Earlier in my professional life I had a fear of rejection.
I think it might have had to do with how I was trained at a large accounting firm that I previously worked for. At that firm, we were required to report every week how many new people we met, where we met them, and how successful we were in getting them as a new client. Not that I wasn’t able to talk to people; on the contrary, I am very personable and can talk to anyone in almost any situation. However, if we didn’t get them as a client, we had to explain why and what we could have done better. It got to the point where I started to really dislike reporting my activities because you had to explain why you weren’t always 100% successful.