How you can En-Courage Others With Your Story: Jia Jiang and his 100 Days of Rejection

How might you offer hope and encouragement to others in a more active way…especially those who are going through challenging times right now?

Here’s an example of how, when we act courageously, we en-courage others.

The example comes from a remarkable person I heard about from John Brubaker (www.coachbru.com). John interviewed him on his radio show and shared with me Jia Jiang’s wild story about his 100 Days of Rejection project. After listening to his interview and watching some of his videos, I knew I wanted to interview him.

Here’s the origin of his 100 Days of Rejection project: After getting a very impersonal rejection email from a venture capitalist, Jia was stunned by how much the rejection stung.

Here’s an excerpt from my interview with Jia, where he describes his response and what he did next:

(The rejection) really hurt. It took me by surprise. Not because of the rejection itself, but how much I was hurt by that rejection. I’m a very well educated guy. I felt I was mentally prepared for this as well. But how did I get hurt so bad by a no even though I prepared for it?

I started searching to see if I want to be a great entrepreneur I cannot be hurt like this. If I keep going I’m going to be rejected more often than not, and so I can’t just be living this fear of rejection. I went online and looked for this thing. I found this thing called rejection therapy. That’s a game where you go out and look for rejection.

Last November I started my blog to just go out and start looking for rejection. I did that because I wanted to do this for 100 times and have the world keep me accountable. It really fits my personality to try something crazy like that. So the story went from there, but that’s how I got into this situation. It was rejection therapy.”

To get a sense of Jia’s personality and essence, here’s a video of my favorite Rejection Therapy: Rejection #36 “Trim my hair at PetSmart”

Jia Inquires About Getting a Haircut at PetSmart

Now, when you see the video, it’s easy just to think “Oh, this is nothing more than a fun, amusing, and charming stunt”. But when you learn more about the person behind the series, you realize its way more than that.
Underneath the quirky sense of humor is a deeply caring person who has a strong sense of mission and purpose to make the world a better place.

You’ll learn more about that when I share the whole interview at a later point.

But in the meantime, I’m sharing this excerpt with you to illustrate how our stories of overcoming adversity and fear can give others hope and courageous to face their fears.

In our interview, I asked Jia if he could share a story or two from people who have followed his adventure and how it has made a difference in their lives.

Here’s a story he shared:

A person wrote me an email. He said he has always been afraid of rejection, so much so that he’s afraid to ask for ketchup in the restaurant so he sent his kids to ask for ketchup.

Of course that’s one extreme case, but it just got real because his wife was diagnosed with cancer last year. In the American medical society, for good or for bad one thing for sure is you have to actually push the doctors and nurses, the hospitals, to get things done sometimes. You can’t just wait and everything comes to you. It doesn’t work that way.

He saw what I’m doing with rejection therapy. He’s very inspired. He told me, “Hey, because of what you are doing now, I’m saying you can do this for therapeutic reasons. I’m trying to save my wife’s life here, so I’ve got to just go ask. If you can ask I can ask.” He started asking for things and he thanked me for helping me with that. This one example is very dear to my heart just because the nature of it. It really helps people in a very real sense.

It’s really those kinds of emails that got me, again, doing these rejections. A hundred of them is a lot. It takes you awhile to count, and doing each one takes preparation and videotaping. Then editing, producing, put it online and telling people about it and then writing a blog. So a lot of things went into every rejection.

But it’s because of these emails I’m getting, the support I’m getting, that keeps me going because I know I’m doing something important. I know I’m doing something that helps people. That makes a real difference in life.

Even say if I know that from beginning to end I’m doing this for 100 days and I spend a lot of time doing this, I can help a husband. A life might be changed. A life might be saved. Is it worth it? Absolutely it’s worth it. Then you can multiply that effect by thousands. I’ve got thousands of emails with people with stories. Maybe not to this extreme, but everyone has rejection issues and many of them thank me for doing this. So with that type of influence and impact I feel it’s totally worth it.

Think of the difference Jia’s willingness to share his stories of facing his fears has made in that man’s life.

Think of the power sharing our stories of facing our fears encourages others.

By the way, the word “courage” has its roots in the old French word for “heart” (“couer”). So when you en-cour-age someone you give them heart, you help them connect with their heart and their true capacity for courage.

Are there people in YOUR life right now who might be in need of encouragement?

How might you en-courage them?

What stories of how you faced and overcame your fears might you share with those who need it right now?

Jia Jiang’s TEDTalk

For More of Jia’s writing, check out his website Entre.sting.

For his fun video series on Youtube