介绍:
What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejections
Speaker: Jia Jiang
When I was six years old, I received my gifts. My first grade teacher had this brilliant idea. She wanted us to experience receiving gifts but also learning the virtue of complimenting each other. So she had all of us come to the front of the classroom, and she bought all of us gifts and stacked them in the corner. And she said, "Why don&`&t we just stand here and compliment each other? If you hear your name called, go and pick up your gift and sit down." What a wonderful idea, right? What could go wrong?
Well, there were 40 of us to start with, and every time I heard someone&`&s name called, I would give out the heartiest cheer. And then there were 20 people left, and 10 people left, and five left ... and three left. And I was one of them. And the compliments stopped. Well, at that moment, I was crying. And the teacher was freaking out. She was like, "Hey, would anyone say anything nice about these people?"
"No one? OK, why don&`&t you go get your gift and sit down. So behave next year — someone might say something nice about you."
……
Borrow 100 dollars from a stranger. So this is where I went to where I was working. I came downstairs and I saw this big guy sitting behind a desk. He looked like a security guard. So I just approached him. And I was just walking and that was the longest walk of my life — hair on the back of my neck standing up, I was sweating and my heart was pounding. And I got there and said, "Hey, sir, can I borrow 100 dollars from you?"
And he looked up, he&`&s like, "No." "Why?"
And I just said, "No? I&`&m sorry." Then I turned around, and I just ran.
……
Day Two: Request a "burger refill."
It&`&s when I went to a burger joint, I finished lunch, and I went to the cashier and said, "Hi, can I get a burger refill?"
He was all confused, like, "What&`&s a burger refill?"
I said, "Well, it&`&s just like a drink refill but with a burger." And he said, "Sorry, we don&`&t do burger refill, man."
So this is where rejection happened and I could have run, but I stayed. I said, "Well, I love your burgers, I love your joint, and if you guys do a burger refill, I will love you guys more."
And he said, "Well, OK, I&`&ll tell my manager about it, and maybe we&`&ll do it, but sorry, we can&`&t do this today." Then I left. And by the way, I don&`&t think they&`&ve ever done burger refill.
……
And then Day Three: Getting Olympic Doughnuts. This is where my life was turned upside down. I went to a Krispy Kreme. It&`&s a doughnut shop in mainly the Southeastern part of the United States. I&`&m sure they have some here, too. And I went in, I said, "Can you make me doughnuts that look like Olympic symbols? Basically, you interlink five doughnuts together ... " I mean there&`&s no way they could say yes, right? The doughnut maker took me so seriously.
So she put out paper, started jotting down the colors and the rings, and is like, "How can I make this?" And then 15 minutes later, she came out with a box that looked like Olympic rings. And I was so touched. I just couldn&`&t believe it. And that video got over five million views on Youtube. The world couldn&`&t believe that either.
You know, because of that I was in newspapers, in talk shows, in everything. And I became famous. A lot of people started writing emails to me and saying, "What you&`&re doing is awesome.”
……
In my case, rejection was my curse, was my boogeyman. It has bothered me my whole life because I was running away from it. Then I started embracing it. I turned that into the biggest gift in my life. I started teaching people how to turn rejections into opportunities. I use my blog, I use my talk, I use the book I just published, and I&`&m even building technology to help people overcome their fear of rejection.
When you get rejected in life, when you are facing the next obstacle or next failure, consider the possibilities. Don&`&t run. If you just embrace them, they might become your gifts as well.
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