I believe that rejection is a blessing because it’s the universe’s way of telling you that there’s something better out there.

—Michelle Phan, makeup artist

For a high-school junior, the prom was a big deal—an obsession for teenaged boys and girls and one of the big steps out of adolescence and into adulthood. I was excited and yet worried, because I had a big problem. I needed a date. And, of course, I wanted to go with the girl of my dreams.

The anxiety I felt was the same anxiety that millions of high-school students have endured—a rite of passage. For weeks, I put off asking her. I watched her in the lunchroom huddled with her friends. I passed her in the hall between classes, secretly hoping that she was thinking the same thing I was.

There was never a good time. I couldn’t get her alone, didn’t have the right words. Other people were around. I had a hundred-and-one reasons why now wasn’t the right time to ask.

So, for most of the winter semester, I lived in the fantasy that we were going to the prom together rather than taking the most important step and asking her. With the clock ticking, though, I needed to do something.

Finally, I gathered up my courage and asked. It was a terrifying experience. I felt self-conscious and insecure as I struggled to get the words out. My heart was pounding and palms sweating. As soon as I opened my mouth, I regretted it.

The words I’d practiced over and over in my head came out wrong—an embarrassing jumbled mess. In that instant, my dream of going to the prom with “the most beautiful girl at my school” was dashed. It was over, and I knew it.

I was already walking away when she said yes. In retreat mode, I was so consumed by fear and embarrassment that I didn’t comprehend at first. Everything turned around, though, on that beautiful, miraculous, improbable yes!

I felt as if I’d won an Olympic gold medal. She said yes, and suddenly everything in my 16-year-old life was perfect. I was going to the prom with an A-list date. The stress and anxiety had been lifted.

I rented my tux, made dinner reservations, scheduled a limo, and arranged for a corsage. For three weeks, I was as happy as I’d ever been.

Then suddenly, without warning, it all came crashing down. While I was walking down the hall to my next class, one of my date’s friends handed me a note (this was before text messaging). I eagerly opened it. But the words on the paper smashed into me like a ton of bricks. I just stood there staring at the note, stunned.

My worst nightmare. My date had a change of heart and decided not to go to the prom with me. She’d found a better escort—an old boyfriend who’d conveniently come back into the picture right before the prom.

It’s difficult to describe the emotions I was feeling at the time, but I remember it as if a bomb had gone off. My ears were ringing, vision blurred, and I stumbled through the remainder of the day dazed and numb.

I was embarrassed, ashamed, hurt, and angry. I wanted to confront her, to tell her how wrong she was to do this, but I didn’t. I just folded up like a cheap lawn chair, went home, and licked my wounds. I still had time to find another date, but I was so stung it wasn’t in me to ask anyone else. I didn’t go to my junior prom—something I regret to this day. Instead I hid out at home and felt like a loser.

This awful experience was pure, unadulterated rejection. It left a scar so deep that I’ve never told this story until now. Even my wife had never heard it. It still hurts. Rejection feels deeply personal.

Not the Same

Objections are not rejection. When prospects, parents, and educators push back on your requests for meetings, information, and access, their objections are signs of confusion, concerns, the sorting out of options, subconscious cognitive biases, risk aversion, cognitive overload, and the fear of change.

Objections are a natural part of the human decision-making process. In most cases, objections are a sign that your prospect is still engaged.

Questions are not rejection. Prospects, their parents, and people in their circle of influence often ask legitimate but tough questions that they need answered before moving forward.

Negotiation is not rejection. Negotiation is a clear indication that your prospect is engaged and ready to enlist; the door is open to collaborate on a mutually beneficial offer, timing, MOS, or incentive package.

Objections, questions, and negotiation sounds like this:

• “I don’t know; I’m going to need to think about it.” (Objection)
• “I need to run this by my parents (wife, husband, friend, coach, etc.).” (Objection)
• “Before moving forward, I’m going to need to look at all of my options.” (Objection)
• “I don’t have time right now.” (Objection)
• “I’m not interested.” (Objection)
• “The military is not for me.” (Objection)
• “I don’t want my kid to get killed. (Objection)
• “I’m already going to college.” (Objection)
• “I think I can make more money in a civilian job.” (Objection)
• “What MOS will I qualify for?” (Question)
• “Will I be deployed overseas?” (Question)
• “Why does it work this way instead of that way?” (Question)
• “How is your branch different from the others?” (Question)
• “I want to wait until after graduation to go to MEPS.” (Negotiation)
• “I want to join, but I want to wait until next summer to go to basic.” (Negotiation)

Rejection is the outright refusal to accept an idea or request. It is a flat no that at times may be delivered with a harsh and deliberate tone. In rare cases, rejection is hurled at you as a personal insult.

Rejection sounds like this:

• “Get the hell out of my house, you baby killer!” (Rejection!)
• “Take me off your f@#!ing list and don’t ever call me again!” (Rejection!)
• “You suck!” (Rejection!)
• “I wouldn’t enlist with you if you were the last person on earth!” (Rejection!)
• “Go screw yourself!” (Rejection!)
• Click or slam—phone being hung up or door being shut in your face. (Rejection!)
• “Get out of my classroom now!” (Rejection!)
• “We don’t want you in our school.” (Rejection!)

In recruiting, the most blatant, personal, and harsh rejections occur during prospecting activity at the top of the funnel, when you are interrupting strangers and asking for time.

But It Feels the Same

There is a big, big difference between an objection, a question, or a negotiation, and rejection. A big difference. The problem is, in the moment of silence after you’ve asked for something, when your emotions are reeling, it can be difficult to tell the difference.

At the purely emotional level, rejection and objections can and often do feel the same. This is because rejection can be:

• Real: Actual rejection.
• Anticipated: Worrying about the potential for rejection can kick off a wave of disruptive emotions.
• Perceived: Mistaking an objection, a question, or an attempt to negotiate for real rejection can produce a natural emotional and neurophysiological response that feels like being rejected.

It is the anticipation or perception of rejection that makes an objection feel as if it is real rejection.

Of course, I could attempt to rationalize this with you, just as I did in the previous section, by illustrating the difference between an objection and a rejection. In training rooms across the military, this is exactly what is done. Trainers address recruiting objections with an appeal to the rational part of your brain. They admonish you not to take objections personally—to just let them roll off your back.

Likewise, leaders pound on the table and tell you to toughen up or tap out. But this noise is mostly ineffective. If telling recruiters to suck it up and not take objections personally worked, we’d all be champions at asking for what we want and getting past no.

I believe it is completely disingenuous to tell you that you can just snap your fingers, detach from rejection, and let it roll off your back.

There is no doubt that you can become inspired and motivated enough to run headlong into rejection after hearing a motivational speech or strong message. The problem is that this type of motivation is temporary at best.

When you are out in the community on your own, without sustainable techniques for gaining control over your disruptive emotions, you’ll rapidly revert to a more natural state in which you meander around the outskirts of rejection or avoid it altogether—and stop asking.

Trainers say things like, “Just let it roll off your back” because it’s easier to offer platitudes and intellectualize the pain of rejection (real, anticipated, or perceived) than to acknowledge that these emotions are real and to teach people how to deal with them.

Talking at you about why you shouldn’t take objections personally doesn’t remove or negate the emotional pain you actually feel. Unless you are an emotionless psychopath, rejection hurts and objections sting. Especially when it comes from the very people you’ve put your life on the line to protect.

The real truth, which no one ever tells you, is the pain you feel in response to rejection—anticipated, perceived, or real—is as much biological as it is emotional.

The rub is, you may be able to avoid this pain in the short term by steering clear of anything that even feels like rejection. But by doing so, you’ll only hurt yourself, add more stress to your life, and let down your team and ultimately your country.

To be successful, you’re going to need to ask for what you want and learn strategies for dealing with the repercussions.

• The first step on this journey begins with gaining a clear understanding of the origins of the fear of rejection and an awareness of how it manifests itself and holds you back.
• The next step is developing self-awareness of your own disruptive emotions and emotional triggers.
• Finally, you must master a framework that gives you the power to rise above your emotions in the moment, get past prospecting objections, and achieve your desired outcome.