What You Miss When You Fear to Persist

Alan Weiss, Ph.D.; www.summitconsulting.com

“The most common fright of all, perhaps, is that of rejection,” muses Alan Weiss, author of forty-four books, including the bestseller Million Dollar Consulting. In his newsletter The Balancing Act, Dr. Weiss says,

We simply don’t want to be unliked, unaccepted, or unappealing. I’ve seen people with superb credentials and qualifications surrender to the less wellinformed and educated because they don’t want to incur displeasure. In normal negotiations, whether over salary, assignments, or opportunities, many people refuse to support their own legitimate positions because they are frightened of being rejected or seen as resistant. The inevitable results of such acquiescence is that people become angry at themselves later for missing the moment, and engage in the debilitating rituals of “I should have said….” and “Why didn’t I….” In other words, not only do they abandon the negotiation, but they beat themselves up later for doing so.

We’re frightened because our egos are involved. Our carefully sculpted selfidentities might suffer if we are unattractive to others, not accepted by our peers, and not compliant with everyone’s needs. Ironically, in being so afraid to alienate others, we end up alienating ourselves. We sacrifice our potential to help others by delimiting our own growth and goals. My son used to tell me that he wasn’t frightened by the dark, he was frightened by what might be in the dark. Fair enough. Buy a flashlight and shine it on the worst rejection you can anticipate. You’ll find there’s little to worry about except your ego, and then you can stop being so frightened.