What if the first person to reject you and the hardest one to recover from, was you?

Alice is joined by Selena Rezvani, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, leadership and confidence speaker, and creator of the viral newsletter that became the Quick Confidence and Quick Leadership series. This episode is a masterclass in overcoming the fear of rejection at work: Selena has half a million followers teaching self-advocacy, yet the rejection she keeps circling back to isn't from a publisher or an online hater. It's the self-rejection that began in a turbulent childhood, where she learned she could earn love by achieving quietly and never needing anything.

Selena's reframe: rejection from other people is a moment of contact, self-rejection is the quiet, corrosive one that whispers you're not worthy unless you're in "conquer mode." She traces how trauma-driven overachievement became perfectionism, guilt around rest, and showing up as "the diet soda version of yourself." Then she unpacks how to build confidence at work one rep at a time, naming her inner critic (hers is called Marjorie) and swapping "what if I fail?" for "I'm either going to win or I'm going to learn."

The sharp turn: success doesn't end rejection, it amplifies it. She's blunt that eight publisher rejections for one book turned out to be a gift, the idea was a "should," not a "want." Her antidote to the shame spiral is disarmingly simple: "share is a way to repair," because sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Whether you're dealing with rejection at work, rebuilding confidence after a setback, or weighing a career risk in a frozen job market, this is a candid, practical reframe of what rejection is really for.

In this episode they explore:

• How to overcome the fear of rejection — and why the first rejection often comes from yourself

• Trauma-driven overachievement: the survival strategy that later becomes the wound

• Why success and visibility amplify rejection instead of ending it

• The "diet soda version of yourself" — how fear makes you show up watered-down

• How to build confidence at work using rejection as exposure therapy

• The regret-minimization framework for deciding whether to take the risk

• How to quiet your inner critic and catch all-or-nothing self-talk

• Recovering from a bad review or a lower-than-usual score

• How to handle rejection as a leader — and why eight publisher rejections were a gift

• "Share is a way to repair" — how talking openly steals rejection's power

• Job hugging: taking career risks and negotiating in a tough job market

• "I'm either going to win or I'm going to learn"

Connect with Selena:

Website: selenarezvani.com

LinkedIn / Instagram / TikTok: @selenarezvani

Books: Quick Confidence and Quick Leadership

Chapters:

00:00 "The first rejection I remember came from me" — self-rejection

04:31 Trauma and overachievement at work

09:15 Confidence, self-advocacy, and self-leadership

11:29 Why success amplifies rejection

15:47 Fear of rejection at work — the "diet soda" self

21:34 "Write the book you wish existed"

29:00 Recovering from a bad review — the keynote that stung

35:56 Quieting your inner critic and black-and-white thinking

44:01 Eight publisher rejections — the gift

49:00 Job hugging and career risk in a tough market

53:59 "I'm either going to win or I'm going to learn"