Hello again and welcome to another episode of the lessons series of the conversation with Coach’s Podcast. I’m still working out how I want to present that. But I’m your host, Kevin, glad to be here once again, and I have another lesson something that has stuck with me since I spoke with this coach. His name is Craig French. We spoke not too terribly long ago, a few months ago at this point. And his primary focus in his coaching practice is working with salespeople and sales teams to help improve their experience both as salespeople but also improve, you know, their success for a company. And he particularly focuses on rejection. And I just, I loved this, but it’s something I’ve actually been reckoning with myself for a very long time. I think a lot of people at some point in their life, possibly throughout their entire lives, deal with a sort of fear of or aversion to rejection rejection is hard, like even the word when you say it out loud in English rejection, it just it feels kind of like you’re kind of like feel like somebody maybe like, hit you in the gut a little bit too hard or knocked the wind Daddy, I don’t know. But I do I do like the way that feels. And I like thinking about that because my rejection is it’s just rough. And it’s just not something that a lot of people are equipped to deal with. And I think there’s there are plenty of people that I’ve met them who seem at least you know, from a distance to have adapted nicely or perhaps had some like inner well of perseverance or, or character or something where they they’ve they’ve always handled rejection better than your average bear.
Not that it doesn’t hurt or like move them in some way. But it just doesn’t seem to rest on them the way it rests on some other people. Speaking of myself in that case, I have a lot of memories of just really fearing rejection fearing and no even fearing the implication of a no. And talking with Craig was very illuminating, because it’s i It’s one of those things that’s super obvious, but I had never really thought about it. In that professionally speaking, salespeople traffic in receiving rejection, their whole job is centered around getting a whole bunch of noes. And the occasional the handful of yeses, those yeses Are you know, they drive a business, they grow a business they, they do so much for so many people. But those noes those rejections, they can add up. And they can definitely have a they could take less as a psychic toll emotional toll, a physical toll. And I hadn’t really thought about it quite that plainly before and applied it to what it must be like for salespeople. And it really made me like immediately like jump up in like in respect and admiration for his focus for Craig French’s focus on helping people in sales to deal with rejection. And that’s the thing that I really, really, really gravitated to is that it’s not just some sort of innate ability to handle it. Or just some sort of emotional resilience or calluses, you build up over time, all those things can help. But there are skills learnable teachable skills that you can acquire that will help you not just cope with rejection, but actually thrive through rejection. And like I say through because it’s something that you do have to it’s like, it’s like a heavy wind, you do have to push your way through it. But it also can give you can give you power it can it can help energize you. And yeah, it’s honestly it doesn’t have to It’s I think that’s the whole point I just like, I’m still I’m still processing it myself and realizing it that the truth of that in so many different ways in my own personal life. And I just love that idea of just learning the specific skills that you would need to not just cope with, but channel process digest rejection, and actually turn it into something usable, usable energy, and also just, quite frankly, just to be able to be exposed to the level of rejection that a salesperson is professionally obligated to carry. What it takes to do that I just I love the work that he’s doing in that niche in that sphere.
I think we could all learn a lesson about about rejection. And that very frequently, rejection has something to teach us something that we can draw energy from. I know for myself, and this is just an aside, but it’s very easy for me to take rejection personally, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with me as a human being. It’s just someone didn’t want the thing is this. I can go on and on about all the different crossed wires and faulty circuitry that I built up over time when it comes to processing and experiencing rejection. And there’s a lot of a lot of work to be done there to where you just have some wires crossed and you just kind of process things in a way that’s not very healthy for you or anybody around you. And there’s some there’s some learning and there’s some unlearning to be done there when it comes to habits as well as just some of your internal circuitry. But that’s a lesson for Perhaps another time and a much longer podcast but anyway I want to share that with you share my thoughts and encourage you to check out the episode. If you haven’t already. Quite French is the light. I’m kind of looking forward to having him back on when his life calms down a little bit. He is very successful and very busy in ways personal and professional, which I won’t get into here, but he’s, he’s fantastic. Love speaking with him. And yeah, that’s my lesson, and I’ll talk to you soon.
