My Rejection Story

What if rejection resilience isn't a skill built inside your own head, but a cushion other people hold for you? Alice is joined by Lisa Hurley — Caribbean American author of Space to Exhale, founder of the virtual community The Great Exhale , and a Black woman living with autism who grew up in Barbados being treated as "the community's child" Together they unpack why Western indi...

What if coping with rejection is less about surviving the loss and more about surviving what you decide the loss says about you?  Alice is joined by Dr. Jessica Zucker, Los Angeles psychologist in women's reproductive and maternal mental health, founder of the #IHadaMiscarriage movement, and the author who miscarried alone at 16 weeks while her doctor stayed on the phone. For anyone sitting wi...

This episode discusses genocide, war, racism, death threats. Listener discretion advised. What if the rejection that cuts deepest isn't a stranger's hatred — but the silence of the people who swore they loved you? Alice is joined by Lena Derhally — licensed trauma-informed psychotherapist, bestselling Palestinian American author, and a white-passing Christian Palestinian who ended friendsh...

What if the person you can't stop craving after a breakup isn't a lost love — but a drug you're still detoxing from? Alice is joined by Dr. Cortney Warren — board-certified clinical psychologist, TEDx speaker, and the researcher who studies self-deception, love addiction and coined the term "exaholism." Alice opens with her own pandemic situationship: the man she'd never...

What if the deepest rejection isn't one loud "no," but the quiet ones that pile up until you stop noticing them? Alice is joined by Tiffany Yu — CEO and founder of Diversability, three-time TEDx speaker, and author of The Anti-Ableist Manifesto — who was nine years old when a car accident took her father's life and permanently paralyzed her arm. She grew up being picked last in gym class every sin...

What if the loneliest rejection isn't losing a partner but losing a friend? Alice Draper is joined by Dr. Kimberly Horn, internationally recognized research psychologist, public health scientist who spent nearly 30 years studying addiction and health inequalities, and author of Friends Matter, For Life: Harnessing the Eight Tenets of Dynamic Friendship (endorsed by Mel Robbins). After the pand...

What if the plan you're clinging to for safety is the very thing keeping you stuck? Alice is joined by Anne-Laure Le Cunff — neuroscientist, founder of the newsletter Ness Labs, and author of Tiny Experiments — who was thriving at Google until the morning she woke up to find her entire arm had turned purple. A blood clot threatening to travel to her lungs. Her first reaction in the ER? "O...

What if the first person to reject you and the hardest one to recover from,  was you? Alice is joined by Selena Rezvani, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, leadership and confidence speaker, and creator of the viral newsletter that became the Quick Confidence and Quick Leadership series. This episode is a masterclass in overcoming the fear of rejection at work: Selena has half a million follo...

This episode discusses ADHD, rejection sensitivity, and mental health. It is educational and not a substitute for professional care. What if being "too nice" was never a personality flaw — but your nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do to stay safe? Everyone who loves Alice has told her the same thing: be more assertive! Nobody ever explained how . In this solo episode she c...

What if saying "no worries" a thousand times was never politeness,  but a survival strategy your brain built to dodge rejection? Alice wants the answer to be yes: is people pleasing a sign of ADHD? First she reframes herself,  not a people pleaser but a "recovering self-sacrificer." Pleasing from love is a gift. Pleasing because you're terrified of being a burden is somethi...

What if the kindest thing you can do for someone is reject them clearly, and the cruelest thing is to keep them hoping? In this solo episode, recorded from a Poddster booth at the 1 Billion Followers Summit in the UAE, Alice makes the case that a clean "no" beats a soft maybe every time. She opens with the situationship hot and cold, days of silence, then something romantic and the resea...

What if the spirit of self-sabotage isn't weakness at all, but a quiet strategy to make sure a loss never truly feels yours? Alice is joined by Steve Magness — performance scientist, coach to Olympians and military teams, and the high-school phenom who ran a 4:01 mile, chased Roger Bannister's ghost, and never broke four. In his book, Win the Inside Game , he speaks about choking under pre...

What if the first person to reject your book isn't a publisher — it's you? Alice is joined by Stacy Ennis — number-one bestselling author, founder of the Nonfiction Book School, and a writer who launched her career by deliberately collecting 29 rejections in 30 days. She talks about the second-grade rejection that branded her the "bad kid" in a tiny Christian school, the parent w...

What if the rejection that shapes you most isn't the one the world hands you — it's the one you learn to hand yourself? Alice is joined by Sabrina Pace-Humphreys — British ultra runner, author of *Black Sheep*, and co-founder of Black Trail Runners, the charity diversifying the UK's outdoor spaces. She grew up the only Black girl in a small Cotswold town; her Afro shoddily cut against...

What if the rejection you're dreading isn't the editorial rejection — it's the pitch you never bothered to fix?  In this solo episode of My Rejection Story, Alice goes from her earliest days as a student journalist — including a mortifying ghosting that ended with an editor telling her it would be "ill-advised, now and in her future career" to ever give an editor a deadline —...

Why does ADHD make rejection feel like physical pain in your chest? Why can a sharp comment, a missed look, or a workplace layoff trigger something that feels far older and deeper than the moment at hand? Alice is joined by Jesse J. Anderson — ADHD advocate, bestselling author of Extra Focus , and the guy who spent decades feeling like he didn't fit until his wife noticed his symptoms matched...

What if the worst rejection isn’t the one someone gives you — it’s the one you give yourself? Alice is joined by Jude Sack — magician since age four, Yale cognitive neuroscience grad, and the guy who flewacross the country to ambush YouTuber David Dobrik in an airport with a magictrick and a job pitch. The video went viral. But what makes Jude fascinating isn’t the stunt — it’s the philosophy unde...

Why does one rejection have the power to override dozens of wins? Why does your brain cling to the time you were told you're not good enough — and quietly use that story to limit what you try next? In this episode of My Rejection Story, Alice is joined by Dr. MH Pelletier (neuropsychologist, executive coach, and author of The Resilience Plan ) to explore why rejection is so hard, why resilienc...

What does it cost a child to grow up knowing who they are might be enough to lose their family? And when family rejection is the backdrop of your adolescence, how do you learn to trust that romantic love is even possible? In this episode of My Rejection Story, Alice is joined by Kenny Ethan Jones — British activist, model, author, and the first trans man to front a period campaign — to explore tra...

Why does spending a lifetime wondering what is wrong with you feel more personal than a medical oversight — why does it feel like confirmation? And what happens when a diagnosis finally arrives in your forties and reframes everything you thought you knew about yourself? In this episode of My Rejection Story, Alice is joined by Dari Crawford — fractional Director of Operations, Chief of Staff, and...

Why does one rejection have the power to override dozens of wins? Why does your brain cling to the time you were told you're not good enough — and quietly use that story to limit what you try next? In this episode of My Rejection Story, Alice is joined by Anne-Laure Le Cunff (neuroscientist and author of Tiny Experiments) to explore how the negativity bias shapes our response to rejection, why...

Why does rejection sometimes feel bigger than the moment itself? Why can a missed text, a declined invitation, or a breakup trigger something that feels far older and deeper than the situation at hand? In this episode of My Rejection Story , Alice is joined by Dr. Carol Chu-Peralta, clinical psychologist and trauma specialist, to explore the powerful link between rejection and abandonment. Togethe...

Why does heartbreak hurt so much? According to psychologist and bestselling author Guy Winch, it’s not just emotional—it’s biological. Heartbreak hijacks your brain like an addiction, making it one of the most painful experiences a person can endure. In this episode, Guy breaks down the science of heartbreak, the biggest mistakes people make when trying to move on, and why heartbreak needs a mourn...

What if the fear of rejection is actually a fear of being fully seen? In this poetic and soul-searching episode, author and spoken word artist Arielle Estoria opens up about what it means to grow beyond who the world expects you to be—and how devastating, liberating, and cyclical that journey can be. Best known for her viral Arielle Estoria poems, her book The Unfolding, and her ability to speak s...

Why does book rejection feel so personal—so final? Why does a book rejection letter have the power to stall a project for years, even when the idea still matters? And how do some authors seem to land book deals—sometimes before the book is even written—while others stay stuck in endless rejection cycles? In this episode of My Rejection Story , Alice is joined by Allison Lane, founder of Allison La...