{"id":4921,"date":"2025-09-30T09:26:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T13:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4921"},"modified":"2025-09-30T09:26:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T13:26:32","slug":"rejection-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/30\/rejection-therapy\/","title":{"rendered":"Rejection Therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

Every year, millions of people experience rejection.

Every incident feels painful.

Middle schoolers will receive just a handful of Likes for their social media postings.\u00a0High school seniors will receive letters from colleges that begin, \u201cAt this time, unfortunately, we are unable\u2026\u201d\u00a0Online daters will receive no inquiries concerning their profiles.

More than half a million new businesses will close their doors during the next 12 months.\u00a0 \u00a0

At least a quarter-million weddings will be canceled, and some 877,000 spouses will receive the news that someone who once promised, \u201cI will always love you,\u201d has experienced a change of mind and heart and filed for divorce.

Failure is rough.\u00a0Failure happens to your best efforts. But rejection is far worse.\u00a0Rejection happens to<\/em>you<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0<\/em>

More than a decade ago, Jia Jiang \u2013 a young Chinese immigrant who had moved to Austin, Texas \u2013 decided to do something to confront his feelings of rejection.

Jiang felt emotionally paralyzed by the experience of seeking funding for his technology start-up, only to be repeatedly rejected.\u00a0Then he heard about a program called Rejection Therapy.\u00a0

Jia resolved that 100 days in a row he would ask for something outrageous \u2013 requests that would obviously be turned down flat \u2013 so he could get used to hearing the word no.\u00a0<\/em>Hopefully the experience of rejection would gradually lose its cutting edge.

\u201cMy goal is to desensitize myself from the pain of rejection and overcome my fear,\u201d he explained in a blog documenting his efforts.

What Jia had already grasped is that the fear<\/em> of rejection is what gives personal disappointments so much power over our lives.

Jiang then went out and made some crazy requests, bracing himself to hear 100 nyets.\u00a0<\/em>He even filmed each moment, not just to document his efforts but to go back and learn more about his responses to rejection.

He asked a stranger to loan him $100.\u00a0No way.

He went to the counter at Five Guys and requested a \u201cburger refill.\u201d\u00a0Excuse me?\u00a0\u201cA burger refill.\u201d\u00a0Uh, no.

Jia also experienced rejection when he asked to speak over Costco\u2019s in-store intercom, deliver a Domino\u2019s Pizza, and cut all the way to the front of the line at Best Buy on Black Friday.\u00a0It\u2019s amazing he wasn\u2019t mugged for making that last request.\u00a0

Then he went to his local Krispy Kreme Doughnut store, where he was served by Jackie Braun, that day\u2019s shift leader.

Jiang asked for a \u201cspecialty doughnut\u201d \u2013 five Krispy Kremes put together in the shape of the five interlocking Olympic rings.\u00a0Oh, and they had to be the right colors.\u00a0That\u2019s when Jiang got the surprise of his life.\u00a0Jackie didn\u2019t say no<\/em>.\u00a0

She furrowed her brow.\u00a0How soon did he need them?\u00a0\u201cUh, maybe 15 minutes?\u201d Jia replied.\u00a0Fifteen minutes later she appeared with her special five-ring Olympic doughnut masterpiece.\u00a0That\u2019s Jackie in the picture above.

Most amazing of all:\u00a0There was no charge.\u00a0Jackie Braun served Jia Jiang just for the joy of saying yes <\/em>to a request she was likely never to hear again.

After Jiang posted the video of his doughnut encounter, it went viral. He received emails from people all over the world who were inspired to wage their own battles against their fear of rejection.\u00a0

MSNBC and Fox News made interview requests. Jia became known as the Rejection Whisperer.\u00a0And Krispy Kreme\u2019s stock soared, in a period of seven days, from $7.23 to $9.32.

All because someone on the front lines of customer service, instead of saying no<\/em>, said let me see what I can do.<\/em>

As Jia explained in a 2015 TED Talk, his experiences of facing rejection helped him confront his own attitudes. Having battled fears and insecurities since the age of six, he realized he didn\u2019t have to send a six-year-old version of himself into every conversation and encounter.

Playing it safe, emotionally, almost guarantees a what-might-have-been existence.

Do you yearn to live a life in which you never experience fear, and never need to take risks? Such a life would not be worth living<\/em>.\u00a0

Fear and growth go together like chips and salsa.\u00a0As long as we want to grow\u2026as long as we\u2019re willing to embrace change\u2026there will always be an element of fear.\u00a0

Which means we will always need to take risks \u2013 even to risk the daunting possibility of rejection.

No wonder the Bible\u2019s most frequent command is, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid,\u201d and most frequent promise is God\u2019s declaration, \u201cI will be with you.\u201d

As author Eileen Guder playfully observes, \u201cYou can live on bland food so as to avoid an ulcer, drink no tea, coffee, or other stimulants in the name of health, go to bed early, stay away from night life, avoid all controversial subjects so as to never give offense, mind your own business, avoid involvement in other people\u2019s problems, spend money only on necessities and save all you can.\u00a0You can still break your neck in the bath tub, and it will serve you right.\u201d

The decision to embrace change always involves a choice.\u00a0We must choose between risk and comfort.

At some point, in order to grow, we will have to renounce comfort as our ultimate value.\u00a0

But if Jia Jang\u2019s experience proves to be a useful guide, at least we know we won\u2019t have to renounce doughnuts.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Every year, millions of people experience rejection. Every incident feels painful. Middle schoolers will receive just a handful of Likes for their social media postings.\u00a0High school seniors will receive letters from colleges that begin, \u201cAt this time, unfortunately, we are unable\u2026\u201d\u00a0Online daters will receive no inquiries concerning their profiles. More than… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[205,587,514],"class_list":["post-4921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fear","tag-rejection","tag-risk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4923,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4921\/revisions\/4923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}