How to LEAN into REJECTION!

Jun 27, 2022

Sooooo many of you are AFRAID to fail, that you refuse to even try.

But guess what? If you don’t try, you’ve ALREADY FAILED.

Failure is JUST an EXPERIMENT. Nothing more, nothing LESS.

The same goes for rejection.

No one likes to be told NO. No one likes to feel unwanted. No one likes to feel not good enough.

But the thing we all forget is being told NO is never personal.

Now real talk: I KNOW it’s hard. Believe me.

BUT if you can get out of your own head, put your ego aside, REJECTION can be a GIFT.

Y’all meet Jia Jiang.

He’s an author and entrepreneur, and like a lot of us, rejection scared the sh*t outta him.

So he decided to confront it.

He went out and asked people for the WILDEST, WEIRDEST, UNCONVENTIONAL things that he KNEW would result in a No:

Like asking for a “burger refill” or asking to plant flowers in a neighbor’s garden(!?)

100 days of STRAIGHT UP rejection to get used to being told NO.

AND more importantly, to get used to being out of his COMFORT ZONE, without being afraid.

BUT here’s the best part, y’all.

Among ALL those rejections, he got some pretty cool yes’s. Yes’s that he NEVER thought would ever happen.

Krispy Kreme made him an Olympic logo donut, and Starbucks let him invent a new position that legit had him just saying Hi to people who entered the store.

So let’s talk about 3 things we can ALL learn from Jiang:

Rejection is Information

The next time someone says NO, ask them WHY. Or better yet, ask yourself WHAT you could improve on or what you can do differently to get that YES!

That way even if you don’t get what you’re looking for, you’re walking away with INFORMATION and a LESSON.

You get to LEARN what people are actually thinking and what’s holding them back. So NEXT TIME, you can do better.

It’s not about you

Next time you’re rejected, instead of lashing out or getting upset, think from a place of EMPATHY and show yourself GRACE for actually TRYING.

WHY did they say no? Do they need extra information? Have they had bad experiences?

What can you do or say to build TRUST?

And remember, it’s NOT personal and it doesn’t mean someone else won’t give you that YES. It just means not right now.

Closed mouths don’t get FED

If you’re SO caught up in the idea that you’re going to get rejected or you’re going to FAIL that you DON’T EVEN TRY, then hard truth sis, you’ve already failed.

If you want anything out of life, whether that’s a job promotion, more money, to go out on a date, you’ve gotta ASK. You have to speak up, and you have to advocate for yourself. I’ve always told my girls from a young age, “closed mouths don’t get,” meaning- if you never ask, how will anyone ever know what you want.

If your business is important to you, you’ve gotta be okay putting yourself out there. EVEN if it means being told NO over and over again.

During my 12+ years of running my brick & mortar I was told NO more times than I can remember. Even when I started my business, EVERYONE told me NO. So much to the point, that I felt like God was telling me NO.

I was told NO to loans and GRANTS.

I was told NO to SUPPORT from my own friends & family.

I was told by INVESTORS, even though I had a proven concept and a business that was GROWING.

So lemme just tell you, you have to be okay with rejection. If you have to be okay with failure. You have to okay with someone telling you NO. And when everything seems like it’s against you, you have to be able to PULL yourself back up and show up even BETTER than before.

And by the way… a bruised ego never killed anybody. #justsaying

Check out Jia Jiang’s whole TED Talk on rejection here →

Or grab a copy of his BOOK: Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection here->>>