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Sharing Rejections

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Last week, writer and Buzzfeed’s AM to DM host Saeed Jones (The Ferocity) began a conversation on Twitter by sharing a quick note of his many rejections from Breadloaf, the annual writer’s conference at Middlebury College.

He’s since gone on to write and curate content for Buzzfeed, host their live video program, and author two books, the latest on Simon & Schuster’s forthcoming roster.

In his tweet, he asked folks to share their own rejections, hoping to crowdsource some good examples of rejection failure — and subsequent successes:

rejections

Let’s just say there are a lot of people out there who have been rejected. A lot. And they’re all sharing their experiences (you can see them by checking out the hashtag #ShareYourRejections, or the hashtag #ShareYourRejection for people who can’t follow directions!)

I’m loving the updates; there are some big names there, opening up about some seriously harsh rejection they’ve experienced in life. It’s a great reminder that when you start putting yourself out there, you will probably experience rejection.

Whether it is professional or personal (ugh, who among us hasn’t worked up the gumption to finally ask someone out or admit our feelings to that special person, only to have the object of our affections decline our interest), rejection is hard. And scary. And often seems like a good enough reason to not even try, or to give up.

Now, I’ve gotta be honest with you. The hashtag is a bit of the Survivorship Bias that runs rampant among successful folks. Which makes me cringe, even though I love getting inspired reading all those messages.

Those who say “Yes, I struggled before, but I was able to work through it and overcome” are sometimes outliers.

I don’t want to tell you that every article you write will be accepted somewhere. That every book you toil away at will pick up a six-figure publishing contract. That every business idea will be the business idea that makes you a millionaire.

There’s no way to guarantee that if you keep chipping away at something, it will eventually land. Sometimes rejection doesn’t lead to success…it just leads to rejection.

The secret is in learning from the rejection, figuring out what you need to adjust for next time (and actually doing it), and deciding whether you dare to take a chance on it happening again.

I hope you do.

Would You Pass this MBA Exam?

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I once heard about an MBA professor’s unique final exam (I think my friend Peter was telling me this over a diner-dive breakfast in NYC, as we discussed the interview “test” of taking candidates out to see how they treat the staff…to set the scene…), and the lesson has stuck with me.

This professor spent the entire semester telling the students how important the final exam was going to be, that it could count for at least 50% of their grade for the class.

You know, educational fear of jeebus threats.

When finals week came up, the students were freaking out.

Studying for hours on end leading up to it. Quizzing each other on potential answers. Doing everything they could to learn everything they could about all things business and management.

The day of the final came, and the students filed into the classroom.

On each desk there was a single, blank, piece of paper.

Weird, right?

The professor got to the front of the classroom, and cleared his throat.

“The final exam is one single question. Anyone who answers correctly will receive an A for the semester. Anyone else will be graded on a bell curve against all these students.”

Eyes shifted and terror captivated the room. What would the question be?!

The professor turned to the board, and wrote one sentence on the board:

What is the name of the custodian who cleans this building?

In that simple question, those students learned an extremely important lesson.

It doesn’t matter how much you know about business. It doesn’t matter how well you manage your team. It doesn’t matter how respected and revered you are in your industry.

If you don’t know the name of the person who cleans your waste bin every night, you are failing as an entrepreneur.

What To Do When You’re Feeling Vulnerable and Embarrassed

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Someone once asked me how I “do what I do” when I’m feeling vulnerable or embarrassed.

My answer was probably not helpful, as it was something they were obviously struggling with, because my reply was simply “I just push through it. I don’t really have a choice. People depend on me to make things happen, so I can’t really take time to wrestle with such ideas. I feel them, I contend with them, I spend more than a few minutes a session chatting to my therapist about them…but I don’t really have an option to let them stop me.”

This week, I have a good story of embarrassment to share with you, if you are struggling with something this week. It will hopefully bring a smile to your face and give you a push to do something that feels foolish!

We’ve been picking up the marketing and content focuses in CYC over the past few months, and in April I had a consultation with a social media pro about our current plans.

Part of her initial feedback was that I needed to not only focus on CYC’s accounts and feeds, but my own. Which is something I’ve actually been cutting back on to focus on other projects and writing.

She noted that an easy pick-up for me would be to try to use Instagram a bit more, as folks are always curious about the creative/writing/entrepreneurial process. Now, aside from the fact that most days I would rather slam myself into a brick wall again and again and again over espousing on social media about how hashtag-blessed I am to be working on whatever I’m doing that day, there was a greater problem.

With my fibromyalgia (a chronic illness that affects your tendons, joints, muscles—pretty much all fine motor skills) and older phone, I struggled to take photos that could be shared on social media because my hands had a constant (mild) tremor.

But, as I noted before, not at least trying something that someone recommends for the agency’s growth is not really an option.

So I sat and thought about where I could find the best cell phones (I didn’t want to get a whole separate camera to use, as I love photos, but not really taking them) for people with shaking hands.

Here comes the smile for you and sheer embarrassment for me…

I ended up scouring the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) because that is a demographic that also battles with fine motor skill control. Of course not all retired persons, but it’s a common side effect of traveling around the sun yearly.

What does that mean?

Well, my friend, the new phone I’ve been using to post more Instagram pics than I’ve posted in probably the past six months is one that I found because at the age of 37 my hands are all shaky and resembling a person 15-20 years older than me. Awesome.

This is such a small thing, and let’s be real, my personal Instagram use isn’t going to make or break our 2nd quarter profits. But there are always going to be obstacles to doing even the simplest thing. Sure it might be embarrassing as all get-out to have to acknowledge them—but there are solutions as well.

Whatever you are scared to do this week, just think back on this story of buying phone for the camera, to use on social media; and hopefully my silly sleuthing will give you enough of a grin to take a leap yourself!

Be Honest, Do You Read and Watch Drivel?

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A friend sent me an article a couple weeks ago, and it’s been twitching under my skin ever since.

In the piece, the author was making an argument for watching and consuming fun and light content. Their argument was that not everything had to be a work of high craft.

Now, I’ve spoken before about my glee in the resurgence of people’s interest in “craft” and quality, especially when it comes to their media and content. Not just because I don’t have to explain as much that I don’t run a business centered around decoupage and knitting.

So it took me a while to figure out what my issue with the article was, as I’m obviously someone who believes in the importance of craft.

There’s an old phrase, furthest attributed to an English humorist Thomas Hood in the 1820’s, that “the easiest reading is damn hard writing.” Mr. Hood, you hit the nail right on the head, and that observation is even more important.

I’m always perplexed by this elite and rather ridiculous concept that for content and media to be high-quality and crafted, that it has to be obtuse. So outside our grasp and understanding that we have to work to understand and appreciate it. Slogging through any 1000+ page tome of literary drudgery will turn even the most curious reader off.

Maybe it is my affinity for reading “trashy” chick lit as often as I can? Maybe it is my binge-watching tendency on cult television darlings like Community and Arrested Development? (Season 5 coming soon on Netflix…after a Season 4 re-edit that makes it SO MUCH BETTER!) Maybe it is my guilty pleasure movie secret, which is that Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and Midnight in Paris are the only movies I have ever downloaded to every laptop I have traveled with?

The twitching, the itching, the uncomfortable feeling that I had with the article lies in the fact that someone would perceive work that isn’t critically acclaimed and lauded to not be crafted by its creators.

It’s easy to create content and media that only you understand. But to craft something that appeals to people, that resonates with them, that persuades them to become fans who eagerly anticipate your new releases…that’s quality. That’s talent. That’s devotion.

To have someone write that it isn’t, about how you shouldn’t feel bad for consuming things that aren’t “crafted”, well…that’s someone who doesn’t understand and appreciate the craft that goes into creating something great. Even when it’s “not.”

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