Episode #29: “I let my fear of rejection hold me & my business back” (ENTER: The Rejection Challenge)
In this episode, I’m speaking to Liz Mosley, a graphic designer and podcast host. We explore Liz’s journey of attempting to overcome the fear of rejection.
Liz shares her unique strategy of seeking 100 rejections to build resilience, and why embracing rejection can be a growth catalyst.
Listen for an inspiring conversation about transforming setbacks into growth and success.
Listen to the Episode
Show notes
Links from the show:
Liz Mosley’s website: https://www.lizmosley.net/
Liz Mosley on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizmmosley
A freebie trello template for people to track their rejections: https://lizmosley.myflodesk.com/rejection-template
If you loved this episode, take a screenshot, post it on Instagram, and tell everyone you know that this is the podcast to listen to. Don’t forget to tag me! @emancopyco.
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Eman Ismail: I spent my entire childhood and adolescence singing and acting. I wanted to be a performer. I was pretty good too. I mean, I don't think I had what it took to go pro in the end, but I could definitely hold my own.
I went to audition after audition after audition. Sometimes I got a small role. Sometimes I got the lead role. Sometimes I was the star of the show. Sometimes I was in the reserves, basically an understudy. And sometimes I got a straight-up no. Sometimes my nerves would get the better of me and I'd let myself down. That's what happened when I auditioned for a Disney talent show. I didn't make it so I wasn't filmed so no point trying to go out there and find me because they did not film me. And that also happened again when I sang at an audition for Rio Ferdinand, a famous football player here in the UK. I did not get the record deal, but he did say he loved my hair, so I count that as a win.
From a really young age, I was repeatedly putting myself in positions where I might be rejected, where I was likely to be rejected. And every time I did, my fear of rejection grew. You'd think the opposite would happen, but no, I just got more scared. Eventually, I learned to ignore the fear, but only because the one thing I feared more than being rejected was the idea of not living up to my true potential.
Even now as a business owner, I find it so hard pitching dream guests and inviting them onto this podcast, just in case they say no. And sometimes they do say no. It's been a wild ride. It still is. So this is what my friend and I, Liz, are talking about today. I think I've given up trying to overcome my fear of rejection, but Liz hasn't. And she has a really fun story about how she's fighting back and trying to get comfortable with being rejected.
Liz Mosley: I felt so embarrassed. I literally sat there cringing, and I was like, "Oh, I shouldn't have done that. This is so cringe." And I think I'd go as extreme to say that I felt shame. I felt just all this mix of really horrible feelings. And I vividly remember the process in my brain going, "Oh, that did not feel good. I am not going to ask anybody of that calibre or fame level again because I don't want to feel like this."
Eman Ismail: On today's show, I'm speaking to Liz Mosley, graphic designer and host of the Building Your Brand podcast about how her fear of rejection impacted her business and stopped her from pursuing her business goals.
Liz Mosley: So I set myself the challenge to go out and pursue a hundred rejections, so actually go looking for them. But the minute I decided to do it, the shift was there because I had turned it into a win-win situation. So basically, if I didn't get rejected, obviously, that was the goal. I wanted people to say yes, then great. But if they said no, then I was like, "That's also great because now you're just getting me one step closer to achieving the goal."
Eman Ismail: Welcome to Mistakes That Made Me, the podcast that asks extraordinary business owners to share their biggest business mistake so you know what not to do on your road to success. Mistakes That Made Me is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
My name's Eman Ismail, and I'm an email strategist and copywriter for online business owners like you at emancopyco.com. I'm a podcast lover, a pizza binger, a proud mama of two, and I have this radical idea that if maybe us business owners were a little less guarded and a lot more open about the mistakes we've made, we could help each other grow a business that brings us more joy and less regret.
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Liz Mosley: So my name's Liz Mosley and I'm a branding designer. And I mainly focus on creating branding. And when I say branding, I feel like I should clarify, I mean like visual identity. So all the design aspects of the branding. And I do that mainly for small businesses. But I'm the sort of business owner who—you'll probably relate to this. I can't just do the one thing. So I'm also a podcast host. So I've got a podcast called Building Your Brand. I also create quite a lot of content. I've also done some courses. I think that's quite common now, isn't it? But yeah, so doing all the things, but it all sits under the umbrella of helping small businesses with their branding and their marketing.
Eman Ismail: I love it. I was just on your website and saw that you do animated GIFs. So I was like, yeah, we're going to have to talk about that because I want some. I want some animated podcast GIFs and also one for my courses and things like that.
Liz Mosley: So cool.
Eman Ismail: Yes.
Liz Mosley: Yeah, they're really fun. I think they're such a great way of adding personality to a brand, for sure.
Eman Ismail: Yes, I agree. So we have actually met in real life, and you have made history, Liz, because you are the first Mistakes That Made Me guest that I've actually met in real life.
Liz Mosley: No way! Oh, wow. And cool that we met before we recorded as well.
Eman Ismail: Yes, I know. Actually. Okay. Wait, I tell a lie. Michelle in season two, she's one of my best friends and we're both from the UK. So I've met Michelle. But other than Michelle, who's my bestie anyway, you are the first person that I have met in real life. And we met at ATOMICON just a couple of months ago and we already had this chat in our calendars, but we didn't get around to it. I think your kids got sick and then I was sick and we've rescheduled a couple times.
Liz Mosley: Yeah, we had a few things.
Eman Ismail: Yeah. So by the time we actually met each other, we hadn't recorded, but it was so great because we got to know each other. We spent a whole evening chatting. And I think what I really took from that event was—and by the way, ATOMICON was a business conference that was held in Newcastle, UK in June. God, it feels like so long ago now.
Liz Mosley: I know, yeah.
Eman Ismail: It does. One of the things I really took from that conference was it's absolutely amazing having an online business. I love it. I love the flexibility of it. I love being able to pick up my laptop and take it anywhere in the world and keep my business running. But there is still nothing quite like face-to-face interaction and meeting people and just sitting down with someone and looking someone in the face and really getting to know them.
Liz Mosley: Yeah, definitely. I think you just connect with people differently, don't you? And I definitely find that—sometimes I think I go to conferences more for just getting to meet people. And ATOMICON was a great one because there was so many people that I know from online who were there, so it was just like going around to be like, "Oh, hey, I follow you on Instagram." There was a lot of that, but it was so nice and I love that we went to dinner together and we had a whole evening where we got to chat and it was so nice.
Eman Ismail: It was so, so lovely. And yeah, that's exactly it. I mean, the speakers were great. Oh, I was one of the speakers there.
Liz Mosley: You were one. Yeah, your talk was absolutely brilliant.
Eman Ismail: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. But had they taken the speakers away, it still would have been just a really great event getting to know one another. I met Steve Folland for the first time, who's also been on this podcast. And I've known Steve for years. It was almost unbelievable. It was like, "How can I have not met you already? My brain feels like it's met you."
And I guess that's the power of parasocial relationships, isn't it? And the online-ness of all of this. Our brains are convinced that we have already met, we already know each other. Like when we watch people on TV and that's why we feel the way we do about movie stars and celebrities and stuff.
Liz Mosley: There's definitely some people where I almost forget that I haven't met them and then I do meet them and I'm like, "Oh my goodness, this is the first time we're meeting in real life. Crazy."
Eman Ismail: I know, it's insane. So one of the things that I wanted to ask you was—I mean, ATOMICON was such a great event and there were so many gems that I got from it. For anyone who wasn't there, what gem from ATOMICON would you want them to know? And if you want, I can go first 'cause I already know what mine is.
Liz Mosley: Yeah, go for it. Tell me yours.
Eman Ismail: Okay. So we had a speaker called Davina McCall, who is very big and very popular. She's a household name in the UK. She's a presenter and also a multi-business owner. And she was one of the keynote speakers and she spoke first. And I'm not like a huge fan of Davina McCall, but it's funny 'cause I never realised how much I actually—I really do like her. I think she's built so much goodwill in this country. I think most people really like her.
But her talk was so good. It was an interview. It was more of like an interview talk. But she told us her story of getting into the business. And initially, she wanted to be a singer but she gave up her singing because she just realised she wasn't good enough. And I really related to that because my entire life I wanted to be a singer. And I can sing, but it got to the point where I had to really come to terms with the fact that I'm not good enough to be the singer that I always wanted to be, you know? So I put that to rest.
And so I felt that part of her story. And then she goes on to say, well, she decided that she wanted to be an MTV presenter. And her whole life became about being this MTV presenter. And she spoke about the fact that she came across someone who worked at MTV and she just was like harassing him for the longest time, sending him emails, regularly asking if they had any jobs open, if they could hire her, just really making sure that this person knew who they were.
And they would constantly respond to her saying, "We don't have anything for you. We don't have anything for you," but she never gave up. And then it got to the point where this guy was so tired of hearing from her that he just said, "Look, I need you to just stop contacting me now. I can't help you." And she said, "I promise I'll stop contacting you if you give me someone else to contact."
And so he did. He gave her someone else to contact at MTV. And that second person gave her a presenting job. And so she spoke about being bulletproof to rejection. She spoke about nothing ever being a dead end and there always being a side door open. And she spoke about never giving up. And she said, you know, people seem to give up when they hear the word no. And for her, it just wasn't an option. It just wasn't an option to be rejected and to hear no.
And so I really loved this idea of being bulletproof to rejection. I know that's what we're going to be talking about today as well. So it's very apt. And I also met Linda Plant from The Apprentice. She's one of the five interviewers at the end of the UK version of The Apprentice with Alan Sugar. She's a multimillionaire. According to Google, 24 million pounds net worth.
And she was so down to earth. She was so lovely. She started off working on her family's market stall. My very first job was working on my dad's market stall. And I think there's something so pure about that kind of sales. Working on a market still is like the purest form of selling, of trade, and of business, I think, that you can get. I learned so much from working on that store for a few years. And I think that maybe that's where my interest in business came from as well.
She was so down to earth and she spoke about not having mum guilt. 'Cause I think she has two boys like me and she spoke about not feeling guilty, that she used to feel guilty about not always being around as much, but that for her, quality over quantity was more important, and that actually, she was building this business for her children. And so she was like, "Just get rid of that mum guilt." And yeah, I loved it.
So those are the two things that I want you to take away from ATOMICON if you weren't at ATOMICON that I found really beneficial. What about yours?
Liz Mosley: So mine—well, one of them is similar. So, similarly to you, I went into it, like, I thought, "Oh, Davina McCall, fine, whatever." She wasn't a big draw for me, like I wasn't excited about her as a keynote speaker, but I was genuinely blown away. She was standout, absolutely brilliant.
So, interestingly, what really struck me, similar to you, but it was actually how many of the speakers spoke about rejection. So I guess because I've been talking about it, I'm attuned to when—I really notice when other people talk about it. And pretty much all of the keynote speakers talked about it. Quite a lot of the other talks I went to covered it. And it really seemed like a theme of the conference, which I thought was really interesting.
I think it was a really good reminder to me that this is something that impacts people at whatever point or whatever stage in their business are at. This isn't something that's reserved for the beginners. This is something that is just a universal experience in business. And I always find those sort of reminders really, really helpful because I think I'm very prone to get into my own head about things and be like, "It's just me. I'm the only person going through this thing" So that was really encouraging.
I think the other takeaway for me was kind of what we talked about before and was really the in-person community aspect of it. There was a real sort of community feel. I think they did a really good job of doing various events so that you could have that time mingling, chatting, meeting other people. I know lots of people, I don't know, feel fear when they think of the idea of networking. And I think we've got this kind of old-fashioned sense of what networking actually is. But it's basically just building relationships and getting to know people.
I mean, I am definitely an extrovert. So for me, it's not as stressful as it is for other people, but I really enjoyed having that quality time to get to know those people that I'd made friends with online. And for me, the support I've had from other business owners has had a huge impact on my business, and so I really value those relationships.
Eman Ismail: Me too. Me too. I totally agree. And, yeah, it's funny how we both were like, I didn't know that like—yeah, Davina wasn't—I didn't think she was going to be a standout and she really, really was.
Liz Mosley: She really was.
Eman Ismail: Yeah.
Liz Mosley: And some of the others, I wasn't as into. I mean, none of the keynote people, I think. I was more excited about the non-keynote talks.
Eman Ismail: Yeah.
Liz Mosley: I really enjoyed the ones that I went to. I would say with the keynotes, it was like a mixed bag for me in terms of how much I got out of them. But yeah, Davina, I'm a huge fan now.
Eman Ismail: Me too. Do you know what's funny? So the speakers all stayed in—I think all of us stayed at the Hilton. And on the day of the conference starting, I walked downstairs to breakfast [laughs] and I walked past Davina McCall. I turned around, I was like, "Is that Davina McCall just having breakfast? What the hell is going on?" [laughs] I sat down with my friends. I was like, "Davina McCall's over there." And I didn't think I'd be starstruck, but I was like, it was insane. And I did get a picture with her.
Liz Mosley: Saw that.
Eman Ismail: I know, speaker privileges. I had backstage access. So when she finished her talk, I went backstage and spoke to her, and she was so lovely and, again, so down to earth. And can I just say that there are people who are less famous than her who have more of an ego and more of like a "I'm a star, don't talk to me" kind of vibe. And she has every reason to have that attitude because she genuinely is famous in the UK. And she was just so lovely and so down to earth and I think that was a great lesson as well.
Also got a picture with Linda Plant. It was so funny because my family was like—I did tell my family that I was going to this conference, and they were like, "Oh, right. Okay. Have fun," whatever. And then I sent a picture of me to them with Davina McCall. And they were like, "What is this conference?" Suddenly interested. "Where are you? Oh, this must be a big conference. Did you say you're speaking at this conference?" Everyone started to suddenly care, like, "How was that conference? Must've been a big one." Yeah, this is what I was trying to tell you. Gosh.
Liz Mosley: Two of my friends, Teresa and Paul, had breakfast with Davina McCall. So they basically just like—
Eman Ismail: I know, I saw them!
Liz Mosley: They basically just called her over and they were like, "Oh, do you want to join us for breakfast?" And then they got a taxi somewhere with her. They were raving about her like, "She was so down to earth." They were like, "She's our new bestie. She was amazing."
Eman Ismail: But you know what? That level of confidence amazes me 'cause I walked past them. She was sat with them when—and I don't know your friends, but I know exactly who you're talking about because she was sat with them. Now, that level of confidence amazes me and I aspire to it. And to be honest, I would have gone and said hi, but there were already so many people at her table and I was like, "Oh, let the poor woman just have her breakfast."
Liz Mosley: Yeah. I'm always like that. I'm like, "Oh, leave them in peace." Yeah.
Eman Ismail: I know. But yeah, it was so much fun. It was so much fun. And yeah, I got so much from it. And if you're in the UK, or if you're not in the UK—there were people travelling from all over the world to it—I'd highly recommend that you attend next year, 2025.
Liz Mosley: Yeah. You can get your tickets already for next year.
Eman Ismail: Yeah. Before we get into your mistake, I want to chat about your business for a minute. Okay. So you obviously have so many different things going on. You mentioned at the beginning. You have the services, you have your courses, you have your podcast. Now, you recently launched the most amazing podcast website I've ever seen, by the way, by far.
Liz Mosley: Thanks. [laughs]
Eman Ismail: Absolutely stunning.
Liz Mosley: I love it.
Eman Ismail: It's tailored for your podcast, basically. And it shows me how seriously you're taking your podcast and how seriously you're taking podcast growth and how much attention, energy, financial resources you put into it. Tell me how you decided to put your energy there. Because I'm in a similar position in that I have all these different things. And sometimes it's difficult to know which one should I focus on. What was it that made you think, "Okay, I'm going to take my podcast to the next level." How do you make a decision like that?
Liz Mosley: Okay. I feel like there's a few things that I should mention. So first up, the website came about as kind of like a mutually beneficial thing where my friend, Aime, who runs Studio Cotton, she was going to the podcast show and she's moving into promoting her services, so creating a website for podcast hosts specifically. Because there's kind of a gap in the market there that she spotted, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, that is genius."
Anyway, they needed to create one that they could showcase where they could basically do whatever they wanted to it. So basically, they didn't have a client who was like, "Oh, no, I want it like this, I want it like that." Obviously, I did have a bit of a say, but she was like, "Would you mind if we did this for your website?" So basically, we came up with a negotiation in terms of payment that was very favourable for me and over time rather than me having to pay it all upfront. So I feel like I should just caveat that because-
Eman Ismail: Thank you for sharing.
Liz Mosley: -I wasn't in a position that I could go and pay 10k on my podcast website at this point in my business. It was so cool because I went to The Podcast Show with them and got to watch them show everybody all the features of the website and how it was working and everything.
The stuff that they put in there, honestly, I wouldn't even have thought to ask for myself because it just wouldn't even occur to me. Do you know what I mean? The stuff that they came up with, I was just like, if I was putting together this brief, I wouldn't even have thought about it. To answer your question—
Eman Ismail: Wait, give us an example. Give us an example of an amazing feature.
Liz Mosley: So I have guests on my podcast, and basically, when a guest comes on the podcast, they have a profile that has all their social media details that appears at the bottom of the page. So it'll say, you know, like, Hannah Isted, who's a guest, there's a picture of her and there's her links. So whenever I have a new guest, I make them a new profile. Now, I don't have loads of repeat guests, but my friend Hannah, for example, has been on six times. So whenever she comes on again, all I have to do is toggle—I just have to type in her name and it just brings up her profile, so I'm not having to put it in each time.
But the most amazing bit is if Hannah, for example, decided that she was going to change her Instagram handle, I just go in and I change her profile and it'll change it everywhere on the website. So I'm not having to go back and find all the episodes that she's been on. So just things like that.
I'm not one for making my life easy. I'm definitely like, "Oh, I'll go and change it on all the pages." And so, yeah, stuff like that. She's done some really cool things with how I can feature podcast sponsors. So, again, they all have a profile. I can update the link universally. So say I was working with a brand and then they happened to give me an affiliate link, then I could go in and that would change everywhere that it's appeared on the website. So just really clever strategic ways that are going to save me time but also make everything really consistent.
She's made it so that I can promote my offers. So there's little banners that come up. So if I've got a particular course running, I can make sure that one's appearing everywhere. So yeah, stuff like that. It wouldn't have occurred to me to ask for that sort of thing. So that was really cool.
But coming back to your question about deciding to invest in the podcast and taking it really seriously, I think podcasting's a really tricky one because it's a real slow burn and I had to spend a lot of time investing in it before I started to see the results, I guess. I would say it was about a year before I started to see the benefits and the results.
But the thing that helped me keep going is that I genuinely loved it. I love it as a format of communicating and I find it—it's so funny, people really comment on how organised I am with my podcast, and I'm not like that in all areas of my business but because I enjoy it so much—you know how if you had a completely clear day with nothing—there was nothing on your to-do list and you were like, "What am I going to work on, on my business?" Often, for me—I mean, I don't get those days very often, but if I did have those days, the podcast would be the thing that I just naturally gravitate to and default to.
So I think that just made it really easy for it to be something that I invest in because I don't really have many blockers in terms of spending time on it. So if I've got a bit of time to work on something, that's just an easy one for me. There isn't that resistance. Whereas I think sometimes when you're doing something that you don't love but you know is good for your business, I definitely have a bit more resistance that I have to work through and push myself a bit more to do it.
Eman Ismail: So what you're saying is like follow what you love doing, follow the passion?
Liz Mosley: I think so because I think—well, especially as business owners like us, where maybe we work on our own or we have a small team—I know you're expanding yours— have a small team. I know that I can't do everything when it comes to marketing in my business. So I feel like it's totally valid to pick a couple and go all in on those. And I might as well pick the ones that I enjoy.
It's kind of similar for me with Instagram. I actually really enjoy creating content for Instagram, so I don't have to think too hard about that. It comes quite naturally. I focus on those ones because they're the ones that I really enjoy.
Eman Ismail: Amazing. I love it. I love it. And I totally relate to what you said about podcasting being a really slow burn. You really have to love it. You really do. It's why so many people start podcasting and stop after—is it 12 episodes is like the average?
Liz Mosley: Yeah, there's a great stat. I think it's like if you get to beyond 22 episodes, you're in the top 1% of podcasts-
Eman Ismail: Wow.
Liz Mosley: -because most podcasts don't go beyond that. And I think if you're beyond 12, you're in the top 5%. So yeah, I love that stat.
Eman Ismail: I know, just keep going, keep going because it's not easy and you really do have to love it. And it's funny about what you said about your organisation 'cause I'm the same with my podcast. My workflow and Asana is—I'm like, "Oh, I love it. I absolutely love it." So yeah, thank you for sharing that.
I want to get into what you came here for. Are you ready?
Liz Mosley: I'm ready.
Eman Ismail: Stick around. Don't go anywhere. We'll get right back to this episode after this quick break.
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Okay, let's do it. Liz, what is the mistake that made you?
Liz Mosley: The mistake that made me is that I let my fear of rejection stop me from pursuing my business goals.
Eman Ismail: Okay, let's go back a little bit. Take me back to the beginning. How did you discover that you had a fear of rejection? What's the story there?
Liz Mosley: I think I probably always had—I probably always knew it in the back of my mind. I would say that I'm quite a self-reflective person, but there was one particular thing that happened, which was kind of like the catalyst for me having the revelation of how it was holding me back. It was a couple of years ago. I was at Adobe MAX in LA, which is a big creative conference, and Chris Do was there, who's really big in the online business creative marketing space. He's got nearly a million followers on Instagram. He shares loads of incredible content.
My podcast has probably been going for maybe a year, a year and a half. And I bought his book at the conference and I did the classic thing, I posted an Instagram story and I tagged him in it. This was like late in the evening, at the end of the day, in my hotel room, and he replied and said, "Oh, thanks for sharing." The way my thought process went was, "Oh, if I reply now, I reckon it'll show up in his main inbox of Instagram," rather than that hidden one where it's someone who you don't follow. So I was like, "If I reply now, I reckon he'll see it."
So I just, completely on a whim, replied. I was like, "Oh, I wonder if you'd be interested in being on my podcast." And he'd actually just asked a friend of mine, Lucy, for her—I don't know if you know Lucy Werner. She'd given-
Eman Ismail: Yeah.
Liz Mosley: -him a copy of her book and he'd asked her to be on his podcast, which was amazing. And so I was totally in the like, "Just go for it. I'm just gonna ask him." Anyway, he replied and asked me how many downloads I had on my podcast, and I told him. I was very truthful about how many downloads I had. On reflection, I think a lot of people—because there's no way of anyone verifying, I think a lot of people just make stuff up about this kind of thing.
Eman Ismail: It's so true. Also bot downloads and all that weird stuff. But I'm laughing because I can see how uncomfortable you are [laughs] talking about this part. Don't worry. I get it. I so get it.
Liz Mosley: Anyway, I told him how many downloads I have and his reply was basically like, so he has this goal where he's trying to help—I think it's a million, maybe—yeah, I think it's like a million creatives earn money from doing what they love, basically. And so he's trying to reach big numbers of people. And so he basically said, "Oh, I'm looking for a bigger audience, but get back to me when you have this number of downloads," which I was like, okay-
Eman Ismail: That's nice.
Liz Mosley: -that's nice that he gave me an in to get back to him. But what was really interesting to me was how I felt afterwards. His rejection, it wasn't a bad rejection. He was friendly about it. He probably gets asked to be on podcasts all the time, so he does have to have boundaries about which ones he does. He also gave me an in to come back to him.
And it wasn't public. It's not like I'd done this in front of loads of people. This was just in the DMs, literally no one else knew about it, but I felt so embarrassed. I literally sat there cringing, and I was like, "Oh, I shouldn't have done that. This is so cringe. I can't believe I just asked Chris Do to be on my podcast." And I think I felt a bit like—I think I'd go as extreme to say that I felt shame. I felt just all this mix of really horrible feelings.
And I vividly remember the process in my brain going, "Oh, that did not feel good. I am not going to ask anybody of that calibre or fame level again because I don't want to feel like this." Anyway, I got over it and it didn't stress me out too much, but it was just interesting, the thought process.
Anyway, a few months later, I was mulling it over and I was reflecting back on it. And I was just thinking about how my brain just so quickly went into that, "Right, shut it down, I'm never doing that again." And it just got me wondering how many things in my business am I almost subconsciously not pursuing because I've had this story in my head where I'm like, "Well, this doesn't feel good." So I go into protection mode of "I don't want to feel like this, so I'm not even going to ask for it."
Because the other thing that I've realised is there's a hope aspect to it. So if I haven't asked for it, there's still this potential for it to happen in the future that I can ask for it in the future. It's still on the table. Whereas I feel like if I've asked for it and they've said no, the way my brain goes is then it's off the table and I've lost that opportunity forever. Subsequently, I don't believe that's true, but that was the whole process. It's quite a lot to unpick.
And so I had this revelation that "Oh my goodness, this is actually impacting me in so many areas of my business," not just the podcast. That happened to be what I was focusing on at the time. And I was just like, I don't want that to be the way. I want to get to a point where I'm not letting it hold me back and I feel, I guess, more comfortable about being rejected.
Eman Ismail: Yeah. I mean, I totally relate. I actually feel physical pain just thinking about this right now. I've had a few similar instances. One was face-to-face, which I have never wanted the ground to open up and just swallow me whole, just swallow me whole because literally, I wanted to disappear. And there was nothing for me to do except just turn around and just walk away. And I was like, "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I did not just do that." [laughs]
And the funny thing is this was someone who had literally just been on stage talking about how you should be open to rejection, you should ask for the scary things and you should make your pitch. And I was like, "Well, okay, I'm gonna pitch to you." [laughs] So I did. I did. And to be fair, it probably wasn't the best time and place. However, in my defence, there wasn't ever going to be another time and place 'cause we live in different countries and they were going off and I wanted them to be on the podcast.
And they were just so dismissive. I don't even want to say they were rude. Okay, I feel like being dismissive is rude, but I think a better word is just, they were just so dismissive and the dismissal just made me feel so small, so small and so insignificant. And it was really upsetting. It was really upsetting because it wasn't the no, it was just being treated as if you don't even matter.
And I think part of maybe what you were feeling—correct me if I'm wrong—is that feeling of "I'm not important enough." Because if you'd said the bigger numbers, if you'd given the bigger numbers, it's that feeling of "I'm not important enough, I'm not good enough."
Liz Mosley: Yeah, that's where my brain always goes. I mean, that's a whole other thing that I've got to work through in therapy, but I think it's—well, I think, no, I think this is universal, that we do have a negativity bias when it comes to thinking about ourselves, and I think if we don't keep our brains in check, our natural response—not everybody, but often—is to go into "I'm not good enough." The reason they said no is X, Y, Z.
And I tell myself all these stories, usually that I'm not a good enough designer or my podcast isn't good enough, people don't like me, all these kinds of things, and yet that might be part of it, but most of the time, that is not the true story. And the true story is usually something like, oh, they get asked to be on podcasts all the time and they've just had to set a limit for themselves. Or, like he said, he's obviously set a number in his mind of, "I'm only going to go on podcasts if they have this number of downloads."
Or like for me, one of the things that's helped me undo this way of thinking is thinking about why I say no to podcast pitches. And a lot of the time it's—well, at the moment, it's because I have got so carried away working on my podcast that I've booked in all the guests till the end of the year so I have to turn around to be like, "Well, I haven't got any slots for you." Or it's that I've just covered that topic or it's that I don't think we'd have like the best rapport or conversation.
That's not actually saying that they're not good at what they do or that they're not doing a great job. It comes back to that thing that we talked about with the teachers, that I'm not for everybody, they're not for everybody, and that's okay. But that's not a comment on their worth or a comment on their skill, but that is where we tend to default to in our brains.
Eman Ismail: Yeah. I mean, I totally agree. I just have so much to say on this topic. I think we talk about creating boundaries and that kind of thing, being able to create boundaries for ourselves. And I think the other side of that is being able to accept other people's boundaries. So being able to say no to things that aren't going to serve you, but then also being able to accept really healthily when somebody else maintains their own boundary and gives you a no. You have to be able to accept that really healthily, and it's very difficult.
I recently pitched—so there's two really—like a dream guest that I pitched. I've been in conversation with one of them about becoming a client and hopefully that will happen. I'm really hoping by the end of the year that will happen, that dream client. So I pitched her to be on the podcast. Haven't had a response yet. This is literally two months ago. And I know I should have followed up. I know you have to follow up, but I just felt so embarrassed. And I was like—It's been on my Asana and I just keep renewing the due date [laughs] just pushing it further and further back, follow up, follow up, because I'm so embarrassed.
It's that thing that you said of well, she's not said no. So as long as she's not said no, I'm okay. But if I follow up, she might say no, but she also might say yes. There's the hope thing.
And then there's another person who I asked her to be on my podcast and her team replied saying no in the nicest way. And, again, I felt really small, but I gave myself 24 hours to just get over it. Sometimes you just gotta put a time limit on it and be like, "Okay, be sad and then get over it." Because it's really not about you. I had to have a conversation with myself. "Eman, this is not about you. You understand where she's coming from. I'm running my small business. Her business is 10 times bigger than mine. She has to set boundaries for herself."
And they did it in a really nice, respectful way. Their no was lovely. And then she actually ended up getting in touch with me, to talk to me about something else. And so I'm on this Zoom call with my dream client. I love her so much. And she actually said, she mentioned it and said, "Hey, I just want you to know that I know that you messaged my team about being on your podcast, and at the moment, I'm just taking some time to—just taking some time out and just taking a step back from podcasts and that kind of thing. So know that I'm aware of that and I saw it."
And I was like, "Hey, it's no problem. I totally understand," because I am in a similar position. I have two kids. I have a business. I'm trying to run a home. I have so much. I can't say yes to everything. And as a matter of fact, my experience—well, I've put a new policy into place about podcast requests because—
Liz Mosley: Yeah, I was gonna say this because I loved when you did this. I thought it was really interesting.
Eman Ismail: Okay. Let me tell you why before I tell you what the podcast policy is 'cause you're going to think I'm really mean if I tell you what the policy is before I tell you why. [laughs]
Liz Mosley: No, I don't think it's mean at all. I think it's brilliant. But yeah, tell us.
Eman Ismail: So this has been my experience. I get asked to be on a lot of podcasts, which I'm so grateful for. I remember the time when nobody wanted me on their podcast. That wasn't so long ago. Everyone was like, "Who the heck are you? Why would I want you on my podcast?" So I'm so grateful for every speaker request, every podcast request that I get. I really am. But it got to the point where I'm exhausted [laughs] and so I have to really protect my time.
And a lot of the time I'm doing these podcast recordings in the evenings after I put the kids to sleep or I'm doing them in the school day when my kids are at nursery and school, and that's really precious time because that's the time that I should be working on my business. I only have five or six hours in the day to work on my business. So it's really precious time.
Now, I was finding that I was getting invited to speak on podcasts, and I would go do the thing, I'd go do the whole recording, and then they would just never release the episode. They just never released the interview. And this has happened so many times that I can't even count how many times this happened. In the nicest of those scenarios, the person will get in touch with me and say, "Hey, by the way, I've decided not to release the interview because either I've changed the direction of my podcast or I'm not doing a podcast anymore," because of that thing we spoke about—most people give up on their podcast before they even get to 8, 12 episodes. And I'm not saying that in a criticising way. That is literally factual.
So I got really tired of it because I was tired of dedicating hours, hours of my time. In one case, I'm not talking about 45-minute interviews. I'm talking about an hour and a half interviews. And I just got really tired of it. And it felt really disrespectful of my time. And so I was just like, "I'm not doing this anymore." So I created a policy. Now I don't go on new podcasts, completely new podcasts, unless I know the person very well. Unless I know the person very well, I don't go on new podcasts, and any podcast that comes in, you have to have at least 20 episodes for me to say yes at this point, because I need to know that you know what goes into a podcast and you're committed to your podcast before I dedicate an hour, hour and a half of my time recording.
And so I have been communicating this new policy and one person just didn't respond, so I don't know how they felt about it, maybe not too positively. And then another person did respond and was really nice about it and was like, "I totally understand. I'm gonna get back to you when I have those 20 episodes," which was really lovely.
Liz Mosley: But that's what I love about it, is that you're not giving people—it's not a forever no. I mean, you're totally entitled to give a forever no, but for most people, it's like, "Actually, just go and establish your podcast a bit more, and then, yeah, I'm there, I'll be on it." And I love that that person was like, "Yeah, great, I'm going to come and get back to you," because I just think that is totally the attitude to have.
And your boundary is totally valid based on the experience that you've had. It does take hours. It's exhausting being on podcasts.
Eman Ismail: It is.
Liz Mosley: It takes so much energy from a guest perspective. And yeah, I mean, as soon as I heard you say it, I was like, "Absolutely perfect. That is such a good way to deal with this scenario." And I think, again, it's the sort of spirit in which it comes across because you're not doing it in a "Oh, if you've got less than 20 episodes, you're beneath me," because that's not the attitude at all. The attitude is like, "I need to really protect my time, and so I only want to do this thing if I know that you're gonna actually put it out there," which makes total sense to me.
Eman Ismail: Well, exactly. And I hope that people take it as that. And then the other side of this is that if I'm out there rejecting people, I also have to be okay accepting and taking rejection. And I understand how hard it is, and I think that's why I think it feels so hard to say no and to create those boundaries because I don't want new podcasters to feel like what you just said, like, "Oh, I'm better than you." Or honestly, I love supporting new podcasters. I love supporting people who are doing something new.
I remember when I was new to the industry and, for example, Steve Folland was one of the first podcasters that interviewed me on his podcast. And that's a big podcast. Being Freelance is a big podcast, and I got more from that interview than he did. I mean, I don't think he would say that 'cause he's too nice, but I got more from doing that interview than he got from having me on the show.
And I remember what it was like to be new and to just need people to say yes. You need people to say yes at those early stages. And so it's really hard for me to say no, but it's exactly as you said. I also have to be really realistic at this point.
Mai-kee Tsang spoke about this on her episode of Mistakes That Made Me. If you haven't listened to the episode, go listen to it after you finish listening to this because it's really great. But she talks about this idea of you're not able to show up in the best way possible when you're exhausted and you're overworking yourself. And so the person who's inviting you to do the thing isn't even going to get the best you. And you want to give them the best you. And if you can't do that, then it's in their interest that you say no, you know?
Liz Mosley: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think that's so true. And I think you make such a good point about the rejection thing. Well, I guess when you get to a certain point in your business, it goes both ways, like you are rejecting people and you're also being rejected by people. And I mean, there's so much that is involved in both of those things and I think there's so much that you have to work through from both sides because actually there's—
I definitely say yes to a lot of things, again, out of my people-pleaser way of being. And I am having to, for similar reasons as you, I am limited on how much I can work on my business. I'm tired a lot of the time. My kids still don't sleep great. All these kinds of different factors mean that actually, I need to get better at saying no. And so my rejection to someone usually isn't about them. It's about me and my capacity. Yeah, and that's just helpful to remember all round.
One thing that I think what you talked about reminds me, and you were talking about the person that you pitched to, a big lesson for me has been about following up. Well, we haven't actually mentioned this, but I set myself this rejection challenge, which—
Eman Ismail: Oh, wait, we're gonna go into that in a second.
Liz Mosley: Okay. Well, I was gonna say that following up—well, I'll save it for when we chat about the challenge, but yeah, following up, I think, is something that I've had to learn to do.
Eman Ismail: Yes. No, I totally agree. I totally agree. It's a lot. There are so many feelings in this. You mentioned therapy before, and I've just started listening to a podcast called Professional Troublemaker by Luvvie. And in one episode, she says, "If you're not in therapy as a business owner, God help you at this point." [laughs] And it's so true.
Liz Mosley: Honestly, it's so true. So true. Well, I almost feel like it should be a business expense in that we should all just automatically have therapy because I've said this so many times before, but running my own business has been the most exposing thing that I've ever done in terms of not being able to hide from myself, what I'm like, what I'm good at, what I'm not good at.
And I feel like I've been on such a journey the last—I mean, I've been working for myself the last five or six years and oh my goodness, I've had to work through so many things in that time. And I'm not in therapy at the moment, but I have done it before and it helped me so much. And I always want to mention that I've had therapy and so many of my family members have had therapy because I just think we need help. We need help to work through those things that come up, and that particularly come up as business owners. So yeah.
Eman Ismail: Oh, a hundred percent. I think, in my culture, I will say, in the Muslim faith and also in the Black culture, therapy isn't really spoken about openly. I think we're getting better. We're getting better at accepting that going to therapy is okay and it's okay if you need help, but it's still very much taboo. And so I love telling people that I was in therapy for two and a half years because they're shocked often. [laughs] And I think it's really important to talk about the fact that it's okay to be in therapy. And I recommend therapy to everyone 'cause often—
Liz Mosley: Me too.
Eman Ismail: Yeah. I thought I went to therapy for one thing and ended up having, honestly, a year of sessions. I didn't even know that I needed help with it. Clearly, I needed help with that, you know? So—
Liz Mosley: Honestly, I was a total same. I thought I had this particular issue, and then went in and it turned out it was something totally different, and that was just like a minor symptom of this much bigger issue. [laughs]
Eman Ismail: Exactly, exactly. And it's amazing because I mean, like you said, being a business owner, it's so challenging, it brings up so many things. Just something as simple as this, like somebody just saying no in the DMs can be so difficult.
Also, I do want to say that I think it's interesting that you did it late at night and it all happened late at night because I was listening to a podcast—Oh, I can't remember the name of the guest, but it was Jay Clouse's podcast, Creator Science. Love that podcast, by the way. And the guest was talking about the fact that we react differently to different emotional situations when we're tired versus when we're not tired.
I mean, it's so simple, but do we actually implement this? So he was saying, just don't read your inbox at night because something that you would react to in one way in the morning could literally inspire a completely different reaction that makes you go into like a headspin and like causes a meltdown simply because you read it after a long day when you're really tired and you should really be in bed and instead you go into your inbox reading emails. Our brains are not able to handle stress or certain situations as well as it would be if we just waited for when we were a bit mentally stronger-
Liz Mosley: It's so true.
Eman Ismail: -like after a good night's sleep.
Liz Mosley: Yeah, totally.
Eman Ismail: After a bit of breakfast, you know?
Liz Mosley: And I think about all of the times that I have lost sleep in the night about stuff and it's because in the night everything seems worse and you catastrophise into this big thing. There's been certain things in my business where I have literally lost an entire night's sleep because I was just playing this thing over and over and over in my head and stressing about it, and then the next day I'd chat it to someone—because that's the other thing for me is that it's because I'm on my own. Obviously, my husband's there but he's asleep and I'm not gonna wake him up and be like, "I'm just playing this thing over and over." But when I chat to someone about it the next day, I feel totally differently about it. Yeah, I need to be much better at enforcing that boundary because it is so, so true.
Eman Ismail: Yeah. And it's so simple. I feel like we already know this. It's common sense, but actually, it matters so much. And I actually have a saying, where if anything feels terrible at night, which it always does, I always tell myself, "Everything feels better in the morning. Everything feels better in the morning." And I just force myself. I'll literally say to my family, "I need to literally reset. I just need to reset. I'm going to bed. I'll see you tomorrow because I can't do this." [laughs] Wake up in the morning and suddenly just, everything feels better and lighter and not as tragic, like literally tragic.
Okay. So let's talk about the other side of this. So how did this mistake of being afraid of rejection and realising that it's stopping you from achieving things in your business because you're just so afraid of being rejected, how did this mistake make you?
Liz Mosley: Well, I think it was not an easy process because I had to accept a lot of things. I had to face up to the rejection. I had to work through those feelings. But I decided that I didn't want to let that be a defining or controlling thing in my business anymore. So I was thinking about ways that I could turn it around and I guess make it a positive. It's something that I had seen as a negative. How could I make that a positive?
And I had a friend who I remember like years ago done this no thank you challenge where she basically gone out looking for the rejections, so looking for the no thank yous. This was such a novel concept for me, and there's actually a TED talk about it as well. I can't remember the guy's name, but I'll send you a link to it. But there's a guy who did a TED talk where he did something very similar. It was like exposure therapy basically.
And I thought, you know what, this would work perfectly for me because I love setting myself challenges. This is one of the things I've learned about myself in business. I do much better if I set myself a challenge, I turn it into something fun, I basically gamify it. So I set myself the challenge to go out and pursue a hundred rejections, so actually go looking for them. And I made a long list.
So I went for a hundred, which, on reflection, was a really big number, but I made a list. I had a spreadsheet and I was like, "I'm going to make sure that I can come up with a hundred things to pitch for before I start this just so that I know that it's doable." And I made this long list. A lot of them were podcast-related because, as I mentioned, I was really focused on the podcast at that point. A lot of them were to do with getting sponsors for the podcast, getting this particular guest. There was a whole bunch of other things on there as well.
And I started going for it. I started asking people. And what was so interesting to me was how the mindset shift was immediate. So I went into it thinking, "Oh, it's probably going to take me a while before I start to feel better about rejection or I change how I feel about it." But the minute I decided to do it, the shift was there because I had turned it into a win-win situation.
So basically, if I didn't get rejected, obviously, that was the goal. I wanted people to say yes, then great. I had this new thing, this new opportunity, this thing that I was going to do. But if they said no, then I was like, "That's also great because now you're just getting me one step closer to achieving the goal."
And I obviously started sharing about it and creating content about it because, you know, everything is content. It was interesting then sharing what I was learning. It was interesting people's responses. Yeah. I feel like I should stop to let you ask another question. [laughs]
Eman Ismail: No, it sounds amazing. So I've actually seen this on TikTok, exposure therapy, but for me, it was a bit silly. I mean, maybe I'm just too results-oriented, but if I'm doing something like this, like you did, I want it to be aligned and to potentially get me some kind of results.
The ones I've seen on TikTok, I think someone put petrol in their car at an Asda petrol station and then went in and asked if they could not pay for it, which I understand is just the basic thing of just trying to get used to hearing no, but I also need it to be realistic. Do you know what I mean?
Liz Mosley: Yeah. So whenever I talk about this, I always caveat that I was pursuing rejections in a business setting because I have seen all of those videos on TikTok as well. So it's like people going up to a stranger and asking them to sing a solo. That was just not interesting to me. Sorry, not a solo, a duet, asking them to sing a duet with them in the street or whatever. And like you, I wanted it to have some beneficial outcome, something really tangible, and I didn't want it to be about humiliating myself publicly either. That wasn't the goal either.
So yeah, I'd seen all that on TikTok. So people always laugh at me when I'm like, "In a business setting," 'cause I'm not going out there trying to get people to reject me personally, but you know, if that's what you want to do, that's fine. But it's not for me.
Eman Ismail: No, not for me either. So tell me about your biggest rejection challenge success.
Liz Mosley: Well, so one of the things that I thought was going to make me fly through this challenge was trying to get sponsors for my podcast. So I had made a long list of my dream sponsors, and at the very top of that list was a company called Flodesk who do email marketing because I've been using their platform for years, I have mentioned it loads in the podcast, so it was perfectly aligned, like it would not have been at all jarring for people who listen to the podcast for me to promote them, and they said yes. [laughs]
Eman Ismail: Wow.
Liz Mosley: That's the first company that I tried to get a podcast sponsorship with, and they said yes. So I have to admit that I had a lucky break with it. So basically, I got an email from them about some updates that they had going on. And in the email, they were like, "As you're one of our top referrers." And I was like, "Oh, I didn't know I was one of their top referrers." And so I replied to that email, because I thought, "Oh, if this is going out to top referrers, they probably haven't sent it out to thousands of people." So I took the opportunity, and then I was like, "Oh, since I'm one of your top referrers, would you consider sponsoring the podcast?"
And so I did the whole pitch off the back of that email. And I think that really helped because they'd initiated contact and then I took that opportunity and went back with a pitch. And actually, before they asked me to send any information, they went away and they did the research and they looked into me and they listened to my podcast. So actually, when they were coming back to me, it was really easy for me to send them the pitch deck, to send them the pitch because they'd actually already done the research and decided that I was a good fit for them. So yeah, that was one of my biggest successes.
Another one was just some of the guests that I've had on the podcast. I mean, this is sort of like a niche area, but some of the creatives that have been on have been women that I have followed online for decades and are icons in my industry. So people like Jessica Hische and Lisa Congdon, they both said yes to being on the podcast. Things like that have just been absolutely incredible. And I know for sure, based on what my mentality was after asking Chris Do, was that I wouldn't have asked them if it wasn't for this challenge.
Eman Ismail: So here's the thing. You said at one point when you were talking about the Flodesk sponsorship, you said the word "lucky." Okay. Now, of course, timing is everything, but I don't think it was luck at all. Okay, I need to clarify, I am not a Star Wars fan in any way, shape, or form. I don't even know how I know this quote. I think I saw a clip for the first time ever in my life, but this one quote stayed with me, and it's been with me for years. "Your focus is your reality."
I think that when you get intentional about something, and you set your mind on something, and you decide this is what you want, I feel like your mind just opens up, and whereas before, you wouldn't have seen the opportunity because in your head, it wasn't even a possibility, suddenly, you're making connections, you're taking opportunities.
This is why I like to write things down. I like to write down goals. I like to do my yearly podcast reviews and even mid-year reviews because actually just sitting down, writing down my goals and me and taking the time to be intentional and to just give something space to exist, things start moving because I feel like you're focused on it. You're focused on it, and then your focus becomes your reality.
There may have been a time when you'd got that email. You just would be like, "Oh my God, that's amazing. Thank you so much." And that's it.
Liz Mosley: Yeah, I think you're totally right. I think if they'd sent it literally a week before, I wouldn't have replied. And I think it was just because I had made that decision, I was looking for opportunity. I was looking for those opportunities. I was so much more aware of it. And I guess it emboldened me, didn't it?
Eman Ismail: Yes.
Liz Mosley: It just gave me that courage to be like, "Oh, okay, this email's come along. I'm not gonna just read it and then move on. I'm gonna actually get back to them and pursue them." And it worked out really well.
Eman Ismail: That's amazing. And ultimately, as hard as it is, the worst they can say is no.
Liz Mosley: I know. And I think one of the things that I have learned is that this isn't gonna cure how I feel about rejection, right? I'm still gonna have the feelings. And I've actually had to say to myself, it's okay. I'm allowed to be disappointed. I'm allowed to be upset. I'm allowed to spiral a little bit. But what I've noticed is that I recover from the spiral a lot quicker because I almost like can put it in perspective better, whereas before, I might not have been able to.
But also, that wasn't ever my goal necessarily. It wasn't to never feel bad about rejection. My goal was to not let it hold me back. And so I feel like I'm still allowed to feel the feelings, and that's totally fine, but they don't have to be the end of the story.
Eman Ismail: I totally agree. It's how I answer when people ask me how to get over imposter complex or imposter syndrome. I don't think I will ever get over it or get past it, but I think it's a case of just doing the thing anyway and working through it and doing it even though you feel that imposter complex.
I signed on a new client recently, and I had my briefing call with her yesterday and she's so lovely. And at the end of the call, she was saying how excited she was to be working with me and how amazing the emails are going to be. And I suddenly got this feeling, just the pressure and suddenly all these feelings of being an imposter and like, "What if I'm not good enough? And what if she hates it?" And then I was starting to spiral. And I was just like, "No, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop." I just had to just stop, just pause and just stop. Don't even let it get any further.
I still feel it all the time, and I don't know if I will ever not feel it. Same with that fear of rejection. But it's doing the thing despite you feeling that.
Liz Mosley: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing that has really helped me—and this is kind of coming back to what we talked about at the beginning about ATOMICON, this is what I loved about ATOMICON—is recognising that this is a universal experience. I think we tell ourselves that nobody else is getting rejected and we see them having these amazing opportunities and flying in their businesses and we're just like, "Well, it's easy for them. No one's saying no." But actually, everybody, I genuinely believe that every single person has experienced, in a business context, someone saying no to them.
And just these talks at ATOMICON proved that to me because every single one of them talked about—well, nearly every single one of them talked about some form of rejection or failure and how they worked through that and came out the other side. And I think if we start to think—the big shift for me was starting to think of rejection not as this negative, awful thing that's happened to me in my business, it's just part of the process of running a business. It's just an accepted part of the process. In the same way that I have to pay my taxes and that is part of the process of me running my business, rejection is just something that I have to go to.
Yeah, it doesn't feel great. I mean, doing my taxes doesn't feel great either, but I have to do them. And I can get in my head about it, but actually, if I'm reminding myself that it's happening to everybody else as well, it's not anything connected to do with my worth or my value as a business owner, it moves me forward, it teaches me something, it might take me in a different, even better direction. There's so many positive things that it can lead to. It doesn't need to be this scary thing anymore. It just needs to be like, "Oh yeah, this is just part of the process."
Eman Ismail: Yes, exactly. And what you said about people feeling like other people don't go through rejection, it's because it's easier for us to just not share those darker times and those more difficult, kind of embarrassing times and those embarrassing things. It's just not glamorous. But I think this is why it is so beneficial to share them.
And on that note, your rejection challenge went amazingly, but there was a pitch that got a bad reaction from the person that you were pitching. So tell us about that.
Liz Mosley: Yeah, there was one that really stands out, and it was quite early on. I won't say who it was, but it was someone else Chris Do-esque, you know, that kind of level, maybe even more famous. And I thought, "I'm gonna email, I want the person to open the email." So I kind of went a bit clickbaity with it. And I thought, "If I mentioned the challenge, that might—" I carefully crafted the title of the email, the subject of the email, I've forgotten how to talk, and I talked about the challenge in the pitch, which I didn't normally do, but I was like, "I need to hook them in" kind of thing.
Anyway, it turns out this person hated the idea of my challenge, sent an email back, very short, very rude, basically telling me that they thought what I was doing was totally the wrong thing, sent me a link to a blog post that they'd written about rejection, which didn't actually make sense to me. I think they misunderstood what I was trying to do, but was so dismissive about it. It was such a rude reply. And so then it really impacted me because I was like, "This is someone that I respect and they've told me that they think that what I'm doing is wrong and I'm doing a bad thing."
And so I did spiral, but I chatted to a few friends and this is where I think coming back to our comments about community and having online business friends is so helpful. I talked to a few of them. They helped me reframe it and not feel so bad about it and I guess just acknowledge that maybe this person wasn't the right person to be on my podcast after all because we obviously had quite different opinions on these kind of things, which is fine, but it just made it easier for me to move on from it.
And actually, I wasn't doing this challenge for other people and what they thought about it. Obviously, I was sharing about it publicly, but I was doing it for me, and it was already helping me. It already had such a huge impact. So it was like this idea of having to remind myself that it doesn't matter what this person thinks about what I'm doing because I know personally it's helping me, so it's worthwhile.
This is, again, why so many of us need therapy is there's so much to unpick around caring what other people think about us too much. There's all these different things that are impacting us and slowing us down in our businesses, so yeah, people pleasing, not being able to say no to things, caring too much what people think, all of those kind of things need unpicking.
So yeah, that was a pretty brutal one. And I think just because it was rude as well, it was unnecessarily rude, the tone of the email.
Eman Ismail: Yeah. And I also think the danger of this is it's because you looked up to him so much. That's why people say never meet your heroes, you know.
Liz Mosley: It's when people fall off their pedestals slightly.
Eman Ismail: It's when people fall off their pedestals. Exactly. What's scary is that you're putting yourself in a position to be hurt by people that you really respect, which of course is even more painful.
You just said, "I just gave myself some time. I went and spoke to people around me," and I always like to remind myself when stuff like this happens that I'm gonna feel better about this next week. Right now, it feels terrible and it's painful and it's humiliating and it's upsetting or whatever it is. Tomorrow I'll wake up and feel a bit better. The next day I'll feel a bit more better. The day after that, I'll feel a little bit more better until I'm looking back at this and laughing and learning lessons from it, you know?
Liz Mosley: I think there's a quote, probably like some sort of cheesy quote that goes around Instagram, but it's actually really helped me, where it's like, "Is this something that you are going to be worried about in five days time? And if it isn't, don't spend more than five minutes worrying about it." Obviously, that's easier said than done. But that attitude really helped me because I am the sort of person that gets so fixated in the moment and how I feel. I'm so in my feelings that I forget, exactly like you said, tomorrow I'm going to feel totally different about it. Five days time, this isn't even going to be on my radar because I will have moved on to something else. So I can choose to not invest too much of my mental energy in it right now.
Eman Ismail: Yeah, exactly. And I always feel like—and I don't know if this is just me, but I'm very aware of the fact that anything that I put my emotional energy into, or that takes or saps my emotional energy is emotional energy that's being taken away from, firstly, just myself, but also my family and my kids as well. Because you take it home with you, that feeling, that emotion and that being sapped of energy or that hurt. And sometimes it can come out in ways that you don't want it to, to the people that you don't want it to come out to.
And so I'm trying to get better at that literally just not allowing people to ruin my day, even my hour. Yesterday morning, someone was road raging at me and swearing at me. And it was 9 a.m. and I just thought, "Imagine being that angry at 9 a.m." Are you okay? Literally go get your blood pressure checked. Go see a therapist. Chill out. You're just not okay. I refuse. And it upset me for I want to say like 30 minutes, especially because it was the morning and I was just on the run and it was just a lot. And I was like, "No, I am choosing to not let this person affect me or the situation affect me any longer."
And again, I think therapy has so much to do with like how I'm able to regulate my emotions now. And I always say, one of the biggest things I learned from therapy was it takes so much work as an adult to regulate our emotions. And so many adults cannot. Once you learn how to, or you're trying to, it takes so much work, and it's been really helpful as a parent to know that if I have this much trouble as an adult trying to regulate my emotions, then my eight-year-old is entitled to his little mood swings. My toddler is entitled to his full-blown tantrums, big feelings that he's just trying to figure out. So, yeah, it's a lot.
Liz Mosley: I think about that all the time. I mean, not to take this podcast off on a totally other tangent, but the expectations we have of kids and how they behave is just crazy compared to the expectations that we have for ourself. Me and my husband get in moods all the time and are so up and down in our moods, and sometimes it does come out. We try not to let it, but it does come out and impact the kids. And then we're crossed because they're in a mood about something. It's like, no way, of course, they've got to be allowed to have—we can't expect them to be happy and chilled all of the time. So yeah, that was such a revelation for me when I had kids. I was like, "I mean, I am struggling with this. How are they doing it?" Yeah.
Eman Ismail: I mean, I think when I was a kid, certainly in my culture, it was very much like, "You're a child, you're not even allowed to have emotions. You should just keep quiet and carry on with your day," you know? Well, that creates a very repressed child, and then you grow up to be a very repressed adult who doesn't know how to deal with emotions because you would just always tell you to shut it down. You don't get to have emotions, just shut it down.
And so I try really hard with my kids now, especially the eight-year-old when he's having feelings, to let him know that it's okay. It's okay that you're upset. It's okay to be angry It's okay to be frustrated or annoyed but you can't be rude to me in those moments when you are. You still need to speak to me respectfully and all that. He's so great. He's always respectful anyway. He's just the best. I couldn't have got there without therapy.
And then also my toddler, God help me, the tensions that we are going through at the moment. And sometimes I just stop and I'm like, in the middle of it, he's like screaming and doing the whole thing, and I'm like, "Do you need a hug?" And he'll say, "Yes." And he just wants a hug and I hug him. And then he just melts into me. And I just think he just doesn't know what to do with all the feelings that we as adults struggle with.
And so when you bring a business into that as well, oh my gosh, you know? Especially when you're a service provider. I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for this. When you are serving people, then you also have to deal with all the people that you serve and all their emotions—the good, the bad, the disappointed, and everything in between. It's a lot.
Liz Mosley: And I think, going back to the rejection challenge, that's why I didn't ever want the goal to be to remove the feelings because I think that's totally normal. It's totally okay to be disappointed when something that you really wanted doesn't happen. I think it would be too easy to get into a, "Do this and you'll never feel sad after being rejected again," and that's just not the reality at all.
Eman Ismail: No, it's not.
Liz, I have so many other questions for you. I even told you like, "I'm going to ask you this." We don't have time 'cause we've just had such a great convo that it's been going on for so long. So let's wrap it up. What do you want others to learn from this experience?
Liz Mosley: Well, I think the thing that I'd love to leave people with, and I've mentioned this already, is just this idea that everyone experiences rejection and that it's part of the process, and just really believing that. Going into your business, going into your work expecting to be rejected will change your mindset about it. Even if you don't decide to do a challenge or you don't decide to go looking for it, if you expect it and know that that's okay and that it is not a comment on your value or your worth, then you'll just be in such a much better position than you were before.
Eman Ismail: Love it. Thank you. And where can people find you if they want to stay connected?
Liz Mosley: So if you want to check out my podcast, it's called Building Your Brand. And the website that we talked about is buildingyourbrand.net. And then, if you want to connect with me, probably Instagram is the best place. And I'm @lizmmosley. That's where I spend most of my time. But you can easily find me on other platforms as well, with a bit of Googling.
Eman Ismail: Great. I will put those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here. It was a joy chatting to you. I'm glad we finally got to do this. We did it in the end.
Liz Mosley: Yeah.
Eman Ismail: Thanks, Liz.
Liz Mosley: Thank you so much for having me.
Eman Ismail: I love the idea of Liz's challenge. I love it. I can see all the benefits in it. Assuming it's not those random, weird TikTok ones that I mentioned in the conversation where people are going up to petrol stations and asking for free petrol, or gas if you're American. Gas station and gas if you're American. But in Liz's case, she's asking for things that will actually impact her and help her business. So I can see how this challenge could be really effective.
I do think you don't have to turn it into a challenge if you don't want to. If a challenge feels overwhelming, how about trying an accountability partner instead? How about finding someone who is on the same page with you about this and trying to rack up as many rejections as you can between youse and just checking in with each other every time you get a rejection. That accountability partner can help you maybe overcome some of your fears and maybe land some of the dreamier things that you didn't even think was possible.
I mean, I look at Liz's Instagram now and I have seen her sharing content with brands that she obviously has brand deals with, from Flodesk, which she did mention in this convo, but also Riverside and Adobe. And I think all of these came from Liz's challenge. So I am gonna challenge myself to be more open to rejection.
Yes, it's scary. Yes, it's uncomfortable. But I don't really know what we have to lose, other than maybe our pride a little bit. But why not? Why not try it? I'm going to give this a try, let me know if you're up to it as well because I think this could be really fun. Let me know if you try it, okay? I want to know. Hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.
Liz has also given us a Trello template so that we can track our rejections. So if you go to the show notes, click on the link, sign up to get the Trello template, and then we literally have no excuse. We have no excuse. We can do this.
Ever wondered what goes into creating this podcast? What my production process looks like? How I came up with the concept for this show? How I choose which guests to invite and how exactly I research them? Well, I'm sharing everything inside my bonus episode, Behind the Scenes: Making the Podcast. For this special episode, the show's podcast producer, Zuri Berry, takes the reins and interviews me so you can find out all the juicy details and behind-the-scenes stories.
I reveal, for the first time ever, how I landed the HubSpot partnership and what that agreement involves, as well as the key to sending a podcast pitch that'll get my attention, the interview methods that helped me nail my podcast interviews, and the resources and strategies I've used to help make this show a success.
If you want instant access to this bonus episode, click the link in the show notes or head over to emancopyco.com/bts, that's behind the scenes, emancopyco.com/bts. Put in your email address, and that's it. It's yours.