5 Reasons Why You Should Befriend Rejection!

Welcome to the May series of SVO Street Smarts! I hope you all had a great close to the April chapter and are bossing up for the month of May (oh, and happy belated Cinco)!

Recently, I watched the 华特迪士尼公司 's Inside Out for the first time (crazy, I know) and I was reminded of a beautiful thread of the movie--the need to befriend sadness and learn from the challenging times in life. Though we all have our subjective trials and tribulations in life, none of us are strangers to the defeating feeling of rejection. In fact, we as people get rejected so often that sometimes it feels that all hope for advancement is lost--but what if (much like Joy's conception of Sadness in Inside Out) we are looking at this all wrong? What if...befriending rejection is the most successful course of action?

When I was younger, I would struggle to write and publish my words because I was so fearful of getting rejected. I would mull over draft after draft and complete works but never send them out because I was afraid of what might happen if people didn't like it. As an academic, its one of our initial nightmares because it signifies that our work 'isn't good enough' or 'isn't valuable,' but my mentor once sat me down and explained to me that rejection is simply a part of the process; if I constantly lived in fear of rejection, I would never know what it is like to get acceptance.

From that day forward, I have befriended rejection in a way that it now rolls off of me like water off of a duck. Allow me to share five ways that I have developed a duck-like coating that allows me to now swim in any pond I choose.

1. Rejection provides the best learning opportunities - Rejection can truly be the best teacher imaginable. Much like learning to ride a bike, asking for a raise, or asking someone out that may not interested in you, life is a series of trial and error and the learning lessons gained from things that don't work out are typically far more impactful than the times when things do go as planned. Rejection can teach us a lot about strategy, resilience, timing, and 'fit.' I have been rejected from plenty of journals, people, places, and outlets but the set back is always the best launchpad for the comeback if we learn from the rejection, make the changes, and try again with our new set of tools and tactics.
2. Rejection is more natural than success - Listen to me very carefully: the life that most people show on social media is ~1% of the realities they face. In fact, I know for certain that many of us face rejection far more often than we face success...though only few of us are brave enough to talk about it. Everyone wants to talk about wins and successes, but how many of us share the stories of the job we didn't get or the test we failed? That is because we live in a reward-based society where our worth is tied to the achievements we have, but we must revise our conceptualizations and realize that rejection is sometimes the best reward possible. It is easily the most natural part of life because every single one of us will fall short when chasing something that we really want (though most of us won't be brave enough to share that part). If we made it normal to share our losses just as much as our wins, the world might look much different for the authentic matriculation of humanity.
3. Your closest tribe will be revealed - Rejection can be a beautiful process if we learn to share our wins and losses equally, primarily because it will reveal who our true tribe is! I have always been a fan of the show Friends and I have learned so much from that group of people on TV (we miss you, Matthew Perry)! The most fascinating part about the glue that holds that group together is the fact that they share everything with each other; wins, losses, and everything in between. That said, I honestly feel that many of us would have a more loving, authentic tribe of people if we operated this way and stopped trying to perform the idea of being 'okay' all the time. Our people will always be there and love us in a way that shows they support us, but we must let them in and share the painful times of rejection in order for them to see the full picture. That way, they will know what we truly care about, what we are striving for, what we are struggling with, and exactly the ways that they can help us along the way.
4. One door slamming is another door opening - Personally, I love the process of rejection now because I thoroughly believe that the slamming of one door is the opening of another. Just because we get rejected from one effort does not mean it is the end of the world, it just means that the thing we tried was not for us at that time. That job wasn't for us. That person wasn't for us. That business wasn't for us. We must befriend that process because although it stings like hell to be rejected, it does mean that we are just that much closer to our perfect landing spot. If we spend our emotional capacity and energy feeling sorry for ourselves, being mad at the world, or trying to hide our pain...we lose the opportunity to learn from the situation and take the good from this effort to redirect it to the next move. If one door slams, that is okay. Figure out the next move, go to the next door, and start knocking. Who knows, you might just find exactly what you are looking for at door number two (or ten).
5. Rejection strengthens the empathy muscle - If we learn to befriend rejection and share more of this with the world, we can shift the status quo of human interaction to a more helpful space where people are more empathetic to those who get rejected. I have never understood why people laugh at others who get rejected from anything they truly care about, primarily because it leads to a social landscape (much like the one we are in now) where it becomes the 'uncool thing' to try and do new things. Instead, we can focus on the radical humanism of sharing our rejections with our people and being honest about the process in a way that will actually empower others to keep trying...instead of ridiculing folks for giving it a shot.

As a business owner, writer, and professor, I face rejection legitimately every day of my life. The cool part? I don't even think about it anymore because it has become a dear friend that I learn from. Earlier in life, I would sit in anguish...frozen in time and unwilling to try to accomplish my greatest goals because I feared rejection and the shame that could follow. I was reminded of this reality of risk when 'trying' as I explained the journal publication process to my guy Dhwanil Shah (we just submitted a co-authored Formula 1 piece that he finished for his SJSU Kinesiology Department thesis). As I explained, we were submitting with the hopes of 'conditional acceptance' (be kind, reviewer 2)--while understanding that a rejection is possible.

As we talked, I preemptively explained that a rejection is possible--but it wouldn't be the end of the world because that simply means this isn't the journal for our work. My personal record for fastest rejection of an academic article is two hours (usual review process is about 8-10 weeks, so boy did that one hurt), but I shared that with my advisor and helped me to see that my work simply belonged elsewhere. That article is now published and has been for a few years now, but I was only able to get there by embracing the rejection that happened before.

Befriend rejection, embrace the process, and continually learn from mistakes in a way that allows for continued efforts towards the goal. I promise, life will be far more fulfilling if we do not fear rejection, but instead invite it as a necessary challenge to get better at what we are doing.

Peace, love, and SVO!

-Dr. Savant ??

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