Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection (16 page)

When we think of rejection, we automatically assume it’s a setback, a source of pain, and something we have to overcome. We rarely investigate the possibility that rejection, in some cases, is a result of being ahead of a curve.

Throughout history, we’ve seen countless examples of people who were rejected or even persecuted for their beliefs but vindicated by time. We’ve seen stories ranging from Galileo’s scientific theories being declared heretical to Vincent van Gogh, whose work now sells for millions but who was deemed a failure during his own lifetime, to the biblical story of Noah, who was mocked for building an ark to prepare for a historic flood. Even in today’s world, good ideas can face an uphill climb in many instances, especially if these ideas are creative in nature.

Companies, organizations, parents, teachers, and our society as a whole universally praise creativity and thinking outside of the box. However, when creativity actually happens, it is often met with rejection, because it frequently disrupts order and rules.

In the classic business book
The Innovator’s Dilemma
, Harvard professor Clayton Christensen argued that companies often fail to innovate because they focus on currently profitable projects and reject internal innovations. As a result, they fall victim to disruptive innovation by outsiders,
who are often small start-ups and don’t have to worry about the status quo.

A study done by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Jennifer Mueller is called
The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire but Reject Creative Ideas
. Mueller found that no matter how much we say we love creativity on a conscious level, we subconsciously despise and fear it because it presents a level of uncertainty. As human beings, we crave certain and predictable outcomes. And we have tendencies to cling onto traditions and conventional wisdom. That’s why there hasn’t been any world-changing idea in history that was initially met with universal approval.

Looking back at my own journey, very few people gave me a chance to succeed when I quit my job to pursue an entrepreneurial dream. When I was rejected with the funding of my company, I did something unheard of. I spent part of the precious little time left in my six-month period to start a new video blog focused on my rejection. I did it because I felt the need to, and I didn’t consult with anyone else. Later on, one of my best friends told me that I was lucky for not telling him about my video blog before starting it. Otherwise, he would have tried everything to talk me out of the idea because it sounded “incredibly stupid.”

George Bernard Shaw famously said, “All great truths begin as blasphemies.” And Mahatma Gandhi said: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

The next time everyone accepts your idea or proposal without a hint of disagreement, you might want to stop for
a moment and ponder if it is the result of conventional and group thinking. And if someone thinks your idea is “incredibly stupid,” consider the possibility that you might be onto something. Perhaps the question we should ask about an idea is not “How do I avoid rejection?” but “Is my idea worthy of rejection?”

100 DAYS OF REJECTION: GIVE A SIDEWALK SPEECH

It is often said that people fear public speaking more than they fear death. During my 100 Days of Rejection, I made plenty of speeches to a diverse set of audiences. As a result, I have come to fear public speaking far less than I did before; in fact, I quickly started enjoying it. I’d given speeches about my story at Tony Hsieh’s conference and at the University of Texas. However, standing onstage, in front of an audience of people who had purposely gathered to sit and listen to what I had to say, was one thing. It was safe, familiar, and predictable. Public speaking outside of that contained environment was another matter.

But I wanted to push myself again, so I devised a rejection challenge guaranteed to tap into this same sense of fear to see whether I could overcome it. The plan was to go to a random city street and start giving a public speech on the sidewalk. My wife, Tracy, would accompany me and film my experience from across the street. I had no idea if people would stop and listen, jeer or boo me, or just think I was crazy.

I wouldn’t say I was scared to death—but I was close. If
you asked me which of my rejection attempts was the most frightening of them all, it was this one.

At 7:20
P.M
. one evening, I set up a chair on a busy Austin sidewalk and propped up two signs nearby. The first read P
UBLIC STORYTELLING
@7:30
PM.
S
TAY IF INTERESTED
. The second said K
EEP
A
USTIN
W
EIRD—
a slogan that Austinites use to celebrate the city’s dynamic and liberal culture. (The sign was meant to lend me some sort of credibility, suggesting to others that I was trying to be weird, just like them.)

Tracy filmed the episode from the start. During those ten minutes of waiting, I looked like the shiest guy in school about to ask the most beautiful girl to the prom. My face was pale and my lips were shaking. Five minutes passed by, and so did countless people. A cyclist stopped and looked at my signs, cocked her head, then started pedaling again. A chocolate Lab being walked by his owner sniffed the signs, but his owner quickly pulled him away and kept on going.

Ten minutes went by, and not one person stopped. Without an audience, I was ready to pack up and go home. But then I changed my mind.
I’ve come this far
, I thought.
Rejected or not, why not just give the speech anyway and see what happens
. I looked at Tracy, who was patiently standing across the street, filming my anguish, and signaled to her to wait. Then I stood up.

I cleared my throat, and these words came out of my mouth: “Hi, everyone. I am going to tell my story now. You are welcome to listen.” Then I started my speech: “It was a Sunday. It was pretty warm. A guy was sitting in his house….” I told the story of me knocking on Scott’s door with a soccer ball.

The more I spoke, the more an odd sense of calm engulfed me, washing away the gut-wrenching jitters. I tried to focus exclusively on my speech, my movement, and the next word that came out of my mouth. It was like a light switch had flipped on.

A few people looked at me and slowed their steps. Others stopped and stood there. Soon, I had an audience of six people—and none of them left once they started listening.

Over the next fifteen minutes, I told my story—from quitting my job and building a company to being rejected by the investor and embarking on my rejection journey, and all the things I had learned along the way. I ended with what would later become, during other speeches, my signature line: “Rejection is like chicken. It’s yummy or yucky depending on how you cook it. We cannot let the fear of rejection cripple us.”

When I was done, my audience of six gave me a cheer.

“Thank you for telling your story, that was nice!” a person said.

“That was fantastic! How do we find you?” another woman asked.

A sense of pride and satisfaction filled my heart. I had fought through my fear, stuck with my goal despite being rejected by countless passersby, and gone on with my speech anyway.

And it was good that I did, because a few weeks later I had a much bigger audience to speak in front of. Three thousand entrepreneurs, bloggers, and writers filled the beautifully built double-decker Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in
Portland, Oregon. The occasion was the third annual World Domination Summit, a dynamic event billed as “a gathering of creative, interesting people from all over the world.” The summit’s founder and chief organizer, Chris Guillebeau, is an entrepreneur, blogger, and
New York Times
bestselling author of
The $100 Startup
. His goal is to inspire people to follow their passions and pursue their dreams—a cause I strongly believe in. After learning about my Krispy Kreme donut experience, he’d asked me to come to Oregon to share my story at his conference.

Before the event started, I looked at the speaker list and shook my head. It was filled with bestselling authors, including Gretchen Rubin (
The Happiness Project
), Donald Miller (
Blue Like Jazz
), and Danielle LaPorte (
The Desire Map
). There were also well-known entrepreneurs like Andrew Warner (Mixergy) and Jonathan Fields (Good Life Project). And then there was Nancy Duarte, who made a career of teaching public speaking and even designed the presentation that Al Gore gives in his movie
An Inconvenient Truth
.

And then there was me, a failed entrepreneur turned video blogger who spent his days seeking out rejection. I couldn’t help but be nervous.

Before my speech, I paced back and forth backstage, breathing heavily. The pressure to measure up to the other speakers was overwhelming. Moreover, I had never even seen an audience that large, let alone spoken in front of one.

An event volunteer saw how nervous I was and offered to teach me some stretching techniques to calm myself down. Then the director told me there were five minutes to go. I
gulped. After checking my microphone, the guy in charge of equipment patted me on the back and said, “You’ll be fine. You are the rejection guy.”

His comment cut through my nervousness and grabbed my attention.
Hmm…that’s right! I am the freaking rejection guy! While other people run away from rejection, I looked for it 100 times!
If I’d managed to give my speech to an empty audience on a busy Austin street, then why should I be scared by a supportive audience that had paid to be here?

“One minute!” the director shouted.

My breathing started to slow down. I even managed a small smile—the kind you might get right before checkmating your opponent, which in this case was my own fear. I realized I had a weapon that no one else had—a wealth of experience in overcoming rejection.

Then it was time. “Go, go, go!” the director shouted, like a squad leader pushing his soldiers to advance toward a hail of bullets.

I walked onto the stage and into the spotlight. Three thousand people waited for me to begin. I took a full five seconds, surveying the beautiful theater from left to right. But I didn’t see people. Instead I visualized that busy street in Austin, before anyone had stopped to hear my speech. In that moment, I knew I would be fine.

“It was a warm, November afternoon…” I began.

Twenty-three and half minutes later, I walked off the stage to a standing ovation. I was over the moon. I started hugging and high-fiving the backstage volunteers. But the standing ovation didn’t stop, so Chris Guillebeau called me back to the stage to say a few final words. Standing there, I
felt overwhelmed by joy and gratitude. I thanked the audience for their support and encouragement, and Chris for his invitation. But in my mind, I also thanked all those people who had passed me by on the street in Austin. That experience had made me strong and fearless.

Turning rejection into a positive requires courage. It requires looking rejection in the face and seeing it for what it really is—an experience that can either hurt you or help you, depending on how you look at it. The difference is attitude. By default, rejection is painful. If you treat it as a setback, a soul crusher, or a reason to quit, then that’s what it will be. But if you can find the courage to step back and look at it differently, what you’ll find is remarkable. Because what you’ll find is that there is no bad rejection anymore. If you look carefully, you will find your willow, and a lovely new village.

Rejection really is like chicken. It is yummy or yucky, depending on how you cook it.

1. Motivation: Rejection can be used as one of the strongest motivations to fuel someone’s fire for achievement.

2. Self-Improvement: By taking the motion out of rejection, one can use it as an effective way to improve an idea or product.

3. Worthiness: Sometimes it is good to be rejected, especially if public opinion is heavily influenced by
group and conventional thinking, and if the idea is radically creative.

4. Character Building: By seeking rejection in tough environments, one can build up the mental toughness to take on greater goals.