Anyone who takes a non-traditional career path will face rejection.
This means that if you’d like to want to lead an adventurous life, you’ll need to prepare yourself to be rejected—over and over again.
In his twenties, Jia Jiang recognized that his fear of rejection was holding him back. So he took an idea from an old board game, Rejection Therapy, and challenged himself to 100 days of rejection.
Read Jia’s full list of attempts (and watch the video) to get a sense of the crazy stuff that he tried, including:
- Borrow $100 from a Stranger
- Request a “Burger Refill”
- Speak Over Costco’s Intercom
- Borrow a Dog From the Humane Society
- Make an Announcement on a Southwest Flight
- Ask a Girl Out to Dinner
- Dry-Clean My Tire
- Sit in a Police Car’s Driver Seat
- Pump Gas for Strangers
- Buy One-Quarter of a Shrimp
- Plant a Flower In Someone’s Yard
- Sell Cookies for the Girl Scouts
- Test Drive an Expensive Car
- Give a Speech on the Street
- Ask Strangers to Rate My Look
- Interview President Obama
Some of these challenges were purposefully silly, of course, as Jia was doing this as a publicity stunt. But the spirit of his mission is in the right place. Facing rejection makes you stronger, especially when the rejections aren’t serious, life-or-death type situations. By accustoming ourselves to asking for something, hearing “no”, and accepting it, we prepare ourselves to gracefully accept “no” later in life. And sometimes we surprise ourselves, as Jia did, when we end up getting more “yes” than “no” responses. With experiences like these under our belt, the world becomes a less intimidating place, and we feel more empowered to create our adventurous lives.
Your challenge is to get rejected 10 times, just like Jia did. Come up with 10+ small requests that you can make. Follow the rules of the original Rejection Therapy game for best effect:
- A rejection counts if you are out of your comfort zone.
- A rejection counts if your request is denied.
- At the time of rejection, the player, not the respondent, should be in a position of vulnerability. The player should be sensitive to the feelings of the person being asked.
(I recommend modifying #2—if you end up receiving a “yes” instead of a “no”, that’s great!)
Share the story of your rejection game on your portfolio. This can be a written account, or you can make videos like Jia did. Explain how you chose your requests, and share any funny stories that happened along the way.
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