The Gift of Rejection
It’s all about what you do with it
Everyone (yes, including myself) would like to have their talent, skills, and whatever they have to offer to the world accepted and rewarded without any stress or debate. Of course, who deserves it better than you?
This is where there is a thin line between self-confidence and self-deception.
Rejection is a natural phenomenon that is almost as certain as the law of gravity.
Every bestselling author would have lived with rejection for some time before anyone had a chance to read their work. The manuscript of J. K. Rowling’s famous Harry Potter series was rejected 12 times by publishers. Bestselling author, Stephen King had a nail on his wall where he pinned his rejection slips. At age 14, the nail could no longer support the weight of the rejection slips and he had to replace the nail with a spike.
Footballers are known for their nomadic lifestyle which is mostly driven by rejection. In 1995, Argentine topflight club, River Plate passed over an opportunity to sign the 8-year-old Lionel Messi because they couldn’t deal with the $1000 monthly bill for growth hormones. England captain Harry Kane was released by Arsenal Football Academy at the age of 8 because he was “a bit chubby” and “not athletic”.
Rejection takes no prisoners and could be quite ruthless leaving blood and tears in its wake. But rejection could also be a useful tool for discovery, recovery, redemption, and redirection.
How’s that possible? Let’s walk through a true-life scenario.
You’ve spent three weeks in a regimented orientation camp run by military officers, learning military drills, sleeping in an overcrowded hall, and coping with a shortage of food and water. The goal was to prepare you for one year of mandatory service to your nation as a fresh graduate.
You were so excited when it finally ended. But you hardly knew that “now your suffering continues”.
You left the orientation camp with a deployment letter and brimming with excitement. The “place of primary assignment” was where you would give your first one year of life after college to the service of the nation “under the sun and in the rain”, as they said.
What could possibly go wrong?
The place of primary assignment had no assignment for you. The organization you were posted to serve as a national Youth Corp member didn’t need your services. The organization was obligated to serve you a “rejection letter” so you can be free to find yourself another employer.
So instead of the fanfare that you thought awaited your arrival, you walked away with a rejection letter.
Ouch!
Rejection is painful enough without having to walk around with a rejection letter in your back pocket.
You roamed the small Niger Delta town for a few days knocking on doors after doors. From schools to poultry farms to factories — just anywhere would do.
Business owners in the town had ready-made answers whenever a young man or woman in khaki uniform and brown jungle boots approached their premises. “We don’t need Youth Corpers here” became more popular than the national anthem you sang many times daily for three weeks at the orientation camp.
Then came the lifeline. A private school in a village a few miles away needed youth Corp members to serve as teachers.
So off you went on the next available Okada (commercial motorbike) to this off-grid location. You could smell danger all around. There was militancy in the creeks and tribal conflicts not too far away.
But you defied fear and signed up. In the beginning, it felt like a survival reality show. But it turned out to be “a jewel in the Delta”.
You taught classes, managed a business, coached football teams, conducted seminars in local schools, and offered free adult education classes. With all of that going on, you still had time to invest in professional and personal development.
You literally had years of work and life experience packed into one year and had so much fun. At the end of the service year, you left the village much more prepared for the next phases of life.
Like thousands of Nigerian Youth Corp members, rejection created fear and anxiety for the protagonist of this story and could have ended in many ways.
Rejection comes from different angles — relationship, career, or business. It’s also possible to be hit in more than one way at the same time.
As a professional, my relationship with rejection is alive and well. Our alliance has been a very fruitful one. Over the years, rejection has bailed me out of wrong moves, provided filters for noises and distractions, kept my focus, and sometimes redirected me to better opportunities.
I have learned that nobody is automatically entitled to anything. Everybody cannot use the same door at the same time. It’s a function of time and chance. Rejection partners with the universe to execute selective allocation of scarce resources and opportunities.
So what do you do with rejection?
We often hear that we should not rest on our successes. It’s even more important not to rest on our failures and rejections.
Whatever you do, be like a relentless writer punching away thousands of words nobody is interested in reading or publishing. Yet, he wakes up the next morning and hits the keyboard or picks up the pen again.
Whatever you do, be like a footballer with a dream. If they say he’s not good enough for the Premiership, he tries the Championship. If they say he can’t make Team A, he tries Team B or the under-18s.
See rejection as a badge of honour. It’s the medal you receive for having the courage to try something or to do something. It means you are so close. It also means you have it in you, “they” just don’t need it or see it yet.
Don’t surrender your mind to negative thoughts and feelings of worthlessness. Don’t quit. Keep dreaming, keep pushing. Start over. Do something else. Do it again.
If you can keep going, you will soon outpace your challenges and begin to unwrap the gift of rejection.
