Why Rejection Hurts and 6 Ways to Gracefully Deal With it

Rejection is probably one of the worst feelings you could ever have, it honestly feels like a punch in the stomach. Regardless of how successful someone seems, we’ve all experienced it at some point or another in our lives. Whether it’s in the workplace or in our personal lives, it never feels good and we don’t always know the best way to handle it. In this week's episode, I did the research and share 6 ways you can start to gracefully deal with rejection in any situation. I show you what I call the rule of 100, why you shouldn’t be seeking revenge and how you can turn rejection into redirection. This is an important skill we should all learn how to master so make sure you listen carefully and take notes! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:43Jay Shetty?

  Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop.

• 1:26Jay Shetty?

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• 2:01Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised to yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 2:45Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and is clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. If you knock on one door, it's likely it won't open. If you knock on 100 doors, maybe one or two will open. If you knock on 200 doors, maybe two to four will open. If you knock on 300 doors, maybe three to six will open. But being scared of rejection stops us from knocking. And because it stops us from knocking, it also stops us from success.

• 3:33Jay Shetty?

  Welcome to On Purpose, the number one health and wellbeing podcast in the world because of you, right? It's only there because of you. I'm genuinely so, so, so deeply grateful and appreciative that you tune in every single week, twice a week, to hear me interview guests, to hear me do these solo episodes. And I love that you love the podcast so much and that you keep supporting by sharing it, by learning from it, by growing from it. I'm genuinely indebted to each and every single one of you. Today's episode is about why rejection hurts and six ways to gracefully deal with it.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  We've all been rejected. We know exactly how it feels. It's hurtful, it's painful, it's full of struggle. It's one of the lowest things that can happen to us. And rejection comes in different forms. It can be rejected in a relationship. It can be rejected for a job. It can be rejected after a pitch or proposal. It can be rejected in so many different ways. It's an emotion that we come across in so many different areas of our life. And that's why it's so important to learn how to deal with it. See, when you go through something once or twice in life, it would be useful to know it. But rejection is something that we can go through a lot in life.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  And actually, one of the biggest mistakes we make is that we never learn how to deal with it. We just hope that next time we won't get rejected. We just hope that next time we try something that it won't go that way. Right? We have this mentality that, oh, it's just going to be better. And I'm not saying that things aren't going to get better. I believe they truly do get better. But I believe things get better when we get better. Right? This is the truth. Things get better when we get better. When we improve our skills, when we learn more, when we grow more, we can deal with things better. Now, we've all been rejected. We know how it feels. How many times have you ever felt that it's literally like being punched in the stomach?

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Or you feel some sort of physical reaction to an emotional rejection? That's because FMRI studies state that the same areas of the brain are active when we are rejected and when we experience physical pain. There is such a big correlation in science between emotional rejection and physical pain. The same areas of our brain are triggered. It's incredible to even think of that. But I remember whenever I've been rejected, you can see it all over me, affects my whole body, affects my... You know, my physique, it affects my body language and posture. It affects every part of my physicality and I'm sure you've experienced that as well.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  The amazing thing is that whilst I was researching for this podcast, I found some amazing letters of rejections. These were letters that were sent to some of the most famous people in the world. And these letters were letters rejecting them for their talents. I want to read a few of them for you, just for you to get a feel of what I'm talking about. So I'll let you guess or think about who this is. This was a letter from Deco Records to a band. The executives felt that guitar groups are on the way out, right? And that's quoted. The executive felt that, quote, guitar groups are on the way out.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  And the band have no future in show business. The band was The Beatles, right? It's incredible to even imagine, but there were executives at Deco Records who believed that. And U2 and Madonna received similar letters, right? When you read these letters, you're just mind blown because in hindsight, it makes absolutely no sense. But so often, some of the most successful people in the world have been rejected. Whether that's Steven Spielberg from film school, whether it's Michael Jordan from getting into his high school basketball team, or whether it's looking at someone like Walt Disney, right? All of these people have endured failure and rejection.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  And we notice that anyone you admire, anyone you aspire to be like, anyone you look up to, has been rejected. This is probably one of my favorite stories of rejection. This man was very successful at Yahoo. I believe he was there for about 10 to 12 years. And then he decided to apply to two other big companies. The first company he applied to was Facebook. And he was rejected by Facebook. And he actually tweeted about being rejected by Facebook. And this is what he tweeted. He tweeted, "Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life's next adventure." Right? I mean, who gets rejected by a huge company and tweets about it?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  I mean, that's absolutely insane to even think about that. Now, he went and then applied for Twitter. And the same thing happened. He was rejected by Twitter. And so he posted again on Twitter this time. And he said, got denied by Twitter HQ, that's okay, would have been a long commute. Now, this man is publicly sharing his rejection from two of the biggest companies in the world. Most of us would see that as career suicide. Most of us would see that as extremely scary because now all the competitors know that you weren't good enough to get into these two companies. But this man didn't let it faze him. What he did is he co-founded a startup a few years later. And then after building it up, ended up selling that startup,

• 9:17Speaker 01

  selling that company to Facebook for nineteen billion dollars. Think about this for a moment. The man who was rejected from Facebook and Twitter a few years later, sold his company to Facebook for nineteen billion dollars. His name is Brian Acton and he's the co-founder of WhatsApp. Now, I don't know how many of you use WhatsApp, but I'm guessing a lot of you do. I found it crazy when I moved to the US. I realized lots of people in the US didn't use WhatsApp, even though in Europe and of course in Asia, we use WhatsApp a lot. And I was just blown away that here was a person that could have been hired by Facebook for a few hundred thousand dollars, but instead they paid nineteen billion dollars for him and this platform.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  But it's incredible to believe that he was rejected. And there are so many other incredible examples that I want you to take note of. So let's take a look at someone else, someone like Jessica Alba, who's been on the front cover of Forbes for the success of her company, The Honest Company. But the thing is that despite being on Forbes and being on the front cover, it wasn't always that simple for her. And actually, in her interview with Forbes, she talked about how when she first pitched The Honest Company, she just had loads of condescending nods or pats on the back of good luck. And she talked about instead of the resistance holding her back, it pushed her forward. And she said she almost needed it, right? This is really important. She said she almost needed it.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  And she said, I needed people telling me no for me to figure out exactly what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. See, sometimes hearing no. Is actually leading us towards the right yes. See, hearing no for the wrong idea is leading towards the yes for the right idea. Because when you keep hearing no, it pushes you in a direction of flow to figuring out what you need to do.

• 11:11Jay Shetty?

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• 11:54Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

• 12:38Jay Shetty?

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• 13:20Jay Shetty?

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• 13:42Speaker 01

  Now, listen to this, this is another huge example of someone. Lady Gaga, who of course, last year, absolutely phenomenal year with the rise of A Star Is Born and all of her other success. Gaga was actually rejected from her first ever music label. And she ended up signing for Def Jam Records in 2006 and was dropped after three months. Imagine that, getting rejected from your first music label, then getting signed and getting rejected after three months. It's crazy and she's described it as one of the worst days of her life and happened quite quickly. And, and what I really loved about what she said in this instant is that if you give up after something like that, you are never destined to be an entertainer.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  What doesn't kill you makes you stronger and I love that she talks about that because she's recognizing that failure, that rejection, that pushbacks, that setbacks are totally the path. They are the way, right? You don't have obstacles on the way, the obstacle is the way, right? These aren't challenges in the path, they are the path. And we see this more and more in the past when we lived in forests and woods and land as hunters and gatherers. Being rejected from our community was one of the worst things that could happen. It was like being excommunicated, almost literally felt like a death penalty because you would die from that loneliness and wouldn't be able to survive without that community. Now, because of that, our brain evolved to alert us of this happening.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  So when we feel rejected, we're almost reacting to it in a similar way. And at that time, it was a protective mechanism to save us from death. And today, it's trying to save us from loneliness, it's trying to save us from a feeling of disconnection. But here's the thing. What we don't realize is that being in a place where we're not wanted can be the most lonely place of all. And this is what I've realized in my journey of rejection is why do I want to be at a company? Why do I want to be in a place where I'm actually not wanted? Why do I want to force my way into a place where people don't think I'm good enough? Because if I force my way in, they're always going to have that doubt.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  And the crazy thing is that studies show that we perform at a lower IQ simply by visualizing a rejection experience we've had in the past. So if you literally visualize and relive a time you failed in your past, you will actually have a lower IQ on tests, exams, and any challenges that you take after it. So we actually make worse decisions and lack clarity after we're rejected. And I think we've all experienced that. We all sometimes make rash decisions. And this is one of the biggest mistakes we make is that we try and make a long-term decision based on a short-term emotion. And that's where we really go wrong, where we try and make this long-term decision based on a short-term emotion. Now, I know

• 16:38Speaker 01

  it's difficult because right now, we're noticing and what it feels like more and more and more. And I read somewhere that the rejection rate for online job applications is 98%, right? It's crazy to even think that that's true, but it is. And I'm sure you've experienced that. You get that automated email back, right? You get this email back that literally says, you know, sorry, we've had too many applications and you weren't the right fit. Stay in touch, right? You get this really basic, generic email. And we've all been there. So what I want to share with you today is very simply the six ways,

• 17:21Speaker 01

  right? The six ways to gracefully deal with it. We've talked about why rejection hurts. We've talked about the people that have been through rejection. We've talked about the challenges that so many of the people we look up to have overcome. So we recognize that rejection is part of the path. But now, how do we make it something that is gracefully dealt with? And my number one piece of advice, the first one that I wanted to start with is this, don't take it personally, right? A lot of rejection notes that we receive are generic and broad that are sent to that 98%. We don't always get a lot of feedback, insight, or information.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  And the biggest mistake we can make is we take that very ambiguous information and make it specifically about us. Beating yourself up is the worst thing you can do after rejection. Self-criticism and doubt creeping almost straight away. And it's really important to recognize that that isn't personal. There's so many other people that receive the same exact response, and it doesn't mean it's the end. See, failure is not final. Failure is not fatal. Failure isn't the end. Don't focus on everything you got wrong. Move on to that next opportunity after you do this next step. And this is the important bit, right? Like, don't take it personally.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Even if you get that message and you've had 10 of them now, you can't start taking that personally because it wasn't directed to you personally. Now, I remember when I came back from being a monk, no one wanted to hire me because I had monk on my resume for three years. In fact, 40 companies rejected me before I even had an interview with them. They didn't even get me to that opportunity of sitting with them and explaining my story and my skills. They just rejected me based on that online application. Now, if I took that personally and seriously, I would have believed that no one's going to hire me because I was a monk, that I will never have a future, that I will never have a career. And this is what we do.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  We take a temporary piece of information and we start to imagine with it, right? We sensationalize it. It's almost like we start writing totally imaginative headlines about our life rather than accepting in reality what's happened, which is just the fact that we received an email saying we've had lots of applications and you're not going to make it through to the next round. We can't take it as a personal attack. The second piece of advice that I want to share with you, and this is for when you get a bit more information. This is when you've been to a few interviews, you've been to a few pitches, you've been to a few meetings, you've had a few proposals. This is what you have to do. Don't take it personally, but do take it curiously.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  When we get curious about rejection, it can be useful as a way of actively learning. When we don't take rejection personally, but take it curiously and actively, we actively start changing our lives. Instead of looking at our weaknesses, we can observe the process and ask ourselves, where do we think we can improve? Where can we refocus? See, failure is feedback. It really is. I really believe this. Failure is feedback. It's not saying you can never make it. It's not saying you can't do this. It's not saying you're not good enough. It's feedback. And if we can get actual feedback, that's awesome. And if we can't, we have to find the feedback for ourselves. See, if someone's not giving you feedback or closure, you have to find that feedback and closure

• 20:57Speaker 01

  through introspection and reflection. And we have to take responsibility. Because when we do that, that's when we push forward. Remember, you can work on and learn any area that you want to. This is a great exercise to identify what that is. Now, I've often realized when I've been rejected that I didn't do enough research, or I didn't plan enough, I didn't learn enough. But notice, it's not me. It's not that I'm not enough. It's not that I'm not good enough. It's that I didn't plan enough. I didn't learn enough, right? So that separates me from being enough and actually recognizing there is just something that I need to do more of,

• 21:41Speaker 01

  which makes me want to start acting now. If you focus on being curious, you won't even have time to sit there and feel that it's this huge challenge. Now, principle number three. It's something I call the rule of 100. Now, often people that I know or friends that I have will say to me, Jay, your life seems so exciting. Everything seems to be working out. Life's great all this time. Right? What's happening? Like, oh my God, like, there's always something good going on in your life. Now, I used to always think that about other people too. I used to see other people who are sharing their successes and their achievements. And I would think, oh, wow, like, you know, things just work out for them. Like, things just must work out for them. And this was really interesting.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  So people usually see this when I'm interviewing an amazing guest on the podcast, like whether it's Novak Djokovic, or Russell Brand, or Gisele, or, you know, Chrissy Metz was on recently and people loved her episode, or Ray Dalio was on, and all of these incredible people. Or maybe when earlier this year, I got to go on the Today Show, or I got to go on Ellen, and that was a huge moment for me, or I was on Red Table Talk. But what we don't see is that I'm knocking on a hundred doors that month, and we only see the one that opens. So the point being that if you're knocking on a hundred doors a month, one may open. See, life is all about odds. If you knock on one door, it's likely it won't open.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  If you knock on 100 doors, maybe one or two will open. If you knock on 200 doors, maybe two to four will open. If you knock on 300 doors, maybe three to six will open. But being scared of rejection stops us from knocking. And because it stops us from knocking, it also stops us from success. When you know that most things won't work, you keep knocking and feel really grateful for the ones that do open. So I know for a fact that I'm going to reach out to so many different people to work with, to collaborate, to do so many things. And I'm sure that many of them won't even see the message, and I'm sure that many of them won't even hear the message or read the message. But what I do know is that the more I ask, the more I try,

• 23:51Speaker 01

  the more likely something is going to happen. And so when we're scared of rejection, when we're fearful of rejection, we're actually limiting our chances of success. But when you're open to rejection, when you're okay with getting rejected, and actually, the more you get rejected, the more used to you get, and the more things open up for you. So you'll always have something to celebrate when you experience rejection more often. It's the greatest irony, right? You'll always have something to celebrate when you experience more rejection. The less rejection you experience, the less you'll have things to celebrate. Listen to this carefully. The more you experience rejection, the more things you'll have to celebrate. The less you experience rejection, the less things you'll have to celebrate.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Because the odds show, rule of 100, that you are more likely to succeed when you knock on more doors.

• 24:45Jay Shetty?

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• 25:48Speaker 01

  Okay, so point number four. This is probably one of my favorite messages, one of the most important things that I've said. I shared it on Instagram recently and people really responded well to it. And I said it actually changed my life. Rejection is redirection, right? Rejection is just redirection. You'll get to where you want in life, just not in the way you imagined it. We have this picture-perfect method of how we believe something's going to happen, and that's actually what blocks us from getting there. Because you have a view of what that road looks like, and so you're looking for that road. And when you're looking for that road, life and reality is giving you a completely different path.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  And because that path looks unfamiliar, you don't walk it anymore, and you keep looking for that road, but you can't find that road because that road doesn't exist. It's literally like looking for an imaginary road in a town, right? Imagine you just said, "Oh yeah, I think that there's this road and this path that leads me to that mountain. I'm gonna take that path." And then you keep looking for that path. And whenever you ask for it, everyone says, "Well, that path doesn't exist. There's this path." You're like, oh, but I don't like the look of that path. I think there's another path and that's where we get lost. Right? We don't get to our destination because we have path addiction. Right? We don't get to our destination because we have path addiction. We're addicted to our path and what it looks like.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  And we want it to happen that way. And the reality is that no one in life has ever walked the path they're addicted to. There is nothing in anyone's life, there is no path in anyone's life that they've walked that got them there the way they imagined it to. Now, I want to share a personal story in this regard as well. I've never talked about this, but I want to share it with you all. When I first decided I wanted to do a podcast, now we launched the podcast around six months ago. And I decided I wanted to do a podcast probably about twelve to eighteen months ago. So it's been a long time since I started thinking about this. And when I did that, my team and I went around and met a lot of producers, met a lot of companies.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  And met a lot of production houses that sponsored and worked in podcasts because I wanted to see who would want to partner with me. Now, some said no straight away, like some were rejections straight away, right? For whatever reason. And again, I didn't take them personally, but I did take them curiously. And I started to realize that I needed to have a concrete idea. I needed to understand what exactly I wanted to talk about. I needed to have potentially a brand name or an idea. I needed to be clear to some degree to give people something to buy into. Now, when I did that, one major company, right, that decided they wanted to work with me. And they were very excited about it. Well, there were a few people in the team that are excited about it and few people that were not excited about it. And what ended up happening is the people not excited about it won.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  So the major company that I was supposed to work with for this podcast, this one that you're listening to right now. Literally pulled out two weeks before I launched. So I launched on fourteenth of February two thousand and nineteen with my wife. And the podcast company pulled out two weeks before I launched. I had to scrap to get my podcast out on time. And you know what the reason they said it was? They said it was because they didn't think it was going to be a big podcast. That's what they said, right? And then I had two choices. See, it was an opportunity to be redirected or to retire and feel terrible and get aggressive and be mad that it wasn't happening, right?

• 29:19Speaker 01

  I had two choices. And I'm so grateful and I'm so happy because I was motivated to serve all of you because I had this intention of wanting to create a podcast where we could go deeper in our relationship, where we could connect more, where we could learn more about each other. That really motivated me and guided me to launching myself. And the best thing is, I'm so happy that I was redirected as now I fully have my own podcast. I'm totally in charge of what I create. I'm completely involved in every aspect of this podcast. It's given me more confidence in my own abilities and I realized this pattern that you can't expect others to spot your potential. You can't let others validate your own potential.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  And this isn't the first time I've experienced this. I've experienced this time and time and time again. When I was first pitching my ideas, my media, my video ideas to editors, to the news anchor stories, whatever it was, and I've told some of those stories in previous podcasts. But it's crazy to believe, right? But remember this, rejection is just redirection. Now, this is principle number five. This is probably one of my favorite messages that I want to share with you. Revenge is not a response to rejection, right? You don't try to prove anything to anyone. Just try to improve yourself. Don't get lost trying to get revenge because then in the future, if that person doesn't think you're amazing

• 30:46Speaker 01

  and doesn't tell you you're incredible, then you're trapped again, right? I had a well-known radio presenter tell me that my work, when I first launched, this was probably before a lot of you were watching my work, on Twitter, he said that it wasn't good and it wasn't up to scratch. And then a few months later, when my work picked up, he reached out and told me that he couldn't argue with the views and he interviewed me for a show. Now, I thanked him at both times for his honesty because if I had responded to get revenge on him or to show him or to prove him wrong or any of that, again, you're just being controlled by someone else, right? Your success, if you let your failure control you, your success will be controlled as well, right? Remember that. If you let your failure control

• 31:31Speaker 01

  you, your success will control you as well. If you let someone else dictate your failure, then you'll let them dictate your success, right? We can't get lost in that trap. And this is principle number six, the sixth and final tip that I have for gracefully dealing with rejection.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Rejection is always right. Either way, hear me out. I know this is painful to listen to, but, but listen to me carefully. When you get rejected in something you like, you get bitter. When you get rejected in something you love, you get better. See, when we get rejected in something we kinda like, and you just stop liking it now and you stop thinking that you wanna pursue it, that is, that means you weren't really passionate about it. That means you didn't really love it. But when you love something, when it's really important to you, you keep moving towards it. Now, in a relationship, that's very different. Of course, here, I'm talking about careers. I'm talking about passion. I'm talking about interests. I'm talking about hobbies. I'm talking about business. I'm not really talking about relationships.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  But just to touch on relationships a bit, you can't keep pursuing someone who doesn't want to be with you. But you can keep pursuing becoming the right person, right? And that's where the pursuit has to change. So, if you didn't enjoy preparing for the interview, if you didn't enjoy preparing for a pitch or a proposal, whatever it was, chances are, it truly isn't the right job. It isn't the right opportunity. You can force your way into a company, a startup, a situation because of the name and prestige, but that won't satisfy you when you hate it afterwards. So many people want a job at Google just to say they work for Google. So many people want to be an entrepreneur just to say they're an entrepreneur. So many people wanna have a podcast just to say they have a podcast. So many people wanna write a book just to say they're an author.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  And a lot of those people get rejected, or it doesn't work, and rightly so, because that's not enough. You have to love the process. You have to be committed to the process. So, I really hope you enjoyed this podcast today. It's been incredible having you here. Remember, these are the six ways to gracefully deal with rejection. We talked about why rejection hurts. Remember, everyone you look up to, everyone you admire, has been through some form of rejection. Let me know in Twitter, on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. Wherever you are, let me know which message really resonated with you, which one you're going to test and try in your life. I love reading your reviews as well. Make sure you've subscribed. Make sure you've rated and make sure you've reviewed.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for listening. I'm genuinely so grateful. My name's Jay Shetty. Have an amazing week.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for listening through to the end of that episode. I hope you're gonna share this all across social media. Let people know that you're subscribed to On Purpose. Let me know, post it, tell me what a difference it's making in your life. I would love to see your thoughts. I can't wait for this incredibly conscious community we're creating of purposeful people. You're now a part of the tribe, a part of the squad. Thank you for being here. I can't wait to share the next episode with you.