Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible

by Jia Jiang

I hadn’t even considered the possibility that people might say yes to one of my requests. But as a result of that experience, my focus now shifted from getting a rejection and just coping with the ensuing pain to having the courage to make big requests. I stopped caring so much whether I got a yes or a no.

What if, I mused on my way home from work one day, I started seeking rejection from people who had no reason to talk to me at all?

And that’s how I came up with rejection attempt number six: knocking on a stranger’s door and asking to play soccer in his backyard.

“In Texas, you’d get shot for that.” Well, Austin was the capital of the you-would-get-shot-for-that state. And, with request number six, I was asking to invade a random Texan’s personal space—which didn’t sound like a good idea even in the best of circumstances. And that’s why, when I stood at the Dallas Cowboys fan’s front door,

why he’d said yes. Scott rubbed his chin. “Well, it was so off the wall, how could I say no?” How could I say no?

Despite having absolutely no reason or incentive to say yes, he’d been compelled to oblige because of—not in spite of—the fact that my request was so outrageous.

Jason Comely’s original rejection game is about pain desensitization.

I was starting to see just how important my communication style was to the outcomes I was getting. When I was confident, friendly, and open, people seemed more inclined to go along with my request; even if they said no, they at least stayed engaged longer to ask questions.

Less than a week after I approached the security guard asking for $100, I started noticing changes in how I carried myself and how I moved through the world.

ever. I was smiling a little more and conducting meetings with more poise. I offered my opinions more freely, without constantly studying other people’s faces to see if they liked what I was saying. I asked for feedback without searching for praise and got a little better at not taking criticism personally.

the feedback became much more useful. I felt like I was becoming a leader who asked, listened, and inspired, instead of just a person who gave directions. My confidence soared.

As I became more aware of how my demeanor impacted the world around me, I was also becoming much more clear and deliberate in my conversations with my wife and with friends.

I asked Jeff Probst to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to my son.

I used to be very hesitant about contacting people through “cold calls” or “cold e-mails,” because the chance of being ignored or rejected seemed overwhelming.

Tony Hsieh had offered me a job, or more like a business proposal. If I moved to Las Vegas, he would form a new business and hire me to work for it as a professional speaker. I would travel the country giving inspirational talks at conferences and corporations. So Tony Hsieh wants to hire me for a talent I never knew I had until today—in public speaking.

But it wasn’t a dream. And I had choices to make. Should I become the “Rejection Whisperer” on my own reality show? Play the depressed guy who finds true love through rejection therapy in a Hollywood movie? Work for my idol Tony Hsieh? Or go back to doing what I was doing—running a struggling tech start-up while video-blogging about rejection? As much as I loved my start-up team and the app we were building, totally disregarding what had just opened up and going back to my routine seemed a little unwise if not crazy.

My goal in life has always been to make a positive impact in the world. Fame and celebrity had never been my main motive. So the idea of chasing after these flashy routes made me uneasy.

I didn’t feel ready for it. Basically, I was a guy with a cool story, and I had just learned that I could tell it pretty well. My rejection journey had just started yet I was already being seen as some sort of expert.

In everyday situations for myself, the consequences conjured up by my imagination are far worse than what I think most outcomes will realistically be.

I’d never really thought about other people’s fear of rejection. But the more people told me how much they could relate to my experience, the more I realized that fear of rejection wasn’t a rare disease at all. It was a normal human condition. I knew from experience that this fear can have enormous, debilitating consequences.

The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, written by an Australian nurse named Bronnie Ware. She had interviewed dozens of terminally ill patients in hospice care and asked them about their deepest regrets. The most frequent response she received was: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

What if we all had that courage? What if people didn’t feel so trapped by their fear of rejection? What if rejection didn’t feel so shameful and personal, but became more discussable? And what if

All my life, I’d wanted to be an entrepreneur. I’d wanted to invent something that millions of people would find useful. Yet by tackling one of my own needs head-on, I’d accidentally stumbled on a need so great that it was shared by most of the planet.

All this time, I’d been focused on launching an app based on a cool idea in my head. But now, I saw far more meaning in helping people overcome their fear of rejection.

became clear to me that if I was really going to take on rejection on behalf of the world, then I needed to supplement my rejection attempts with good old-fashioned research and learn as much about the topic as possible.

What I found instead was a lot of advice that basically boiled down to this: 1. Rejection happens. 2. Don’t take it personally. 3. Be tough and move on.

Despite its prevalence and gut-wrenching consequence, we treat rejection as a one-off occurrence or temporary inconvenience—more like a bug bite or a flat tire than an experience that can shut down a person’s ability to take risks forever. It’s as if the subject were so simple that there was no need for more understanding. Didn’t get the job or promotion? Couldn’t close the sale? People thought your idea was stupid? The woman you love turns down your proposal? Don’t take it personally! Dust yourself off and move on!

But if handling rejection were really that simple, why would a tabulation of Google search keywords, generated by billions of users, show that people rank rejection close to the top of their list of greatest fears, even above pain, loneliness, and illness?

Why would people feel compelled to live up to others’ expectations while ignoring their own, making failure to pursue their d...

For people in these situations, saying “don’t take it personally” can feel insulting and ridiculous.

Why don’t we talk about rejection more? Why is rejection so painful? And why do we fear rejection so much?

When we fail at something, such as a business venture or a career, it feels unfortunate but understandable and often tolerable, because it could be due to a host of factors.

The entire lean start-up movement was built on the concept of developing products by failing fast and learning from those failures.

Failure has almost become a prerequisite to success.

Rejection, on the other hand, is not cool at all. It involves another person saying no to us, often in favor of someone else, and often face-to-face. Rejection means that we wanted someone to believe in us but they didn’t; that we wanted someone to like us but they didn’t; we wanted them to see what we see and to think how we think—and instead they disagreed and judged our way of looking at the world as inferior. That feels deeply personal to a lot of us.

people naturally want revenge after they’ve been rejected, perhaps thinking that they will feel better by showing the rejectors how wrong they were. Yet it doesn’t work that way, and those who lash out actually wind up feeling worse when they get revenge.

The woman at the magazine stand hadn’t caused any physical harm to Tracy, yet the rejection had felt worse than her excruciating stomach pain. As it happens, the reason for that turns out to be biological.

When humans feel physical pain, our brains release natural painkilling chemicals called opioids into our systems to lessen the pain and help us cope. Recently, researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School wondered if our brains would release opioids after social rejections as well, and they launched a study to find out.

The participants’ brains, having experienced a social rejection, immediately started releasing opioids—just as they would if a physical trauma had occurred. Even more interesting: participants had actually been told before the study that the profiles—and the “rejections”—were fake. Incredibly, that didn’t matter to their brains, which pumped out opioids regardless.

If the pain of rejection is actually a chemical experience in your brain, it’s no surprise that we develop a visceral fear of rejection.

Since rejection pain equals physical pain, at least to our brains, it makes even more sense that people rank rejection so high on their fear lists.

“I am not a crew member,” I said. Immediately, everyone raised their heads and looked at me. I felt hundreds of eyes on me. My nervousness moved closer to panic. “I am just a fan of the company,”

I sat back down in my seat, shaking and drenched in sweat. I’m sure fighting off lions with a stick ten thousand years ago was more difficult, but in the moment, this felt just as scary.

I’d been preparing for a personal rejection from the flight attendant, but I’d received an acceptance instead, which in turn had opened up a much scarier possibility—a very public rejection by 130 people at the same time. Even though I managed my way through the ordeal, I felt pushed to the limit.

But why didn’t I feel any pain or fear? How come my survival instinct hadn’t kicked in, and the opioids hadn’t started flowing? Why were they conspicuously silent this time? I felt like I was onto something, and so I did some more research. It turns out that laughter has been linked to killing pain—literally.

participants’ pain thresholds significantly increased only when they watched the comedies—and specifically when they laughed.

Laughing, dancing, and singing all produce endorphins—a different kind of opioid that not only fights pain but also makes us feel good. Laughing can be like receiving a double shot of natural painkillers from our brain.

limitations. Silliness isn’t appropriate in every real-life situation, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to rely on humor to help me through every rejection attempt—especially when the stakes are high and the outcomes have real significance. Also, endorphins address only the results of rejection—the pain. They don’t address the fear and the anticipation of rejection, which are the roots of rejection’s destructive power. But it also provoked another question: If something can’t hurt me, then why should it scare me? It turned out it’s this question that proved to be pivotal in my fight with rejection.

We feel the word no comes at us with a loud voice, fire, and smoke. We feel it would really hurt us. But in reality, it is almost never that bad. Even if we don’t get what we ask for, we haven’t lost anything. It is rarely the case that our lives are in danger.

ask for a one-day job.