How to Embrace Rejection And Cultivate Persistence

"Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent." - Steve Martin

I was asked during a sales workshop once, "When do you give up on a prospect?"

My answer: "If the prospect is good enough, never."

Often times we give up on a prospective client or a prospective job opportunity because we don't get a response from our contact. We take this silence as a "no." But, sometimes, silence can just mean "not now."

Just this week, I was reminded of the power of persistence. For two years I had been trying to land a meeting with a quality prospect. Every month or so I'd send him a thoughtful email or LinkedIn message in hopes that one of these times) he'd take my meeting. I have to admit, there were some moments when I nearly gave up on him. But I stuck with it, despite two years of radio silence.

Then, on Thursday, he finally replied to my email. And you know what he said first? "I appreciate your persistence." He had been reading my emails all along, but the time had never been right for him to act on my ideas, until now. Our meeting is set for next week and I'm left to wonder what would've happened if I gave up on him months ago.

Persistence does not only pay off in sales, however. It can also be your most valuable asset if you're trying to get a new job, get a book published, or start a business. There are countless examples of how someone's persistence resulted in their major breakthrough:

• Unknown first-time author Tim Ferriss was rejected by 25 publishers before one finally accepted his now best-selling book, "The 4-Hour Work Week."
• Henry Ford's early businesses failed and left him broke 5 times before he founded the massively successful Ford Motor Company.
• Lucile Ball was regarded as a failed actress before she went on to win 4 Emmys.

In order to get to the next level, we have to be able to accept, or better yet embrace, rejection. If a prospect doesn't reply back to you, can you think of a new angle to try? If you don't get accepted for one job, what other jobs are out there? If your business idea gets shot down by one friend, who else can you share it with?

Rather than seeing each rejection as a setback, we can choose to see it as part of the process and a step towards our end goal. In fact, if our goal is big enough, we will inevitably face a large number of "No's", "Not now's" and "You're crazy's" along the way. But that's OK. It's even a good thing. You can use those moments to collect feedback and improve to be better the next shot you get.

To reinforce that rejection is part of the process, one thing that my business partner (and wife), Pema, and I start started doing is "celebrating our setbacks." For example, when a big business deal fell through in the fall we went for a nice dinner and chatted about all the great things we learned from the process. We knew that everything we learned in this temporary setback would help us with our next opportunity.

The same shift in mindset is available to you too. You must first embrace rejection as being part of the process. Then, start to embed a "persistence pays off" mindset into all of the big goals you have.

Just because you flip over one rock and there's only dirt, doesn't mean that the next rock you flip over won't have gold under it. There's gold to be had for all those who stick in the game long enough.

Keep flipping rocks.

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P.S. My wife, Pema Sherpa, and I have another blog called The Mindful Minute! Check it out.