One thing that I do every day is Personal Development. If you are unfamiliar with that term, it could be a book I’m reading, an audio book I’m listening to, or a video I’m watching to help me emotionally, mentally, or sometimes to learn ways to be a better businesswoman.

Today I was listening to a “TED talk”

This is the definition of “TED” on their website:  “TED is a nonpartisan nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks. TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 110 languages.”

I have TED talks on my Audible app. They’re included with my Amazon Prime membership. If you have Prime I highly suggest checking them out! They have a variety of speakers sharing their views on a variety of subjects and I find them very interesting.

The talk I was listening to today was by Jia Jiang called “What I Learned From 100 Days of Rejection”. He shared a story about when he was 6 years old and a classroom experiment ended in his being rejected by his classmates. He spoke about how that had left an imprint on him and how he felt a fear of rejection.

By the time he was 14 he was convinced he could take on the world! He had a plan and in the next few years he set off to make it a reality. But that old fear of rejection kept creeping in and froze him in his tracks.

He decided to do an experiment and try and get rejected every day for 100 days in some way.  In the first few days, he would take the rejection at face value (Like when he would ask a stranger if he could borrow $100) but as time went on he would ask why he was rejected and often the reason was something practical that had to do with the person he had asked, not anything to do with him.

In doing this experiment he not only learned not to just walk away and feel badly when he was rejected, but to dig deeper. Find out why and in some cases, turn it around from a “no” to a “yes”

Why are so many of us afraid of rejection? Myself included. I am terrified just to reach out and ask someone a question because I may get rejected.

I don’t know of a glaringly obvious point when that happened in my past and imprinted the fear onto me. It really doesn’t even make sense because I worked for over a decade at a job where I was turned down more than I heard “Yes.”

I am going to start my 100 days and, while I won’t be videotaping it for a vlog since it will mostly be online reach outs, I want to learn to take the fear away. To realize that a “No” is not the end of the world. I am determined to grow as a person and get through this obstacle.

Is there an area in your life where you could benefit from trying this too?