are other people thinking? And then if I do get this, do I deserve it? Does somebody else deserve it more than me? And that's where you start to creep into the imposter syndrome type of scenario. But what you're saying is it's. If somebody else is not taking a shot, that is not your issue. You don't need to worry about taking other people's opportunities. If you take the initiative to make a request and put yourself out there, then you get it. There's no need to feel guilty about that. But a lot of times seems as though there's a little bit of survivor's guilt that people feel when they make the request, and then they get it. They feel a little bit awkward about it. And so when I coach people, sometimes that's a. That's an issue for them. They don't want to take that shot because even though they think they have a good opportunity to get the thing in question and they do think that they've earned it, they're afraid of what other people would think and if the jealousy would cause issues in their relationship.

I mean, how many shots has LeBron James missed at the end of games? Like, all the time. Right. But he's not going to, like, second guess himself and saying, oh, should I, like, not take this? Like, should I pass it? Should I, like, see what else is out there? Just. No, you just have the confidence. Shoot it up, see what happens.

Exactly. And in your experience, about how many, approximately how many Times. Have you made a pitch to investors that have been rejected?

Kwame? It's embarrassing. I mean, we're close to 1,000 investor pitches. I've raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for my startup, but I get told no or just ghosted every single day. And I don't let any of that. I mean, I definitely learn from them. Obviously, if you can get feedback and ingest that and change and iterate. But I don't let any of them deter me from saying, I'm not onto something here. I know that I'm onto something here. And then when you get the yeses, they're even more swee. The way I look at it as each no just gets me a step closer to hearing a yes if you have to. Whatever the ratio is. I mean, it's probably like 1%. So I have to ask 100 investors to get one yes. Okay, so then I got 99 in front of 99 to go.

Exactly. And I love the way that you've reconceptualized failure in your mind, because people look at failure and say, well, that was it. I'm done. And they take it as a loss. But you're saying, this is part of the process. And if I'm not getting these rejections, and it's probably an indication that I'm not trying as hard as I could or making as many requests as I could. And so your mentality is, oh, I've been rejected in this situation, that is an indication that I need to get more rejections because there is a yes hiding in there. I love the way that you frame that in your mind.

Yeah, there's definitely a yes there. And you got to learn from the nos and try to incorporate feedback and get feedback. People don't always want to give you feedback because it doesn't really help them. If they can just say a soft no and keep the conversation warm, then once you are an incredible company that they can come back and invest. But it's always great if you can get the feedback. And also, I'm not like a robot. I'm not immune to the nose. They suck. I'll lie in bed sometimes after tough days, and I'm like, man, is this ever going to work? But then you keep going, keep pushing, and then you have these good days. But it's hard. None of this shit's easy. But it's like if you have this kind of mentality in your brain, it's like, it makes it a bit more palatable.

Exactly. No, man, I love it. This is great. And I hope this is encouraging to those people out there who are on their entrepreneurial journey and they're trying to make moves and they're running into that perceived wall. Recognize that rejection is a part of the process. And. And if you do it the right way, it's not only a part of the process toward business success, it's also a part of the process in your growth as a great negotiator. So I really appreciate you coming on the show today, talking about that, but before you go, I really need you to tell my audience about your podcast, because I always want to make sure that I introduce them to high level resources. So let the audience know about the projects you're working on and about the podcast and how they can keep in touch with you.

Sure, yeah. I've got a podcast called Moving up and you can hear my. I do like one or two minutes at the beginning of every episode on the journey of what's happening in my life and the startup. So if you like hearing about rejection, then tune into the first minute or so. But basically I just speak with business leaders, startup founders, investors, people that have had some pretty incredible success in their life, and we try to key in on what set them apart, what differentiated them, and we go through the ups and the downs of their careers and I try to have these 30 minute discussions of how they found success. And I've had on some cool guests, founders of Facebook, not Mark Zuckerberg, but one of his co founders, and lots of big venture capitalists and financial technologists and private equity guys. And so, I don't know, I find the conversations very, very stimulating.

I love it. Perfect. And yes, I strongly recommend you checking out that podcast, everyone. Alex, thank you again for coming on the show, my friend. We really appreciate it.

Cool. Thanks.

Kwame, Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of the difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you, and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.