Don't let rejection get in the way of your goals

CNBC’s Success Tip of the Week: Perseverance. Don’t let rejection or anything get in the way of achieving your goals.

Peter Beck dreamed of sending a rocket into space. In 2006, at age 28, he took a “rocket pilgrimage” to the U.S., his only experience being a manufacturing apprenticeship. Now, he’s completed more than 35 space launches and has a company worth $1.8 billion.

Success was riddled with challenges, Beck says. Getting brought into an established organization like Boeing or NASA was impossible, because, though he had experience building a steam-powered rocket bicycle that traveled nearly 90 mph, he didn’t have a degree.

He even got escorted off the premises. “On the face of it, here’s a foreign national turning up to an Air Force base asking a whole bunch of questions about rockets — that doesn’t look good,” Beck, now 45, tells CNBC Make It.

On the flight back to New Zealand, he plotted his future startup and drew a logo on a napkin. Convincing investors to back someone in an industry where he couldn’t land an internship wouldn’t be easy, but Beck was determined to turn his dreams into reality.

He launched the company, Rocket Lab, in June 2006. Three years later, it became the Southern Hemisphere’s first private company to reach space.

Beck has his precision to thank. “Running a rocket company is kind of like that scene in ‘Indiana Jones,’ where he’s getting chased by that giant ball,” he says. “You have to flawlessly execute, because the moment that you don’t, the consequences can be terminal for the company pretty quickly.”

For more on how Beck turned his disappointment into opportunity, the biggest challenges he faced, and whether he ever regrets his decision to create Rocket Lab, check out the full story here.

The Success Tip of the Week is adapted from the weekly CNBC Make It Work newsletter, written by?Ashton Jackson .?Sign up ?for CNBC Make It newsletters, baked fresh and delivered straight to your inbox.

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