Welcome to Darren Daly on demand, your most trusted resource to help you become better every day.

Here's your success mentor, Darren Hardy.

As humans, we are hyper-social beings. We have been hardwired to crave inclusion, to be approved of, and to be accepted.

And being rejected is one of our greatest primal fears.

Why?

Well, because eons ago approval, thus inclusion, meant survival.

Rejection and disapproval meant certain death.

In prehistoric times, if you were ousted from the tribe and thus left isolated and alone

defend for yourself, it wasn't long

before you were a snack for a pack of saber-toothed cats. Because the consequences of being

rejected were so extreme, our brains and our behavior adapted to do anything we possibly could

to avoid disapproval from others. In fact, research has proven how social rejection activates many of the same

brain regions that are involved in signaling physical pain, which helps explain why disapproval

hurts so bad. Even though today we are no longer living in caves or running around on the

loincloth on the savannah trying to spear our food and dodge predators, our aversion to

rejection and disapproval

is still deeply embedded into our primal fears. For many, if not most, it consumes our entire

self-identity, and it is the primary drive to all our motivation, to the point where you can

have trouble thinking that you are worthy, that you are good enough

or successful at all, unless you receive validation from others.

And that is especially true at work.

Now, seeking approval is not all bad.

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