Welcome to Emotions Are Expensive: the emotional cost of doing business and how to stop paying it.

When I was thinking about how I wanted to talk about my new 1:1 offer The Empathy Edge, I kept thinking back on all the shit that has gotten in my way (and my clients’ ways) when it comes to making the kind of money we want to make in our businesses. And the biggest one isn’t messaging, it isn’t a shite offer, it isn’t a small audience… it’s the gnarly emotions and mind drama that come with being a founder and selling your stuff in the world.

Because when you have a messaging or other problem with no emotion or mind drama around it? It’s relatively easy to find the fix and take action. But with the big feels? We spin, we get lost in the sauce, we fall into dopamine addiction, dependent on the next sale, application, or follow for proof that it’s all working and we should keep going.

In Emotions Are Expensive, we’ll be digging into the five biggest feels that keep founders spinning out, riding emotional highs and lows around launch goals and marketing metrics, dancing in and out of our least favorite place: burnout, apathetic, I-think-I-might-hate-my-business land.

I’ll send an essay and some resources on each big feel on Tuesdays, and drop a complementary podcast on my freshly re-launched podcast, The Resonance Effect, on Fridays. Emails will be more theory, podcasts more practice on how to work with and digest each emotion.

First up? The Cost of Rejection

I can still remember the first time I was explicitly rejected as vividly as if it were yesterday.

My earliest rejections weren’t in business but, like many of us, in the land of first crushes and attempts at belonging.

I’ll spare the sweet kid who did their best not to embarrass me when I asked them out to a movie, fumbling words over my braces and deeply cringe haircut during freshman year of high school, and dive instead into the perhaps more painful rejection from the local ballet company I auditioned for.

Truth is, I started dancing late, my body doesn’t look like a typical ballerina’s body, and I wasn’t really that good.

But I deeply wanted to be a ballerina. Not as much because I loved that style of dance (I’m more of a salsa or EDM at a festival kind of girl, and those roots were showing even then), but because I wanted the identity of a ballerina.

The dedication to working at something, to trying, to caring. The chic wrap tops and buns and ballet skirts. And the community. The sense that with that outfit, with that schedule, with that commitment, you could truly say that you belonged somewhere.

This is an email about rejection, so as I’m sure you can guess I did not make it into the company… not even past the second round of the audition.

The business world feels the same in so many ways.

Because sure, you started your business for many reasons other than belonging.

Financial freedom, location freedom, time freedom. Doing work that felt meaningful, important, impactful. Agency over your own choices and who you do—or do not— work with or for. A space to share your opinions, art, ideas in a way that moves people, helps them, shapes their lives or communities or cultures at large.

But inside of each of those desires is a need.

A need that can either be fulfilled when you get what you want… the money, recognition, viral posts.

Or that can be unmet when you get rejected.

And for better or worse (I think it’s better, but we’ll get there), rejection is one of the guaranteed experiences of running a business...

• the DM pitch that you thought you nailed, but still gets left on read
• the new client who is a hell yes after your call, then ghosts while you’re celebrating and sending the contract
• the launch that you gave your all to that gets not a single damn sale
• the offer you dreamed up, asked your audience if they wanted, that somehow no one buys
• the email you wrote that felt so you, so authentic that gets 15 unsubscribes

But when deep down we know that people are busy, and an email unsubscribe doesn’t mean someone hates us and thinks we’re a loser, why does this shit hit different than other kinds of rejection?

Because our businesses are so tied to our identity. To our financial survival. To our sense or purpose, of meaning, of mattering.

The stakes feel big and existential because, well, they really are.

And when the stakes are so big, we go from…

• The Story You Tell Yourself →I’m a failure, X just doesn’t work for me, the algorithm hates me, no one wants my offers. My audience is too small, maybe I just need a new website, bio, or email list, maybe I should give up… or start over?
• Which Leads to The Action You Take → stop posting, over-giving on sales calls that last 2 hours instead of 45 minutes, saying yes to clients, opportunities, projects that drain you and should have been a no, panic-pivoting offers and bios and messaging…
• And Creates The Ripple Effect → lost momentum, decision paralysis, and the dopamine-chase for validation, confidence, or just a bit more evidence that it’s all working.

And look, I'm not telling you this to make you feel like shit about how you've been handling rejection. This cycle does that enough. But it’s costing you too much, so what do we do about it?

Too much business advice treats rejection like a mindset problem.

Reframe it. Journal about it. Remember that every no gets you closer to a yes.

Cool, cool. Except that when someone ghosts after a sales call, no amount of reframing stops the gut-punch… because rejection isn’t just happening in your mind. It’s happening in your whole nervous system.

When you get rejected (or when you’re just anticipating rejection, which is most of the time you’re hitting publish or send) your body registers a threat.

Your sympathetic nervous system kicks in. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn. The same system that kept our ancestors alive when they were about to be eaten by a lion is now firing because someone didn’t reply to your DM.

And this is where it gets hella expensive.

When your nervous system is activated like this, you can’t access the parts of your brain that make good decisions. You can’t think strategically. You can’t stay consistent. You can’t show up with the kind of grounded, confident energy that actually attracts clients, or allows you to even figure out what to say to the leads you already have.

You’re operating from threat. Which means every decision you make (about your offer, your messaging, your sales process) is colored by that activation.

You’re not choosing what to do next based on what would serve your business, your creativity, your fulfillment, your bank account. You’re choosing based on what will make you feel safe right now.

Which is why you panic-pivot your offer, stop posting for three weeks, say yes to clients who make you forget that you actually do love the work you do.

Nervous system support isn’t a nice-to-have when you’re a founder. It’s foundational to sustainable selling.

When you have practices, systems, and support that help you metabolize rejection you make different choices.

You post the thing even when you’re scared it’ll flop (and eventually the things does go viral).

You send the invoice without spiraling about whether they’ll say yes (and suddenly your MRR is growinggggg and we’re happy dancing, stress free).

You have sales conversations that don’t feel like begging for validation (because you know and feel that rejection of the sale isn’t rejection of you).

You let a no be a no, not evidence that you’re failing.

And you keep going. Not because you’ve convinced yourself rejection doesn’t matter (no gaslighting ourselves here), but because your body knows it’s safe to keep trying even when it does.

And that’s how we guarantee you’ll get the money, the clients, the sold-out launches, the freedom, the peace, the business, the LIFE you want.

Sustainable, grounded selling isn’t about eliminating rejection, ‘cause that’s impossible. It’s about building a system that supports you through it, so rejection doesn’t get to run your business anymore.

​Which is why building the nervous system capacity, one-of-a-kind messaging and holistic, pressure-free sales systems is what we do inside of The Empathy Edge.

It’s a real good time.

The podcast on Friday is going to drop a guided practice to increase your capacity to feel rejection and not shut down around it and an exercise to get you growing this week. I’ll drop a line when it’s live.

x

CQ

PS The Empathy Edge is a 6 month 1:1 retainer for service-based founders who want to grow into sold-out offers that don’t depend on referrals, social media and make-or-break launches. When you start in October, we’ll have your first sales messaging dashboard + sales campaign mapped out and running before the holidays. Get the deets here.​

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