Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Nona Jones - Tech Executive, Author & Speaker | Harness Your Pain to Propel Your Purpose

Transcript

Nona Jones - Tech Executive, Author & Speaker | Harness Your Pain to Propel Your Purpose · Success Story with Scott Clary

0:00
The pain of what I experienced was not a gift, but what came out of it was a gift because now,
0:05
I'm in a position to speak to people who feel unsealed.
0:08
Imagine being told by the person meant to love you most that you were never wanted.
0:12
Today's guest, Nona Jones, has endured a life many would never survive.
0:16
At just five years old, her innocence was taken from her by someone close,
0:20
but known as here to tell her story, not of tragedy, but of triumph.
0:24
Rejection comes wrapped in pain, but there is a gift on the inside.
0:27
If we just explore it, I worked at Facebook for almost six years and people have asked me,
0:31
how did you end up working at Facebook? It's because of rejection.
0:34
And me with my boss, I give her my letter of resignation.
0:36
I finished talking with her at 140 p.m.
0:39
205, my cell phone rings, so I answered the phone.
0:42
She said, hey, I'm calling from Facebook.
0:43
That didn't even happen until after I resigned.
0:46
With every step she defied the pain, turning her scars into a source of strength and resilience.
0:52
She rose to hold executive roles in global companies,
0:55
published best-selling books, and reached millions through her powerful words.
1:00
I believe that discomfort is a necessary precondition for change.
1:04
The gift of rejection is really a message about hope.
1:07
It sounds crazy, but understanding that it is is a source of hope.
1:11
It may not feel good, it will eventually be good,
1:13
if I just continue in and persevere in this situation.
1:16
If we have the right people in our lives, they can help us have perspective about the situation.
1:21
This is a story of survival, faith, and the relentless pursuit of purpose.
1:27
Prepare to be inspired by known as Journey.
1:29
One that reminds us that no matter what we face,
1:32
Grace has the power to transform everything.
1:37
Welcome to Success Story.
1:38
I'm your host, Scott Clary.
1:40
The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast.
1:43
Now, where HubSpot has been a huge supporter of the show.
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3:02
No, no, I'm excited to have you on.
3:04
There's going to be a lot of fun.
3:06
I want to start off with just a quote that I thought really just encapsulated.
3:12
I guess the main theme of your work of the book.
3:15
And I think that it's a quote that if you just read it,
3:19
it doesn't quite make sense until you start to go down this rabbit hole.
3:22
So the quote is,
3:23
rejection is a gift that can help you build resilience,
3:26
character, and success.
3:28
And I think that if people don't know your work,
3:31
they would look at you and ask,
3:32
how is rejection ever going to be a gift?
3:34
So let's start there.
3:36
What does that quote mean to you?
3:38
Well, let me first say I have sat in the seat of the person
3:43
who was like, how in the world can you say rejection is a gift?
3:47
I did not think rejection was a gift because frankly,
3:50
I'm an only child.
3:52
My upbringing was very hurtful, very dysfunctional.
3:55
My mom didn't want to have children.
3:57
She and my father were married for 13 years before she got pregnant with me.
4:01
And she was angry when she found out she was pregnant.
4:04
My father was elated because he always wanted to be a dad.
4:08
But halfway through her pregnancy,
4:09
he actually had some stomach pain and he went to the hospital to try to get it diagnosed.
4:13
And he was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer.
4:16
And he passed away shortly before my second birthday.
4:19
And to make a really long story short,
4:21
my mom got involved with a guy who became her live-in boyfriend
4:25
and around the age of five, he started to sexually abuse me.
4:29
And that happened for about two years.
4:32
And he told me, you better not tell your mom.
4:34
She'll get rid of you.
4:35
And I remember, you know, enduring this, right?
4:38
Because as a child, you're scared.
4:40
Like, I don't want my mom to get rid of me.
4:42
But I got to the point where I couldn't take any more.
4:44
So I did tell her what he was doing.
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And she had him arrested and I thought it was over.
4:49
But on the day of his release from jail,
4:51
she took me with her to pick him up and run him back home.
4:54
And the abuse resumed from there.
4:56
And she became physically abusive and verbally abusive.
4:59
And so here I am in this situation as a child,
5:03
where I have no escape.
5:05
And so at the ages of 9 and 11, I tried to end my life.
5:09
You know, my mom would regularly tell me
5:11
that she was, she'd ever had me, that I was a burden.
5:14
And, you know, people listening to this
5:16
would think, well, my God, like that's horrible.
5:18
How in the world could anything good come out of that?
5:20
Well, when I was in college, my roommate was raped.
5:26
And I remember, you know, she came back to the dorm
5:28
and she was just in the state of depression.
5:30
And it lasted for days.
5:33
And one day I saw her just laying there.
5:36
And I just was like, what's going on?
5:39
Like, what's happening?
5:40
And she confided in me, what happened?
5:42
And I told her, I was like, I know right now,
5:46
this seems like the end of the world.
5:49
And it feels like you will never recover from this.
5:52
And I said, I know right now it's extremely painful.
5:55
But then I started to tell her my story.
5:57
And how even through all of that,
5:59
I ended up going to college on a full scholarship.
6:02
And there was like this glimmer of hope in her eyes
6:05
that let me know that being vulnerable
6:08
about what happened to me actually became a moment of
6:12
of just awareness for her that better was possible,
6:16
that healing was possible.
6:18
And from that moment forward, I started to share my story.
6:21
And I've been sharing it for decades now.
6:24
And thousands of people, thousands of people
6:27
have seen themselves in my story.
6:29
And so I share all that to say,
6:32
what I experienced, the pain of what I experienced
6:35
was not a gift, but what came out of it was a gift
6:39
because now I'm in a position to speak to people
6:42
who feel unseen, people who have walked through
6:45
some of the most painful devastation in their life.
6:48
And they feel like they're the only one.
6:50
And I'm able to give voice to it.
6:51
And for me and for them, that is a gift.
6:54
So I do believe that rejection comes wrapped in pain.
6:59
But there is a gift on the inside if we just explore it.
7:02
I understand now.
7:03
So it's not in the moment, it's never going to feel good.
7:06
It's never going to feel like a gift.
7:08
And let's be clear, there's extreme rejection
7:13
like kind of what you described,
7:14
which is really like the worst of the worst possible scenarios.
7:18
But then there's on a day-to-day rejection
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from a job, rejection from somebody you love,
7:25
rejection from an investor, rejection from a spouse,
7:29
rejection, all these different kinds of rejections.
7:31
So in the moment, it's almost impossible
7:34
for many people to see the good in it.
7:37
But when you look back, kind sites 2020,
7:40
it makes a little bit more sense as to how that led to a series
7:43
of events that actually was a net positive in your life.
7:46
But when people listen to this,
7:49
I would say the first question that I would have is,
7:51
okay, I'm going through this right now,
7:53
whether or not it's, I got rejected from a job
7:56
where I got rejected from my mother,
7:57
like those are, that's insane,
8:00
to have to deal within the moment.
8:03
How does somebody, how does somebody even start to get through
8:07
this to see the end result, the potential positive?
8:10
I love this question because one of the reasons
8:14
why I even wrote the gift of rejection is because
8:17
I believe that the first step to even being able
8:21
to open the gift is being aware that there is a gift, right?
8:26
Because if you don't, if you don't have that orientation,
8:29
you will stop at the wrapping paper,
8:31
like you will stop at being abandoned,
8:33
being humiliated, being fired,
8:35
being blamed, being overlooked, being unwanted,
8:37
you will stop at that.
8:39
But once you have the recognition that,
8:41
okay, wait a minute, this thing happened,
8:44
I feel the pain, but there is a gift on the inside,
8:48
there is a lesson in this that will teach me about myself,
8:52
that will teach me about even the other person,
8:55
that will teach me about this situation,
8:57
now you kind of shift your posture
9:00
from being a victim of rejection to being a student.
9:04
Now I can learn from this.
9:06
There is something here that I want to learn from,
9:11
I want to grow from.
9:12
And so I think that is step one,
9:14
because when you have that orientation,
9:17
I'll tell you, many people ask me,
9:20
I worked at Facebook for almost six years,
9:22
and people have asked me,
9:23
how did you end up working at Facebook?
9:24
Well, it's because of rejection.
9:27
Before Facebook, I was at the chief executive level
9:31
of a large nonprofit organization,
9:33
loved what I was doing.
9:34
Like I woke up every day just feeling energized by the mission,
9:39
and I had some colleagues that didn't like me,
9:44
and they started to kind of so seeds of discord,
9:48
and they were undermining me,
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and they even went to my boss who was the CEO,
9:52
and they were saying things like,
9:53
oh, no one is trying to build her own kingdom,
9:55
because part of my functional responsibility
9:57
was our federal legislative affairs.
9:59
And so I'd be at the White House every other week,
10:02
and they were kind of like,
10:03
oh, she's trying to build her own kingdom.
10:04
So anyway, they start to plant all these seeds,
10:07
and just the feeling of the work got really uncomfortable, right?
10:12
And so, I'm a person of faith.
10:14
I prayed about the situation, and I was just like,
10:17
all right, Lord, give me wisdom.
10:19
Like, what should I do next?
10:21
And what I heard in my spirit was,
10:24
this assignment is over.
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And Scott, the reason why that is so crazy is,
10:30
I thought I would be in that job for the rest of my life.
10:33
I loved it that much, that I thought,
10:34
oh, another 20 years at least.
10:37
Well, I was like, okay,
10:38
well, if this assignment is over, then what do I do next?
10:41
This was April of 2017.
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I heard the Lord, I heard the spirit say,
10:46
resigned at the end of the fiscal year,
10:47
June 30th, 2017.
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This is two months later, all right?
10:50
No plan B.
10:52
At me with my boss, I give her my letter of resignation,
10:55
and she's like, where are you going?
10:57
I have to be able to tell the board what you're doing.
10:59
Like, can I convince you to stay?
11:00
Is it more money?
11:01
What do you need?
11:02
And I said, no, I just think I have to pursue
11:04
other opportunities.
11:06
I finished talking with her at 140 PM.
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This is Friday, June 30th, 2017.
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I finished talking with her at 140.
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I get in my car, I'm driving home.
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205, my cell phone rings,
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and it says San Francisco, California.
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I thought it was a telemarketer,
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so I wasn't going to answer it.
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But I heard in my spirit, take the call.
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So I answered the phone.
11:24
This woman says,
11:25
hi, is this not a gentle, I said, yeah,
11:27
she said, hey, I'm calling from Facebook.
11:29
And I was like, Facebook doesn't call people.
11:31
Who is this?
11:32
Well, what kind of scammer is that?
11:35
It's trying to reach out.
11:36
Literally, I'm like, that's almost,
11:38
that's like saying, I'm calling from TikTok.
11:40
Like, took what?
11:42
So she says she's calling from Facebook,
11:44
and I just was like, I don't believe you,
11:47
but she said, yeah, no, really I am.
11:48
She said, I don't know if you've been watching the news,
11:51
but Mark just changed the mission
11:52
of the company to focus on community building.
11:54
And we were surprised to learn
11:56
that the largest community in the world
11:58
is the faith community.
11:59
And your name was given to us as someone to talk to
12:01
about helping us think about this strategy
12:03
to serve the faith community.
12:05
I thought they were putting together
12:05
a committee or an advisory board.
12:08
So I just said, send me some information.
12:09
I'll read it when I get to my email.
12:11
And I check my email a few hours later,
12:13
and there's a link to a job description.
12:16
But here's the thing, that didn't even happen
12:18
until after I resigned.
12:20
And I didn't even think to resign
12:23
until after I experienced rejection.
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If I had not experienced the rejection of my colleagues,
12:28
I promise you I would have never left.
12:30
I don't care how much money somebody would have been
12:33
willing to pay me because I loved what I was doing.
12:35
And so I share this story
12:37
because in the moment, the pain is not a gift.
12:42
But if you can, if you can orient your mind
12:45
to the understanding that, wait, there was a gift in this.
12:48
Now I just need to figure out what that gift is
12:51
and I need to explore the situation
12:53
and what it can teach me.
12:54
When you look back at sort of that sequence of events
12:57
and you mentioned something interesting,
12:58
so you're a very spiritual, you really ask God
13:04
what to do and you got an answer
13:06
and that answer ended up with a really positive result.
13:10
But if I think of people who are going through rejection
13:14
and their work and their relationships,
13:17
I don't think I really, I think more often than not,
13:22
people don't leave the situation
13:24
and people stay in the rejection.
13:27
And rejection can be a gift, but to a point.
13:31
So for somebody who's in a job where they are being rejected
13:35
constantly or in a relationship where their spouse is cheating
13:38
or whatever the circumstance is,
13:41
what's the advice, what's the playbook for that person
13:44
to understand when rejection is reached a point
13:49
where you do have to move on or do something different
13:52
because I don't think that nine out of 10 people
13:54
would have done what you did in that situation
13:56
if people were fired, they left.
13:58
But I don't think many people leave toxic situations
14:01
of their own volition.
14:03
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
14:05
Well, one of the gifts that I believe rejection gives us
14:09
is that it reveals people's role in our destiny.
14:14
And what I mean by that is there are two types of people
14:18
in your life, okay?
14:20
There are those who are attached and those who are assigned.
14:24
When a person is attached to you,
14:26
they're connected to you for as long as the relationship
14:29
benefits them.
14:30
Like as long as you're channeling benefits in their direction,
14:33
they will remain connected to you
14:35
because they are benefiting from you.
14:38
But what happens is when a person starts to detach from us,
14:42
this could be in the form of cheating.
14:44
This could be in the form of maybe your boss
14:48
or your manager starts to change the way
14:50
that they're interacting with you.
14:51
And it gets really uncomfortable
14:53
and they're starting to ice you out.
14:54
And like you just, you sense that something bad
14:57
is happening in the relationship.
14:59
What that does is that tends to trigger our insecurity.
15:03
And it makes us think, oh my gosh, what did I do wrong?
15:05
What could I do differently?
15:07
How can I get them to stay connected to me?
15:09
How can I get them to keep me in their good graces?
15:13
But their detachment is simply a sign
15:17
that the role that they were playing in your life has ended
15:21
because the different role is an assigned person.
15:25
When a person is assigned to you,
15:27
they're connected to you not for what they can get
15:29
out of the relationship,
15:31
but for what they can contribute to the relationship.
15:34
These are people who, they're not the ones
15:37
extracting benefits from you.
15:39
They're the people who are championing you.
15:41
They're the people who are encouraging you
15:43
and what we do is we can get to a place
15:46
where we almost take the assigned people for granted
15:48
so that when that attached person starts to detach,
15:51
we shift our energy away from the assigned person
15:54
to try to keep the attached person connected to us.
15:57
And that's the worst mistake you can make.
15:59
So what I would say to anyone who's experiencing
16:01
that detachment and that can be in romantic relationships,
16:05
it can be in family relationships,
16:06
it can be in professional relationships.
16:08
When you start to sense that there is a lesson in that,
16:12
I believe that discomfort is a necessary precondition
16:17
for change because once you start to be uncomfortable
16:21
in a situation, you have to make a decision.
16:24
You can either stay uncomfortable
16:27
or you can change positions.
16:29
And so that rejection is literally a trigger telling you,
16:34
you need to change positions.
16:35
And yes, it's gonna be painful.
16:37
Yes, it's gonna be hard.
16:39
It's gonna be uncomfortable.
16:40
And people may even try to guilt you
16:42
into staying in that situation.
16:44
Listen, I've had so many people even in my family tell me,
16:47
I can't believe that you don't talk to your mother.
16:50
My mother and I have been estranged for years.
16:51
I can't believe you don't talk to your mother.
16:53
You only get one mom.
16:54
They say all of these things,
16:56
knowing what happened to me as a child.
16:59
And for years, I would feel guilty
17:02
and I would succumb to their pressure
17:04
to try to make the relationship work.
17:06
But it wouldn't work, why?
17:08
Because a healthy relationship requires both forgiveness,
17:14
which is me saying, you hurt me,
17:16
I release you from the debt of the hurt that you caused.
17:19
And it also requires repentance.
17:22
That is the offender saying, I hurt you.
17:26
I see the wrong that I've caused
17:28
and I commit to not hurting you anymore.
17:30
In the absence of repentance,
17:31
you cannot have a healthy relationship.
17:33
I don't care how much you forgive the person.
17:35
So my council to someone who's walking through this,
17:39
is that situation is teaching you.
17:42
You have to make a move, you have to make a change,
17:45
you have to deal with it.
17:46
I just wanna take a second and thank the HubSpot Podcast
17:48
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17:50
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18:16
How can you differentiate from,
18:20
look, let's focus on the other person
18:22
because the other person is the person
18:23
that's really driving this uncomfortable situation.
18:26
So how can you differentiate from somebody
18:29
gilting you back into the situation versus repentance
18:33
and true because I think that that's okay.
18:37
So somebody, again,
18:38
sort of like two different circumstances,
18:41
one relationship, one job.
18:43
Everybody goes through both, right?
18:45
So you have a company who is icing you out,
18:49
you wanna leave and they say,
18:50
we're so sorry, we're not respecting you.
18:52
Here's a $5,000 salary bump, whatever.
18:55
And this is what you're gonna be doing now.
18:57
These hopefully you like the new sort of JD
18:59
that we crafted out for you.
19:01
And then on the other side,
19:02
you have the relationship and somebody cheats
19:04
and they say it'll never happen again.
19:05
I was drunk, whatever.
19:07
You know, I don't wanna screw this up.
19:08
So where's guilt and where is repentance?
19:13
And is there a point of no return
19:15
for either of those situations?
19:18
The way I like to differentiate it is,
19:20
when someone is gilting you,
19:23
they're essentially making you the problem.
19:27
They're not making the problem the problem.
19:29
They're making your response to the problem the problem, right?
19:33
So in the case of the person who's cheating on you, right?
19:36
And they're like, I just can't believe
19:39
that you wouldn't talk to me.
19:41
I can't believe that you won't forgive me.
19:43
Like, you know, we've been in this relationship for so long.
19:45
How could you possibly let me go?
19:48
I thought you loved me.
19:49
Now they're making your response
19:51
to what they did the problem
19:53
as opposed to them owning what they did
19:57
and making that the problem.
19:58
That's how you know when people are gilting you.
20:00
So be very aware and you'll kind of feel it.
20:04
I definitely believe that there's,
20:06
there's an emotional component to this.
20:08
You know when you're being gilted
20:10
because there is a tension there.
20:12
It's like you have to force yourself to be okay.
20:17
That's when you know people are gilting you.
20:18
Repentance is when someone takes full responsibility
20:22
for what they did and they put in the measures
20:25
to make sure it never happens again, right?
20:28
So it could be, and I'll just use the cheating thing
20:31
because that's the first thing that comes to mind
20:32
is it could be that a person, you know, they cheat on you
20:35
and they say, you know what?
20:36
I will never, ever do this to you again.
20:38
Here are the past codes for my phone.
20:41
I want you to feel completely free to check my phone.
20:44
Here are the past codes to my email address.
20:46
I will make sure that you know where I am at all times.
20:49
You are, you can ask me any question
20:50
you ever want to ask me about anything.
20:52
When someone is repented, they recognize
20:55
that they made the mistake that they were the one
20:57
who were wrong and they will put in the actual mechanisms
21:01
to write the wrong.
21:02
If it's a case you mentioned, you know,
21:04
let's say on the job they throw a few dollars away
21:07
and they're like, oh, this thing happened.
21:08
Here's a bonus, right?
21:10
But they don't actually put the infrastructure in place
21:13
to make sure the situation doesn't happen again.
21:16
I know of situations, I've actually experienced situations
21:18
where you have a boss who, you know,
21:21
maybe they are mentally abusive, they're emotionally abusive.
21:24
And so instead of the company actually demoting the boss
21:27
or firing them, they maybe move them to a different team
21:32
and just say, hey, everybody, we took care of it.
21:34
No, you didn't take care of it
21:36
because this person does not have the mental
21:39
and the emotional capacity to lead other people.
21:41
So it's being aware of those nuances
21:44
because there's one thing to slap a bandaid on something.
21:48
It's another thing to actually fix the problem.
21:51
And of course, those are two different approaches.
21:52
What are some, I guess the best way to put it is
21:57
like taboo emotions or feelings
21:59
or feelings that people feel are taboo
22:02
about the situation they're going through that
22:05
they really should feel comfortable expressing
22:08
when they're going through one of these circumstances,
22:09
the situation, is it shame, is it guilt, is it,
22:12
what are these people going through?
22:13
And I'm sure there's gonna resonate with people
22:15
because I just want people to understand
22:16
that if they're going through the situation
22:18
and they're feeling some kind of way,
22:20
this is very normal.
22:22
Yeah, thank you for asking this.
22:23
I think this is important.
22:25
We have been, especially as leaders and professionals,
22:29
we have almost been conditioned to not feel, right?
22:33
Like we've even been told that you cannot make
22:37
quality decisions when you are emotional.
22:39
And that is, that is actually true
22:42
because your emotions can affect the way
22:44
that you process information
22:45
and it can affect the decisions that you make.
22:47
That said, what you don't acknowledge doesn't go away.
22:52
It simply changes form.
22:54
So if you, for example, let's say you're feeling isolated,
22:57
like you, you find out that your colleagues
23:00
went to some event together.
23:01
They didn't tell you anything about it.
23:03
You see it on social media.
23:05
And so you feel isolated.
23:07
Well, that's actually a form of rejection.
23:09
Let's say that you worked diligently on some deal
23:14
and then it fell through and you just, you feel humiliated.
23:18
Like you don't even want to talk about it.
23:19
That's a form of rejection.
23:22
And until we actually name our emotions,
23:24
what you don't name, you can't address.
23:27
And I personally believe that rejection
23:30
is the most common form of human trauma.
23:33
So it's feeling, feeling shame.
23:35
Well, what is shame?
23:37
Shame is the sense that I am a mistake.
23:40
Not that I've made a mistake, but I am a mistake.
23:43
Something is wrong with me.
23:46
I think imposter syndrome is actually a derivative of shame
23:51
because it's the idea that I don't belong here.
23:53
There's something wrong with me and I don't belong here.
23:56
Well, where did that idea come from?
23:58
It came from rejection.
24:00
And one of the things I talk about in the book is
24:03
rejection is like a talk track.
24:06
And if you think about it, when you go to a museum,
24:08
let's say the docent hands you a set of headphones
24:11
and they say, hey, when you go to the exhibits,
24:13
just press the red button and you'll hear a narration
24:16
about the exhibit.
24:17
Well, if you go to an exhibit and you press the red button
24:19
and you listen to that, then it ends,
24:22
you press the button again and again,
24:24
and again, there's gonna come a point
24:26
where you're gonna actually have the narration memorized, right?
24:30
That's how rejection is, words that are spoken over us.
24:34
Those words end up getting embedded in our heart
24:37
so much so that when you don't get the promotion,
24:41
if you actually pause and listen to what you're thinking,
24:45
you're thinking words that were seeded into you
24:48
by somebody else.
24:50
I'm not good enough.
24:51
I'll never be chosen.
24:53
Like, no matter what I do, I'm always overlooked.
24:55
Where did that come from?
24:56
That came from when you were on the playground
25:00
and those kids were forming teams
25:02
and they left you out, right?
25:04
Those things stay embedded with us
25:06
and that's why I said, when we don't name our emotion
25:09
and we don't actually process what we're feeling,
25:12
it doesn't go away, it just changes form.
25:15
We become the type of people that are overberry
25:17
and micromanaging.
25:18
We become the people who are sullen and depressed.
25:21
Some of what we call personality is not our personality.
25:25
It's how we cope with the pain of rejection.
25:29
Some of us say, well, I'm just introverted.
25:31
No, you're not introverted.
25:32
You were rejected over and over
25:35
and you have learned that the way to avoid rejection
25:39
is to simply avoid people.
25:41
So sometimes what we're calling our personality
25:44
is simply how we're processing being rejected.
25:46
And this talk track, so this talk track comes from,
25:49
it could be very early childhood trauma.
25:52
It basically, anything that happens your whole life
25:55
informs this talk track and then fast forward to an adult,
25:59
well, that's going to make you not less aware of rejection,
26:06
but you're going to focus less on preserving yourself
26:11
and protecting yourself and you're going to say,
26:14
well, it's fine, I deserve that.
26:16
Yeah, so that's one of the most, I think, dangerous
26:20
and insidious effects that rejection has on us.
26:24
So in the Bible, there's a verse that's in Proverbs,
26:27
chapter 18 and 21, it says, life and death
26:30
are in the power of the tongue.
26:33
That word that's translated power is actually
26:36
the Hebrew word yod, which means hand.
26:39
So if you think about it, it's saying life and death
26:41
are in the hand of the tongue.
26:43
Well, what does a hand do?
26:44
A hand molds, a hand shapes, a hand builds,
26:49
but a hand can also destroy.
26:51
Like the same hand that paints the Mona Lisa
26:54
can take a knife and stab someone to death, right?
26:57
So to death.
26:58
So we have to understand that words have power.
27:02
And some of us, we've said things like, oh, I'm over it.
27:05
Those things were said to me so long ago,
27:07
but look how much I've achieved.
27:08
I'm over it.
27:09
No, what you don't realize is that your ambition
27:12
is actually fueled by the words that people spoke over you.
27:16
They said you're not going to be enough.
27:17
They said you will never achieve anything.
27:19
And so you constantly pursue success,
27:23
not because you're running toward your future,
27:25
but because you're running from your past.
27:27
And so that's why we don't feel fulfilled.
27:30
No matter how much we achieve, it just doesn't matter
27:33
because there is a formative rejection wound
27:36
that is like a black hole that all the success goes into
27:40
and it never fills up.
27:42
So that's why I'm so passionate about this
27:44
because I've lived it, Scott.
27:45
This is not something that's just abstract to me.
27:49
I know what it's like to be on the 40 under 40
27:51
and 30 under 30 and have the big title and the salaries
27:54
and all the things and feel like, is this all there is?
28:00
And I don't believe that we were created
28:03
to just live a life where we're never fulfilled.
28:05
I mean, that's probably why you,
28:07
so I was watching some interviews and you said,
28:09
you've written this book for you at the end of the day.
28:12
You've written this, this is something that you need it.
28:16
If you look at your own life and sort of just use you
28:20
as an example, so everything we just spoke about,
28:24
that talk track that is built from all this past trauma
28:27
and you had tons of trauma growing up,
28:30
how did that manifest outside of just being unfulfilled?
28:33
How did that actually manifest in relationships
28:35
and career later on, but also then not only how it manifested,
28:40
how did you fix it, solve it, address it, confront it?
28:45
So I looking back on it now, I became hyperambitious
28:53
because the words that had been spoken over me
28:56
were things like my mom saying,
28:57
I wish I never had you, I shouldn't ever had you.
29:01
I had teachers tell me I would never be anything.
29:04
I had classmates call me Miss Piggy
29:07
because I was morbidly obese for most of my childhood
29:11
into young adulthood.
29:12
I would eat to try to anesthetize the pain
29:15
of the abuse I was experiencing.
29:17
And so I had all of these words that were spoken over me
29:19
and I basically tried to use achievement and accomplishment
29:24
to kind of silence the voices that I heard in my mind.
29:28
And so that's how I ended up going to college
29:31
on a full scholarship because I was the kid
29:34
that I couldn't be on the AB honor roll.
29:36
I had to be on the all A honor roll.
29:37
Like I could not just be on the dance team.
29:40
I had to be captain of the dance team.
29:41
I couldn't just be on the tennis team.
29:44
I had to be the number one seed.
29:45
Like I there was there was there were words
29:48
that were constantly in my mind telling me you're not enough.
29:51
You're not enough.
29:52
You'll never be good enough.
29:53
And so I was battling that with my success.
29:57
And so going into even my profession,
30:00
you know, I was appointed to an executive role
30:02
at the age of 23 with a Fortune 50 company
30:04
because I was just constantly hard charging working.
30:07
There was never a time when I wasn't working.
30:11
And so a year after I graduated out of college,
30:13
you know, here I am in this executive role
30:15
with people who could have been my parents.
30:17
And even then Scott, I remember sitting at a board meeting
30:21
and I remember thinking, I don't belong here.
30:24
Like I really shouldn't be here.
30:26
Like I'm not qualified to be here.
30:28
But at the same time, I needed to be there
30:31
in order to feel like I mattered.
30:33
So that's how it manifested in my profession.
30:35
Relationally, I ended up in relationships with guys
30:38
who could not have cared less about me.
30:40
But they gave me what I call crumbs of attention.
30:43
Like they gave me, you know, a text here and there,
30:46
a call here and there.
30:48
And that was enough for me to fully latch onto them
30:52
with everything that I had.
30:54
Because again, that formative rejection wound,
30:57
it told me you're not worthy of more.
31:01
And so I accepted, frankly, what was beneath my humanity.
31:04
Now, how I actually kind of pulled myself out of that,
31:08
just quick story.
31:09
So when I was in high school, I was in a relationship
31:12
with a guy who, you know, I thought he was amazing.
31:14
He was actually my first boyfriend.
31:15
I thought he was amazing.
31:17
And one weekend, he said he wanted to take me to the movies.
31:20
So I went and got my hair done.
31:21
I got my nails done.
31:22
You know, I was ready to go.
31:23
And an hour before we were supposed to go,
31:25
he called and said that he had a family emergency
31:27
come up and he couldn't go.
31:29
And I was so bummed, but I called some of my friends
31:31
and I said, hey, I want to go to the movies.
31:33
So went to the movies with some of my friends.
31:35
I looked over in the other line while I'm standing in line
31:37
to buy tickets.
31:38
And I see my boyfriend there holding hands
31:39
with another girl.
31:41
And he looks back and he sees me
31:44
and the color drains from his face, right?
31:46
Well, fast forward about, I don't know, 15 years.
31:50
I'm working at Facebook and a friend of mine,
31:53
a pastor friend of mine reaches out and he says,
31:55
hey, I need your help with something.
31:58
I have a spiritual son, a son in the ministry.
32:01
And I need you to help take his Facebook page down
32:03
because people are saying really mean things on his page.
32:06
And I was like, well, I've never had that request for
32:08
and frankly, we can't take a page down
32:10
unless it's violating community standards.
32:13
And I said, you know, but send me the link
32:14
and I'll see what I can do.
32:16
So he sends me the link, I click on it
32:19
and my ex-boyfriend from high school's picture
32:20
is staring back at me.
32:22
And I was like, what is this?
32:24
So I scroll down and people are commenting on his page,
32:28
you know, serves him right, cheaters get what they deserve.
32:31
I can't believe he called himself a pastor
32:33
out here living a double life.
32:35
I saw, I hope his wife is okay.
32:37
So I Google his name, article after article after article
32:41
after article comes up, he was murdered by his mistress
32:45
who also tried to kill his wife.
32:47
So he never changed, he never changed.
32:50
He never changed and I thought about how for years,
32:53
I thought, man, I was so hurt by what he did,
32:57
but I was ultimately protected by what he did.
33:00
And that's when again, I prayed as a person of faith
33:03
that his prayed and I was like, Lord help me make sense of this.
33:06
And I heard this parents say rejection is a gift.
33:09
Rejection is a gift and the pain is true.
33:13
The pain is real, but there is a lesson in it
33:16
that will make you better if you learn how to open it.
33:19
And so that's how I got on the path that I'm on now.
33:21
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33:23
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When that happens, obviously that has an impact
35:00
on your talk track.
35:01
Because then you start to see signs
35:03
that rejection is a gift.
35:06
But is there work that somebody has to do beyond that?
35:10
Because that's like a shock.
35:11
That's like a sort of a flash in the pan event
35:14
and you're like, oh shit, it's like a wake up call,
35:15
which is, it's good.
35:17
Those things, those things help.
35:19
But are somebody who's gone through a life of trauma?
35:23
How do they rewrite their talk track fully?
35:27
I think now that I'm kind of on the other side
35:29
of this revelation, I truly believe that it starts
35:34
with observing what is the talk track.
35:37
Because what's going to have to happen
35:39
in order to even get to a place of healing and freedom
35:42
is you're going to have to be able to go back
35:44
to the place where the defeat happened.
35:47
You're going to have to be able to go back
35:49
to the place where there were words
35:50
that were spoken over you.
35:51
There was an action that was taken
35:53
because sometimes it's not even words.
35:55
It's what people do.
35:56
It's the fact that your father chose to leave
36:00
when you were in elementary school.
36:02
It's the fact that this person that you loved
36:05
chose to leave and be with somebody else.
36:08
It's not even what they said, it's what they did.
36:10
So you have to go back and you have to begin to ask yourself,
36:13
what did I believe because of what was said
36:17
or because of what was done?
36:19
And is that true?
36:22
For example, when he cheated on me,
36:26
I thought no one will ever want me.
36:29
How could anyone ever want me?
36:31
Like, I gave my heart to this guy
36:34
and he basically discarded it.
36:36
No one will ever want me.
36:37
Well, as it turns out, I actually had other relationships
36:41
after him, some of them were crazy,
36:43
but one in particular ended in marriage.
36:45
And my husband and I have been married now for 20 years.
36:49
And so this idea that no one will ever want me,
36:52
actually isn't true.
36:54
And here's the thing, even if I never got married.
36:57
This is where I know there are some people
36:58
who don't necessarily believe in like God
37:01
or spirituality or anything like that,
37:03
but I want to say this,
37:04
I was a microbiology and self-science major in college.
37:07
I love science, I love math.
37:09
I think I took up to like Calc Five.
37:11
I love calculus of all the things.
37:13
It is literally impossible.
37:17
There is no law of physics where order descends from chaos.
37:21
Think about like this.
37:22
If a chandelier drops from the ceiling
37:25
and crashes onto the ground,
37:27
I don't care how many millennia go by,
37:30
it's not going to either reform into a chandelier
37:32
or something beautiful and amazing, right?
37:35
It's gonna just continue to disintegrate.
37:37
And I say that because no matter what you've been told,
37:41
you are not a mistake.
37:43
No matter what has happened to you, you are not an accident.
37:46
Somebody else's choice was not your fault.
37:49
And it doesn't invalidate the purpose on your life.
37:52
And so you have to observe what is the top track?
37:55
And is it true?
37:57
Because even if they didn't want you,
37:59
the reality is you are here
38:02
because you have purpose on your life.
38:04
I mentioned this before we press record
38:06
and I think it's just an interesting point
38:08
and I want to get your perspective on it.
38:09
And I love that, I love that sort of that thought experiment
38:13
because it makes a lot of sense when you lay it out,
38:15
how everyone is, it takes so much,
38:20
there's so many coincidences or however you want to call it
38:24
that we're alive here living today.
38:27
It almost seems impossible.
38:29
I think statistically it is almost impossible
38:32
that we're alive living here today.
38:34
But I think that a lot of people,
38:37
they don't have spirituality
38:38
and I think less and less people have got in their life.
38:42
And maybe not just speak about the important,
38:48
speak about if somebody does not have God in their life,
38:53
what problems do they run into when facing rejection?
38:57
Is there, is there ways that God's spirituality helps?
39:02
I'm sure because I mean, you've mentioned it
39:04
that it's impacted your life twice
39:06
just in this conversation.
39:07
But if somebody doesn't have that peace in their life,
39:11
what is the puzzle piece or the component
39:14
that they're missing that they should try and solve
39:17
for to make some of these difficult life events
39:21
a little bit easier?
39:22
I love this question because what I can tell you first of all,
39:26
I did not grow up in a church going home.
39:30
Like I didn't grow up in a situation
39:31
where I just knew about the Bible or Jesus or God
39:34
or any of that.
39:36
I had my own encounter, my own awakening, my own experience.
39:41
And what I will tell you is I had my own awakening
39:46
in the middle of being abused and not not the act,
39:50
but I'm saying in the chronology of my life,
39:53
the abuse was still happening.
39:56
And so what it did for me is my awareness about God,
40:01
there's a verse of scripture in the Bible
40:02
that says it's in Romans chapter eight, verse 28.
40:05
And what it says is that God will work all things together
40:10
for the good of those who love him
40:12
and are called according to his purpose.
40:14
What that says to me and what that even said to me then
40:18
is this situation may not be good,
40:22
but God has made a promise to work it together for my good,
40:25
which means I have to figure out
40:28
what is the good in this?
40:30
Like that, what is the kernel of good in this
40:34
that could serve other people?
40:37
I think what spirituality does, what faith does,
40:40
is it gives you an anchor for hope.
40:43
In the absence of the belief that all things will work together
40:47
for my good, you can get so fixated on the bad
40:51
and what happened that you lose sight of this will eventually
40:55
work together for my good.
40:57
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next year,
41:00
but I know at some point I will look back on this situation
41:03
and I will be able to say, oh, that's why that happened.
41:06
I think about my God, I think about the rejection
41:09
of my mom, I think about the many times I was cheated on,
41:13
I think about professional rejection,
41:15
like deep, deep rejections that I've experienced
41:18
and every single experience has worked together
41:21
in some way for my purpose and for the ability
41:26
to serve other people and so even if a person
41:28
doesn't have a faith or spirituality,
41:30
I do think that what we ultimately need is we need hope
41:34
and that's why the gift of rejection
41:36
is really a message about hope.
41:37
It sounds crazy, right?
41:39
It's like how can you say rejection is a gift,
41:41
but understanding that it is is a source of hope
41:45
and I take my hope for my faith in God
41:47
and just knowing that it may not feel good
41:50
but it will eventually be good
41:52
if I just continue and persevere in this situation.
41:55
I think that's beautiful,
41:56
but I think the biggest issue with black of faith
42:00
or spirituality or God and I love this,
42:03
I don't love this concept, but I love sort of this thought
42:07
and the experiment is when you do not have God
42:09
or spirituality in your life,
42:11
something else becomes your God or your spirituality
42:14
and it could be money, it could be women,
42:19
it could be gambling, it could be drugs,
42:20
it could be alcohol, it could even be work,
42:23
which is technically not a vice,
42:26
but it cannot be all consuming.
42:28
And when shit hits the fan,
42:30
none of these things really give hope
42:33
because they're not things that you,
42:36
they're not things that kind of exactly what you describe,
42:40
they let you see some potential better future.
42:43
They're just sort of these vices in the moment
42:45
and I think people, yes.
42:47
You're absolutely right.
42:48
We actually all do have a place that we look to for hope.
42:55
Some of us, and you use the exact right word is like,
42:58
our God is something.
43:00
For some of us, our God is frankly ourselves.
43:03
Like we're like, look, I'm got it all figured out
43:05
and I'll make it happen and I'll make it,
43:07
but there comes a point where you just realize
43:10
that you've exhausted all of your personal resources
43:14
and you need that higher power
43:18
to be able to kind of re-infuse the sense that,
43:22
yeah, I can't do this on my own.
43:23
I can't and I have a bunch of friends
43:26
who are atheist and agnostic and I'll always joke with them
43:29
because I'm like, you guys actually have more faith than I do
43:32
because you have to have a lot of faith
43:35
to look around at all this and be like,
43:38
I just came for nowhere.
43:40
So we all have faith in something.
43:42
Yeah, no, I love that.
43:45
I want to, just a framework that people can at least walk away
43:49
with and I'm just gonna caveat with this.
43:52
So the book is out now, so you can get it wherever you get
43:58
your books, like we'll put the links in the show though
44:00
to whatnot.
44:01
But one framework that you speak about
44:03
is the open framework.
44:06
So I just wanna leave people with a framework
44:08
they can take away and then they're gonna go dive
44:10
into the book and learn a little bit more obviously
44:12
but I wanna unpack that one.
44:14
Thank you for even offering me the opportunities to do this
44:17
because one of the things I am very careful about
44:20
as a writer is I don't ever want people to read my books
44:23
and just be like, oh, that was nice.
44:25
I don't know what to do with it.
44:27
That's, honestly, one of the reasons I write my books
44:30
is because I want people to be able to have practical tools
44:33
that they can apply that I had to discover on my own
44:36
because I couldn't find it anywhere else.
44:37
So the open framework is essentially kind of a four-part
44:41
framework that will help you really start to get intentional
44:45
about understanding what is the gift
44:47
in this rejection experience.
44:49
And so the, oh, stands for observe.
44:51
And I talked about this a little bit earlier
44:53
but what you wanna do is when a rejection happens
44:56
before you allow yourself to mentally, emotionally,
44:59
psychologically, and spiritually spiral into
45:01
your normal rabbit hole, you want to observe
45:04
what am I thinking and what am I feeling?
45:07
What are the thoughts that are just automatically playing
45:11
in my mind?
45:12
What are the feelings that are just automatically cascading
45:16
through my body?
45:17
And when you kind of pause and you actually think about the thoughts
45:21
like metacognition, like you think about the thoughts,
45:24
you're actually able to then begin to pinpoint
45:26
where did this come from?
45:28
Where did this belief that nobody wants me?
45:32
Where did this idea come from?
45:35
And once you can actually pinpoint
45:36
where the idea came from, now you have something
45:40
that you can start to work with, okay?
45:42
And it's important to pinpoint it
45:45
because until you identify where it comes from,
45:47
you'll think it's you.
45:49
You'll think this was just my own thought,
45:51
but I promise you, 95% of what we think
45:55
after we experienced rejection was seeded into us
45:58
by words somebody else said.
45:59
So start with observing.
46:01
Secondly, what I encourage people to do is just pause.
46:05
Just pause, don't allow yourself to act
46:09
because sometimes what we'll do is the pain will be so real
46:13
that we'll just want to either get back at the person
46:15
immediately, we'll want to take some sort of action
46:18
to try to nullify the pain.
46:20
No, just pause.
46:22
What I do is I pause and I pray.
46:24
And I actually bring those thoughts to God.
46:28
I'm like, okay, I just thought my thought was
46:31
no one will ever want me, no one ever supports me,
46:34
no one ever, and I bring it to God
46:37
because that then gives me the opportunity
46:39
to reflect on is this true?
46:42
You know, as I've been releasing this book
46:44
about rejection, I've been experiencing
46:45
so much rejection, Scott, it's been crazy.
46:48
I run it.
46:49
And I got, isn't it ironic?
46:50
And I got a little place where I literally felt,
46:53
I was like, man, nobody's supporting me.
46:55
But as I pause and I prayed about that,
46:58
I had to actually reflect on the fact that,
47:00
wait a minute, a lot of people are supporting me.
47:02
And there are people supporting me,
47:03
who I've even not even met before.
47:05
And like even being on this platform is just such a gift
47:09
because it's like, you've so lovingly cultivated this platform
47:13
and yet you're inviting me on it.
47:14
Like that is a gift that counters the idea
47:18
that nobody supports me, nobody wants to be, right?
47:20
So we pause them, we pause them for me, I pray,
47:23
and I just get into a meditative place
47:25
and then the E is explore.
47:28
So I believe that every rejection has a lesson
47:32
that it can teach us about ourselves or about others.
47:35
In the case of my book release and having some folks
47:38
that I thought I could count on, not show up for me,
47:40
as I explored that, what I realized is,
47:42
I placed them in a category of friendship
47:45
that they actually worked in.
47:47
Like these are people that I supported,
47:49
these are people that I just knew would show up for me
47:50
that didn't.
47:51
And so as I explored it, I realized,
47:53
oh, our relationship actually isn't where I thought it was.
47:56
So now, I don't hold a grudge against you
47:59
because you didn't show up.
48:01
I just realized I can't count on you
48:03
for what I thought I could count on you for.
48:05
And so that then changes the nature of the relationship.
48:07
And the last step, which is in, the end stands for name
48:11
and what I talk about is just name your next step.
48:13
So you've observed your thoughts,
48:15
you know how you're feeling, you've paused,
48:17
you've actually explored the lessons and the experience.
48:19
Now, what are you going to do with what you've learned
48:24
and how's it going to change the way that you show up?
48:26
So that's the open framework in a nutshell.
48:28
And you're right, I go into a lot more detail in the book,
48:30
but it's practical and it's something that I've even used
48:33
as I've experienced rejection of releasing the book.
48:35
And it works.
48:36
What would be one thing about rejection
48:39
that people fundamentally get wrong,
48:41
like a very commonly held belief
48:44
that is just absolutely incorrect?
48:46
Yeah, I think people take rejection personally
48:49
and think that it's about them.
48:51
When in reality, what people do is not about you,
48:55
it's about their choice.
48:57
So we say, well, they did this thing
49:00
because something's wrong with me.
49:02
When in fact, they did the thing
49:04
because they did the thing, right?
49:07
So instead of taking it personally,
49:09
I think we just have to recognize
49:10
they did what they did because of them, not because of me.
49:12
What would be one belief about rejection
49:15
that you used to hold that's changed dramatically?
49:18
It could even be as you wrote this book.
49:20
I thought rejection was like the end of the world.
49:23
Like I thought that not being invited,
49:26
I thought not being included.
49:27
I thought having somebody I cared about
49:29
abandoned me when I needed the most.
49:30
I thought that was the end of the world.
49:33
But now I recognize that there's actually a lesson
49:37
in all of those experiences.
49:39
And I actually can take the time
49:41
to consider what that lesson is
49:43
and I can apply it to my life
49:44
and I can retain my sense of agency
49:47
and it can make me better.
49:48
What's the role that a third party,
49:51
like a friend or a peer plays in this?
49:54
Mm, you know, I think if we have the right people
49:58
in our lives, they can help us have perspective
50:01
about the situation.
50:02
It's really important because sometimes
50:05
we can have people in our lives
50:06
who basically make the rabbit hole deeper, right?
50:09
Like we tell them what happened
50:11
and they're like, I can't believe
50:11
that happened, that's so horrible.
50:13
Now you need somebody in your life
50:15
who's gonna be able to hear your experience
50:18
all for wisdom, all for encouragement
50:20
that will lift you out of the rabbit hole,
50:22
not make it deeper for you.
50:24
So I think having somebody in your life
50:25
who can process with you and get you to a place
50:28
of actually applying the learnings is a gift.
50:32
First is somebody who's just gonna descend
50:34
down the rabbit hole with you.
50:35
That's not helpful.
50:36
Yeah, and we have friends like that too.
50:38
Or maybe they're maybe their friends
50:40
that shouldn't be in the category that they're in,
50:42
whatever, but we definitely know people like that.
50:44
Yeah, yeah.
50:45
You have a place, you have a place.
50:47
Last thing, you look back,
50:48
you've had so many incredible seasons to your life.
50:52
Look back, you wanna tell your 20 year old self
50:54
one word of wisdom, one piece of advice,
50:56
what would that be?
50:57
I would tell known of them
50:59
because I was dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome.
51:03
I would just say that you're not an imposter when you're called.
51:08
In every room that you are in, you are called to,
51:11
every opportunity that you are given, you are called to.
51:15
And so stop feeling like you don't belong there,
51:18
like you don't deserve it
51:19
because it's given to you because you do.
51:21
Okay, so give the rejections out now.
51:24
Amazon anywhere you can get books, basically.
51:28
What's your social?
51:29
And do you have a website for the book?
51:32
Well, it's just all my website.
51:34
It's nonajones.com.
51:35
If you go there and just click on the books tab,
51:36
it'll take you right there.
51:37
But my social handle is at Nona, not Nora.
51:42
I get confused with a Grammy award-winning
51:44
singer-songwriter all the time.
51:46
That is not who I am.
51:47
But yeah, at Nona, not Nora on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.