If you never try, you'll never know just what you're worth

MoMA rejection letter to Warhol

I still remember the moment I heard back regarding, what at the time, was my dream job. It was early on a Saturday evening and I was sitting in my room finishing some schoolwork. A little desktop notification caught my eye, causing my heart to jump and stomach to tighten. It read, "Email from Google Staffing." This is it! I thought. My dreams are about to become a reality. 

Until this point, I had been an unquestioning Google FanGirl: The Official Google Blog was bedtime reading; exclusive beta invites were sustenance. But the infatuation was not unfounded. I truly believed that their products and services demonstrated a profound understanding of human behavior and the human psyche. This understanding is manifested in the little things, like Undo Send and voicemail transcriptions and with less obvious improvements like optimized Search.

I clicked on the email notification and started to read:

We carefully reviewed your background and experience, and though we do not have a position that is a strong match with your qualifications at this time...

My eyes welled with tears as I reread the sentence, grappling with the harsh realization that I had been rejected. By the third or fourth read, tears were streaming down my cheeks. At that moment, my dreams had been crushed. My future looked more bleak than the wintry mix outside my window. 

The next couple weeks were extremely hard on me, partly because I was too upset to accept the rejection and too embarrassed to discuss the outcome with my friends or family. But mostly because I took the rejection as a reflection of my Self. To mean that I, objectively, was not good enough for the industry and worse, for the post-college world at large.

In psychology,"motivated forgetting" refers to the voluntary or involuntary blocking of specific events, typically ones that are painful or traumatic, from one's memory. For all intents and purposes, my rejection from Google became a repressed memory for me. I rarely mentioned it to others, and almost refused to admit it to myself. My passion for the company, its products, services, and mission, began to dwindle. I had succinct rationalizations but the honest truth is that it hurt too much to champion the company that had, for lack of a better word, broken my heart. 

I lost motivation and confidence and suspended my job search for about 2 months, which, is exactly the opposite of what you should do when you are trying to get a job. Simply put, I began to fear rejection. Sound logic told me that if I didn't apply anywhere, I couldn't be rejected. Of course, without applying, I couldn't be accepted anywhere either. 

Fast forward a couple years, I am now working on a product that helps small businesses get loans. To better understand our customers, we've spent the past several weeks conducting interviews of small business owners who have recently gone through the process of applying for a loan. Given how difficult it is for small businesses to get financing through larger banks (due mostly to stringent requirements around things like collateral, years in business, projections, and industry), most have been denied. What I find motivational, however, is that not one of these businesses has interpreted a rejected loan application to reflect an unsuccessful business venture. Interviewees make comments like I'll just reapply, this time with collateral or I'll just got to a smaller, local bank instead. It's almost as if they are rejecting the bank, not the other way around. 

A few months ago, I was going for a walk with one of my role models. She asked about my upcoming job hunt and I responded that I didn't think I had the experience some positions seemed to require. I wouldn't get too hung up on requirements you see typed on a piece of paper. Just apply. Let them reject you. Don't reject yourself for them, she advised. Self-acceptance is half the battle. 

Since my fateful rejection letter of January 2010, I've gone on to be accepted and rejected by various groups, institutions, and people. I've also done some rejecting and accepting of my own. During the course of which, I've become more confident in my strengths and more aware and accepting of my weaknesses. And while I still prefer acceptance to rejection, I've come to believe that rejection is foundational to my growth as an individual. It signifies a stretch beyond the comfort of a status quo. A healthy and necessary risk. Ambition. And the worst thing we can do is to limit ourselves as a means of protecting ourselves from that pain of rejection. Despite what society and psychology may lead us to believe, some good can come from it.

As much as I hate to admit it, Google has it right when it comes to the "right way" to deal with rejection. Nowhere in that wonderful letter did they tell me that I was not "good enough" for them. In fact, they almost imply that they are not right for me -- a classic "it's not you, it's me." When we are confident in ourselves and our abilities (and shortcomings), rejection no longer becomes a reflection of failure. It is instead a way for us to more easily decide who and what is right for us. It's a way for us to understand where we are relative to where we want to be.  

Last week, I was gathered with a few childhood friends catching up on, and enjoying, life. We tiptoed around the subject of fearing rejection, during which one of my friends observed You're one of those people who feels what is true in your heart. 

And that's the thing. If you strongly believe in your aspirations, your feelings, your desires, then no judgment -- no external acceptance or rejection -- can change that.