E33 When The Money Doesn't Come Through
October 2025
21 minutes
E33 When The Money Doesn't Come Through
October 2025
21 minutes
Stream on:
In this episode of the 3Peak Master Leadership Experience, Mino Vlachos and Dr. Mazen Harb explore how leaders handle loss, rejection, and setbacks in the workplace. They discuss how expectations, overconfidence, and underconfidence can distort reality, and how emotional reactions often reflect past experiences more than the present.
The conversation highlights practical strategies for staying grounded, managing emotions, and turning setbacks into growth opportunities. Leaders learn how to build confidence through presence and disciplined action while extracting lessons from every challenge. Key Takeaways:
0:00 - 0:59 Introduction 0:59 - 1:54 Navigating Loss In The Workplace 1:54 - 5:49 Dealing With Disappointment 5:49 - 7:44 The Role of Expectations 7:44 - 13:34 Confidence vs. Overconfidence 13:34 - 20:36 Grounded Confidence In Action
3Peak Coaching & Solutions is a leadership consultancy dedicated to Elevating Executive Mastery. We specialize in transforming businesses through leadership and team development during transitions and times of crisis.
We focus on the 3 critical areas where chaos and conflict are most likely to appear:
By addressing these flashpoints, we assist you in navigating change to build unity, create certainty, and establish clear direction.
Mino Vlachos: Hello and welcome to the 3Peak Master Leadership Experience. My name is Mino Vlachos and I'm the co founder of 3Peak Coaching & Solutions. 3Peak Coaching & Solutions is a leadership consultancy dedicated to elevating executive mastery. We specialize in transforming businesses through leadership and team development. During transitions and times of crisis, we focus on three critical areas where chaos and conflict are most likely to appear. Board, CEO and C suite. Misalignment Transitions into executive leadership Conflict between functional departments. By addressing these flashpoints, we assist you in navigating change to build unity, create certainty and establish clear direction. Our approach empowers leaders to master complex challenges and transform their companies to thrive now and in the future. Today I am joined by Dr. Mazen Harb, who is also one of my fellow co founders of three Peak Coaching and Solutions. Today's topic is all about experiencing some kind of loss within the workplace. Whether that's a project funding, we wanted something to go a certain way. So imagine you're looking for investment from an investor or again like a grant funding, and something falls through. You're not able to get the money, the resources, something that you really thought maybe you're trying to work on a collaboration or a partnership, right? Like something just doesn't go your way. And often I see leaders who really struggle to kind of grapple with those moments where, yeah, we had an intention, we had a plan, we execute, we were feeling good about it and then for whatever reason, it just didn't work. And so let's talk a little bit about what happens in those moments where things just, just don't go our way and we don't get to live out the vision in the future and the, the lifetime that we thought we might have through this funding, through this project, through this collaboration, through this partnership. So Mazen, when you've worked with leaders and they have this expectation that they're going to get something right again, funding, collaboration, whatever it might be, and then the thing falls through and they go into this kind of like disappointment. What do you, what do you, you know, what are they experiencing? What is happening under the surface a little bit when that moment, that shock starts to kind of take over them.
Dr. Mazen Harb: What happened to them when this happened.
Mino Vlachos: Happens, what happens to them when they go through this process of losing out on something.
Dr. Mazen Harb: The simple question is, depends on each one's way of dealing with loss and rejection. How you met very early on doesn't matter. In your upbringing, from childhood to puberty to the teenagerhood you met at certain point, loss and rejection Together or separate. And then you had a. I'm going a bit biological, but I have to. That's. This is who we are. We are biological beings. I cannot answer more advanced psychological, intellectual if I don't answer the biology. So imagine a child that never met loss or never met the rejection. The first time the child will encounter that, it will create a new neuronal pathways that have an emotional reaction. Our body nervous system is created in a way to adapt to the environment where things doesn't feel right. So they have to learn. So they will learn it through a shock of rejection and loss of the first time. And that will be in the memory within our brain and our body, by mind, body system. So whenever we hit it again, Even if we're 70 years of age, but never brought awareness to it, never tackled it in our life, it's an emotional response. It's a conditioned emotional response. I'm not going to go too much, you know, via, to Pavlov conditioning, like just basic operant conditioning or Pavlov conditioning is stimulus will bring a reaction without even going through the intellectual part to the prefrontal cortex or the neocortex. So the idea is whenever you meet someone in a position of leading a project or funding or startup or, or department, how they will deal with the rejection and loss tells more about their psychology and their biology than about what's really happening in the company.
Mino Vlachos: But what about the, the role of building on that? The expectation. I'll share a small story, right. Is yesterday I was having dinner with a friend and she and her partner just recently had a newborn. So they had a baby and very, very cute child. And they were, they did not know the sex of the child. They did not, you know, they didn't ask the doctor, I don't want to know the sex of the child. But somehow in them they were a hundred percent sure it's a boy. And everyone around them said it's a boy. Everyone, right? 100%. So they said when the pregnant, you know, the, they went into birth labor and then the child was born and then they held up the baby and it was a girl. And they both the parents said they looked, they kind of turned their head and looked and were like, is that my child? I don't think that's my child. And like actually it is your child. It's literally just came out of your body and it. But it is a girl, right? Right. And they had to completely rewire all their expectations and everything they thought because it actually was a different outcome than the one they expected. So can you tell me a little bit about when we, like, you know, or, you know, let's say I'm. I'm applying for a grant or I'm sending a proposal, a sales proposal, and I'm convinced, like, we're going to get it, we're going to get it, we're going to get it. Like, it's a sure thing. And then you don't get it. Like, what is the role of expectations to build off of what you just shared?
Dr. Mazen Harb: Yeah, like the word that came with the. You give really interesting example. They're real, right? For me, I give like those metaphors of scenarios that they're not even real, at least not to my reality. But the word that comes about the baby and like, it's incredible how they all, collectively, the two parents and everyone around they decided to set themselves for disappointment. I'm like, wow, they all agreed, let us set ourselves for disappointment. Probably the child need to learn the first emotion. So imagine this child that's very malleable, sucking all the emotion to understand, to start programming itself is like the first impression. I have two disappointment caregivers. So just imagine the experience from that point. So probably, yeah.
Mino Vlachos: Nope, they don't listen to this. I don't know.
Dr. Mazen Harb: They will. They're your friends, so. Oh, my goodness. So on a subconscious level, probably the child wants to learn about disappointment on this planet anyhow. So I was about to say, jokes aside, but that's not a joke, actually. This is how we set up ourselves. And that's example. Mino. There is something like one of the episodes we did some time before. It was about confidence. Right. A lack of confidence. But actually I remember, even though we did it some time ago, we didn't speak about the overconfidence. So we live in a dualistic world. We live in a polarized world within ourselves. Right. So you cannot know something if you don't know the opposite. You cannot know trust if you don't lose it first. Trust is there. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. Everything exists, but the moment we start naming it, we have to name the opposite. Otherwise, very difficult to name something without its opposite. So. And overconfidence is like, it's not confidence.
Mino Vlachos: Yeah.
Dr. Mazen Harb: And that's a misunderstanding, you know. And then here, the funny part, when an overconfident, probably this, we should bring it back to the lack of confidence episode, put them close to each other. But when we overconfident, they feel like, I dealt with my problem of lack of confidence. I'm now overconfident. But actually it's the same, it's the same coin flipped. Because the truth of, you know, the polarities is the neutral one playing out both lack of confidence over confidence and the middle is confidence. Confidence doesn't need a search as to be assertive confidence. It's not positive or negative. It is overconfident is super positive. Lack of confidence is super negative. So I create something, I come with this overconfidence. My question is again, what am I hiding? Or what I was hiding before, where I gained momentum. I bring intellect and I won so many battles and then here I come, I became over cocky. So also brings that understanding. Yeah, I fell over stuff. For now I think you see the point.
Mino Vlachos: Yeah, well, I'll take it to the next level.
Dr. Mazen Harb: Yeah, yeah, I saw you, you know.
Mino Vlachos: Really hoping, not listening. The word that really came to me as you were sharing that is delusion. So delusion is when we create a fantastical world that we assume is real. Right. And both the underconfident and overconfident, like you said, they both create delusions. The delusion of underconfidence is that I am not equipped to handle these expectations that honestly largely are probably not even the real expectation. So many times with imposter syndrome we see people create false expectations of themselves that are always impossible to reach. So it's this like very interesting delusion meets perfectionistic kind of battle. But with the overconfidence, there typically is another delusion that they've created another fantastical world that doesn't exist. And maybe let me try this out and you tell me what you think. Maybe the confident person is the one that's actually has two feet in reality.
Dr. Mazen Harb: I'm really enjoying this conversation. My answer is yes, use the word delusion literally. I wrote in my notebook delusions of the realities. So lack of confidence and overconfidence. They are delusioned about a reality that doesn't exist, then they tend to create it. So that needs mind and that needs imagination. And then creating a reality where confidence is two, as you said, like both feet. In this reality where confidence is calm like nature, actually you do not hear confident, you don't hear it coming, banging on, you know, walking, you do not feel confident. Around you, anything that is confident works a car that is done in a fantastic, great way. Confident car, you don't hear anything. Example like so as I'm like a car, I'm can be confident. Yes, the ones who created it. So to apply to everything. So confidence it's not. I need to assert my confidence so everybody shows it. Then this is overconfidence. So in the reality we're living, confidence bring. Bring you into presence. So I do my job to the best of my ability. I do my task, I apply for that or ask for the fund or ask the board to give me this amount of money or anything. In this reality, the mind didn't kick in. Play tricks. Oh, it's not gonna happen. Or this. And start doubting it. And then probably you'll end up creating that reality.
Mino Vlachos: Right.
Dr. Mazen Harb: Because it's possible. Or the opposite. I know what I'm. I know. So what are we. I know and I know I will get it. And motivating everyone told all the company we're gonna get it. Amazing. We're the best. We're the best. We're the best. It's the mind and like, what they're compensating for, what they are not noticing what are they doing. Or instead saying, we, we have confidence, we will get it, but we'll make the best that we had. Like, let us work hard and then it doesn't happen. And that's the question of today. To bring it. To bring it back to the day. They work hard and that's. They're like confident about it, but they didn't get it. Listen to that. This is the best lesson to learn why. And this is where life opens the best lessons. And this is where intelligent beings, not intellectual beings, they're slight, different intelligent beings. They're like, wow. I was confident in my team. I was confident in the numbers. I was confident in everything. We got a negative response. And I think you've seen me as well. Like, when we do things, I'm like, I'm not shocked, I'm surprised. Or something is off. So I tried to study where to improve. Hence, confidence is a journey of improvement and learning. So what I did is I checked. Ah, we might have missed something. Like, we want to learn from that, from that setback. I build on it and then next time I try again. But the delusion doesn't take me. And that's the problem. It's always a constant. Next time we're gonna be the best. I'm like, no, I will do my best. But we'll see. Probably we miss something. Why? Because you always can miss something. The best car manufacturer in the world can. Sometimes they have faulty cars. Why? They missed a pin, they missed a screw. You cannot. You cannot avoid or say, we don't. We have zero risk. They're Machines doing it. And sometimes they're humans. Everyone does mistakes, even me and my team. So this is the confidence in this reality.
Mino Vlachos: Yeah. To share my example of what you're talking about is I am leading sales within our, our company, 3P Coaching and Solution. And well, every day you go out and you make proposals. And honestly, I think the goal of sales should be to lose as many proposals as possible so that you can win as many as possible. So it means you're constantly going out and proposing things and getting rejected. I think I've noticed it in myself. Like, yeah, when you're first new to the role, there is excitement, right? Excitement, disappointment. That's the cycle where you're like, oh my God, we have a big proposal out there and then you don't get it. Disappointment. And over time, what I've tried to really, really shift within me is nothing is real until something is signed. So it's not real until it's done. Up until then, it's just something else, but it's not real. But you create the fantasy. I, we all salespeople, right, like, everyone, we create this fantasy of like, and now I have the money, now I have the sales, now I have the project. It's like, but you don't. So it's to be grounded two feet on the ground and to say, like, what we have is this stage of a proposal. This is a conversation. This is a proposal. This is a contract. This is a verbal agreement. Like, but until it's actually signed. And this is where I go back to what you shared is when you're confident and you're in grounded in reality, the only thing that's left is just do the action every day. It's just do the action every day because you don't have these highs and lows, expectations, disappointment. All you have is like, what step am I in? Do the step. What step am I in? Do the step. And it's not to say again, this is like, I'm perfect. Like, there's still moments where if, like a big juicy project can come to us, I can still feel excited, excitement and disappointment. It's part of, I think, the job. But increasingly you kind of get desensitized to that as you have more of the same opportunities come again and again. And that is part of the process, I think, for me at least, is to understand how to not be in the emotional highs and lows when you're going up and pitching for things and then getting rejected. Because it's a roller coaster that then creates a slingshot of emotions and then you get unproductive and then you end up not doing the actions needed to move the other proposals forward. So that's, to me, the marker of confidence, like you said, is like, we do the task, we know what we need to do to get the things done. We don't go on these emotional roller coasters. And actually, you know, there's a saying in American football, a lot of coaches say when you score a touchdown and some of the players really go crazy celebrating, and the saying is, act like you've been there before. Act like you've been there before. So someone who scored a thousand touchdowns, do you think thousand and one, they're going to go crazy like their first? Probably not. Right. Because the, at that point, the novelty has worn off. So that's something where it's like, imagine you're going for a big grant, a big proposal, like you said, going to the board, going for a big partnership or a merger acquisition, like, whatever it is. Like, act like you've been there before a little bit, you know, not to. I'm not saying strip the humanity out of it. I'm not saying not to have emotions, but just over time to, to feel those emotions, to regulate, to create capacity for the emotion so that you then also can simultaneously do the task. Right. Like, so do it in a human way, but do it methodically and with discipline and with confidence and it will lead you to the outcomes that you're looking for. So if we give one, one piece of advice, because we've talked about a few things here, Mazan, and so. Or someone is. Yeah. Would you like to share something?
Dr. Mazen Harb: No, no, no, no. Help me. Yeah, because we, we opened it actually we kind of surgically and spoke about the different aspect of it.
Mino Vlachos: Yeah. So if we give one piece of advice, say, okay, there's someone who's just gone through some kind of like loss of a project funding. You know, what's the key advice you'd give someone who's in that situation? Wow.
Dr. Mazen Harb: Yeah. Something now like, really sparked in me. Life can be long, very long. You are in a journey of whatever you are creating a startup whenever you are a leader of a big corporate. There's lots of setbacks. But that's not your last project you're beginning. You need to gain experience through confidence. Those are the school of life that you asked to have so you don't live in naivety. And you come, ah. And then you arrive and everything starts happening to you. Because if you think everything will happen to you, it will take a little bit of time that the tower of setting expectation will go bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. The higher the tower go up this, the more difficult it will be when something crashes. Disappointment. Learning the cycle of expectation and disappointment. Do not see them as setbacks. Be grateful. Strange what I'm saying. Be grateful that you didn't get it. Because that's not your last project. And if you think that's your last project, yeah, probably that's an issue. Think about other things. Thinking about a thing you like to do in this life.
Mino Vlachos: The one thing I'll share is I really would just like to add to what you said instead of creating something on my own, which is, I think the only failure in life is if we don't learn from our experience. So that's the one way I can see, okay, something, quote, unquote, failed. But if you didn't learn something from it, then, yeah, it was truly a waste of time, energy, effort. But if there's anything you can extract from that experience, and usually it's in the form of a lesson, personal, professional, interpersonal, spiritual, whatever it might be, then, yeah, it was completely a waste. If you can't do that, but as long as you are able to glean something from that experience, then you're better than you were the day before. And that, to me, is life. So I want to thank everyone for listening to this episode. Thank you for joining us, Mazen, and we will see you again soon.