The 30 Day Rejection Challenge
I consider myself a fairly social person. I don’t ignore you if you ask for directions. I help if it looks like you could use a hand. I talk to you because I am really interested in who you are and what your story is. As I begin to settle into my almost daily, hour-long commute to and from Kendall Square in Cambridge where I’m working as an associate at TechStars, I have given a fair bit of thought to both our perception of strangers and our subsequent behavior around them. Among other interesting insights, we typically keep our interactions with strangers to the cursory “what time is it?” I’d rather sit on the other end of that spectrum – the outlandish “can I have a bit of that croissant good sir?”
For whatever reason (don’t ask me), I tend to have a pretty negative view on strangers. I don’t like getting pushed, I hate when people are obnoxious on their cell phones, and I am never surprised by the various shenanigans I witness on the T. With that said, I do believe there is a silver lining to our stranger-filled lives. We have the potential to learn from them. I’m a firm believer in the notion that you can learn anything from anyone anywhere (why I love Skillshare!) . But the catch is: nine times out of ten, you have to have the confidence to approach the stranger and initiate a conversation that will hopefully lead to a little nugget of something. Enter the “30 Day Rejection Challenge.”
The challenge is pretty self-explanatory: I will spend 30 days putting myself in situations that I will almost assuredly be rejected. The idea is that by the end of the 30 days, I will have gained the confidence to approach and have a conversation with anyone about anything anywhere and anytime. I don’t have to bother explaining the dividends (e.g. social, professional) of this exercise, because I think they’re pretty obvious. With that said, I am super excited to get the ball rolling – I am sure there will be lots of interesting knowledge gained…to this end, I will post periodic updates on the challenge.
A special thanks to Jason Shen – an awesome SF-based entrepreneur (YC alumn) – I read about his experiences with the challenge, which is where I initially got the idea. I’d also like to acknowledge Julien Smith – great author who wrote about the “flinch” and how to overcome that. This is my way of overcoming.
Do you have any awesome experiences with strangers? How comfortable are you with rejection? Let’s continue the conversation on Twitter (@jcap49).
