Rejection Isn't the End : Take the Next Right Action

Rejection can make you question everything—your recovery, your career, your relationships, and even your place in the world. But what if rejection isn’t proof that you’re failing? What if it’s simply part of the process leading you somewhere better?

In this episode of The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier shares how starting a new roofing sales position reminded him of the emotional connection between rejection, fear, and recovery. Whether it’s knocking on doors, making an uncomfortable follow-up call, walking into an AA meeting, or reaching out to someone for help, fear can convince us to avoid the very action that could change our lives.

Corey reflects on feeling like an outsider during his first seven years in recovery, believing he was different from everyone else in the rooms. Although nobody rejected him, the stories in his head made him feel as if he didn’t belong. It wasn’t until the pain became great enough that he became willing to work the steps, listen to others, and stop relying solely on his own plan.

This episode explores the importance of taking action without controlling the outcome. Corey discusses how recovery, service, Transcendental Meditation, meaningful relationships, and his move to Wilmington have helped him trust the process and recognize the gifts he couldn’t initially see.

Sometimes the breakthrough comes from making the phone call you’re afraid to make, attending the meeting you want to skip, asking for help, or simply doing the next right thing. You may not receive the result you expected—but it could be better than anything you planned.

In this episode:

• Why rejection feels so personal in recovery, sales, and relationships
• How “head trash” convinces us that we don’t belong
• The danger of comparing differences instead of identifying similarities
• Why knowledge alone cannot replace action
• How fear prevents us from making important calls and connections
• The role of meditation in calming anxiety and managing rejection
• Why letting go of the outcome can create unexpected gifts
• How working the 12 Steps helps uncover childhood wounds
• The difference between being sober and actively working a recovery program
• Why God’s plan may be bigger than the plan we create for ourselves
• How doing the next right thing can completely change your life

If you’re struggling with alcohol and believe it may be time to get sober, you do not have to do it alone. Help is available wherever you live. Reach out to someone in recovery, attend a meeting, or contact Corey through TheSuccessfulLifePodcast.com.

Subscribe to The Successful Life Podcast, leave a five-star review, and share this episode with someone who may need to hear its message.

https:newpathemployment.com

 https://www.audible.com/pd/9-Simple-Steps-to-Sell-More-ht-Audiobook/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow

https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Steps-Sell-More-Stereotypes-ebook/dp/B0BRNSFYG6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1OSB7HX6FQMHS&keywords=corey+berrier&qid=1674232549&sprefix=%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1

 https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreysalescoach/

Transcript

CoreyBerrier 0:30

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Berrier. And super grateful to be sober today. Just like always, I'm grateful to be sober, grateful to be in recovery, and grateful to be here with you. I've had a pretty good weekend, pretty good week, and uh started a new adventure this week with Burrish Builders, which is a roofing company here in Wilmington. And uh I had some luck at the very beginning. I'm starting to learn some of the things, some of the tricks of the trade, so to speak, some of the parts of it are super exciting. Most of it's very exciting, but it kind of leads me into what I'm going to talk about today, which is when you're first getting sober or you're in a sales job or in a relationship, rejection is a real thing. Rejection of rejection in relationships, absolute nightmare. Rejection in sales, absolute nightmare. Rejection in recovery, absolutely not, absolute nightmare. And so with when you're starting a new thing, especially if you're in some sort of a sales position, rejection is just part of the deal. And if you can't handle some level of rejection, then you probably should not be in a sales job. And if you're if you have a hard time with rejection in relationships, it's gonna be hard to be in a relationship because and in recovery, it's exactly the same thing. I'm not necessarily saying that you're gonna be rejected by the folks in recovery, but there's a lot of head trash that goes on when you're first getting sober. And what I mean by head trash is that garbage between your ears that tells you, well, you don't really, you're not really an alcoholic. Things weren't that bad. I think maybe I jumped the gun and uh started going to these meetings, and I don't really know if I belong here. Kind of like very similar to if you're in a sales job, you take things personally, and uh so I'll stay on the recovery side. I'll try to jump around here a bit too much, but on the recovery side and getting sober side, there's a lot of baggage that people drag into recovery. There's you've effed up a lot of situations, you've effed up effed over a lot of people, you've made some bad decisions. Likely things are not going great once you get into recovery and deciding to get sober. It's a big enough tri just deciding to get sober is hard enough in itself. But then if you're like me, you walked in to a gr a room full of people who didn't really look like me. They didn't really act like me. And uh and so I immediately felt out of place. And that's a hard pill to swallow when you're first getting sober and you have to raise your hand and admit that you're an alcoholic. Now that's freeing to a lot of people, but for me, it was not freeing. I knew I was an alcoholic, but I certainly didn't think I belonged in a meeting full of alcoholics because I was different, I had a different upbringing, I had a different story. This just wasn't really the place for me. And I'd love to tell you that I quickly realized that I was in the right place, but I didn't realize I was in the right place for really the first seven years of my recovery. I was on the outside of the program. I didn't I tried to associate with some of the folks that were in the program, but the fact of the matter is some of them were homeless, some of them had been in prison, some of them were none of those things. Some of them were attorneys and all that good stuff, and successful business people. But I wasn't like them, even though I was exactly like them. It was exactly where I was supposed to be at that given time in my life, but I couldn't see it. So that first seven years, I did the deal, I got the things back. I talked about this not long ago, got the deal, got the things back, but still felt like I wasn't a part of because I looked for the differences in people. Well, I didn't I was never homeless, or I didn't lose this, or I didn't lose that, or my wife hadn't left me yet, and but those are just all things that were coming down the pipe in the future. What I didn't realize is that I just wasn't there yet, and that I was gonna get there. And it was one of the hardest things I had to realize is that yeah, I'm supposed to be here because I'm just like these folks, and we all come to this place for a common reason, and that's to learn how not to drink, and to stop the chaos and the pain that's going on in our lives. And I'm exactly that person, I was exactly that person a coup a couple of times. I was I went to my first meeting because I hated my ex-wife and I wanted to get away from her for an hour, and that was a pretty good opportunity because I knew she wouldn't go there, even though she wasn't one of us. I knew she had no interest in going there, so it was a perfect opportunity for me to get away. And but I felt real out of place. I felt like I was rejected, and I wasn't rejected, nobody made me feel any kind of way, but in my head, I was I felt rejected when I first walked in there. I just didn't feel like I was a part of. I didn't speak the same language, I hadn't had the same experiences yet. But as time went on, I get to say that I get to have the same stories that a lot of those folks have. And the truth of the matter is I'm no different than anybody else trying to get sober. It's hard, it is really hard to make the decision to get sober and then to follow through with it. A lot of us don't follow through with anything, but back to the the rejection side of things, we're our feelings get hurt real easy in recovery because you are raw. I mean, you've come in from whatever you've gone through, and you're just raw. I mean, just completely raw to the core. And it is very challenging to speak up and speak to people and try to get to know people because we isolate. Before we get into recovery, most of us have a story of isolation. And this time around, when I came back in, I was completely isolated. Thank God I had seven years of practice in the program. So I kind of knew how things were gonna go. I thought they were gonna move much quicker because I had all this knowledge, and uh the knowledge only gets you so far. You've got to actually get your ass in gear and do things. You got to take the steps in my case. You have to work the steps rather, not take the steps, work the steps. You have to do the things that we that are taught, and you gotta listen to somebody other than yourself to make that happen. And I did do those things, I just didn't do it with the level of intensity as I did this pastime because the pain had gotten so great. I had lost all those things. Everything was a shambles, it was a total train wreck, and I wanted it to stop. I wanted the train wreck to stop, and so I did the things, and I slowly got back some of the things that I'd lost, and then lost some of the things and got some of the things back, and it's kind of been a seesaw, which also feels like rejection because you feel like you're doing all the right things and then nothing's happening because I'm anxious and I want things to happen quicker than they're happening, and so it's very similar to being in sales and feeling like the person's not buying from you because it's you, that you've done something wrong. But the truth of the matter is, you've done nothing wrong, they just maybe weren't your customer, and so I got a real nice dose of that this week. Knocking on doors, that's probably one of the hardest ways to do sales. When at the end of the day, people are they get annoyed and they say things that they probably don't mean, and maybe you've caught them at a bad time. You are knocking on their front door, and they don't really give a f what it is you have to say. And so you just got to pick your ass up and move to the next one. Pick your ass up and move to the next one. It's a lot easier said than done. It's kind of like picking your ass up and going to a meeting, or going to maybe a function that you don't want to go to, or picking up that phone and calling someone you don't want to call. So it's like I have to make follow-up calls with my bath job. I have to call people and they have to tell me that they've gone with somebody else, or maybe they tell me that they just need a better price, or maybe they tell me that they've absolutely decided to move forward with me. But I don't know that until I call. And sometimes the fear of making that phone call will stop you from making the phone call. And who loses? Well, not them. Well, maybe it's them, but I lose. If I don't make that phone call and get that answer and deal with the rejection, if that's if that's the case, I lose. If you don't make the phone call when you're in recovery to somebody who might just be able to share some experience with you about what you have going on, you're not going to get the benefit. And I can kill, I can count. I mean, there's countless times that I've made phone calls, both in sales and in recovery, that the result turned out far better than I thought because I can't believe everything that I think. And sometimes I do. Sometimes I buy my own bullshit. And sometimes you probably buy your own bullshit. And I believe we miss out on the gifts in life when we don't stay open-minded. I know for sure I've lost out on gifts in my life because I wasn't open-minded to something different. I was closed off. I felt like I knew what the answer was going to be without having the experience. I do transcendental meditation every day, twice a day. And I'm pretty damn consistent with it. And if I hadn't have listened to the person that told me about transcendental meditation, I would have never gotten to experience what that was like. And I believed all these things about having to sit down twice a day and meditate. Like, how in the hell am I going to do that being ADHD? Well, it's pretty simple. I'm not going to lie to you, it's the best two 20 minutes of my day, the best 42, whatever it is, 44 minutes total a day. Because I get to quiet my brain and I get to sit in silence and I get to just listen to whatever comes in and whatever goes out. And there's a piece to that that I can't explain to you. I can't explain it to you. There's a calmness that comes with that. And so using that transcendental meditation helps me to not feel rejected every time I knock on a door, every time I make a sales call, or every time I follow up with someone, every time I need to pick up the phone and call somebody in recovery because maybe they just want to hear from me. And sometimes it's the person that you think is not going to benefit you at all. And sometimes there is no benefit to you, except for you're not thinking about you. And so this brain between our ears is the culprit, really, because we don't know everything. We think we know everything, but we don't. And there's so many times in my life that I've taken that leap of faith and made that phone call. Or taken that leap of faith and go, I don't really want to go to that meeting today, but I'm gonna go anyway. And then some amazing stuff happens because I decided to get off my pity pot and do what I'm supposed to do. Sometimes you just have to take the action. And does it always pay out like you think? No, sometimes it pays out better. Lots of times it pays out better. And sometimes that just means you got to show up, and sometimes you just got to take the action because that's the next right thing to do. And sometimes you don't know if there's gonna be a benefit on the other side, and guess what? That's okay. That's okay because maybe something that you said helps somebody else, whether you know it or whether you don't know it. And that's all right. I thank God for the gifts I can see and the things that I cannot see. I don't you don't know when you've just barely missed getting run over by some idiot down the road. You don't know those things because you can't see it because it didn't happen to you. I'm grateful for those things that I don't know happen. I'm grateful I don't have to know every single step of every single day because that would be draining. That would be frustrating. And imagine the anxiety that you would have knowing what's about to happen before it happens. I don't want to know those things. I don't even want to know the good things that are gonna happen because I enjoy being surprised. I enjoy the gifts that I can't see because sometimes they're so much better than what I would ever anticipate. And I've had a lot of those happen in my life, and sometimes I just have to let go of the outcome in order to get those. A great example is in relationships. I've been on and off in a relationship for the last two and a half years, and it has been a painful experience. And I've held on to things and been miserable. I've tried to force things that weren't ready to happen. Nothing happens on my time, but then as soon as I let go of the outcome of that situation, it comes back. That relationship came back. And what a gift. If I told you the whole story, which I'm not, you'd be amazed. Because there's no other reason these things happen in my life other than the fact that I'm trying to do the right thing and I try to help other people when I can. I try to make amends every opportunity I can. And sometimes there's amends that I need to make that I don't even remember, but sometimes somehow, somehow it pops into my brain, and I have to go take care of it. I thought when my marriage ended that it was the worst thing ever. Turns out it was the best thing that could have ever happened. It turns out it was the best thing that could have ever happened. Moving to Wilmington, it's the best thing that could have ever happened. I didn't know a soul down here when I moved, except for a couple of guys, Adam and Kelly, that I'd talked to on the phone when I got to go to a meeting, and I did meet Adam at the meeting. And when I got down here, as I mentioned before, I just I got plugged in with the right folks. And that didn't happen by design. It happened because that's what God's plan was. And God's plan for me is way the hell better than my plan. But sometimes I decide my plan's better. And you know who pays the price for that? That would be me. That doesn't mean it always ends shitty, but it does mean that it's pro and look, I sell myself short a lot of times on my plan because my plan is a lot smaller than God's plan. At least that's been the case in my life. We're about to go up to Cherokee. This is gonna sound nuts if you're if you don't know anything about this group of folks, but we're going up to Cherokee for four days with like 18 other alcoholics. What a gift to be invited to something like that. What a gift to be able to spend four days with a with 18 dudes that are just like me. There is something powerful that happens when you put that many people in one area together. And I've not been on this trip yet, so I don't know exactly how it's gonna go. And guess what? I don't need to know how it's gonna go. I don't need to know what we're doing on what day and how we're doing it. I don't I don't give a shit. Because quite frankly, it doesn't matter. Because I'm trusting the process and I trust the people I'm going with. And I don't need to know. I'm just gonna roll with it, and it's gonna turn out way better than if I try to plan something or I try to navigate around things or try to manipulate things or try to make things the way I want them. I don't know what we're gonna eat. I don't know how I know we're staying in a cabin. That's about the extent of it. I don't know anything else. And for a guy like me that normally wants to control everything so I don't get rejected, back to the circle, back to the rejection, it's just way easier not trying to control everything. And maybe you're dealing with something in your life right now that is does feel like you've got to control it. But at the end of the day, man, you got no control over anything. I don't have any control over anything. I gotta roll with what God's plan is for me. And God's plan's not for me to feel rejected in a relationship, or my or maybe that is the plan to get to the final destination where there's happy, joyous, and free. And you can't see that thing when you're going through the pain, when you're getting sober, when you're going through a tough relationship, when you're getting starting a new job and things aren't going great, or starting a new job and you're feeling like maybe you've wrong made the wrong decision, or you're just getting sober and you think you may be making the wrong decision. That's part of the plan. Part of the plan is that you don't know what the next thing is around the corner. And I can tell you from my own experience. That thing around the corner, as painful as it may be to get there, is going to be better than I could ever imagine. I've met the coolest freaking people here that I've ever met in my life. And I have more friends that I've made in the last six weeks than I have ever had in the last 25 years I've lived in Raleigh. Which is maybe that's my fault. I don't know. Or maybe I was supposed to be down here all along. You know, I don't really pontificate on the what-ifs. I just do the next right thing in front of me. I try to help other people. And that protects me from a lot of that rejection. That rejection also stems from your childhood, from my childhood, from whatever happened as a child that made you feel rejected. And I'm not saying it has to be something terrible. It could be something very simple, but it cut deep. And until you deal with those things going through the steps, you get to deal with what it is that's been holding you back. But without the steps and without working these things, you never get the opportunity to fix them. And so I feel bad for people that aren't alcoholics because normal people don't get the opportunities that we get to change our life, to become spiritually connected with a God of our understanding. And listen, I'm not saying that you need to go, I don't care how you get sober, but being sober is way better than living that sketched ass life that I lived. I can tell you that. So I'm 48 years old. You don't have to wait until you're 48 years old to get sober. Or for me, it was 40, 44 and a half, I guess, this time, something like that, when I got. Yeah, actually, it's almost exactly that. You don't have to wait that long. We've got young guys coming in at 28, 25, 30, that are getting their freaking life together at 30 years old. Imagine what the jump I would have had on my life and everything else if I'd have just stayed sober at 32 when I started this journey. But I chose to do it my way. I chose to stop feeling like I wanted some God to control my life. I decided that I was going to do it my way. And for the next seven years, I was burning my life down, anxiety every day. There were days that I wished I wouldn't wake up, and that's the God's honest truth. And if I would have had a choice, when it would have been an easy, an easy way to not wake up the next day, I probably would have taken it many times. Because this is a serious thing. People say, well, you could die an alcoholic death. That does not mean you're going to be under a bridge drinking out of a paper bag and die of an alcoholic death. What it means is you can get yourself in such a bind. You can get so low, you can get so depressed, you can become completely isolated. And that in itself makes you feel like you don't want to live another day. And I don't want that for you, and I sure as hell don't want that for me. So I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing to keep getting what I'm getting. And if you are listening to this and you're not sober, but you feel like you should be, then look, man, there's a better, there's a better opportunity out there that you don't have to keep doing this thing. You don't have to keep losing the jobs. You don't have to keep cheating on your wife. You don't have to keep doing whatever you're doing that's making your life miserable. The only way you're going to circumvent that is to stop drinking and get sober. And in my opinion, join a program of recovery. Because without it, you're just a dry drunk. You're the same asshole that you were when you were drinking. You're just not pouring booze in you. Well, that's that sucks. I did that for about seven years, and it was a nightmare. It was a complete nightmare. And you don't want to go through that. Believe me. You do not want to go through that. You might wake up and remember what you did the next day, but it's still gonna suck. And so listen, again, if you're trying to get sober, this is the ticket. Like, this is the ticket to a better life. This is a ticket to become the best version of you. And so if you are interested in getting sober, you're welcome to reach out to me. You can find me on every social media channel on the planet. You can even go to the successfullife podcast.com and you can send me a message there. People have done it. And I'm friends with those people today, and they are sober. Not because of me, but because they reached out and said, I need help. And wherever you are in the country, I don't know about out of the country, but well, I do know about out of the country. Anywhere you are on this planet, there is a way for you to get sober. And there is a group of people that are willing to help you. But you can do it your way or you can do it the easy way. It doesn't really matter to me how you do it. But I just know for me, I love my life, I love the way it's turned out, I love the gifts that I'm getting today, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. So I hope that for you. And listen, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, please do that. Just hit the little bell up top. Make sure that you get the episode when it comes out every Monday. And if you want, please leave us a review because that helps. Five stars in a review helps. And uh, if you know somebody that might be interested in listening to this, share it. Just post it on social media, post the link on social media, share one of these clips that maybe you're watching right now. Or ever how you get to this, maybe somebody else needs to hear it. Don't do it for me, but do it for somebody else. That's certainly a way of being served of being of service today is that you can share this message. If it was impactful to you, if it sucked, don't share it. Can't guarantee it's always going to be a home run, but maybe something resonated today, and I hope it did. So we'll see you guys next week. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on see you guys later.