Rejection Sucks. Submit Anyway.

I was the kid who got picked last for kickball. And yes…they were absolutely right to pick me last. I have ZERO athletic ability! In 5th grade, I played softball and struck out every single time I stepped up to the plate.

Every. Single. Time.

I also managed to clothesline myself during a game of Red Rover, so my athletic résumé was really coming together.

But I kept swinging.

I have been thinking about that a lot lately because this is the time of year when speaker submissions start opening up all over our industry. People are deciding whether to submit, pitch a panel, ask someone they respect to join them, volunteer to moderate, or finally raise their hand and say, “I have something worth talking about.”

And that sh*t can be scary.

Because the second you put yourself out there, you also give someone the opportunity to tell you no. And rejection SUCKS! Sometimes you get useful feedback. Sometimes you get the conference version of “Thanks, but no thanks” with absolutely no clue why. Was it your topic? Your title? Too many similar submissions? Somebody else was a better fit? Who knows.

That’s when you start climbing the assumption tree and spiraling. One unanswered question turns into ten completely made-up answers. It’s like getting dumped and deciding it must be because they somehow saw the cellulite through your pants even with the Spanx doing the work underneath. Meanwhile, you actually have no damn idea why they left. Rejection can do the same thing. Suddenly it’s not “my proposal wasn’t selected,” it’s “maybe I’m not credible, maybe I don’t belong up there, maybe I completely overestimated myself.” That spiral will eat you alive if you let it!

Meanwhile, nobody is analyzing your rejection nearly as much as you are. They’re too busy worrying about their own sh*t.

The whole speaker selection process can feel like a black hole, and for some people, that is enough to keep them from submitting at all. Maybe you think the same people always get picked. Maybe you think your title is not big enough. Maybe standing in front of your peers sounds terrifying. Or maybe you just really do not want to hear no.

More Real Conversations Please

I think we need more REAL conversations about what keeps people from putting themselves out there and what actually happens after you hit submit.

Getting rejected does not mean you embarrassed yourself. It means you tried. We give rejection way too much power when we let one committee, one conference or one decision turn into a story about whether we belong in the room. I call BS on that!

And I don’t know about you, but I would much rather learn from someone who has been rejected, had to regroup, gotten better and kept persevering than someone who has been picked every single time. There is a whole lot of wisdom in the strikeouts too.

But don’t ignore the rejection. Learn from it. Ask for feedback. Find someone who has walked the walk before you. Get a mentor who will tell you the truth, not someone who is going to blow smoke up your a$$ and tell you everything is amazing.

Maybe your title needs work. Maybe your description is too generic. Maybe your takeaways are fuzzy. Maybe you would be stronger with a co-presenter or a panel. Maybe moderating is your way in. Maybe you take the same idea, sharpen the hell out of it and submit it somewhere else.

And sometimes…you still will not know why the answer was no. When that happens, don’t make up a reason and use it against yourself.

One conference does not get to decide whether your voice matters. One committee does not get to decide whether you have something worth teaching. And one rejection sure as hell does not get to decide whether you ever raise your hand again.

There are people in this industry who need to hear from you because you have lived something, learned something, screwed something up (my fave), fixed something or figured something out that could help somebody else.

That matters. You deserve to amplify your voice!

So submit. Ask someone to build the panel with you. Volunteer to moderate. Ask for feedback. Find the mentor. Make it better.

And if you strike out?

Pull a Susan Lucci.

Keep showing up until they call your name.

Because one day, that name might be yours coming through the speakers while you’re walking up to the microphone.