Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection
Jia Jiang, 2015
An entrepreneur who has feared rejection since childhood deliberately makes impossible requests for a hundred days: borrow a hundred dollars from a security guard, have doughnuts made in the shape of the Olympic rings, plant a flower in someone else’s yard. Half his requests unexpectedly receive a yes. You will learn why rejection frightens us so much, what it really says about you, and how to turn a no into a yes sometimes.
Who it is for
For anyone who does not ask for a raise, ask someone out, or propose an idea because they are afraid of hearing no. And for anyone who gives up after the first rejection.
When we do not even dare to ask, we reject ourselves by default and probably miss an opportunity.
The three nobody said a word about
Beijing, first grade. The teacher buys presents for all forty pupils and puts them in a corner. The rule is simple: once your classmates say something nice about you, you collect your present and sit down. At first everyone is standing. Then twenty children, ten, five. Finally, three remain, including six-year-old Jia Jiang. The kind words have run out. The teacher asks whether anyone will say anything at all about these three, and the class is silent. The boy cries as she hands over the presents and advises them to behave better: then next year people will say something nice about them too.
Jiang never forgot that day. When he was fourteen, Bill Gates visited Beijing, and the teenager decided he would build the biggest company in the world and it would buy Microsoft. Soon afterward, he left to study in America. But at thirty he had a good position at a large corporation and no company of his own.
His wife Tracy suggested leaving his job and giving his dream six months. Four days before their son was born, he quit, assembled a team, and built an app. Then the investor on whom all his hopes rested sent a short email: we are out. Jiang was ready to abandon everything after a single rejection. He realized that the six-year-old boy was still there.
Then he found a game online called Rejection Therapy: deliberately ask for something every day that people will probably refuse. Jiang decided to play for a hundred days and record every attempt on video. This book is about what he learned: how to stop fearing no, how to turn it into a yes sometimes, and what rejection can offer a person. We begin on the first day, when everything went quite differently from the plan.
Running away before you hear no
Day one. Jiang goes down to the ground floor of his office building. A large man who looks like a security guard is sitting at a desk. The request is this: lend me a hundred dollars. The man looks up and says, “No. Why?” Jiang manages “No? Sorry,” turns around, and almost runs away. Later, watching the video, he notices that the man had asked why. He could have explained, talked, or made a joke. But fear acted faster than thought.
Day two. Jiang eats lunch at Five Guys, then goes to the counter and asks for a free “burger refill,” like a soda refill. At first the cashier does not understand, then politely explains that they cannot do that today, but he will tell his manager about the idea. The rejection was gentle, and nothing terrible happened.
Those two days showed Jiang his life in miniature. At the slightest hint of rejection, he ran as fast as he could. He was running from what he thought no would say about him, rather than from the word itself.
The fear of rejection resembles a dog behind a sturdy fence. It barks so loudly that your knees give way, although it cannot bite you. Jiang asked himself what the guard’s refusal had actually threatened him with. The answer was simple: nothing. Nobody hit or mocked him. Only his own expectations hurt.
That was why he decided to seek rejection deliberately, every day. The more often you hear no, the less weight it carries. It is like getting used to cold water: the first step stings, but a minute later you can swim.
Start with small requests where rejection costs nothing: ask for a discount or a small favor from a stranger. And follow the rule Jiang took from day one: instead of leaving immediately after no, stay for one more exchange.
About the author
Jia Jiang, an entrepreneur and speaker, was born in Beijing and moved to the United States as a teenager. Millions of people have watched his 100 Days of Rejection video blog and his TED talk.
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