Learn to LOVE Rejection (like Jia Jiang): 100 Days of Rejection

Jia Jiang is working on a project where he is trying to have 100 rejections.  He comes up with ridiculously crazy requests thinking people will say NO WAY, videos them, and then shares on his blog: Entresting.com

I learned about him when he didn’t get rejected by the Krispy Kreme employee who said YES.  Video way below.

As a job seeker I think we feel like we are living the 100+ days of rejection, right?  Jia is having a lot of fun doing this because there really isn’t anything to lose.

But as a job seeker, getting rejected means you might not be able to pay your bills, and a whole lot more (one of my favorite blog posts on this here).  It seems that EVERYTHING depends on NOT getting rejected, right?

There’s a great Yahoo/Bloomberg/Businessweek article titled Rejection Therapy: A Hundred Days of ‘No’ that talks about Jia’s project.  My buddy Marty Nemko, who interviewed me on his radio show, was quoted a few times.

Read that article… it’s juicy and great.  I know some of us are trained, like salespeople, to think:

Each NO means I’m closer to a YES!

In other words, embrace the NO because that means you are getting closer to a YES.

I think that’s good advice, but for the person who keeps getting no’s, that doesn’t help much.

At the end of the Yahoo article are four points, which I like:

1. Don’t look on the bright side

2. Accept that you’re not perfect

3. Watch out for paranoia

4. Try not to be a jerk

The article breaks each of those four down.

So, should we embrace the NOs?  Or is that too PolyAnna?

I think we should…. but HOW, when the stakes seem so high?