If you’re doing something creative, something important or something new, you’re certain to be rejected along the way.
It’s a signal. It might be proof that you offered it to the wrong person, or that the right person saw something about your work that didn’t serve their needs. Without learning from this signal, we’re doomed to experience it again and again.
What do we know for sure?
It was rejected.
What else?
Nothing. The reasons listed in the rejection letter are almost certainly made up. Perhaps they’re insulating themselves from being re-sold (“you said you didn’t like the color, but we have other colors!”) or perhaps they’re protecting your feelings. It could be that they aren’t telling themselves the truth, or don’t want to be hassled for telling you the truth.
Few people explain their rejection with, “I’m afraid,” or “I wanted to do it but my boss won’t let me,” or “you have bad breath and I don’t like you.”
Being rejected hurts, and we’re likely to marinate in the pain. We imagine that the person who rejected us understands everything about what we offered, is a rational actor and cares as much as we do. While we’re at it, we personalize, amplify and multiply the rejection.
But all we really know is that this person, on this day, in this situation, hearing the story the way we told it, said no.
Years ago, I self-published a booklet for political activists. My timing was good, and I had a chance to sell the books from an organizer’s booth at a march on the very topic my book was about. It was a beautiful April day, and I stood on the side of route as the march went by. More than 400,000 passed my table, and I sold four books.
That’s 399,996 rejections. Maybe more.
Was it the price? Halfway through the march, I lowered it from $10 to $1, just to have a good story to blog a few decades later.
Sales did not increase. Perhaps it was the color of the jacket, the page count or the typo on page 32? None of those things.
What did I learn? That people at a march are at the march to march, not to shop.
Watch what people do, not what they say. And if you really want to learn something, change the situation and see what happens the next time.
Learning from rejection begins with understanding the lesson that’s being offered.
