It turns out that the tenured HBS professor was originally rejected by Harvard, and not just once! She told me, “I’ve been rejected by Harvard five times in my life . . . as an undergrad, grad student, and as a professor multiple times. But I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to let mere mortals determine my fate.’ They are not going to define my life.”26 Frances didn’t hold a grudge. She didn’t say, “Screw them, I’ll go somewhere else.” She wanted to be at Harvard and didn’t take it personally when decision makers rejected her. She thought, “Well, I must not be telling my story in a compelling
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