What 100 Rejections Teach You About Business

There is a strong principle in the Silicon Valley/startup scene these days around failure. There is a glorification about the idea of failure. Startups are guided to break stuff and come up with new ways of doing things. While that can get fairly expensive and even huge brands can’t get that right, you can always take this lesson with you wherever you go.

You need to take little risks to be able to make a huge impact. You don’t want to take a huge disappointment early on, so you want to ease into it. 100 rejections aren’t a lot but it’s enough to get you going to wherever you want to be.

100 rejections aren’t much of a challenge if you’re not learning from it all. If you’re just going in to get a few laughs or to break free of your comfort zone, then you’re not really doing this for the right reason. Everything starts from the “why”. Why you want to do something is the key to why 100 rejections are important. Whether that’s getting better at sales or getting scared to approach investors, you want to explore all options available to you.

That’s why you do the 100 rejections in the startup space. You don’t want to run a business to the ground. You want to lift it up by approaching new leads and opportunities. That’s the right spirit of mind to be in. You want to continue to innovate and provide new insights in the industry when you get back on that horse again.

Rejection is Hard Work

Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva, received 100 rejections before building her billion-dollar company. She thinks that rejection is hard work. She would get a rejection over lunch, a rejection over a meeting and 20 minutes after she left work she got another rejection. If that doesn’t make you feel like it’s hard work, then nothing will.

You got to bounce back up. Even though Melanie had her off-days, she powered through it all making one of the most successful startups one day. Rejection is hard work and going through the cycle can be even more difficult to get back up from. Rejection is probably better than complete silence, because at least you’re getting some form of feedback on your attempt. Maybe it wasn’t the right fit, or maybe the idea wasn’t working out for them. Whatever the case may be, some feedback is always appreciated.

The value of 100 rejections can completely change your perspective about it. Rejection teaches you that it’s hard work, which is a lot like what you’ll be doing anyway. Don’t take it as a loss early on, keep at it.

Rejection is a Part of Life

We don’t realize that rejection is a part of life. It’s something that every human being is going to go through at some part of their lives. Because we don’t talk about it to everyone, we think that it’s not the right way to feel about something.

You have to get back up and keep at it. Rejection will feel like a sting but if you’re ready for it you can release some of the tension behind it. You won’t feel so affected by it after the 50th one, and you won’t realize how your mind changes its perception towards rejection.

Rejection becomes another stepping stone towards success, and it’s a tool to learn more about our environment. E.g. if we’re pitching a startup idea to a client and we hear crickets in the boardroom, then that rejection can teach us a lot about who the company is and what they’re interested in. You can renovate or work with another company.

Rejection Offers us Perspective

We don’t see rejection the same way every time. If our favorite coffee shop is closed, it’s technically a rejection. However, we hop on over to another one and we’re fine. Similarly, that second-guessing goes away after you shift your perspective.

When you start to think of rejection as a part of life and nothing more, then you can truly see its values unfold. Rejection can be stored in the brain as a positive experience, and as a reminder to keep trying over and over again.

Rejection can also provide insight into the minds of the industry. You get an action report only when you go into the battle. You can start to form patterns and perfect your business processes and eventually succeed. However, if you face no challenges then you’re not taking enough risks in your business.

Focus on Goal-Orientation

We can easily get obsessed with why we’re unable to reach our goals. We can start to feel bad about being rejected, and that can easily enter our personal lives when we go home. We have a greater sense of sadness about it and we’re not ready to explore the goals that we had set out a long time ago.

This is exactly the right point of renewal. You can start to focus on your goals a lot quicker here and create real value for real customers. You can become more oriented to your goals and create a better path towards success and accomplishment. Small accomplishments fuel your confidence further, making you a much better business person and a happier individual overall.

You want to be goal-oriented each time you’re feeling overwhelmed by failures.

Conclusion

Business is all about how well you can run it. Sometimes it's about risk mitigation, while other times it can become more than that. It can also become about human capital and how much input each side is providing to each other.

It’s also all about value. When your business provides value to its customers, you can have a better shot at taking advantage of situations, opportunities, and new leads. You’ll only take rejection to heart if you’re not doing so well in your business. The key factor isn’t that you should be going out there to get rejected. It’s about getting back on the horse right after.