REJECTION PROOF . by Jia Jiang . (Random House, £13.99) Who likes rejection? Whether you are being rejected by a lover, an employer or a barman who serves a newly arrived regular customer before you, it’s galling. And in every case there’s nothing we can do about it. Nothing that doesn’t carry a long prison sentence, anyway. It would take someone exceptionally optimistic and uncynical to propose an alternative thesis, and Jia Jiang is both of those. Born into a family of teachers, Jia Jiang was so determined to become an entrepreneur that, as a child in China, he dug a hole in the garden, intending to reach America by the shortest route. He eventually made the journey by conventional means, and found a good life there. Wife, children, several degrees, job in middle management. But he wasn’t happy. He wanted to take risks, start his own company. It doesn't matter where it comes from - no one likes being rejected and in each and every case there’s nothing we can do about it (picture posed by model) The problem was he inevitably encountered rejection, mainly from potential backers for his project (another iPhone app no one could possibly need or want). And each time, rejection felt like the end of the world. A successful entrepreneur needed to be more robust than this. So, having possibly read one self-help book too many, Jia Jiang decided to embark on his own rejection-proofing quest. Instead of avoiding rejection, he would spend 100 days deliberately seeking out situations in which he was likely to be rejected, film them and put them up on his blog. All of which seemed to me, at first glance, rather artificial. There have been any number of ‘quest’ books, in which humorous writers have gone round Ireland with a fridge, for example, less for the sake of doing it than to write a book about it. But Jia Jiang isn’t a humorous writer. He may adopt a light-hearted tone, but his quest was deadly serious. On day one, he went up to a security guard and asked if he could borrow $100. The security guard said no, and Jia almost broke into a run to get away. Watching the video later, he said he looked like the man in Munch’s The Scream. On day two, he went into a burger joint and, noticing a sign on the soft drinks machine saying ‘Free refill’, asked the cashier for a burger refill. The cashier said no. But as he continued his quest, Jia realised there were ways and ways of asking. Show confidence, inject a little bit of humour, be willing to negotiate and you might not get exactly what you want, but you might get something. So he walked into Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and asked for a set of five iced doughnuts, interlocking in the manner of the Olympic symbol. The woman behind the counter looked thoughtful. ‘When are you looking for these?’ she asked. ‘In the next . . . 15 minutes?’ ‘Let me see what I can do,’ she said. And did it. You can see what happened next on YouTube. And so develops a surprisingly entertaining study of rejection in all its many manifestations. People confuse it with failure, but rejection is personal, and we take it personally. The crucial point is that rejection is unavoidable and it’s how we respond to it that matters. Jia Jiang’s extreme positivity can grate at times but his message is sound: rejection is only someone else’s opinion, and it may not be the right one.
It doesn't matter where it comes from - no one likes being rejected.
And in each and every case there’s nothing we can do about it.
Jia Jiang, with his exceptional optimism, proposes an alternative thesis.
He has developed an entertaining study of rejection in all its many forms.