Rejection is such a routine part of entrepreneurship that we sometimes forget it can deliver a genuine emotional punch.
At our most recent Lioness networking session, we turned the conversation to rejection and opened with an anonymous poll: “When you get rejected, what is your initial, honest reaction?” The options mirrored the classic five stages of grief: disbelief, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
The responses confirmed what many of us feel but don’t always say out loud: the most common reaction was depression. Others chose disbelief and anger. Very few went straight to acceptance.
But as the stories began to flow, it became clear: women are not just surviving rejection. They are studying it, reframing it and using rejection to strengthen their business practices.
Here are a few of the lessons they shared.
For some, rejection shows up sounding like a bad first date. Alisia Gill, CEO of Era of Enough, described being ghosted after a seemingly perfect call: “It really bothers me when I have a call with somebody, and I feel like everything is going fantastic, and they’re all in, and then they ghost you.”
Alexia Michitti, founder of EM13RACE Adaptive Clothing, shared a different kind of blow—being told she was “not disabled enough” for certain disability-focused events, and “too young” for others. “I started applying for events that were looking for keynote speakers, and I started to hear that I wasn’t disabled enough… constant rejection can really take a toll on you over time.”
Joie Seldon, who works as an educator at the Emotional Evolution Institute, pointed out the emotional logic behind that downshift in mood. “I marked depression too, because there’s a letdown. It’s a temporary depression. It’s when we have unmet expectations… I just give myself time to feel that without putting a lot of story on it.”
The first lesson is simple but vital: rejection hurts because we care. Trying to bypass that entirely is unrealistic. What matters most is what we do next.
It’s not you, it’s the offer
Several women described a crucial mindset shift: moving from “They rejected me” to “That wasn’t the right fit, timing or offer.”
Tisha-Vonique, Founder and Chief Equity Officer at Breadcrumbs Creative, framed it like this: “I see rejection as some type of feedback loop, and I’ve learned over the years to decenter myself, so I no longer place myself in the middle of that particular rejection. Maybe that content was misaligned in that moment.”
From “why me?” to “what can I learn?”
Many women are treating rejection as data. Michelle Risa, CEO and Founder at Collaborative Solutions, Inc., runs a program for university students, and shared what happened when some students dropped out, insisting they already “knew” the material. “I took a step back and said, you know, what can I do differently? Either how I’m offering the services or what services I’m offering. I now meet with them even before the orientation. I’m totally changing my program to be more of a DIY, do-it-yourself, so people can do it more independently.”
Instead of internalizing the “no” and letting it derail her, she re-examined audience fit, structure, and delivery—and adjusted.
Qualifying “your people”
Gill goes even further with her discovery calls; she records and analyzes them to identify patterns in who ultimately says yes or no. “I upload everything, and I ask, ‘Why did this person say no?’ There are certain words they use… so don’t even pitch it to them. For my people, if they say, ‘Oh, you know, I’m just stuck,’ that’s not my person. If they say, ‘I’ve tried this, this and this,’ then they’re my person.”
Her biggest realization: “We can get upset (at rejection), but really our net was cast too wide, and they weren’t people we should be working with in the first place.”
In other words, not all rejection is bad. Sometimes it’s your marketing or sales funnel doing its job and filtering out the wrong fit before they drain your time, energy, and confidence.
Rejection as redirection
Some of the most powerful stories came from women who turned “no” into entirely new directions.
After being ghosted by an organization she hoped to work with, Joie Seldon channeled her anger into creative energy. “I did a free workshop. They got great feedback on it, and then I was ghosted. I got so angry about it that I am forming my own entity, the Emotional Evolution Institute.”
Chien-chi Huang, Founder, Community Trust Lab, experienced a similar pivot. When a health equity organization declined a collaboration with her, they invited her to apply to their speaker bureau instead—complete with training. “They turned me down, but then they invited me to apply for their speaker bureau. I just had an interview with them, and I think it went very well.”
Sometimes rejection is a dead end. But just as often, it’s a forced detour onto a road you never would have chosen voluntarily—and later wouldn’t trade for the world
Expectations, language and the long view
The group also addressed expectations. One participant, Ambika Devi, shared her thoughts, “Expectation is a recipe for disappointment. If we’re expecting an outcome, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment. If we’re hoping, if we’re praying, that’s a different thing.”
Tisha-Vonique added, “Disappointment is definitely a destination driven by expectations. I’d rather enjoy the journey than go straight toward a disappointing ending.”
Risa has even changed her vocabulary, “Whether it’s 3 percent are going to leave, or 10 or 20 percent, I don’t see that as a rejection. I really see that as ‘out of alignment’, or the wrong time. Just changing it from rejection to, ‘In life, many people will not follow through.’”
For women entrepreneurs, rejection is not something that happens occasionally—it’s part of the entire entrepreneurial experience. The question isn’t whether we can avoid it, head it off at the pass or somehow outsmart it. It’s whether we can learn from it and then redirect our energy into something better.
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