Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection (10 page)

A
t about the halfway point of my 100 days, my fear of rejection was transforming into something more like curiosity. This shift in perspective opened the door for me to start experimenting with rejection even more. I wanted to poke and study rejection from different sides. And the first thing I wanted to explore was finding out what could happen
after
I received a no.

In the past, I’d always figured that the best way to minimize the pain of rejection was to get it over with as soon as possible—sort of like ripping a bandage off in one motion versus peeling it off slowly and prolonging the agony. In most cases, I would run away—sometimes literally—after hearing a no, ending the conversation as quickly as possible.

Now, I wanted to see what would happen if instead of fleeing the scene of a rejection, I would stick around to find out what would happen next. Little did I know how much I would learn by simply not running away.

100 DAYS OF REJECTION: PLANTING A FLOWER IN SOMEONE’S YARD

After I’d posted the video of playing soccer in Scott the football fan’s backyard, people started asking me to knock on more strangers’ doors for various things—everything from borrowing a cup of sugar to asking to spend the night in their house. Amid all the creative suggestions, one in particular caught my eye: asking permission to plant a flower in someone’s yard. I loved the idea because (1) it was strange enough to almost guarantee a no and (2) if I did happen to get a yes, I’d be contributing to the beauty of someone’s landscaping.

After buying a peach-colored, ready-to-plant Double Delight rosebush, I started driving around Austin looking for a good house to approach. The last time I found myself driving around looking for a door to knock on, I was extremely nervous. But I’d become a rejection veteran by this time. I picked a house, walked up to the door, and just knocked. The life-and-death feeling I had back when I’d approached Scott’s house was almost nonexistent now.

This time, a white-haired man answered the door. He immediately eyed the rosebush in my hands—it was hard to
miss. He probably assumed I was a salesman, because he didn’t look eager for conversation. Then I explained that I wanted to plant the rosebush in his yard, free of charge. He raised an eyebrow and gave a slight smile.

“OK, that’s more interesting than I thought,” he admitted, almost sheepishly. “Thank you, but no.”

This was the moment—my chance to see what happens after a no. As he was about to close the door, I said, “No problem. But may I ask why?”

“Well, I don’t like flowers in my yard,” he explained. “My dog would dig them up and destroy them. I appreciate you doing this, but you’ve got the wrong guy.”

He looked at the rosebush again. “I like you giving out these flowers,” he said. “If you go across the street and ask Lauren, she might want it. She loves flowers.”

This was an unexpected turn of events. I said “thank you” and went across the street. Armed with this new information, and feeling a surge of both confidence and excitement, I ventured toward Lauren’s house. I caught her and her husband just as they were about to leave. After hearing my offer and conferring with her husband, she agreed to let me plant the Double Delight in their yard.

“I love peach roses,” Lauren gushed, genuinely thrilled at the new addition to her yard.

The rosebush that I planted, with its straight stem and two angled branches, resembled the letter Y. It was almost a literal reminder of the power of asking “why” after getting rejected. By engaging in conversation with the man, I learned two very valuable things:

1. The man rejected me not because he didn’t trust me or thought I was weird. He appreciated my offer, but it didn’t fit his situation.

2. He gave me a lead to another person who he knew might be much more open to my gift.

In my first-ever rejection attempt, I had asked my office building’s security guard if I could borrow $100. After saying “No,” he’d asked me a question: “Why?” Feeling scared and embarrassed, I bolted without explaining myself. But ever since then I hadn’t been able to get his response out of my head.

When Scott, the avid Cowboys fan, let me play soccer in his backyard, I’d asked him why he agreed to my request. He said it was so “off the wall” that he couldn’t turn me down. Learning the reason he’d felt compelled to say yes gave me insight into Scott and his decision. But it happened only because of the word
why
.

Asking the white-haired man why he didn’t want a rosebush in his yard had produced a different kind of result: an explanation
and
a referral. He might have turned me down, but he had given me a lead that converted into a yes.

Asking why tended to clear up any misunderstanding on my part about the other person’s motivations. In the past, when I was rejected, I had automatically assumed that I’d done something wrong. But by spending a little more time with the man who initially turned me down, I’d discovered that what I was offering simply didn’t fit his situation. There was nothing personal about it; he didn’t want a rosebush, not just from me but from anybody. And I didn’t think he
was giving me a fake reason just to get me off his porch; otherwise, he wouldn’t have recommended that I talk to his flower-loving neighbor.

There is a reason behind every decision that people make, whether it’s logical and well thought out or emotional and spur of the moment. Knowing the reason behind a rejection can help dissipate, or even dissolve, any of the pain one might feel otherwise. Many of the people who rejected me did so not because of the merit of my request, or because of anything about me, but for a completely different reason—sometimes one that was easily addressable. Once I understood that, I realized I was able to cope with the rejection much more easily. I even learned to use rejections as learning experiences to make my requests even better the next time.

There’s only an upside to asking “why.” After all, you have been rejected already. And the insight you might glean from the response you get could prove valuable. Indeed, asking “why” can even be a tool for turning a rejection into an acceptance.

100 DAYS OF REJECTION: MCDONALD’S CHALLENGE (GETTING AFTERNOON MCGRIDDLES)

As the 100 Days project went on, I started getting more suggestions from people daring me to try all kinds of things. One day, a follower dared me to march into a local McDonald’s in the middle of the afternoon and ask them to make me a McGriddles sandwich, a breakfast item that they only offer in the morning. He felt confident that I would be “100%
rejected” because it is “impossible” for McDonald’s to make breakfast items after 12
P.M
.

It was 2
P.M
. when I asked the McDonald’s clerk for a McGriddles sandwich. As expected, I got a very quick no. After I asked her why, she explained that they’d already cleaned the machine that makes the eggs and the sausage. So I switched tactics.

“Do you have something
like
a McGriddles?” I asked. That piqued the clerk’s interest. She said she could make me a “plain McGriddles”—which turned out to be a honey roasted griddle cake with cheese on it. I went for it. Taking my sandwich to a table, I turned my iPhone around to record myself and claim victory over the fan’s “impossible” challenge. The sandwich wasn’t as good without the eggs and the sausage. But I ate the whole thing anyway, and it was really not bad.

The McDonald’s challenge started out as something a bit silly, but it ended up coughing up another important lesson. I had tried a negotiation tactic that would turn out to be another important weapon in my arsenal. Instead of setting my goals on only the specific thing that I’d gone in asking for, I reassessed my original request and asked for something less—in this case, something “like a McGriddles.” The clerk recognized my concession and met me halfway by offering a solution.

In military warfare, there is a crucial distinction between a retreat and a rout. Retreats are usually temporary. Troops retreat in order to regroup, consolidate their forces, or shift to a better tactical position. A rout, on the other hand, is a total
collapse of troops’ fighting ability and morale. In a rout, the losing troops often drop their weapons and run for their lives. The defenseless fleeing soldiers have their backs turned to the enemy, making them vulnerable targets. Many times it is during routs that the most casualties have occurred.

For people who are afraid of or anxious about rejection, asking for things can feel like a mini-battlefield. When you are already so uncomfortable making the request, it can be hard to judge whether you should keep going or get the hell out of there after a no. I had found (1) that if I kept insisting on getting what I wanted regardless of what the other person said, the other person would get annoyed and shut me down cold, and (2) that if I turned and fled, I would create a rout of my own making. In both situations, I would leave without getting what I wanted or needed, and I would leave myself vulnerable not just to the judgment of others but to the assumptions and to the demoralizing stories that I would tell myself about the encounter. The biggest casualty in those “battles” was not the rejection but my resulting loss of confidence.

The McGriddles moment taught me that there was a powerful third way—retreating, reassessing, and trying a new approach. If I could adjust my request and approach the “ask” from a different angle, something interesting and unexpected might happen—and it often did. For one rejection attempt, I tried to get a free room at a luxury hotel and was turned down flat. But after retreating to a lesser request, I wound up getting a tour of one of the hotel’s rooms and was allowed to take a nap on one of the hotel’s famously comfortable beds. During another rejection attempt, I walked
into a local fire station and asked if I could slide down their fire pole. As it happened, the building had only one story, and there was no fire pole. So I again retreated to a lesser request—and soon found myself on a tour of the fire station, with the firefighter on duty as my personal tour guide. He even offered to let me ride on their fire truck.

In his classic book on psychology and communication,
Influence
, Robert Cialdini explains the effectiveness of making a concession and retreating to a lesser request after an initial rejection. He argues that because most people don’t want to feel like jerks, they are much less likely to say no the second time to the requester after the requester makes a concession. That’s why successful negotiations that result in win-win situations are usually the results of give-and-take rather than both parties digging in and refusing to compromise.

Asking why can open up a whole new channel of understanding and possibility between a requester and a requestee. But so can retreating to ask, “If you can’t do this, can you do something else?” In asking these questions again and again, it became obvious to me that there is often a lot more room to maneuver around a no than I’d ever realized. Every no is actually surrounded by a whole bunch of interesting but invisible yeses that it was up to me to uncover.

If you get turned down for a job, one option is to flee—but another option is to ask for recommendations for other positions based on your qualifications. If someone shoots down your sales pitch, you could ask for a referral to another department or client. By having a position to retreat to—and keeping an open mind—you can often avoid being routed by rejection.

100 DAYS OF REJECTION: INVENT MY OWN ICE CREAM FLAVOR

When I was a kid in China, I had a lot of big dreams. One of them was to dig a hole through the earth from China to America. At age six, I actually started digging that hole on the side of the street I grew up on. But after two days—and about three feet of soil—someone told my mom. That was the end of my adventure, and my trip to America was delayed by another decade.

Another childhood dream of mine was to invent my own flavor of ice cream—but I’d never tried to turn this dream into a reality. Now that I was deep into my rejection journey and far savvier about how to maneuver through a no to land somewhere interesting, it felt like the right time to try.

After giving my flavor ideas some thought, I headed to Amy’s Ice Cream, a local landmark shop famous for its great ice cream—as well as for the flashy dancelike moves that its clerks do while preparing ice cream and toppings for customers. Thankfully, this time my mom wasn’t there to stop me.

After walking into the shop, I asked the store clerk to make me ice cream with a flavor I dubbed “Thai Torture.” I described the flavor as a combination of dried pepper, jalapeño, and ghost chili—the spiciest ingredients I could imagine. I once ordered food at a Thai restaurant with a spicy rating of 51 out of 50. But the next two days were nothing but internal torture. Thai Torture was a flavor I was sure nobody would ever want—and one that no ice cream clerk would ever make for me.

Not surprisingly, the clerk said no and directed my attention toward the store’s ice cream flavor menu. But instead of walking away—or settling for vanilla—I started asking more questions. When I asked if they had any spicy flavors, the clerk told me that they actually sold a few during the summer (this was wintertime), including a couple of jalapeño flavors and another called “chocolate wasabi.” He went into the freezer to search for them but couldn’t find any. But he said that if I brought in my own flavoring, he would gladly customize the ice cream for me.

In the end, the clerk gave me some samples of Amy’s wacky bacon-and-mint-flavored ice cream, and I loved it. It surely tasted better than Thai Torture would have.

Looking back, the clerk had literally come out from behind the counter and over to my side so that we could share a common view of the situation. It wasn’t a you-vs.-me zero-sum game, but an us-vs.-them problem-solving game. Solving the problem was a win for both of us. Plus, he had given me an opening to create my own flavor if I met him halfway by bringing in my own ingredients.

When I feared rejection, it felt natural to view the people who hold the power to grant me a yes or a no as adversaries. But after I shifted that thinking and started viewing them as
collaborators
, I suddenly found myself in whole new territory. I didn’t approach the Amy’s Ice Cream clerk with any negative feelings, and that even-keeled mental approach enabled me to maintain positivity and respect. By asking him questions
about the problem at hand, I turned him into a collaborator, which prompted him to put on his customer service hat and help me toward my goals. And—as I’d already experienced again and again—the end results were better than what I asked for.

On the flip side, the opposite of collaboration—argument—is a magnet for rejection. And nothing drove this point home for me more than the experience I had with a documentary film crew that drove from Los Angeles to Austin to make a short piece about my rejection journey. They were particularly intrigued by how I managed to get so many yeses with such crazy requests. At the time, I was trying to understand this myself, so I agreed to take them with me on a rejection excursion.

Austin, whose official nickname is “Live Music Capital of the World,” is filled with independent music studios. The employees of these studios are usually part-time musicians themselves. The idea was to show up at one of these studios and ask one of its employees to perform his or her favorite music piece for us.

Curious to see what would happen if someone else made the request, we had Ethan, one of the documentary team’s crew members, try it out. He approached the employee manning the front desk and asked him if he could show us the studio and perform some music. The guy behind the desk said no. He told us he was working and looked a little annoyed.

Ethan started arguing, telling the employee that it was his job to accommodate potential customers’ requests. The
employee in turn argued that the studio had a policy against employees or customers using its instruments without permission or pay. The two of them went back and forth, their voices rising. Our “rejection request” was quickly degenerating into a verbal fight about rules and responsibilities.

I knew from experience that this would not end well, so I stepped in. “We know it’s an unusual request and would be perfectly fine if you say no,” I said. “But we would really appreciate it if you say yes. We simply want to hear you play some drums for us in this studio.”

The employee looked at me, then looked toward the ceiling, and then started nodding his head. “OK,” he said. And just like that, he led us into the studio’s best drum room and started playing his favorite beat.

The documentary crew’s jaws dropped. Not only were they able to film a rejection attempt and drum performance, but they saw a rejection turned into acceptance in front of their eyes. After we thanked the employee and left the studio, the crew asked me what type of voodoo spell I’d put on that guy to have him say yes to me just a few seconds after he had said no to Ethan.

Given all that I’d learned, it actually made sense. Arguing with a person who turns you down is probably the least effective way to change the individual’s response. In fact, it’s almost a sure way to get a rejection, because arguing always turns potential collaborators into enemies. I’d approached the music studio employee as a collaborator, and that switch in approach had changed his mind. By making it clear that he had the freedom to say no, I got to the yes we were looking for.