No one likes rejection, but we all experience it one way or another at times. In today’s post, Pete shares his thoughts about how to respond to it, both emotionally and intellectually.
To learn more about how SagePresence can help your team step up in the face of possible rejection, check out our Shortlist Interview Support.
Today I want to talk about rejection and how to respond to it. In our leadership presence coaching and presentation support work, we meet countless professionals who struggle to present themselves confidently because they fear rejection. It’s incredibly common—almost universal. Nobody seeks rejection, but if we learn to process it, it can become a powerful driver for growth in communication, business development, and interview preparation.
The first step when you experience rejection is to give yourself time to feel it. It’s absolutely okay to feel hurt, disappointed, frustrated, or bruised. You don’t need to immediately jump into “What can I learn from this?” Give yourself permission to experience the emotions that arise. You don’t have to call it grief, but acknowledging your feelings matters before you move forward.
Once you’ve given yourself space to feel the emotions, then you can begin asking, “What can I learn from this? What can I take into my next presentation, shortlist interview, or business development conversation?” Rejection is uncomfortable, but it can also be incredibly useful in improving leadership communication and strengthening confident presence.
This topic is top of mind for me today because I just experienced a form of rejection myself. I was reviewing feedback from a group that attended several workshops I led. While there was plenty of positive feedback, there were also people who didn’t connect with what I delivered. It happens—not every communication style resonates with every audience.
Even when rejection isn’t universal, it’s remarkably easy to fixate on the negative comments and overlook the positive ones. But rejection is almost never a total rejection. People rarely reject everything about you. More often, they’re rejecting one part of your communication approach, your style, or your fit for that specific moment.
For example, if you’re in an AEC shortlist interview or job interview and don’t get selected, the interviewer may have appreciated many things about you—you just didn’t land high enough on their list this time. Rejection doesn’t mean you’re lacking across the board; it simply means something didn’t align in that scenario.
Your responsibility is to get an honest, balanced assessment of what worked and what didn’t. If you were in front of a group, look at how many people responded positively, neutrally, or negatively. What can you learn about how they perceived you? And what small adjustments might improve your next presentation, leadership communication moment, or business development meeting?
That’s the heart of it. Keep going. Keep presenting, keep interviewing, keep showing up with confident presence. Don’t expect 100% success. Instead, strive for the best outcomes you can create, learn from each experience, and accept that rejection is part of the process. When you treat rejection as feedback—not a verdict—you get better, stronger, and more effective every time.
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