18 Sep Dealing With Rejection
Normally I would be posting this kind of thing at my business blog, but this has such direct application to your dating/seduction/relationship life, and your overall life as an Alpha, that I think it belongs her.
The only two TV shows I bother to watch on an even semi-regular basis are Shark Tank and The Profit. I’m a business nerd so shows like this are entertaining for me. (Though The Profit hasn’t been nearly as good lately; it’s starting to look too fake. But I digress.)
-By Caleb Jones
One of the venture capitalists on Shark Tank is a woman named Barbara Corcoran. She has probably been my least favorite of the six or seven regulars on the show. Kevin O’Leary is by far my favorite. He’s an extreme, over-the-top business Alpha who everyone hates. I am also deeply in love with Lori Greiner, and someday she will divorce her husband and will become my OLTR because she’s my soul mate and we’re destined to be together and it’s written in the stars. But I digress again.
This all changed recently when I saw an interview Corcoran had on Business Insider. This specific video snippet right here, starting at about 50 seconds, completely changed the way I think about her. I am now extremely impressed with this woman and will be paying much closer attention to her in the future.
To give some background, Barbara Corcoran started out as a poor waitress. She borrowed $1000 from her boyfriend and turned that into a $66 million dollar company she sold in 2001. She is now worth $140 million. This is someone who knows what she’s talking about.
In the above video, she describes why certain salespeople make far more money than other salespeople, even if they work less hard. She also demonstrates how rare outcome independence is.
When asked how she was different than all the other millions of (broke) real estate brokers out there, she answered:
I already knew that I, more than any other broker out there, was great at taking a hit and taking rejection. And what’s the essence of all real estate brokerage or any sales position? It’s not how well you sell or talk. It’s really how well you can take a hit and how long you take to feel sorry for yourself.
Read that again. Oh, so many comments or posts have I seen on so many PUA / manosphere sites from guys whining about boo-hoo seduction is so hard, boo-hoo she didn’t text me back, boo-ho I’m not good looking enough, boo-hoo she flaked on me. PUA sucks! Women are bitches! Grrr!
Let me tell you something, and I’m being completely serious here. There are men out there who have stronger game than I do and are way better-looking than I am, yet get laid far less than I do. Why? Because when I get rejected, I shrug and move on to the next woman.
It also doesn’t matter how I get rejected. I can get rejected in many different ways, such as:
When a woman doesn’t respond to my online opener.
When a woman suddenly stops talking to me during an online conversation.
When a woman flakes on a first or second date, and I never see her again.
When a woman doesn’t text me back.
When a woman one-night-stands me.
When a woman I’m in a relationship with LSNFTEs me.
It doesn’t matter if I get rejected. It doesn’t matter how I get rejected. I just move on and keep putting in the numbers. I don’t pause. I don’t feel sad. I don’t get pissed off. I don’t stress out. I don’t “feel like shit” or feel like I was “disrespected.” I don’t take it personally or start questioning myself. I don’t get angry at women. I just keep going. I do as much as I can to increase my odds, then I put my head down and put in the numbers. I don’t care about the no’s. I just care about the yeses.
When you get rejected, STOP FEELING SORRY FOR YOURSELF, STOP BEING A LITTLE BITCH, AND GET BACK TO WORK.
As soon as a woman rejects you in any way whatsoever, shrug, say “NEXT!” and move on to the next woman. There are likely several hundred thousand women in your city who are cute, in your age range, and unmarried. Stop being a whiny pussy about this ONE who rejected you, and go focus on those.
As I’ve said many times before, if you’re a more emotional guy, this may be harder for you. Corcoran affirms this:
The most passionate people feel the hit the hardest. They feel the hit the hardest, because they cared more than the next guy.
Damn right.
She’s talking about outcome independence of course. I don’t do well with women because I have six pack abs or because I spend long hours at clubs, coffee shops, or dating sites. I do well with women because I don’t give a shit. When I message a super-hottie online, or when I’m on a first date with a super-hottie, I don’t care. If I’m rejected, I still don’t care. None of this bothers me. I don’t take it personally.
As I’ve talked about in my podcasts, if one woman rejects me, I know there’s another woman just as hot and smart right around the corner who will friggin’ love me. I just need to wade through a few more meaningless no’s to get to her. And I’m always right. Always.
Corcoran goes on:
My top salespeople…were earning seven, eight million dollars a year while my average income salesperson was earning forty or fifty thousand. And I’m telling you, it didn’t come down to contacts, it didn’t come down to how hard they worked. My worst workers very often worked the hardest. It came down to something to prove and getting back up. I’m telling you, that’s it.
Nailed it.
When you screw up or get rejected, don’t worry about it. Just shrug, get back up, and get back to work. Simple. Not always easy to do, but simple. If you want to feel bad about yourself, do that when you’re done working and succeeding.
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Leave your comment below, but be sure to follow the Five Simple Rules.
Greg
Posted at 06:30 am, 18th September 2014Were you always like this? How does one go about cultivating outcome independence, when rejection feels like shit?
Free&Strong
Posted at 08:47 am, 18th September 2014@Greg, I won’t speak on BD’s behalf, but as someone who has been following his blog for awhile, I’ll attest to how I’ve become more outcome independent.
Quick background: I used to feel rejection, especially from women, VERY deeply. I still feel rejection, but its effect on my mood is diminished greatly. In my mid-twenties, I remember going to a PUA workshop and then going out to a club to “practice” what we’d learned. I’m a natural introvert, so that environment took me right out of my element and I ended up only talking to two women for a grand total of about 20 seconds.
I went back to the hotel and beat myself up because I didn’t lay down the “magic lines” or perfect openers. I even cried myself to sleep because I thought I was supposed to be rolling in pussy, but instead ended up empty handed, alone, and hopeless.
It was years later, notably after finding BD’s blog, that I learned what my problem was: I was too focused on a desired outcome. I was too emotionally attached to how these women perceived me and to the fantasies I had about how these interactions should turn out.
The trick is to not allow yourself to succumb to any sort of fantasies you may have about how things might go, whether good or bad. You take it truly one step at a time and don’t project any Disney ideas, as BD would call them, or “apocalypse scenarios” into your interactions with the women you approach. Get in there, take your shot, and however it turns out, move forward.
These women have not earned the right to affect your emotions, and truly no one ever should to any large degree. That’s outcome independence. It’s the ability to stay focused on your goals without allowing outside influences to compromise your happiness.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 09:30 am, 18th September 2014Free&Strong pretty much said it. Even as an inexperienced divorced beta, I knew, and kept repeating to myself, that “this one woman” I was messaging / talking to / on a date with / trying to have sex with was but one of thousands of attractive women within my reach. I knew that any time I wanted, I could go right back on the dating sites (or the mall, since I did a little daygame back then too) and be in the middle of another pile of women just as hot as her. So I always knew that the results of this one interaction had pretty much nothing to do with my overall goal of establishing long-term FBs and MLTRs.
In other words, I didn’t care. I looked at seduction mathematically instead of emotionally.
As I’ve said before, I don’t really start caring about a woman or the outcome until I have sex with her twice. Because by then she’s “in.”
lazy guy
Posted at 02:35 pm, 18th September 2014Good stuff. Thanks BD. Yup, it applies in other areas too…
dingtwist
Posted at 04:25 pm, 18th September 2014Nice video, never heard of her (don’t watch shark tank).
Outcome independence isn’t just gold for seduction, but for absolutely everything in life. Everything. If you can try your ass off for a certain goal WHILE being okay whatever the outcome, the world is your oyster.
http://www.dingtwist.com/it-is-what-it-is/
JFUNK
Posted at 05:45 pm, 18th September 2014Do you think if you left your heavily structured comfort zone and say, started doing alot of live approaches, you would be just as OK with rejection?
If your skin is as thick as you say, you should be an unstoppable terminator of a man. You could approach dozens of girls with no results, without a scratch to your mood or confidence.
POB
Posted at 05:49 pm, 18th September 2014Your best post by far. Ever.
Dawson Stone
Posted at 06:11 pm, 18th September 2014I agree with all of it.
I will say that IMO the best way to be TRULY outcome independent (and not faking it although that works for starters) is to have a solid rotation.
If you have 3-5 women that you see on a somewhat regular basis and a new chick flakes (hopefully you double booked with a regular) you really don’t care. And women can smell “trying too hard” like blood in the water to a shark.
OPTIONS will make your more outcome independent than anything else possibly can.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 06:35 pm, 18th September 2014100% correct!
I’ve done many live approaches via daygame, but I haven’t done it in any concentrated fashion for many years.
I would be OK with it emotionally, but if I got a lot of no’s in a row over many hours, I would eventually get frustrated that I was wasting my time and then I’d go do something more productive. Which is a contributing factor in me abandoning daygame and focusing on online game; it was much more time productive for me. But I would not “feel bad” about the rejections, nor sad, nor angry, nor take them personally.
Half right. There would be no negative effect on my confidence, correct. But there would definitely be a negative effect on my mood if it was clear I was wasting my time, which is very precious to me. If I got 100 live approach no’s in a row, which I know would take me many hours to get, I would start thinking, “Why am I doing this? This is so unproductive. I could be making money or having sex instead. Fuck this. I need to find a more effective way of doing this.”
GOB
Posted at 09:18 am, 19th September 2014What works for me when I get a harsh rejection, is going to the gym.
Like this week, a girl who was pretty much my type, didn’t contact me since I pitched the date. I went to the gym with fury, and pumped the shit out of the weights. Training changes you not just physically, but mentally too. Leaving the place I felt like I’m Schwarzenegger, and some ladies noticed it. 🙂
POB
Posted at 01:29 pm, 19th September 20141) having options: agree, and I go further to say every guy should have at least one fuckable gal waiting for him on emergencies (on a low tide she doesn’t even have to be pretty, a 6-7 will do).
2) hitting the gym: agree to a certain point….it gives you a short burst of endorphin (which helps) but doesn’t get you laid (instantly for that matter). Both are completely different kinds of “feel good” for the brain and body.
3) go out and do nightgame: most will think it’s silly, but just being on a social enviroment puts your mind away from the rejection and onto the job of getting new pussy. Personally I think of that as a reset button to my brain’s hickups (like giving a crap about being rejected).
Ken
Posted at 02:49 pm, 19th September 2014From a feeler standpoint (feeler from myers briggs), I do take an emotional hit from rejection but there are ways to cope with it. One way is to feel bad for a second then acknowledge the emotion and move on. Takes about a minute or two at most to go through that process.
I’ve done both day game cold approach pickup and sales cold calling and from my experience from a feeler standpoint, after the first few rejections, you don’t really feel it anymore and you can keep moving and continue prospecting girls or sales leads. Unless of course it’s just one of those bad days when it’s nothing but a string of rejections, in that case, it’s just a bad day and a good day is right around the corner.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 05:02 pm, 19th September 2014Fantastic. I’m not a Myers Briggs feeler (thinker instead), so this was helpful to the other type F’s out there.
Silicon Valley Warrior
Posted at 09:56 pm, 19th September 2014I went through rejection with women and rejection in jobs. I “practiced” not letting it bother me. At first i had to fake it until it became natural. I moved on over and over again until I found my way of doing things. Yeah, I felt it but didn’t let it go too deep. I’m financially successful and have been married for years but the rejection is still out there. I feel it at a certain level and then move on. My life is not based on gaining the approval of others. It was a major shift for me.
Jan
Posted at 01:55 am, 20th September 2014The Myers Briggs feeler point of rejection not feeling bad/worse after the first few rejection would explain the popular PUA advice of warming up by “burning” a few sets, as well as things like pumping up state. As an introvert thinker this made less sense to me and I’d rather wait for signs of interest before approaching. I don’t need to burn through a few rejections, and and I don’t need the “state” from warming up and being social, but instead see it as a drain of energy and waste of time.
Maybe, just maybe, there is no one perfect way of doing pickup…
Asher
Posted at 11:25 am, 20th September 20141. Make sure you have a healthy love for yourself. Keep making a list of positive things about yourself and practice self-love, because the more you enjoy yourself, the more others will enjoy you and be drawn to you- so much so they may re-consider rejecting you later!
2. When it comes to rejection, I’m a big believer in the “shut up, I’m awesome” technique. You just visualize the person who rejected you, tell them in your head, “shut up, I’m awesome” and then forget about it. Go back to that list of good things about yourself and feel it and believe it.
3. I know Blackdragon has spoken of the power of exercise to help you take things less personally, and that is an excellent tool. In addition to that, however, I can say from experience that meditation is a powerful tool for helping you feel better in all situations and to help you take stuff less personally. I went on a Vipassana retreat and instantly gained confidence with new women as a result of it. A lot of this “bad feeling” crap can be removed with this process. Hope this helps.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 07:32 pm, 20th September 2014Another great point.
I meditate semi-regularly but not as often as I should. Once my schedule gets back to normal after the book is done, this is one of the things I’m going to re-focus on.
Hmmmmmmmm. I think you’re on to something…
Click Here
Posted at 09:24 pm, 20th September 2014Get up and go. I have had rejections in the past, cry over it a day or two then move on with the next. I am now happy with “next.” Great post. – Ritter Standley
Ken
Posted at 10:20 pm, 21st September 2014In response to Jan:
Depending on the school of pickup style, the idea of waiting for an indication of interest is the opposite of an alpha male because alpha males take what they want, they don’t wait for a green light, they make their own green light, it’s being resourceful and learning how to adapt based on the situation. However, let me go deeper: from the book called Psychocybernetics, it is said that if you have a thought in your head, how you act based on that thought will program your future actions. For example, when I was doing cold approach pickup, I was deathly afraid to approach girls. I knew that once I was in set, I could probably do pretty well but just the initial opener scared the hell out of me. Using the technique outlined by Psychocybernetics, the moment I saw a girl that I found attractive, I immediately approached without zero plan whatsoever on what I am going to say and I opened directly. This lead to a behavioral change overtime and opening attractive girls became normal.
As for “pumping yourself up” or “burning a few sets” go, it depends if your myers briggs personality uses “introverted feeling” or “extroverted feeling”. Feelers personality that are perceivers such as ENFP, INFP, ESFP and ESFP uses introverted feeling. This means we cannot act based on what is not our authentic self, it means for people with this personality type, lying is VERY hard, we always want to be true and honest. This means during pickup, our mind will not allow us to act unless it is based on our true inner self or as Blackdragon would say it, based on our core. That is why it is important to do a few approaches right off the bat to convince the subconscious mind that what we are doing is congruent with our true selves and it is perfectly okay. Once that happens, opening the next few sets or continuing doing cold calling becomes easier and easier. It is also similar to the business concept of clumping your task together because how you handle the subsequent similar task becomes more efficient and easier.
Feeler Myers Briggs type that are judgers such ENFJ, INFJ, ESFJ and ISFJ doesn’t meet to be authentic to act. But pumping themselves up is definitely useful because they use “extroverted feeling”. This means they mirror the emotion of the people they talk to and they can also generate emotion which will then be mirrored by the person they are speaking with. For example, they will act happy and confident during an approach and so the set they open will mirror that emotion and feel the same way they do. If they start opening sets from a pumped up state, then all subsequent sets they open will most likely mirror their state, especially if those other personality types also uses “extroverted feeling”.
Now from a thinker stand point, this may not make sense or it seems inefficient; however, keep in mind that myers briggs feelers tend to have an easier time talking to women to begin with because our feeler personality allows us to communicate with women at an emotional level and allow us to understand subtle emotional cues that women use. What we lack in inner game we make up with a stronger outer game. Especially because our ability to read body language is significantly better than thinkers.
The conclusion is everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and you need to learn what your strengths are and keep using it and learn what your weaknesses are and find a way to strengthen it. Myers briggs is a good tool for that. 🙂
anon
Posted at 02:11 pm, 22nd September 2014Another way of framing it is to ask yourself if this is actually rejection at all??. If I walk up to a woman/women and they don’t respond well then they have simply rejected my approach and not me personally.
If they had taken the time to get to know me they would discover what a great person I am. I am a very interesting guy with a lot going for me. Any girl that comes into my life has a wonderful time.
If she gets to know me and rejects me then that is one thing but rejecting my approach is a different thing all together. I treat game as a means to give myself enough time for her to get to know the real me.
Jan
Posted at 07:31 pm, 22nd September 2014Thanks for that fantastic reply! Have you written more about this anywhere else?
Jan
Posted at 05:59 am, 23rd September 2014The above comment was directed at Ken.
Korg
Posted at 12:11 am, 24th September 2014Two things, first, don’t shout ‘NEXT’ into a womans face.
Second, well, if you always get rejected there might be something wrong. A thing BD tries is to keep improving. Look at the response rates, individual rejections don’t matter. But if you get rejected 1000 times and get nothing. There might be something wrong.
Same with sales, individual rejections don’t matter. But if you never make a sale there might be something wrong. (Perhaps shouting “BUY MY STUFF” over the phone at people is not the best strategy 😉 ).
Ken
Posted at 10:12 am, 1st October 2014To Jan:
I haven’t written anything about this anywhere but I frequently discuss and research this and know quite a bit on how to use personality types to strengthen your own personality and find a way around your weakness. You said you’re an introverted thinker, which myers briggs personality type are you? INTP? INTJ?
Lets do an even further analysis using Myers Briggs, cold approach, cold calling and finding ways to strengthen your personality. I’ll use my own personality since I don’t know what yours is.
I am an ENFP. If you look at this link at the very bottom, it says ENFP functions.
Looking at it, clearly my strongest ability is Extroverted Intuition and Introverted feeling. This means my strongest ability is to connect the dots and communicate through the guidance of my inner core and value system. Extroverted Intuition is like a giant vacuum that absorbs all information about people and it’s also like a ping pong paddle because it is also responsible for quickly sending out information to other people as well. Extroverted intuition also lets its user zoom into the distant future and see how an event will occur. Everything absorbed my extroverted intuition then gets filtered in introverted feeling and the filter system ensures that every person is acting congruent. The introverted feeling also finds out the actual motive of an individual making ENFP very strong at discovering hidden motives.
With that being said, during a cold approach or cold calling situation, the extroverted feeling becomes both a useful tool and a curse. A tool because we can quickly analyze the other individual’s motives and use that to our advantage. A curse because we start seeing a chain of events that has not happened yet and this will cause us to be indecisive and unable to act. Introverted feeling is another tool and curse in this situation. It is a tool because introverted feeling ensures we are 100% authentic and usually people can read that and will trust us right away. It is a curse because we also feel the emotion of people we are interacting with and so if they feel awkward or weirded out or uncomfortable, we feel it too and get affected by their state.
Now if you look at the link again for ENFP:
Our third strength is called Extroverted thinking. Extroverted thinking is responsible for creating a strategy and quickly implementing it or executing it. It is our third ability and is often undeveloped because we do not know how to use it. In pick up, this is how thinkers logically know the right actions to take in order to get a specific result. So of course I want to be able to use this to help overcome introverted feeling and take action regardless of feeling awkward or uncomfortable. How do I use it? I make FRIENDS and do pick up with INTJ and ENTJ. If you look at the link for INTJ and ENTJ at the bottom where it says INTJ and ENTJ functions, they both have extroverted thinking as their first or second function. By doing pick up or business with these individuals, they TEACH ME how to use these functions allowing me to use more of my ability! They help me overcome the weakness of both extroverted intuition and introverted feeling. Here is the link:
By following their advice and action plan, I can do more cold approaches or cold calls than I normally would do on my own. 🙂
Jan
Posted at 02:05 am, 15th October 2014Ken: I just retook the test as the last time was more than 10 years ago. I’m an INTJ, with 60% J and 40% P (that was the closest).
My weakness is things like small talk and group dynamics, but in one on one situations I do well as I am considered genuine and non-reactive. I would hate doing pickup in clubs, and if I were to do it I can imagine I’d try something like very aggressive dance floor game or similar rather than talking a lot to people.
One thing I’ve been wondering about though… maybe INTJ’s should just try getting a social hobby that has women in it and otherwise concentrate on academics or business to excel there and reap the benefits later. I do extremely well at both of those, and have noticed a certain snowball effect in skills, income and status now when I am past my mid thirties. The women I date tend to stay around 25 and actually get hotter as I get older. My point here is that INTJ’s might be natural late bloomers, and the typical super social extrovert guy pickup advice might do more harm than good to us in many cases.
Jason Ellis
Posted at 07:13 pm, 19th October 2014When you are in this kind of situation, just tell yourself circumstances doesn’t matter only my state of being matters, then move on keep going!
Giulio
Posted at 05:45 am, 9th January 2016What about being rejected from a girl you love that loved you back? Rejection for me is not a big deal but when I shared a lot with a person it hurts me for months
Caleb Jones
Posted at 10:50 am, 9th January 2016Then you were probably monogamous. And/or you had oneitis. And/or you didn’t have sex with new hot girls quickly after the breakup. And/or you probably don’t (or didn’t) have a strong Mission. Etc. Go read my oneitis post.
Martin
Posted at 11:59 pm, 30th March 2016I was more impressed with what she said at the end. Those people that were put down, had suffered, were the ones to watch out for. They had motivation.
Chavel
Posted at 05:05 pm, 19th November 2016Okay I got a problem with rejection, least I think I do, so maybe you can give me some guidance. When a young lady rejects me, which happens a lot cause I throw out many moves, I’m fearless, I don’t mind being rejected (maybe I do as the following question will attest). I mind afterwards the young lady wanting to put me in the friend zone. The way I grew up, learned bout women, saw my Dad operate, a young lady doesn’t want a relationship with him, kool, it happens…But don’t insult me by wanting to put me in a friends zone. Where she can whine about not finding the right guy, no good men out there, how I’m so nice, she likes going out with me dancing (I like to dance), For me growing up it was like she thought of you as a Half-Fag. And just as importantly as the insult of being thought of as less a of man, not worthy, I really am more concerned with wasting my time. Time is very precious to me and so when rejected I reciprocate, I in turn reject them completely, cut them completely off. I’m cordial but those cutesy, wutsy days are gone, and move on…Not mad, but so conscious of my worth and my time….
Am I wrong????
P.S. My sex life runs parallel to my business life. If I’m not making money, I’m not running game…Chase the money, you get the pussy, chase the pussy instead of the money and you get your dick in your hand.
Last year, as Fat and Ugly as I am and As Old as I am I scored 7 young ladies, 19yr – 38 yrs of age (I call them all young ladies regardless of their age, lol).
Caleb Jones
Posted at 12:07 pm, 20th November 2016Correct. Friend zone is always unacceptable. If any woman attempts to put you in there, move on.