⬇ Full Transcript of Episode #6 Below ⬇
Hey, this is Justin Prince.
Have you ever had someone just smash your dreams? Or smash your goals? They just pour their poison all over you.
You leave them, and you’re just like … and it hurts, it deeply hurts. These are people that maybe you even cared about, it’s a spouse, or a family member, or your sister, or your brother, [00:00:30] or a co-worker, or the people at church, or whoever it is. They just crush your dreams and goals, you try to make something of your life, and you try and do something with yourself, and not just be … You know you feel this calling in your soul to become somebody and step up. People hear about it and instead of encouraging you they just crush you. Have you ever had that happen? It hurts. If you have had that happen, I’m sorry. I understand the feeling, but I want to share this.
There’s a price that you have to pay to become successful and one of the prices that you’ll pay and you’ll pay this right [00:01:00] away, right out of the gates, it’s the price of rejection. It hurts and it stings, but here’s the thing. In every culture this happens, it’s like a study in humanity of why people do this to each other, but in Asia they say that the nail that sticks up shall be hammered down.
Now if you’re the nail and you say, “You know what? I’m going to make something of my life, I’m going to stick up and go for it,” and you get hammered down by people, guess what the nail that gets hammered down wants to do? Stay down. Just be like, “Yikes, [00:01:30] I don’t want to do that again.” In Australia, they talk about the tall poppy syndrome, they have these little poppy flowers and when the poppy flower grows taller than the other ones, they say that the tall poppy will be cut down.
Now here’s what’s so interesting, depending on who you ask what the tall poppy syndrome means, some people say when you stick up, you’ll get sliced down, others say that the tall poppy means how dare someone stick up, so depending on which flower you are, some people say, “I was the one that stood up and got sliced down.” When you get sliced down, guess what you want to do? [00:02:00] Just stay down, it hurts, no one wants to get sliced down. When the small flower says, “How dare everyone else think they can stand up.”
Now here’s the other thing. How many of you ever heard when they go crabbing, particularly on the east coast, they put these crabs in a bucket and if you put one crab in, it can crawl out of the bucket, but if you put two crabs in, you don’t even have to guard the bucket anymore. Why? Because when the second crab begins to crawl out of the bucket, the other crab will instantly pull it down. It’s the nature of the crabs.
[00:02:30] Why is it that as human beings, you have a dream, you have a goal, I’m going to do this, I’m going to go for it, I have this part of my heart that says, you can become somebody and then you tell someone, and instead of them encouraging you, they try and hammer you down, or slice you down, or pull you down. It is unfortunately just how humans work, so the first price you’re going to pay and you’re going to pay it sooner than you think, is the price of rejection.
I’m want to share with you three ways that you can manage this and become the person you want to become. Number one is choose how much power you give the words of others. Here’s what I mean. [00:03:00] You get to decide or choose how much power you give those words. I remember my very first day as an entrepreneur, 25 years old, two guys made fun of me at church. It stung me to the core, they’re like, “Oh, you’re going to fire your boss?” Like, “Oh, we’ll see how that goes, you’re doing one of those one things, we’ll see how this goes. You’re going to do it? Like you? We’ll see how it goes.” They’re sure making fun of me at church. These are church friends, they weren’t even my real friends and they just stung me to the core.
I’ve asked myself later and I want to ask you, why did I allow their words to have so much power? [00:03:30] If a three year old child walked up to you and said, “You’re dumb,” you’re like, “Cool, thanks,” and just pat them on the head and tell them to go see their mom. How much would that sting if a three year old said it to you? Probably not that much. Same words, they can say the same words that someone else said to you, but you would assign less sting to the words, so I’m going to encourage you to choose with each person how much power you give their words.
Why do you let this person’s words sting you to the core? When that person, ” [00:04:00] I don’t really care what they think.” You guys understand what I’m saying? You get to decide, person by person, by person. Now it does, it hurts because you care about this person, or friend of yours or whatever, but you’re still going to choose how much power you assign to ever single persons words.
Number two is convert the hurt. Here’s what I mean by this. Convert the hurt means take the pain of rejection and convert it to the power of fuel. Take the pain and the hurts when they do this, they slice you and cut you with their [00:04:30] words, take that and fuel it as power to the fuel of your dreams.
Michael Jordan, some of you watched his Hall of Fame speech. Here’s Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player ever, the best ever to touch a ball. He stands up there and starts, instead of saying, I was the greatest ever and it was awesome and being super humble and grateful, he starts recounting all the people that hurt him. I’m talking like back in junior high school, and high school and college, and he starts talking about MBA players that no one has ever heard of before that they hurt him, [00:05:00] or in the summer they offended him. They said, “I can shut you down.”
What he did is he converted the pain into fuel and he talked about it as throwing logs on the fire. One of the best things that will happen to you in your career is this, when you convert the hurt, people can guarantee your success. Literally, you’ll be like, “It’s on now. I’m not letting you have the last word. I am now going to convert the hurt, take that pain and turn it into fuel and I’m going to win. I’m going to succeed at this.”
I did that as a young [00:05:30] entrepreneur. I just was like, I told my wife, “I’m sorry sweetheart, I’m not letting that persons … their pessimism, their worthless life, ruin the dreams and goals that we have together as a couple.” I’m going to encourage you to convert the hurt.
Number three, embrace it. Here’s the deal guys. It’s a sign that you’re sticking up. It’s a sign that you’re standing out. When that rejection hits, just know. Well, embrace it, I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a leader, I’m a sales professional. This is what happens to people like me. People trying to shoot it down. [00:06:00] You’re not maybe taking the normal path or the average path. I don’t know what to tell you, embrace it. It’s a sign of life, it’s a sign of success. It’s part of the price that you have to pay.
If it’s not happening to you, here’s the thing. I wouldn’t have gotten made fun of as an entrepreneur if I never would have become an entrepreneur. If I would have stayed back doing my little job, no one cared about me doing that little job, no one cared. It wasn’t big enough on anyone’s radar. If no one cares about what you’re doing, then no one says anything about it. If you go out there and try and become [00:06:30] the person you know in your heart you’re meant to become, and the rejection comes, just embrace it, it’s a sign of success.
It’s a sign that you’re on the right path. Don’t you stay down, don’t you stay sliced, don’t you let them pull you down, you stand up again, you grow up again and you get out of the bucket. You move on to the next thing.
Remember this. Your dreams, your goals, they’re important. Your pursuing them is worth it and your accomplishing them it’s necessary.
Timely message for me today. Thanks!!
Glad it was timely and helpful Carmen. Keep going!
This is all so true. Its a shame that we allow others thoughts or words to sting so. ? We need to convert the hurt and turn that into fuel. ? ?Thanks for this message. ??
Thank you for your feedback April. I agree with you. Convert the hurt is key!