Embracing Rejection: Building Resilience and Visibility with Alice Draper

Your Dream Business

In this episode, I delve into the often-dreaded topic of rejection, particularly as it affects women entrepreneurs. I interviewed Alice Draper, founder and chief strategist at Hustle Writers, who shared valuable insights into why rejection feels so daunting and how women are often socially conditioned to avoid it. We discussed strategies for building resilience to rejection and provided practical tips for crafting effective pitches to increase visibility. We also shared personal stories of rejection to emphasize that it's a common experience, even for seasoned professionals. Join the conversation to learn how overcoming the fear of rejection can open doors to business success.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

1. Rejection is a universal experience: Even successful entrepreneurs face rejection. Embracing it as a natural part of the journey is crucial for resilience and growth.
2. Build rejection resilience: Develop strategies to cope with rejection, such as reframing negative thoughts, practicing self-compassion, and seeking support from a community of like-minded entrepreneurs.
3. Craft compelling pitches: Learn how to craft effective pitches that highlight your unique value proposition and resonate with your target audience.

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Connect with Alice on https://hustlingwriters.com/template , Podcast Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa's email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript

Teresa: In today's episode of the podcast, we are talking about rejection. Now, I know it's something that you don't want in your life. And in fact, as humans, we avoid it at all costs. But today's guest Alice shares with us some insight as to why that's the case. And also, If you are a female, why it's even more the case that we try and avoid rejection at all costs, which really helped me understand why it's not our fault. Alice also takes us through the six things that you should include in a pitch when you are trying to get on someone else's podcast, which if you know me and you've been following me for a while, you know, this is a big part of the strategy that I teach is about getting you visible. So we not only deal with the very practical sense of this is what you should include, but we also look at the whole rejection piece and how you can strengthen that rejection muscle. So you don't let it stop you in your tracks. I also [00:01:00] share a rejection that I had recently, and she shared one of hers. So if you are thinking this goes away and you don't have to deal with it at certain points in your business, Then believe me, you are exactly in the right place because we are going through it with you. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of your dream business podcast. As always, I'm your host Teresa Heath Wareing. And I really want to thank you for taking the time to join me today. I appreciate you probably like many of us have very busy lives. So I really do appreciate you making the effort to not only listening to the podcast, but also to investing in yourself. This is something that I have done massively through the years in terms of making sure that I am constantly improving my education, constantly working at how can I be better and how can the business be better. In today's episode, I'm interviewing Alice Draper, who is the founder and chief strategist and is on a mission to make publicity easy and accessible for under recognized women entrepreneurs at all stages in their business. When Alice started the business, she knew that publicity in the right places would garner her the authority that she needed to position herself as a high end copywriter. And so she started [00:03:00] pitching magazines like VICE, Refinery 29, HuffPost and Business Insider. This came with an unplanned skill, the art of the pitch, which is how she ended up pivoting her business towards publicity. She has now been running Hustle Writers for over two years. And in this time, she has secured her clients with over 500 podcasts, including countless top one and top 0. 5 percent podcast. A big part of Alice's work is to normalize rejection and how rejection resilience ties into success. Alice and I talk all about rejection and what it's like, and also how we need to get over the fear of being rejected, especially when we put ourselves out there. And I know what it's like. I have had it firsthand experience as well as working with hundreds of entrepreneurs and helping them do the same. It is tough, but if you can master the skill of being rejected, brushing yourself down and starting again, then [00:04:00] believe me, this is how it is going to lead to success for you and your business. So I really hope you enjoyed today's episode. We talk some real practical stuff as well as a bit of mindset stuff. So it's got something for everyone. Okay. Welcome to the podcast. Alice, how are you doing? Alice: I'm doing great. How are you doing, Teresa? Teresa: I'm really, really good. We've already had a conversation about where you're from. The accent doesn't tie up with where you live, which isn't where you are right now. So that's like messing with everyone's head potentially. So you were saying that you're originally from South Africa. Alice: Yes, I'm living in Dubai and I'm zooming in from Norwich. So we're both in the UK right now. Teresa: So it's, it's very interesting where you're, you're all over the place. I love it. I love it. So you talk about something that is most people's idea of, well, like hell really, rejection. And you, in your information that you sent over prior to the podcast, you wrote something that I thought was really [00:05:00] interesting. Pitching is tough because rejection is almost guaranteed and us women are not ready. Why? Because society never prepared us. Can we just talk about that for a minute in terms of A, why it's tough full stop, and why, then it might be tough for women. Alice: Yeah. Yeah. So rejection is tough full stop because humans are hardwired evolutionarily to avoid rejection. Like if we're, if our ancestors were rejected, they'd be kicked out of the tribe. Like they could have no food and no shelter, no water and die. So like that lizard brain is still there and we're just, We're going to do everything in our power to avoid being rejected from our community because that screams threats and that screams like something very bad will happen. And so, We see that, but then we also see that the more marginalized you are, the more like you will do anything to avoid that rejection. And it's for very valid reasons. So if you take a man, he's had to kind of take [00:06:00] risks his whole life. And he's also seen other men take risks their whole life. So if you take like dating in the heterosexual context, like it's the men who are putting themselves out there and pursuing women, and it's the men who are normalizing and habituating to the fact that they're getting rejected. But then it's also like the men seeing other men around them take risks and be okay. Which kind of like affirms the brain, okay, I'm not going to get kicked out of the tribe, it's going to be all right. Whereas for women, often we kind of grow our whole lives not getting rejected, like you can enter adulthood and not have ever like gone and asked someone on a date and had known. So you see perfectionism coming, kind of being a lot more tied to women. And, and I mean, like there's kind of various studies that would show this. One of the ones that comes to mind is with jobs. Like there's various studies that show that women will only apply for jobs when they meet all and [00:07:00] more of the criteria and men will apply for the jobs when they don't meet the criteria at all. Yeah. And I had a client who used to work in HR and so she used to always say like the men would always negotiate the salaries and it was very, very rare for a woman to negotiate salary. And like working in HR, you just expected people to negotiate salaries. That's what you did. That's what her job was. So yeah. So I think that's the kind of gendered lens. And then. Not learning to kind of build that rejection resilience, not learning to make bold asks is the most costly thing, not just in life, but in business. Like if we can't flex that muscle and stop normalizing rejection, we're not going to kind of pursue the biggest and best things that we want for ourselves. Yeah, sorry. Teresa: I was just gonna say, so do you think that's the, that's the key? Do you think it's a case of actually this is just a muscle you've got to build? Or do you think that there are [00:08:00] things that you can do prior to getting rejected to feel better about it or to be prepared for it? Alice: That's a great question. I mean, I think that the muscle is going to get built, like it's got to get built regardless. And I think that preparation helps. Like there's a reason you're scared of getting rejected because You don't want to make a fool of yourself. So of course, like with a fear, you're going to do the best thing you can, which is make sure that your offer is in the best position. It could be your pitches, the best picture could be, and like every you're getting kind of everything lined up in the best way possible. And if you know that. And you're putting stuff out. When you get rejected, it will still hurt because you will still kind of spiral. And like, I'm not gonna, such as they do, like, go on a rejection hunt with no strategy, like, of course, if you've sent out like 50 pitches and all of them have been no's, and some of them have been like not so nice [00:09:00] no's, and, or ghosted, and you've never gotten a yes, like, maybe it's time to look at that strategy and see if something could be changed, maybe the offer needs to be tweaked, maybe the pitch needs to be tweaked. Something needs to change. Maybe you can enlist your community to come have a look and give you some advice, but at the same time, you can have all of that down and then not have that muscle and get one rejection and decide that that is determining, like that is a sign that what you're doing is wrong and what you're doing is not working and you should just stop or give up. And I mean, I, I built. It's like I started, I set my first rejection goal like years ago and I, you know, I've been talking about this for ages and my podcast launched last week and so we've been pitching partnerships for the podcast and we had like some amazing partnerships. Someone wrote us for us for like a Vancouver newspaper because she liked what we were doing so much and then I got one really, really rude rejection where I got accused of using AI to create fake authenticity and then the person I concluded with, how [00:10:00] disgusting, full stop. Teresa: Oh wow, wow, wow, wow. Alice: I felt like my like hot lip to my throat, I just felt like red and ashamed and horrified and immediately I was like, I can't do this anymore. Clearly I'm just gonna make everyone angry by like, pitching them. Teresa: Oh my god, that's horrible. I feel sick for you. Like, I just see sometimes I don't understand with like, There's only once I've been slightly rude to and rejected something and that is not me at all. They obviously caught me on a very bad day and basically they pitched someone for my podcast and they, they had said to me, you know, I'm big fan notice. You've never had anyone talking about this particular subject and also notice you've not had this person and I'd love to pitch them. And basically, I had had someone on that subject. In fact, I had had the [00:11:00] person they were pitching and it annoyed me because it was like, Oh, come on. And the worst thing was if they had literally just gone to my podcast page on my site, her face was one of the main faces I showed. Right. So it was like, you didn't even do your homework. So I sent quite a, short, direct message saying I would do your homework in future because not only have I had it, two people talk about this thing. One of them was the person you're pitching. So I was annoyed, but that's the only time I've ever sent anything like that. Ordinarily, I would just go, thank you so much, but unfortunately I'm really busy. I'm whatever it might be. I don't often say no, if I'm honest, but like, I do find it fascinating that someone would be so rude. Alice: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I don't even think that your response is rude. I would take that as you're being honest. Like that is helpful information. Teresa: She should have done her homework. Alice: As the pitcher, you're like, oh, damn, I made a mistake there. But this was like, oof. And you know, like. Yeah. I actually had read the articles. I was like, there is a human [00:12:00] behind. Yeah. There's no AI. It's a human. Like it's getting affected by this rejection. But the thing is, is that. When you get something like that and I've had entrepreneurs tell me that they've had like a really bad rejection early on and like trying to pitch themselves and this could be whether it's publicity or it could be for business and that they are too scared to put themselves out there again because of that and I completely understand I mean like that was my reaction and so one thing that I know and you know it goes with that kind of like what does rejection do it threatens our safety is that community is the like override because if you can enlist your community to kind of champion you and support you in this, it says to that lizard brain, Oh, I'm not getting kicked out of the tribe. I'm actually safe. Actually, everyone's supporting me through this. So, Like I, I went and wrote a LinkedIn post about it and I spoke to like various people on my team. . Sorry, go ahead. Teresa: I mean, I just wanna know who said that now, obviously, but this, the, the funny thing is, and the, the cool thing is the fear that we will oust from the community, which like you said, comes from a very old, you know, thing that has been around for a very, very long time that our brain just hasn't caught up on yet. The irony of the whole thing is the more we share the rejection and the vulnerability, the more likely we are to be included in the community because everyone goes through it, right? So this morning, I sent, I'm in the moat, I'm in the middle of a launch at the moment and it's a very high touch launch because it's for a high touch, high cost program. And so this morning what I've done is I've sent out a load of voice messages myself from on Instagram and one of them's come back and basically said, you know, really lovely. I can't afford you. I would love to do the program, but I've signed up with such and such a person. I know who they've signed up with will be not even a 10th of what I [00:14:00] charge. So, you know, that all makes perfect sense, but even that, and I know this person personally, and I love them and she's so sweet to me. And she's like, I love you. And I want to be in your world. I wish I could afford you. And even that makes me go, Oh God, I don't want to send the other messages. Because it hurts so we don't like it, but I think it's super important to share that we all go through it. We all, no matter what stage you're at, no matter how big your audience is, no matter who you're hanging out with, everyone is getting a rejection at some point. And I'd go as far as to say, if you're not, you're probably not putting yourself out there enough. Alice: Yeah, precisely. Like, I could quote that and put it in a little clip or a quote, but I, I love the story you just shared. Cause I mean, it's so relatable. I've had that too. And I think that sales holds us back so much, especially as women. I like, I don't know, but I've seen it with various of my clients who are business coaches and I've gone through their [00:15:00] programs and I've like spoken to the people kind of, and it's like, you've got the offer, you've done the market research. You've like ticked all these boxes and now it's just stalled at this, like, get it out there stage. It's a stalled at this, like, start pitching, start talking to business partners, start, like, sharing it with your network, start selling to your network. And selling is just terrifying because you're going to get rejected. Like, there is no ways everyone out there is going to say yes So the offer we're selling is just not how the market works, regardless of how good the product is. Teresa: And sometimes the rejection will be nothing to do with you. Like, so one of the things you talk about, one of the things I want to dive into, because it's actually something that I talk about a lot is this getting visible. And for me, the direction I come up from it is my audience They often run a personal brand and therefore they should be trying to become the expert or one of the experts in their field [00:16:00] because the more that they can lift their visibility up, the more they can build their audience, the more people they can serve, the more money they could make. How, what's your take on visibility? What kind of things do you, what's your drive for getting people to become more visible? What's the kind of back bit to it? Alice: I mean, everything you just said there, I think it's so much like I, there, there's, you know, cause I do podcast publicity....