Entre.sting

When asking a favor, it is one thing to ask for something completely harmless but another entirely when it involves something a little risky. Today I tried to see if I could borrow a pair of skates at Sonic and skate around their restaurant. Sonic is known for having skating servers to serve food to parked customers. Would they allow me to skate and have fun? Or would they be afraid of the liability, were I to slip and fall during my adventure?

The one truth I have found about great customer service is that the best customer service representatives look for opportunities to accommodate, rather than reject. In this case, the manager minimized the risk of liability by having me sign a waiver. That way she could both ensure customer happiness and minimize her risks. I wish all customer services people could be like her.

Learning: The Bible teaches people to, “be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16). This should be the motto for all great customer service teams. Say ‘yes’ to customers, but in case things go wrong, make sure your employer is also protected.

Through rejection therapy, I found that among all the crazy requests that challenges are the most likely to be accepted. They tap into people’s basic interests for competition, curiosity, and fun. For example, when I challenged a stranger to a foot race, I got a ‘yes’. When I challenged a CEO to a staring contest the CEO didn’t show up…but the VP of Marketing did.

However, those challenges have rules that are easily understood and accepted. What if I challenge someone with a game that’s not previously known and I had to explain it? Would the ambiguity become an obstacle strong enough to get a rejection?

Based on a suggestion from Jason Comely, the inventor of the Rejection Therapy game, I learned and challenged a stranger to a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock.

Yes, I missed a few lines but it didn’t really matter. Although one instance doesn’t prove a theory it does make me wonder: maybe the fact that I had to explain the rules made the challenge more interesting to him. Because it taps into one more human interest – knowledge-seeking. If a friendly looking guy comes to me trying to teach me a game, I would say ‘yes’ too.

Learning: While people are busy and averse to abnormality in their lives, a well-placed knowledge gap might not hurt our requests. After all, we all want to learn something new.

We mostly consider rejections as inter-personal experiences, with one person rejecting another, and the results are always undesirable. In reality, self-rejections happen a lot more frequent, and for good and for bad reasons.

A bad reason for self-rejection is that a person is afraid to be rejected by others, so he rejects himself to avoid the imagined pain. As I explained in my talk – Rejection vs Regret, this type of self-rejection is very counter-productive. It prevents us from obtaining the opportunities and beauty life has to offer.

On the other hand, a good self-rejection, if used correctly, is amazingly useful. For example, an ex-Navy Commander and the author of the wonderful leadership book Turn the Ship Around!, David Marquet once chatted with me about him having to reject his own military leadership mentality in order let his employees shine with their creativity.

For me, like many others, I am terrified of height. One night, I listened to Dina Kaplan, the founder of blip.tv giving a keynote talk about her overcoming her fear of height. She did so by doing a bungee jump, and felt completely liberated afterward. She then encouraged the audience to do the same.

Feeling compelled, I challenged myself that night to reject my own fear by doing the SkyJump off Las Vegas’ Stratosphere, the highest controlled free fall in the world (108th floor).

Standing on the edge of the tower, I knew the only thing between an amazing experience (jump) and regret (retreat) was my own fear. It was a gruesome war of emotions in my head, heart and stomach, and it took every ounce of courage I had. Once in the air, as I was engulfed in the amazing sensation of flying, I realized how sweet victories, especially the ones over myself, can feel.

Learning: we can discuss, analyze and “wait for the right opportunity to conquer” fear all day long, but nothing happens unless we make the jump. Just like rejection therapy, the only way to cure a fear is to confront it head-on.

When visiting places, we love to take pictures with both man-made and natural attractions, or even animals and plants that are unique to the area. However, we rarely stop and take pictures with people, who are not only vastly different from place to place, but also integral part of that place.

While visiting New York, I learned how fast and easily one can get rejected. Now, will strangers on the street allow me to take pictures with them?

Looking back at this episode, I can’t help but feel very surprised. It felt very similar to the episode when I asked strangers at Costco to give me compliments – uncomfortable but satisfying. However, this time, when they asked me ‘why’, I gave them a very good ‘why’. ‘Why’ has become my favorite word.

Learning: Archimedes once famously said “give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.” We can’t move the world, but if we have a good ‘why’, and the courage to ask, we can ask for anything.

Rejection along has never been the sole reason for my journey. In fact, rejections have been my best friend and weapon so far to combat a much more subtle but potent enemy – regret.

Here is my talk on why rejection is better than regret at TEDxYouth@Austin.

I stayed in New York City for two days. By day two, I have experienced a full-set of casual rejections, from restaurants refusing to let me charge my phone on their premise, to ferry boats not allowing me to take pictures on deck. I realized that in a big city where people from all over the world visit and ask for resources and opportunities, rejection is a much more common occurrence than in Austin.

Before I got dispirited and started disliking New York City as a whole, I thought about applying the principle of Rejection Therapy and take a negative part about life and have fun with it. Therefore, I came up with this challenge for myself – how many rejections can I fit in a New York minute?

In Triumph of the City, author Edward Glaeser found that cities’ population density is positively correlated with per capita productivity and wage growth. In another word, the more people a city holds, the richer each person in that city gets. The hypothesis is that more people lead to more innovation and collaboration. Then I had this thought come to my mind – what about rejection? My New York City experience told me that having more people might lead to having more rejections. Does having more rejections make people tougher and more innovative, since getting an acceptance now requires more work and better ideas? I don’t know the answer, but it is an idea worth exploring.

Learning:
1. When feeling down with a negative part about life, try turning the table and have fun with it. It might be the medicine needed.

2. If you live in a big city or work in a tough profession, where rejections are more common, consider it a blessing rather than curse, since it raises the barrier of entry and force you to work harder. Once you get an acceptance, it would be easier to thrive.

On streets filled with strangers, I have learned that people don’t always accept money or trivial services from others. However, what if the services offered are artistic and personal in nature, such as drawing their portraits. Would people more likely to accept or reject it? To find out, an emerging artist – Dominick Rabrun and I set out to do this rejection request.

For background, Dominick is a DC based artist who has reached out to me to interview and draw me at the same time. He has also experienced many rejections in his project to interview people and was looking for some advice. In this video, prepare to be amazed by what Dominick did:

 
Looking back, I don’t know how many of us would say ‘no’ to his request, since having one’s portrait drawn feels like an enormous honor, in both modern and ancient times. There is a reason royalties and politicians from the past all entertained paintings and sculptures of themselves.

In a way, because of his artistic skills, Dominick possesses the persuasive power that 99% of us don’t have. However, why did he still receive many rejections with his interview request? What can he do to increase his success rate?

Based on my learning from 100 Days of Rejection Therapy, here are three suggestions for Dominick to try:

1. Focus actions over outcomes, as described at 2’07 of the above video.

2. Start with why, as described at 2’25 of the above video.

3. Find a picture of the potential interviewee using Google Image, draw an unfinished version of the portait, and send it to him/her along with the interview request. Make it clear that the interview would be to complete the unfinished portrait, rather than to start a new one. Studies have shown that people are much more willing to continue and finish an existing effort than to start a new one.

Just like Dominick, we all have something special about us. It might not be artistic skills, but could be cooking, humor, swimming, talking to people, honesty, diligence, creativity… or rejection. We can all draw inspiration from this video:

Many times people write me suggesting how I would experience rejections differently in various parts of the world, or even in different areas within the United States. My Brazilian friends told me that there is no way I could carry out this project in Brazil, because people would say ‘yes’ to everything, while my NYC friends would draw the same conclusion, but reasoning that New Yorkers would deny every request I throw their way.

To test out the hypothesis that Rejection Therapy would induce different results in different parts of the US, I took a trip to the East Coast, aiming to experience it myself.

My first stop – Washington DC, where I met Massoud Adibpour, the founder of the remarkable project – Make DC Smile. Our goal was to recruit strangers to hold up signs in order to cheer up DC commuters. Would people join our quest?

When people reject me when I try to make them happy without ulterior motive, it would be easy to take the rejection personally. However, by focusing on my own actions (waving signs with enthusiasm) rather than the outcome (getting a honk), I could care less about how others react. I was trying to make people happy, and therefore I was happy. By my action, the total happiness index of Washington DC went up, and that’s all it mattered.

Also, when I recruited strangers to join, most said no. I could relate to people fundraising for non-profit organizations who are frustrated by the lack of interests, especially if they believe deeply in their causes. However, I learned that no matter how noble the cause, not everyone shares my passion and belief. Even if they do, they have the right to say ‘no’ because of their own circumstances and reasons. All I need is to find those who do share my belief and are willing to help me.

Lastly, Massoud offered to help a walking-by family to locate their destination before asking for a favor. And he got it. Sometimes by helping others, we are more likely to receive help in return.

Learning:

1. No matter how noble your cause is, focus on your own actions rather than the outcome.

2. Allow others to reject you. In fact, most people will reject you. There will eventually be people sharing your belief and therefore joining your cause.

3. Offer to help others first.

One of the principles for my version of rejection therapy is that if I get a ‘yes’, my request has to be something I want to do. While in Washington DC, a few folks suggested that I ask to sit on the lap of the Lincoln Statue at the Lincoln Memorial. It sounded simple, but was really hard to execute.

First of all, I can’t ask Mr. Lincoln himself since the statue itself probably won’t answer my request. Secondly, even if I get a ‘yes’ from a park ranger, would climbing on Mr. Lincoln land me in jail? Lastly, do I really want to sit on one of my favorite Presidents as if he were Santa Claus at a mall?

Just like all well-planned adventures, I wanted to have a plan B. Would I get rejections for both plan A and plan B?

We are all good at something in life, and we all imagine turning our hobbies into careers. If we are good at cooking, we think about becoming chefs. If we like play basketball, we imagine what it is like to play in the NBA. Who doesn’t want to combine our passion and income generation?

For me, I love learning about American history, from the country’s founding to the Civil War, from the Gilded Age to WWII. Now, can I turn my interest in history into a job, even just for one day? Today, as I am visiting the National Museum of American History, I volunteered myself to be a tour-guide as part of my Rejection Therapy. Would people accept my offer?