Overcoming The Fear of No

Rejection is a part of life. You can't avoid it, whether you're a salesperson with a tough quota or a shy nerd hoping for a date with a supermodel. But you can't let the fear of rejection paralyze you from the start or you'll never get any sales — or any dates.

Like many of us, Jonathan Robinson (now a professional speaker and author) was shy as a young man — painfully so, especially when it came to women. One day in college he decided to do something drastic about it. He handed a friend $50 and told him, "Don't give this back to me unless I get rejected by 10 different women by the end of today."

The idea was to push through his fear of rejection, with money as a motivator. Robinson headed through the campus, looking for women to ask out. The first time, he was barely able to stammer his question, and the woman involved thought he was experiencing a seizure. She turned him down. After a while he grew calmer, and women became less dismissive of him.

Then something unexpected happened: His seventh target agreed to go out with him. Robinson was so surprised he almost didn't have a response, but he managed to get her phone number. Then the next woman also said yes to him.

In all, he collected eight phone numbers, and had to resort to some mildly annoying behavior to reach his quota of 10 rejections in order to get his $50 back. Not only did he get his money, and plenty of dates, he vanquished his fear of rejection.

Would I recommend this exercise for overcoming your fear of rejection? Of course not! But I offer it lightheartedly to show that persistence in facing your worst fears can actually help you — even embolden you — to take on bigger challenges, knowing that success is also possible.

Early in my career, when I was struggling to start my company, I made a list of all the accounts I wanted to sell. Some were immediately attainable, and others were far out of my reach. That list was the impetus for my eventual success. It made me really listen to my potential customers and find out what I needed to do to change "No, thanks" to "Where do I sign?"

You can overcome your fear of rejection. It doesn't have to be permanent. Instead look forward to facing challenges. It requires reprogramming your mindset. You can't escape rejection. But you can let it go. Practice these exercises:

• Analyze and evaluate your thoughts. When faced with a challenge, what do you tell yourself? "I'm no good ... this is too hard ... I'll never make it ...?" Don't let negative self-talk sabotage your chances. Take an objective look at the evidence. Chances are you'll realize your worries aren't accurate or realistic. By confronting your irrational doubts, you remove their power.

• Identify realistic fears. Whom do you fear? What might go wrong? After all, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Knowledge is power, so clarify the facts: Who has the power to reject you? Why would that person say no? The answers will help you prepare your best offer, and facing them will help you keep your composure.

• Focus on the moment. Keep your perspective. Rejection lasts only a moment, and once it's over, you'll be able to move on to the next opportunity. Also, overcoming your fears can be an exhilarating experience. Anticipate the rush of tackling the challenge, and you'll be more positive in the heat of the moment.

• "It's just practice." One way to take the pressure off is to treat the situation as a practice session, regardless of the stakes. You still need to prepare and be at your best, but approaching the challenge as a learning experience will relax you. You'll get a better sense of what works and what doesn't — knowledge you can use in the future.

• Be more assertive. Most fears of rejection rest on the desire for approval from other people. Don't base your self-esteem on their opinions. Learn to express your own needs (appropriately), and say no to requests when you genuinely can't help. People respect peers who stand up for themselves.

Mackay's Moral: Don't look at rejection as failure — think of it as an opportunity to succeed the next time.


Harvey Mackay is a Minnesota businessman and author.

What Christ Saw From The Cross

James Tissot: What Our Lord Saw from the Cross (Ce que voyait Notre-Seigneur sur la Croix)
From the collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

In the most memorable, and even notorious, of Tissot’s images, Christ looks out at the crowd of spectators arrayed before him: Mary Magdalene, in the immediate foreground, with her long red tresses swirling down her back, kneels at his feet, which are clearly visible at the bottom center of the composition. Beyond her, the Virgin Mary clutches her breast, while John the Evangelist looks up with hands clasped.

The artist here adopts the point of view of Christ himself. Few painters have conceived a composition this daring. In his audacity, however, Tissot remains true to his artistic vision: ultimately, the image is an exercise in empathy. Its point is to give viewers, accustomed to looking at the event from the outside, a rare opportunity to imagine themselves in Christ’s place and consider his final thoughts and feelings as he gazed on the enemies and friends who were witnessing, or participating in, his death.

Once You Have

"Once you have..."
By Bob Perks

Once you have smiled at someone you
can't take it back.

Once you have held the tiny hand of a new
born child and the frail, weak hand of an elderly soul
with his one last breath, you cannot possibly justify
wasting another moment of your own life. Life is not just
a beginning and an end it is how you live it in between.

Once you have stood on the edge of
mentally spent, physically exhausted, and
financially drained you have every right to say,
"I quit!" But follow that by shouting
"Now you take over God!" Then watch what
He can do with spent, exhausted and drained.

Once you have seen a sunrise and a sunset , you

know that God has kept His promise
and has every day of your life. Have you kept yours?

Once you have said "I will" then you must follow through.
"I will" is your word, not a "maybe."

Once you have more, you must give more to those who
have less.

Once you have anything, you must give thanks.

Once you have nothing, you must give thanks, too. It's
not just in having that we should be grateful. Just
being alive is a gift, too.

Once you have stood in awe looking at the stars you
realize how incredibly special you must be. For in all
the universe there is only one "you." But realize that
the universe is looking back in awe at you, too.

All of God's creation is "Awe-some!"

Once you have heard the old man tell the story for
what seems like the "hundredth" time, be happy if he
lives to tell it to you a hundred more times. One day
you will wish he were there to tell it again.

Once you have faith, you can never give into the power
of doubt. Faith builds, doubt destroys.

Once you have love, you always will...

"I wish you enough!"

J

Bob Perks

P.O. Box 1702

Shavertown, Pa. 18708

Contact Bob 2believe@comcast.net

Penance Service Regarding Child Sexual Abuse

This is a beautiful service and I would like the sentiments to be followed with decisive actions against the perpetrators as well as those keeping the light from shining on the darkness of this sin.

A Penance Service worth pondering and praying...

Posted: 31 Mar 2010 09:08 PM PDT

H/T to the blog, Pray Tell (which I'll feature as a Link of the Day soon after Easter) for this remarkable text from Vienna. This is in the form of a dialogue and it's worth noting which part Cardinal Schönborn chose to speak...



On Wednesday, March 31, a liturgy of lamentation and penance was held in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna in the context of the many cases of physical and sexual abuse which have come to light in Austria and elsewhere in recent weeks.

Over 3,000 people took part. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn and Catholic theologian Veronica Prüller-Jagenteuful read the following confession.

Cardinal Schönborn: Triune God, you led our mothers and fathers out of slavery into freedom and taught them the 10 commandments of a good life. You became flesh in Jesus Christ and showed us that love is the fundamental rule in all things. You are with us as Holy Spirit to lead us.

Veronica Prüller-Jagenteuful: And yet we become sinful before you and before one another. Enormous sin has been revealed in these weeks. It is the sin of the individual. It is the sin permeating structures, models of acting, and models of thinking. It is the sin of not offering help and not daring to speak up.

Both: The responsibility for this concerns us as members of the church in widely varying degrees. And yet, we are your people together and we stand in common responsibility. And so we confess to you and to one another our sin:

Prüller-Jagenteuful: We confess that we have not followed God alone, but rather have followed the gods of our need for lording over and superiority.

Cardinal: Some of us have, precisely in that sense, abused others, even children.

Prüller-Jagenteuful: We confess that we have obscured and betrayed the name of God which means love.

Cardinal: Some of us have preached the love of God and yet have done evil to our charges.

Prüller-Jagenteuful: We confess that we have not kept holy and not sufficiently valued the sacraments and other times and places of special encounter with God.

Cardinal: Some of us have used these as opportunity for assault.

Prüller-Jagenteuful: We confess that we have not maintained between adults and children relationships of unconditional respect for the other.

Cardinal: Some of us have used and destroyed the trust of children.

Prüller-Jagenteuful: We confess that we have not takes seriously the destruction of life and happiness in life, that we have not understood the destruction and we have trivialized it.

Cardinal: Some of us have become guilty of the inner murder of other people.

Prüller-Jagenteuful: We confess that we have not cherished bodiliness and have failed in the task of rightly living out our sexuality.

Cardinal: Some of us have done sexual violence.

Prüller-Jagenteuful: We confess that we have wanted to possess youth, beauty, and vitality for ourselves.

Cardinal: Some of us have stolen childhood from boys and girls and robbed them of the capability of living out successful relationships.

Prüller-Jagenteuful: We confess that we did not wish to acknowledge the reality, that we covered up and bore false witness.

Cardinal: Some of us have been able thereby to further delude ourselves and others and continue the criminality.

Prüller-Jagenteuful: We confess that we have wished to have control over others and possess them.

Cardinal: Some of us have thereby usurped the bodies of the weakest ones.

Prüller-Jagenteuful: We confess that we craved security, calm, power, and reputation.

Cardinal: For some of us the Church’s appearance of sinlessness was more important than anything else.

Both: We, the People of God, his Church, bear this sin with one another.

We confess this sin to those many people whom we as Church and some of us as particular individuals have sinned against.

We confess this sin to one another, for the Church has become sinful in its members.

We confess our sin to God.

We are ready to take on our responsibility for the past and the present, individually and communally. We are ready to renew our models of thinking and acting according to the Spirit of Jesus and to collaborate in the healing of wounds. We place ourselves as Church before the judgment of Christ.

Cardinal: O Christ, you said that you have taken our sin upon you. And yet we implore you today: Leave some of it for us. Help us not to brush it away too quickly, and make us ready to take it on: each one for individual sin and all of us together for common sin. And then give us hope in judgment: hope for new freedom from truth, and for that forgiveness for which we have no claim.

Amen.