Welcome back to another episode of The Hard Thing Podcast! This is The Forge. A weekly show that comes out on Thursday to dive deeper into what it’s like to do hard things and how to cope with trials. I’m your host Justin Lewis and usually on Thursdays I have my co host, Ty Crockett with me here to talk about some challenges we’ve given each other, but unfortunately I’m flying solo today, so I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts and impressions.

Before I jump in and start talking about rejection, I would like to invite you to go get a free audiobook about Rejection called Rejection Proof by Jia Jeng. Follow the author as he goes on a journey of rejection for 50 days. He talks about what learned about rejection and more importantly how to deal with and overcome rejection. It’s an excellent read and very fun to listen to. Go get your free copy at audibletrial.com/thehardthingpodcast and start becoming Rejection Proof today!

Today I want to talk about rejection. I know that there are people out there that will probably say, “Get over it. Stop being a baby. Stop wimping out. Toughen up.”

They’re right.

I’m kidding, but only sort of. To be sure, being able to push through rejection is a majorly useful skill. For those of us who are still trying to push ourselves above average, we need some lessons on how exactly to deal with rejection. And let me be clear, when I say deal with rejection, I mean that in a physical way and not just an emotional way. Psychology today says that “fMRI studies show that the same areas of the brain become activated when we experience rejection as when we experience physical pain.” Everytime you are rejected romantically, rejected at work, or rejected in your everyday life, you literally feel some sort of pain. Obviously we have to deal with that pain and keep living, so here are 7 tips to help you deal with rejection.

1. Learn from it.

I recently reached out to an individual to invite to be a guest on my show. I received a very nice email informing me that we aren’t a good fit. As I read the email, I could feel my stomach sinking and my breath becoming more shallow and ragged and I felt these physical effects of rejection. I paused and resolved to send them an email asking for information to help me know what would make me a better candidate in the future.

Rejection is a blessing because if everything we tried worked out, we would never learn or grow and we would have way too many commitments and way too much stuff.

Rejection allows you to shape yourself and find out what doesn’t work and figure out what does. This is exactly why you need to put on your scientist cap.

1. Seek objectivity and Perspective

A good scientist understands that even a failed experiment gives them valuable data. Anytime you are rejected, you understand that something in the formula was wrong. Simply test and iterate until you find the right one. It’s also important to stop the spread of your rejected feelings from corrupting your understanding of yourself. You need to reorient yourself in your world. Take a moment and think about how little the rejection will affect other areas of your life.

1. Breathe

Breathing is huge for slowing down your heart and relaxing tension in your body and stopping yourself from blowing things out of proportion. In ancient days, society was necessary for survival. Your connections with others meant your connection to food, security and shelter. Being rejected might mean death. Our bodies evolved to have fight, flight, or freeze responses in order to help us survive. When we are rejected, we start to feel these same instinctive reactions and breathing can help you take back...