The Benefits of Rejection | Magna Gopal | TEDxJerseyCity

good afternoon everyone, it's exciting to be here before we start. I would like to ask you two simple questions by raising your hand. How many of you have wanted something and tried to get it by asking for it? Great, now it's all of us. keep your hands up if you got everything you asked for yeah that's what I thought none of us so at least we're on the same page we've all had some of our requests rejected or to put it in my terms today's talk We have all experienced

rejection

. Rejection is omnipresent throughout our lives.

I remember as a child I was always denied second helpings of dessert. I had school and job applications rejected. I asked to go out with someone and they rejected me. I have even asked friends for help and sometimes been ignored. Rejection exists everywhere, even in my industry. My career involves traveling the world teaching people how to connect through salsa dancing. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the dance, but for most of us the image. What comes to mind is one of fun passion and lots of smiles. It's also a great environment to experience a lot of

rejection

and is actually where I learned the most about it when I started dancing.

They used to ask me to dance. It was because I was always cheerful and smiling or maybe just because I was a new face on the block, either way I was always on the dance floor with very little effort from my party, however, people noticed that I was an absolute beginner with no technique and dancing with me was a little more painful than pleasurable, so naturally the requests to ask me to dance declined and if I wanted to dance I had to be the one to ask now, it's stressful especially as a beginner who doesn't know no one to work with. courage and asking someone dents, it was even harder if that person was surrounded by all their cool friends and then the hardest part was finally asking and hearing no now you might be thinking, so what a Magna, you said it yourself, We have all experienced rejection, we have all heard the word, we know what makes dancing so different and you are partly right, but let's take the example of being rejected from a job or a date, the chances of us asking again in question of seconds are quite rare, most likely just a few.

Days, weeks or even months will pass before we make another attempt. Dancing as a partner, on the other hand, takes rejection to a whole new level. Nowhere have I experienced as much rejection as when I haven't danced. Let me walk you through a typical night out to try and explain that I usually go out dancing for about three or four hours, the average song is five minutes long, so that's about 12 songs in an hour. Of course, I wanted to dance with everyone, but initially I was rejected at least half the time, which meant six rejections in just one hour and sometimes, if I really want us to dance to a particular song, I would ask until I got to the dance floor, which sometimes meant three or four rejections within the first 30 seconds of a song, those numbers are ridiculous, I can't think of any other aspect of life where you have so many rejections in such a short time, well maybe the telemarketing, I don't know, but even then the problem with rejection is not so much in the word, but in the way it is done.

How we feel? Think about the last time you were rejected for something. How did you feel? Were you tense? Did your heart sink into your stomach? Did you feel defeated and useless? Now take that feeling and multiply it by the numbers on the frequency of rejections you were receiving. and you can have an idea of ​​how depressed I felt, of course my initial reaction to this experience was this sucks. I'm going to pretend it never happened, but dancing doesn't allow that luxury because if you wanted to improve, which I clearly did, you had to keep dancing and in order to dance you had to keep asking, which basically meant that every five minutes you had to prepare to another possible rejection and it took me some time to realize that rejection was like any other experience in life.

Lessons to learn and opportunities for growth. I just had to find them, but I couldn't do it if I kept pretending it never happened, so I looked back at some of those experiences and the first lesson I learned was to not take rejection personally, even if it was personal compared to my skill level. at that time it said nothing about my ability to improve and be better in the future the second lesson I learned was to take every request I made and every rejection I received as a case study and analyze it and I refined my technique to ask how I asked when I asked who I asked.

I ended up learning a lot more about myself and how to read people and what I discovered was that when I took the rejection personally I felt hurt and disappointed, sure maybe my first and second rejections were full of enthusiasm with this big smile and a high would you like to dance but after getting that smile but after being rejected a couple of times I was bored and resentful I had a look of misery on my face and my requests sounded more like do you want to dance, no, what about you? you want to dance, okay, maybe I didn't turn into a grumpy cat, but needless to say, people were rejecting my negative energy long before I had a chance to ask them for anything when I changed and stopped.

By making it personal and focusing on my goal of getting on the dance floor and having fun, my entire behavior was much more positive and pleasant. He was confident and accepted any answer he received. Added to this is the fact that he no longer asked just anyone. and everyone to dance, but I focused my efforts on asking the people who seemed equally excited to get on the dance floor, well, you can guess I ended up getting a lot more yeses and this whole experience helped me redefine success not just including the yes but also Including this learning process and these two tools that I used, learning from it and not taking it personally, we are invaluable not only in my dance life but also in my personal and professional life in dealing with rejection, but clearly there's a flip side if someone is getting a rejection, someone is dishing it out and I'm not sure about all of you, but as hard as it is for me to hear the word no, it's always been a lot harder for me to say it to someone now because saying It doesn't hurt, so I'm responsible. for hurting someone and since hurting someone is not socially acceptable, I always had the feeling that rejecting someone was not either, unfortunately we live in this world where being nice is praised over being objectionable, we are sacrificing your desires and desires remain at a higher level.

Instead of defending them, when I say yes, people call me honey and when I say no, people call me honey, we feel entitled to ask and obligated when they ask. In my dance community it's no different, in fact there's this unspoken expectation that if someone musters up the courage and asks you to dance, you better respect it and say yes no matter what, because turning them down would have a negative impact. In them, I'm sure that when I was doing everything they asked I couldn't agree more, but when I improved and started to be asked for it.

More often I realized that saying yes could also have a negative impact, so I had to learn how and when it was important to say no. Unfortunately, my lesson came in the form of an injury. It's a bit of general information. My reputation in my dance community. He's one of those kind, sweet Energizer Bunny guys who dances all night with everyone and hardly ever says no, but then I got hurt, sprained my ankle, and broke my toe twice on the same foot, and despite the pain, my fear of losing my reputation surpassed any respect. had for my body, it was only after three years of having suboptimal health that I realized that if I didn't learn to say no and take care of myself I could cause permanent damage to my body, so I finally learned to say no.

It helped me recover and get back to dancing at full strength, so obviously this was a case where my rejection was a benefit to me, but there are many times in dance where my rejection was also a benefit to someone else. As I mentioned before, dancing salsa is a social dance that involves a lot of questions and I'm sure there were times when I was hesitant when they asked me, but once I said yes, I ended up having a great time, but there were also times when I didn't really want to dance with the person. That's what he asked me and whatever the reason when I gave in and said yes I ended up causing more harm than good because my heart and mind were elsewhere I was distracted at times I was even upset and resentful of feeling absorbed in doing something I didn't want to do. do it.

Maybe I was smiling, but it wasn't genuine, and I'm sure my body language revealed that by avoiding eye contact, I was easily irritated, dismissive of my partner's enjoyment, and simply not participating wholeheartedly. I treated my partner like a chore. I couldn't wait to finish, I know it sounds harsh but it's the truth and I'd like to think I'm a great person once you get to know me, but if that five minute introduction was all you had, I doubt it. I would like to spend one more minute in my presence at least that's how I felt when I danced with someone like that so these days if I feel like I can't be one hundred percent present 100% present I prefer to say no because my partner deserves better than that now these It's examples and dance but there are many moments like this in life also think about the time when you were not feeling well and you didn't want to go out and your friends were begging you to go out and you said yes, were you feeling miserable and you were complaining even if it was with you same?

You ended up feeling worse the next day because you should have stayed home and rested. I know it's hard to say no, especially to those people who are close to us, but if we can't be the best we can be, then why are we ruining their day too? How about that time you said yes to a second date with that person you had no interest in because you didn't want to be mean? their hopes up unnecessarily. Did you think they wanted to spend their valuable time planning a special dinner only to have you sit there for two hours revealing your lack of interest with your curt answers and frequent glances at your cell phone if it's a five-minute dance? can have such an impact on us what do you think the impact of a two hour dinner would be now when we look at things this way?

That is, when we look at the consequences of our words and our actions. I hope we can start to see where. our responsibility is in all of that and why it is important to say no sometimes our definition of rejection makes us think we are insulting when we say no so I understand why there is hesitation but we can see that it can also come from a place of respect and Consideration Think about the examples I just mentioned. Would you rather receive a two-second honest no or spend hours or more in the presence of a dishonest yes?

I'm not sure about all of you, but as painful as it is, I would prefer honesty is important, it's crucial, but the real line between respect and insults is in the delivery. The key to good delivery is empathy, whether we are receiving or delivering rejection. We are dealing with human beings, treating them with compassion, courtesy and respect. It makes it much easier for us to speak openly and when we don't take or make things personal and kind with our words, people are more receptive to what we have to say, we can't necessarily control their reaction to our rejection, but at least We can leave with a clear conscience when we have taken special care to be sensitive when doing it.

I know personally that changing from this attitude of entitlement and obligation to one of understanding and respect has significantly improved not only my dances but also my relationships. on the dance floor I am more present now because I value other people's time and take responsibility for my choices. I am more generous because I know that at least I will respect my boundaries and my limits and I am kinder because I always compromise. from a place of empathy, it's empowering to take control of your yeses on your nose and it's liberating to not feel obligated when asked and not feel like a victim of rejection and this comfort was saying no is great, but feeling comfortable saying no no it is. so that we can go out into the world rejecting new people and new experiences left and right, is only to allow ourselves to be honest about what we want and what we can give at any given moment.

Rejection doesn't have to be this monster that you're afraid to confront or you're afraid to let go of it's just an answer to a question unless we define it differently and compassion empathy resilience these are all skills we can develop. I have worked on them mainly through dance, but I have many opportunities in life to do that too and so do you, so next time you have to deal with rejection don't take it personally, try to learn from it and the next time you have to hand in a rejectionbe kind, respectful, empathetic and know that your honesty in that moment is not an insult it is the greatest sign of respect you can show yourself and another person now before we finish I would like to share a short poem that I had written was in the workshop of TEDx speakers we were there I was asked to summarize the impact of our speech in a haiku and I hope these words also have an impact on you now that we are both here present and sincere, this is how we choose to live, thank you very much.