“When you are not afraid of rejection and it feels like you have nothing to lose, amazing things can happen.” -Jia Jiang

If you’re anything like me, you have found yourself paralyzed with fear at the thought of rejection. It’s a horrible feeling. It makes you feel like you’re not good enough.

I was so scared of rejection that I basically stopped living. I never took chances. I stayed in the pocket, not daring to touch the sun. Hell, I barely grazed a crepuscular ray. It’s no wonder why my life felt stalled.

I remember so many moments vividly in my life, and I think they remain so vivid because they were in fact life changing moments. But I really do remember when I learned the secret to dealing with rejection.

I will give myself the credit that I know when something is wrong in my life that I want to fix, and that I know where to start usually. A quick YouTube or Google search is all you need to begin most of the time.

I was about 23 years old, and I was single and lonely. I was living with my cousin and his girlfriend (now wife and mother of his three children) in Calgary. I wanted what they had. My problem was that I had no confidence in myself to find a girlfriend. The previous four years I had lost a lot of weight but I was still the scared fat kid deep inside. I was also looking for a job as I was getting close to completing my journalism degree.

I decided I wanted to figure out why rejection hurt me so much. Sure, this was a difficult time in my life. My mother passed away only 4 years earlier and my sister had just passed unexpectedly. I definitely wasn’t in a good head space to try anything, but I knew I wanted to not be alone anymore.

So, I went to YouTube and typed “how to get over rejection” and scrolled until I found a TedTalk from Jia Jiang, our quote master for this article.

I remember at first it wasn’t what I was looking for. However, Jiang’s comedic approach intrigued me and I decided to stick around and watch the whole video. Not like I had anywhere to be or anyone to be with.

Watch the video, watch all of his videos and you will feel empowered. But I will explain the point that hit home for me. After being rejected from his dream job, he decided to get comfortable with rejection by seeking it out. He went to a fast food joint and asked for a burger refill. Rejected. On and on he continued similar tactics to get rejected until it didn’t hurt him. Eventually, he also started getting accepted with the strange requests he was seeking.

Now I didn’t go outside the next day and seek out rejection, I just noted that the only way I would get yeses is to not be scared of nos. I might ask 100 girls out and 99 of them will say no, but one might say yes. The only way to get a yes, is to be okay with getting a bunch of nos.

This works for anything you are seeking in life. If you want something, you will probably have to deal with rejection. Some rejection is face to face, some is passing by. Every resume you’ve sent out that didn’t receive a call back was rejection. Every person scrolling on their phone while you were giving a speech was rejection. We actually deal with it a lot in life.

In the end, the only way to get where you want to go, is to go through some rejection.

There is no reason for me to be concerned with rejection anymore, because I know what I am worth. I know what I am worth and others don’t.

When I was in college, one of the jobs I applied for was to work for a blog site called OilersNation. At the time, they were just kind of starting up. Today they are the most popular Edmonton Oilers blog site, with over 20 full-time employees. It was my dream job. They rejected me. It hurt, it really did, but that was their loss. I would’ve been perfect for the job, but they didn’t see it that way. They’re doing fine and so am I.

Today, I am so content with everything in my life, and I credit a lot of it to Jia Jiang’s message and my ability to handle rejection with ease.

I feel rejected by some old friends and family members because they don’t seem to want to spend as much time with me as they used to. I let them. (Thanks Mel Robbins for that lesson as well).

I feel rejected by a lot of live music venue managers for not hiring me as much as other acts in town. That’s not my fault. I put on a great show everywhere I play and I deserve to be on stage more, but if they don’t want me on their stage, their loss.

With this journey into becoming an author, I will eventually have to pitch this book to publishers. I don’t expect it’s all gonna be home runs, (using words like gonna will possibly hinder my ability, but so be it) so I will have to deal with the rejection there. The one that says yes will reap the benefits.

It’s so much easier to handle the rejection because of all the acceptance I have received to combat it. My fiancee accepts me. My kids accept me. My co-workers accept me. I’ve had people reach out to me loving my articles. I’ve had people reach out to me because one of my articles touched them and they want to pick my brain further. I had one of my mentors reach out to me to offer advice for growing my idea into a business. All these things are only possible because I am comfortable with rejection.

If you have the same fear of rejection, I hope this encourages you to get over your fear. Jia Jiang’s rejection therapy is an amazing tool to get you started.

Say it with me now; fuck rejection!!!