Hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for spending

time with us today. It's listeners like you in 181 different countries that have made Negotiate

Anything the most popular negotiation and conflict resolution podcast in the world. I'm your host,

Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, professor, and the director of the American Negotiation Institute. Before we get started, I have two quick questions for you. Is negotiation a critical part of what you do? Do you need to resolve conflict and persuade at work? If you answered yes to both of those questions, visit our website to learn more about our negotiation workshops. We've

traveled the country working with professionals just like you, and we'd love to have the opportunity

to work with you too. Check out the link in the description to learn more. Our guest today is Alex

Grodnick. Alex started off his career at Wall Street, and now he is the founder of a new tech

company called Pay Club. In this episode, Alex shares

his interesting perspective on rejection and why it's a critical part of the negotiation process

and your personal development as a professional. I know you're going to get a lot out of this one,

so without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Alex, thanks for joining us today.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. So I'd be speaking with you. Likewise. Well, how about we start off by telling the audience a little bit about yourself and what you do? Yeah, sure. So I'm sitting in Los Angeles now in my office. It's not so much a sunny day here, a little June gloom. But yeah, I'm a startup guy now, but I haven't always been a startup guy.

I mean, I grew up that way. I was like the lemonade stand kid going around selling stuff,

door to door, like just always having businesses. And then somehow it got into my mind,

you know, society put it there that said, oh, I need to go get one of these prestigious jobs on Wall Street. So after school, I went and worked for a couple different

investment banks, basically working 100-hour weeks and helping companies buy and sell one

another. And I was a cool experience and I made lots of money, but it was never, never my

calling. It wasn't what I was put on on this earth to do.

And so I kind of had this like realization where society really valued the job that I was doing

and they kept saying, like, you're doing it's so prestigious and important. But there was this

disconnect because I never really thought that it was very fulfilling. So then I was like, man,

I don't know what the hell I should be doing.

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