Nona Jones - Tech Executive, Author & Speaker | Harness Your Pain to Propel Your Purpose

The pain of what I experienced was not a gift, but what came out of it was a gift because now, I'm in a position to speak to people who feel unsealed. Imagine being told by the person meant to love you most that you were never wanted. Today's guest, Nona Jones, has endured a life many would never survive. At just five years old, her innocence was taken from her by someone close, but known as here to tell her story, not of tragedy, but of triumph. Rejection comes wrapped in pain, but there is a gift on the inside. If we just explore it, I worked at Facebook for almost six years and people have asked me, how did you end up working at Facebook? It's because of rejection. And me with my boss, I give her my letter of resignation. I finished talking with her at 140 p.m. 205, my cell phone rings, so I answered the phone. She said, hey, I'm calling from Facebook. That didn't even happen until after I resigned. With every step she defied the pain, turning her scars into a source of strength and resilience. She rose to hold executive roles in global companies, published best-selling books, and reached millions through her powerful words. I believe that discomfort is a necessary precondition for change. The gift of rejection is really a message about hope. It sounds crazy, but understanding that it is is a source of hope. It may not feel good, it will eventually be good, if I just continue in and persevere in this situation. If we have the right people in our lives, they can help us have perspective about the situation. This is a story of survival, faith, and the relentless pursuit of purpose. Prepare to be inspired by known as Journey. One that reminds us that no matter what we face, Grace has the power to transform everything. Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast. Now, where HubSpot has been a huge supporter of the show. And I'm happy they are because I'm a huge believer in HubSpot. I've used it for everything from this show to all the companies I've ever run in the past. And I know there's a lot of entrepreneurs in the audience. And let me ask you a question. If you're an entrepreneur, you have to figure out marketing. Either you're doing yourself or you have a team. And do you ever feel like your marketing team is just running from fire to fire? Creating endless content, launching campaigns, generating leads, scoring them, nurturing them. And just when you put out that one fire, three more pop up. These days, marketers have never been more spread than. That's where HubSpot and his new built-in AI Assistant Breeze commit. When you combine the power of marketing hub and content hub, every quarter can be your best quarter. Imagine AI that instantly remixes your content for any channel. Smart leads scoring that automatically spot lights your hottest prospects. And an AI-powered analytics suite that puts all your KPIs in one place. Plus, AI co-pilots and agents that handle those time-consuming tasks that you've been juggling. Stop spreading yourself thin. Marketing is tough enough. Building a business is tough enough. Stop putting out fires. Start making major moves with HubSpot. Visit HubSpot.com slash marketers to learn more. No, no, I'm excited to have you on. There's going to be a lot of fun. I want to start off with just a quote that I thought really just encapsulated. I guess the main theme of your work of the book. And I think that it's a quote that if you just read it, it doesn't quite make sense until you start to go down this rabbit hole. So the quote is, rejection is a gift that can help you build resilience, character, and success. And I think that if people don't know your work, they would look at you and ask, how is rejection ever going to be a gift? So let's start there. What does that quote mean to you? Well, let me first say I have sat in the seat of the person who was like, how in the world can you say rejection is a gift? I did not think rejection was a gift because frankly, I'm an only child. My upbringing was very hurtful, very dysfunctional. My mom didn't want to have children. She and my father were married for 13 years before she got pregnant with me. And she was angry when she found out she was pregnant. My father was elated because he always wanted to be a dad. But halfway through her pregnancy, he actually had some stomach pain and he went to the hospital to try to get it diagnosed. And he was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. And he passed away shortly before my second birthday. And to make a really long story short, my mom got involved with a guy who became her live-in boyfriend and around the age of five, he started to sexually abuse me. And that happened for about two years. And he told me, you better not tell your mom. She'll get rid of you. And I remember, you know, enduring this, right? Because as a child, you're scared. Like, I don't want my mom to get rid of me. But I got to the point where I couldn't take any more. So I did tell her what he was doing. And she had him arrested and I thought it was over. But on the day of his release from jail, she took me with her to pick him up and run him back home. And the abuse resumed from there. And she became physically abusive and verbally abusive. And so here I am in this situation as a child, where I have no escape. And so at the ages of 9 and 11, I tried to end my life. You know, my mom would regularly tell me that she was, she'd ever had me, that I was a burden. And, you know, people listening to this would think, well, my God, like that's horrible. How in the world could anything good come out of that? Well, when I was in college, my roommate was raped. And I remember, you know, she came back to the dorm and she was just in the state of depression. And it lasted for days. And one day I saw her just laying there. And I just was like, what's going on? Like, what's happening? And she confided in me, what happened? And I told her, I was like, I know right now, this seems like the end of the world. And it feels like you will never recover from this. And I said, I know right now it's extremely painful. But then I started to tell her my story. And how even through all of that, I ended up going to college on a full scholarship. And there was like this glimmer of hope in her eyes that let me know that being vulnerable about what happened to me actually became a moment of of just awareness for her that better was possible, that healing was possible. And from that moment forward, I started to share my story. And I've been sharing it for decades now. And thousands of people, thousands of people have seen themselves in my story. And so I share all that to say, what I experienced, the pain of what I experienced was not a gift, but what came out of it was a gift because now I'm in a position to speak to people who feel unseen, people who have walked through some of the most painful devastation in their life. And they feel like they're the only one. And I'm able to give voice to it. And for me and for them, that is a gift. So I do believe that rejection comes wrapped in pain. But there is a gift on the inside if we just explore it. I understand now. So it's not in the moment, it's never going to feel good. It's never going to feel like a gift. And let's be clear, there's extreme rejection like kind of what you described, which is really like the worst of the worst possible scenarios. But then there's on a day-to-day rejection from a job, rejection from somebody you love, rejection from an investor, rejection from a spouse, rejection, all these different kinds of rejections. So in the moment, it's almost impossible for many people to see the good in it. But when you look back, kind sites 2020, it makes a little bit more sense as to how that led to a series of events that actually was a net positive in your life. But when people listen to this, I would say the first question that I would have is, okay, I'm going through this right now, whether or not it's, I got rejected from a job where I got rejected from my mother, like those are, that's insane, to have to deal within the moment. How does somebody, how does somebody even start to get through this to see the end result, the potential positive? I love this question because one of the reasons why I even wrote the gift of rejection is because I believe that the first step to even being able to open the gift is being aware that there is a gift, right? Because if you don't, if you don't have that orientation, you will stop at the wrapping paper, like you will stop at being abandoned, being humiliated, being fired, being blamed, being overlooked, being unwanted, you will stop at that. But once you have the recognition that, okay, wait a minute, this thing happened, I feel the pain, but there is a gift on the inside, there is a lesson in this that will teach me about myself, that will teach me about even the other person, that will teach me about this situation, now you kind of shift your posture from being a victim of rejection to being a student. Now I can learn from this. There is something here that I want to learn from, I want to grow from. And so I think that is step one, because when you have that orientation, I'll tell you, many people ask me, I worked at Facebook for almost six years, and people have asked me, how did you end up working at Facebook? Well, it's because of rejection. Before Facebook, I was at the chief executive level of a large nonprofit organization, loved what I was doing. Like I woke up every day just feeling energized by the mission, and I had some colleagues that didn't like me, and they started to kind of so seeds of discord, and they were undermining me, and they even went to my boss who was the CEO, and they were saying things like, oh, no one is trying to build her own kingdom, because part of my functional responsibility was our federal legislative affairs. And so I'd be at the White House every other week, and they were kind of like, oh, she's trying to build her own kingdom. So anyway, they start to plant all these seeds, and just the feeling of the work got really uncomfortable, right? And so, I'm a person of faith. I prayed about the situation, and I was just like, all right, Lord, give me wisdom. Like, what should I do next? And what I heard in my spirit was, this assignment is over. And Scott, the reason why that is so crazy is, I thought I would be in that job for the rest of my life. I loved it that much, that I thought, oh, another 20 years at least. Well, I was like, okay, well, if this assignment is over, then what do I do next? This was April of 2017. I heard the Lord, I heard the spirit say, resigned at the end of the fiscal year, June 30th, 2017. This is two months later, all right? No plan B. At me with my boss, I give her my letter of resignation, and she's like, where are you going? I have to be able to tell the board what you're doing. Like, can I convince you to stay? Is it more money? What do you need? And I said, no, I just think I have to pursue other opportunities. I finished talking with her at 140 PM. This is Friday, June 30th, 2017. I finished talking with her at 140. I get in my car, I'm driving home. 205, my cell phone rings, and it says San Francisco, California. I thought it was a telemarketer, so I wasn't going to answer it. But I heard in my spirit, take the call. So I answered the phone. This woman says, hi, is this not a gentle, I said, yeah, she said, hey, I'm calling from Facebook. And I was like, Facebook doesn't call people. Who is this? Well, what kind of scammer is that? It's trying to reach out. Literally, I'm like, that's almost, that's like saying, I'm calling from TikTok. Like, took what? So she says she's calling from Facebook, and I just was like, I don't believe you, but she said, yeah, no, really I am. She said, I don't know if you've been watching the news, but Mark just changed the mission of the company to focus on community building. And we were surprised to learn that the largest community in the world is the faith community. And your name was given to us as someone to talk to about helping us think about this strategy to serve the faith community. I thought they were putting together a committee or an advisory board. So I just said, send me some information. I'll read it when I get to my email. And I check my email a few hours later, and there's a link to a job description. But here's the thing, that didn't even happen until after I resigned. And I didn't even think to resign until after I experienced rejection. If I had not experienced the rejection of my colleagues, I promise you I would have never left. I don't care how much money somebody would have been willing to pay me because I loved what I was doing. And so I share this story because in the moment, the pain is not a gift. But if you can, if you can orient your mind to the understanding that, wait, there was a gift in this. Now I just need to figure out what that gift is and I need to explore the situation and what it can teach me. When you look back at sort of that sequence of events and you mentioned something interesting, so you're a very spiritual, you really ask God what to do and you got an answer and that answer ended up with a really positive result. But if I think of people who are going through rejection and their work and their relationships, I don't think I really, I think more often than not, people don't leave the situation and people stay in the rejection. And rejection can be a gift, but to a point. So for somebody who's in a job where they are being rejected constantly or in a relationship where their spouse is cheating or whatever the circumstance is, what's the advice, what's the playbook for that person to understand when rejection is reached a point where you do have to move on or do something different because I don't think that nine out of 10 people would have done what you did in that situation if people were fired, they left. But I don't think many people leave toxic situations of their own volition. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Well, one of the gifts that I believe rejection gives us is that it reveals people's role in our destiny. And what I mean by that is there are two types of people in your life, okay? There are those who are attached and those who are assigned. When a person is attached to you, they're connected to you for as long as the relationship benefits them. Like as long as you're channeling benefits in their direction, they will remain connected to you because they are benefiting from you. But what happens is when a person starts to detach from us, this could be in the form of cheating. This could be in the form of maybe your boss or your manager starts to change the way that they're interacting with you. And it gets really uncomfortable and they're starting to ice you out. And like you just, you sense that something bad is happening in the relationship. What that does is that tends to trigger our insecurity. And it makes us think, oh my gosh, what did I do wrong? What could I do differently? How can I get them to stay connected to me? How can I get them to keep me in their good graces? But their detachment is simply a sign that the role that they were playing in your life has ended because the different role is an assigned person. When a person is assigned to you, they're connected to you not for what they can get out of the relationship, but for what they can contribute to the relationship. These are people who, they're not the ones extracting benefits from you. They're the people who are championing you. They're the people who are encouraging you and what we do is we can get to a place where we almost take the assigned people for granted so that when that attached person starts to detach, we shift our energy away from the assigned person to try to keep the attached person connected to us. And that's the worst mistake you can make. So what I would say to anyone who's experiencing that detachment and that can be in romantic relationships, it can be in family relationships, it can be in professional relationships. When you start to sense that there is a lesson in that, I believe that discomfort is a necessary precondition for change because once you start to be uncomfortable in a situation, you have to make a decision. You can either stay uncomfortable or you can change positions. And so that rejection is literally a trigger telling you, you need to change positions. And yes, it's gonna be painful. Yes, it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be uncomfortable. And people may even try to guilt you into staying in that situation. Listen, I've had so many people even in my family tell me, I can't believe that you don't talk to your mother. My mother and I have been estranged for years. I can't believe you don't talk to your mother. You only get one mom. They say all of these things, knowing what happened to me as a child. And for years, I would feel guilty and I would succumb to their pressure to try to make the relationship work. But it wouldn't work, why? Because a healthy relationship requires both forgiveness, which is me saying, you hurt me, I release you from the debt of the hurt that you caused. And it also requires repentance. That is the offender saying, I hurt you. I see the wrong that I've caused and I commit to not hurting you anymore. In the absence of repentance, you cannot have a healthy relationship. I don't care how much you forgive the person. So my council to someone who's walking through this, is that situation is teaching you. You have to make a move, you have to make a change, you have to deal with it. I just wanna take a second and thank the HubSpot Podcast Network for supporting success story. Now, if you enjoy success story, you're gonna love other podcasts in their network like Business Made Simple, hosted by Donald Miller. If you've ever wondered why some businesses take off, well, many struggle, Donald Miller takes the mystery out of growing your business with actionable strategies that you can implement today. Whether you're trying to build a stronger team, craft a clearer message, or boost your bottom line, Business Made Simple delivers the frameworks that you need to succeed. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcast. How can you differentiate from, look, let's focus on the other person because the other person is the person that's really driving this uncomfortable situation. So how can you differentiate from somebody gilting you back into the situation versus repentance and true because I think that that's okay. So somebody, again, sort of like two different circumstances, one relationship, one job. Everybody goes through both, right? So you have a company who is icing you out, you wanna leave and they say, we're so sorry, we're not respecting you. Here's a $5,000 salary bump, whatever. And this is what you're gonna be doing now. These hopefully you like the new sort of JD that we crafted out for you. And then on the other side, you have the relationship and somebody cheats and they say it'll never happen again. I was drunk, whatever. You know, I don't wanna screw this up. So where's guilt and where is repentance? And is there a point of no return for either of those situations? The way I like to differentiate it is, when someone is gilting you, they're essentially making you the problem. They're not making the problem the problem. They're making your response to the problem the problem, right? So in the case of the person who's cheating on you, right? And they're like, I just can't believe that you wouldn't talk to me. I can't believe that you won't forgive me. Like, you know, we've been in this relationship for so long. How could you possibly let me go? I thought you loved me. Now they're making your response to what they did the problem as opposed to them owning what they did and making that the problem. That's how you know when people are gilting you. So be very aware and you'll kind of feel it. I definitely believe that there's, there's an emotional component to this. You know when you're being gilted because there is a tension there. It's like you have to force yourself to be okay. That's when you know people are gilting you. Repentance is when someone takes full responsibility for what they did and they put in the measures to make sure it never happens again, right? So it could be, and I'll just use the cheating thing because that's the first thing that comes to mind is it could be that a person, you know, they cheat on you and they say, you know what? I will never, ever do this to you again. Here are the past codes for my phone. I want you to feel completely free to check my phone. Here are the past codes to my email address. I will make sure that you know where I am at all times. You are, you can ask me any question you ever want to ask me about anything. When someone is repented, they recognize that they made the mistake that they were the one who were wrong and they will put in the actual mechanisms to write the wrong. If it's a case you mentioned, you know, let's say on the job they throw a few dollars away and they're like, oh, this thing happened. Here's a bonus, right? But they don't actually put the infrastructure in place to make sure the situation doesn't happen again. I know of situations, I've actually experienced situations where you have a boss who, you know, maybe they are mentally abusive, they're emotionally abusive. And so instead of the company actually demoting the boss or firing them, they maybe move them to a different team and just say, hey, everybody, we took care of it. No, you didn't take care of it because this person does not have the mental and the emotional capacity to lead other people. So it's being aware of those nuances because there's one thing to slap a bandaid on something. It's another thing to actually fix the problem. And of course, those are two different approaches. What are some, I guess the best way to put it is like taboo emotions or feelings or feelings that people feel are taboo about the situation they're going through that they really should feel comfortable expressing when they're going through one of these circumstances, the situation, is it shame, is it guilt, is it, what are these people going through? And I'm sure there's gonna resonate with people because I just want people to understand that if they're going through the situation and they're feeling some kind of way, this is very normal. Yeah, thank you for asking this. I think this is important. We have been, especially as leaders and professionals, we have almost been conditioned to not feel, right? Like we've even been told that you cannot make quality decisions when you are emotional. And that is, that is actually true because your emotions can affect the way that you process information and it can affect the decisions that you make. That said, what you don't acknowledge doesn't go away. It simply changes form. So if you, for example, let's say you're feeling isolated, like you, you find out that your colleagues went to some event together. They didn't tell you anything about it. You see it on social media. And so you feel isolated. Well, that's actually a form of rejection. Let's say that you worked diligently on some deal and then it fell through and you just, you feel humiliated. Like you don't even want to talk about it. That's a form of rejection. And until we actually name our emotions, what you don't name, you can't address. And I personally believe that rejection is the most common form of human trauma. So it's feeling, feeling shame. Well, what is shame? Shame is the sense that I am a mistake. Not that I've made a mistake, but I am a mistake. Something is wrong with me. I think imposter syndrome is actually a derivative of shame because it's the idea that I don't belong here. There's something wrong with me and I don't belong here. Well, where did that idea come from? It came from rejection. And one of the things I talk about in the book is rejection is like a talk track. And if you think about it, when you go to a museum, let's say the docent hands you a set of headphones and they say, hey, when you go to the exhibits, just press the red button and you'll hear a narration about the exhibit. Well, if you go to an exhibit and you press the red button and you listen to that, then it ends, you press the button again and again, and again, there's gonna come a point where you're gonna actually have the narration memorized, right? That's how rejection is, words that are spoken over us. Those words end up getting embedded in our heart so much so that when you don't get the promotion, if you actually pause and listen to what you're thinking, you're thinking words that were seeded into you by somebody else. I'm not good enough. I'll never be chosen. Like, no matter what I do, I'm always overlooked. Where did that come from? That came from when you were on the playground and those kids were forming teams and they left you out, right? Those things stay embedded with us and that's why I said, when we don't name our emotion and we don't actually process what we're feeling, it doesn't go away, it just changes form. We become the type of people that are overberry and micromanaging. We become the people who are sullen and depressed. Some of what we call personality is not our personality. It's how we cope with the pain of rejection. Some of us say, well, I'm just introverted. No, you're not introverted. You were rejected over and over and you have learned that the way to avoid rejection is to simply avoid people. So sometimes what we're calling our personality is simply how we're processing being rejected. And this talk track, so this talk track comes from, it could be very early childhood trauma. It basically, anything that happens your whole life informs this talk track and then fast forward to an adult, well, that's going to make you not less aware of rejection, but you're going to focus less on preserving yourself and protecting yourself and you're going to say, well, it's fine, I deserve that. Yeah, so that's one of the most, I think, dangerous and insidious effects that rejection has on us. So in the Bible, there's a verse that's in Proverbs, chapter 18 and 21, it says, life and death are in the power of the tongue. That word that's translated power is actually the Hebrew word yod, which means hand. So if you think about it, it's saying life and death are in the hand of the tongue. Well, what does a hand do? A hand molds, a hand shapes, a hand builds, but a hand can also destroy. Like the same hand that paints the Mona Lisa can take a knife and stab someone to death, right? So to death. So we have to understand that words have power. And some of us, we've said things like, oh, I'm over it. Those things were said to me so long ago, but look how much I've achieved. I'm over it. No, what you don't realize is that your ambition is actually fueled by the words that people spoke over you. They said you're not going to be enough. They said you will never achieve anything. And so you constantly pursue success, not because you're running toward your future, but because you're running from your past. And so that's why we don't feel fulfilled. No matter how much we achieve, it just doesn't matter because there is a formative rejection wound that is like a black hole that all the success goes into and it never fills up. So that's why I'm so passionate about this because I've lived it, Scott. This is not something that's just abstract to me. I know what it's like to be on the 40 under 40 and 30 under 30 and have the big title and the salaries and all the things and feel like, is this all there is? And I don't believe that we were created to just live a life where we're never fulfilled. I mean, that's probably why you, so I was watching some interviews and you said, you've written this book for you at the end of the day. You've written this, this is something that you need it. If you look at your own life and sort of just use you as an example, so everything we just spoke about, that talk track that is built from all this past trauma and you had tons of trauma growing up, how did that manifest outside of just being unfulfilled? How did that actually manifest in relationships and career later on, but also then not only how it manifested, how did you fix it, solve it, address it, confront it? So I looking back on it now, I became hyperambitious because the words that had been spoken over me were things like my mom saying, I wish I never had you, I shouldn't ever had you. I had teachers tell me I would never be anything. I had classmates call me Miss Piggy because I was morbidly obese for most of my childhood into young adulthood. I would eat to try to anesthetize the pain of the abuse I was experiencing. And so I had all of these words that were spoken over me and I basically tried to use achievement and accomplishment to kind of silence the voices that I heard in my mind. And so that's how I ended up going to college on a full scholarship because I was the kid that I couldn't be on the AB honor roll. I had to be on the all A honor roll. Like I could not just be on the dance team. I had to be captain of the dance team. I couldn't just be on the tennis team. I had to be the number one seed. Like I there was there was there were words that were constantly in my mind telling me you're not enough. You're not enough. You'll never be good enough. And so I was battling that with my success. And so going into even my profession, you know, I was appointed to an executive role at the age of 23 with a Fortune 50 company because I was just constantly hard charging working. There was never a time when I wasn't working. And so a year after I graduated out of college, you know, here I am in this executive role with people who could have been my parents. And even then Scott, I remember sitting at a board meeting and I remember thinking, I don't belong here. Like I really shouldn't be here. Like I'm not qualified to be here. But at the same time, I needed to be there in order to feel like I mattered. So that's how it manifested in my profession. Relationally, I ended up in relationships with guys who could not have cared less about me. But they gave me what I call crumbs of attention. Like they gave me, you know, a text here and there, a call here and there. And that was enough for me to fully latch onto them with everything that I had. Because again, that formative rejection wound, it told me you're not worthy of more. And so I accepted, frankly, what was beneath my humanity. Now, how I actually kind of pulled myself out of that, just quick story. So when I was in high school, I was in a relationship with a guy who, you know, I thought he was amazing. He was actually my first boyfriend. I thought he was amazing. And one weekend, he said he wanted to take me to the movies. So I went and got my hair done. I got my nails done. You know, I was ready to go. And an hour before we were supposed to go, he called and said that he had a family emergency come up and he couldn't go. And I was so bummed, but I called some of my friends and I said, hey, I want to go to the movies. So went to the movies with some of my friends. I looked over in the other line while I'm standing in line to buy tickets. And I see my boyfriend there holding hands with another girl. And he looks back and he sees me and the color drains from his face, right? Well, fast forward about, I don't know, 15 years. I'm working at Facebook and a friend of mine, a pastor friend of mine reaches out and he says, hey, I need your help with something. I have a spiritual son, a son in the ministry. And I need you to help take his Facebook page down because people are saying really mean things on his page. And I was like, well, I've never had that request for and frankly, we can't take a page down unless it's violating community standards. And I said, you know, but send me the link and I'll see what I can do. So he sends me the link, I click on it and my ex-boyfriend from high school's picture is staring back at me. And I was like, what is this? So I scroll down and people are commenting on his page, you know, serves him right, cheaters get what they deserve. I can't believe he called himself a pastor out here living a double life. I saw, I hope his wife is okay. So I Google his name, article after article after article after article comes up, he was murdered by his mistress who also tried to kill his wife. So he never changed, he never changed. He never changed and I thought about how for years, I thought, man, I was so hurt by what he did, but I was ultimately protected by what he did. And that's when again, I prayed as a person of faith that his prayed and I was like, Lord help me make sense of this. And I heard this parents say rejection is a gift. Rejection is a gift and the pain is true. The pain is real, but there is a lesson in it that will make you better if you learn how to open it. And so that's how I got on the path that I'm on now. I want to take a second and thank Range Rover Sport for supporting today's episode now. Let's talk about tools that match your ambition, that match the ambition of everybody who's listening today who has taken risks, who has upleveled their personal professional development, who's tried to build their own thing. Everybody listening gets it. There is a moment when the thing you're trying to build, the challenge that you're taking on it finally starts to take off. 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So from daily commutes to weekend getaways, the Range Rover Sport is ready for whatever you have planned. It's more than just a vehicle. It is a companion for all of your journey. So if you're ready to elevate your driving experience, visit landroverusa.com and configure your Range Rover Sport today. When that happens, obviously that has an impact on your talk track. Because then you start to see signs that rejection is a gift. But is there work that somebody has to do beyond that? Because that's like a shock. That's like a sort of a flash in the pan event and you're like, oh shit, it's like a wake up call, which is, it's good. Those things, those things help. But are somebody who's gone through a life of trauma? How do they rewrite their talk track fully? I think now that I'm kind of on the other side of this revelation, I truly believe that it starts with observing what is the talk track. Because what's going to have to happen in order to even get to a place of healing and freedom is you're going to have to be able to go back to the place where the defeat happened. You're going to have to be able to go back to the place where there were words that were spoken over you. There was an action that was taken because sometimes it's not even words. It's what people do. It's the fact that your father chose to leave when you were in elementary school. It's the fact that this person that you loved chose to leave and be with somebody else. It's not even what they said, it's what they did. So you have to go back and you have to begin to ask yourself, what did I believe because of what was said or because of what was done? And is that true? For example, when he cheated on me, I thought no one will ever want me. How could anyone ever want me? Like, I gave my heart to this guy and he basically discarded it. No one will ever want me. Well, as it turns out, I actually had other relationships after him, some of them were crazy, but one in particular ended in marriage. And my husband and I have been married now for 20 years. And so this idea that no one will ever want me, actually isn't true. And here's the thing, even if I never got married. This is where I know there are some people who don't necessarily believe in like God or spirituality or anything like that, but I want to say this, I was a microbiology and self-science major in college. I love science, I love math. I think I took up to like Calc Five. I love calculus of all the things. It is literally impossible. There is no law of physics where order descends from chaos. Think about like this. If a chandelier drops from the ceiling and crashes onto the ground, I don't care how many millennia go by, it's not going to either reform into a chandelier or something beautiful and amazing, right? It's gonna just continue to disintegrate. And I say that because no matter what you've been told, you are not a mistake. No matter what has happened to you, you are not an accident. Somebody else's choice was not your fault. And it doesn't invalidate the purpose on your life. And so you have to observe what is the top track? And is it true? Because even if they didn't want you, the reality is you are here because you have purpose on your life. I mentioned this before we press record and I think it's just an interesting point and I want to get your perspective on it. And I love that, I love that sort of that thought experiment because it makes a lot of sense when you lay it out, how everyone is, it takes so much, there's so many coincidences or however you want to call it that we're alive here living today. It almost seems impossible. I think statistically it is almost impossible that we're alive living here today. But I think that a lot of people, they don't have spirituality and I think less and less people have got in their life. And maybe not just speak about the important, speak about if somebody does not have God in their life, what problems do they run into when facing rejection? Is there, is there ways that God's spirituality helps? I'm sure because I mean, you've mentioned it that it's impacted your life twice just in this conversation. But if somebody doesn't have that peace in their life, what is the puzzle piece or the component that they're missing that they should try and solve for to make some of these difficult life events a little bit easier? I love this question because what I can tell you first of all, I did not grow up in a church going home. Like I didn't grow up in a situation where I just knew about the Bible or Jesus or God or any of that. I had my own encounter, my own awakening, my own experience. And what I will tell you is I had my own awakening in the middle of being abused and not not the act, but I'm saying in the chronology of my life, the abuse was still happening. And so what it did for me is my awareness about God, there's a verse of scripture in the Bible that says it's in Romans chapter eight, verse 28. And what it says is that God will work all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. What that says to me and what that even said to me then is this situation may not be good, but God has made a promise to work it together for my good, which means I have to figure out what is the good in this? Like that, what is the kernel of good in this that could serve other people? I think what spirituality does, what faith does, is it gives you an anchor for hope. In the absence of the belief that all things will work together for my good, you can get so fixated on the bad and what happened that you lose sight of this will eventually work together for my good. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next year, but I know at some point I will look back on this situation and I will be able to say, oh, that's why that happened. I think about my God, I think about the rejection of my mom, I think about the many times I was cheated on, I think about professional rejection, like deep, deep rejections that I've experienced and every single experience has worked together in some way for my purpose and for the ability to serve other people and so even if a person doesn't have a faith or spirituality, I do think that what we ultimately need is we need hope and that's why the gift of rejection is really a message about hope. It sounds crazy, right? It's like how can you say rejection is a gift, but understanding that it is is a source of hope and I take my hope for my faith in God and just knowing that it may not feel good but it will eventually be good if I just continue and persevere in this situation. I think that's beautiful, but I think the biggest issue with black of faith or spirituality or God and I love this, I don't love this concept, but I love sort of this thought and the experiment is when you do not have God or spirituality in your life, something else becomes your God or your spirituality and it could be money, it could be women, it could be gambling, it could be drugs, it could be alcohol, it could even be work, which is technically not a vice, but it cannot be all consuming. And when shit hits the fan, none of these things really give hope because they're not things that you, they're not things that kind of exactly what you describe, they let you see some potential better future. They're just sort of these vices in the moment and I think people, yes. You're absolutely right. We actually all do have a place that we look to for hope. Some of us, and you use the exact right word is like, our God is something. For some of us, our God is frankly ourselves. Like we're like, look, I'm got it all figured out and I'll make it happen and I'll make it, but there comes a point where you just realize that you've exhausted all of your personal resources and you need that higher power to be able to kind of re-infuse the sense that, yeah, I can't do this on my own. I can't and I have a bunch of friends who are atheist and agnostic and I'll always joke with them because I'm like, you guys actually have more faith than I do because you have to have a lot of faith to look around at all this and be like, I just came for nowhere. So we all have faith in something. Yeah, no, I love that. I want to, just a framework that people can at least walk away with and I'm just gonna caveat with this. So the book is out now, so you can get it wherever you get your books, like we'll put the links in the show though to whatnot. But one framework that you speak about is the open framework. So I just wanna leave people with a framework they can take away and then they're gonna go dive into the book and learn a little bit more obviously but I wanna unpack that one. Thank you for even offering me the opportunities to do this because one of the things I am very careful about as a writer is I don't ever want people to read my books and just be like, oh, that was nice. I don't know what to do with it. That's, honestly, one of the reasons I write my books is because I want people to be able to have practical tools that they can apply that I had to discover on my own because I couldn't find it anywhere else. So the open framework is essentially kind of a four-part framework that will help you really start to get intentional about understanding what is the gift in this rejection experience. And so the, oh, stands for observe. And I talked about this a little bit earlier but what you wanna do is when a rejection happens before you allow yourself to mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually spiral into your normal rabbit hole, you want to observe what am I thinking and what am I feeling? What are the thoughts that are just automatically playing in my mind? What are the feelings that are just automatically cascading through my body? And when you kind of pause and you actually think about the thoughts like metacognition, like you think about the thoughts, you're actually able to then begin to pinpoint where did this come from? Where did this belief that nobody wants me? Where did this idea come from? And once you can actually pinpoint where the idea came from, now you have something that you can start to work with, okay? And it's important to pinpoint it because until you identify where it comes from, you'll think it's you. You'll think this was just my own thought, but I promise you, 95% of what we think after we experienced rejection was seeded into us by words somebody else said. So start with observing. Secondly, what I encourage people to do is just pause. Just pause, don't allow yourself to act because sometimes what we'll do is the pain will be so real that we'll just want to either get back at the person immediately, we'll want to take some sort of action to try to nullify the pain. No, just pause. What I do is I pause and I pray. And I actually bring those thoughts to God. I'm like, okay, I just thought my thought was no one will ever want me, no one ever supports me, no one ever, and I bring it to God because that then gives me the opportunity to reflect on is this true? You know, as I've been releasing this book about rejection, I've been experiencing so much rejection, Scott, it's been crazy. I run it. And I got, isn't it ironic? And I got a little place where I literally felt, I was like, man, nobody's supporting me. But as I pause and I prayed about that, I had to actually reflect on the fact that, wait a minute, a lot of people are supporting me. And there are people supporting me, who I've even not even met before. And like even being on this platform is just such a gift because it's like, you've so lovingly cultivated this platform and yet you're inviting me on it. Like that is a gift that counters the idea that nobody supports me, nobody wants to be, right? So we pause them, we pause them for me, I pray, and I just get into a meditative place and then the E is explore. So I believe that every rejection has a lesson that it can teach us about ourselves or about others. In the case of my book release and having some folks that I thought I could count on, not show up for me, as I explored that, what I realized is, I placed them in a category of friendship that they actually worked in. Like these are people that I supported, these are people that I just knew would show up for me that didn't. And so as I explored it, I realized, oh, our relationship actually isn't where I thought it was. So now, I don't hold a grudge against you because you didn't show up. I just realized I can't count on you for what I thought I could count on you for. And so that then changes the nature of the relationship. And the last step, which is in, the end stands for name and what I talk about is just name your next step. So you've observed your thoughts, you know how you're feeling, you've paused, you've actually explored the lessons and the experience. Now, what are you going to do with what you've learned and how's it going to change the way that you show up? So that's the open framework in a nutshell. And you're right, I go into a lot more detail in the book, but it's practical and it's something that I've even used as I've experienced rejection of releasing the book. And it works. What would be one thing about rejection that people fundamentally get wrong, like a very commonly held belief that is just absolutely incorrect? Yeah, I think people take rejection personally and think that it's about them. When in reality, what people do is not about you, it's about their choice. So we say, well, they did this thing because something's wrong with me. When in fact, they did the thing because they did the thing, right? So instead of taking it personally, I think we just have to recognize they did what they did because of them, not because of me. What would be one belief about rejection that you used to hold that's changed dramatically? It could even be as you wrote this book. I thought rejection was like the end of the world. Like I thought that not being invited, I thought not being included. I thought having somebody I cared about abandoned me when I needed the most. I thought that was the end of the world. But now I recognize that there's actually a lesson in all of those experiences. And I actually can take the time to consider what that lesson is and I can apply it to my life and I can retain my sense of agency and it can make me better. What's the role that a third party, like a friend or a peer plays in this? Mm, you know, I think if we have the right people in our lives, they can help us have perspective about the situation. It's really important because sometimes we can have people in our lives who basically make the rabbit hole deeper, right? Like we tell them what happened and they're like, I can't believe that happened, that's so horrible. Now you need somebody in your life who's gonna be able to hear your experience all for wisdom, all for encouragement that will lift you out of the rabbit hole, not make it deeper for you. So I think having somebody in your life who can process with you and get you to a place of actually applying the learnings is a gift. First is somebody who's just gonna descend down the rabbit hole with you. That's not helpful. Yeah, and we have friends like that too. Or maybe they're maybe their friends that shouldn't be in the category that they're in, whatever, but we definitely know people like that. Yeah, yeah. You have a place, you have a place. Last thing, you look back, you've had so many incredible seasons to your life. Look back, you wanna tell your 20 year old self one word of wisdom, one piece of advice, what would that be? I would tell known of them because I was dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome. I would just say that you're not an imposter when you're called. In every room that you are in, you are called to, every opportunity that you are given, you are called to. And so stop feeling like you don't belong there, like you don't deserve it because it's given to you because you do. Okay, so give the rejections out now. Amazon anywhere you can get books, basically. What's your social? And do you have a website for the book? Well, it's just all my website. It's nonajones.com. If you go there and just click on the books tab, it'll take you right there. But my social handle is at Nona, not Nora. I get confused with a Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter all the time. That is not who I am. But yeah, at Nona, not Nora on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.