To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others

by Daniel H. Pink

2. Embrace. For the really big Nos, consider following the lead of Jay Goldberg, founder of the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse, an art gallery and memorabilia store in New York City. Early in his career, Goldberg was working for a prominent American political consultant, but what he really wanted was a job in Major League Baseball. So he sent letters to all twenty-six MLB teams asking for an interview, an internship, anything that would give him a chance. Twenty-five of the teams sent him rejection letters. (The New York Yankees never responded.) Goldberg kept those letters. And when he launched his own sports agency in the early 1990s, he framed each one and hung all twenty-five on his office wall. “It was my way of showing that I didn’t quit,” he says. “I got all these rejections, but kept going.” Even better, representatives of some of the teams that rejected him found themselves gazing at their earlier decision when they negotiated with Goldberg over one of his clients. “The letters gave me a little smile every time I looked at them.” These days, Goldberg has them in his office at his popular baseball retail space, reminding him daily that how you see rejection often depends on how you frame it.