by Jia Jiang
When I was twenty-five, I applied and got into my dream business school, aiming to learn everything I could about business so that someday I could become a leader and an entrepreneur. About $80,000 of student loan debt later, I’d learned a lot of business theories and become a master of spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks. Now, less than a week into my rejection journey, I felt I’d already learned more about business and human psychology than I ever had in business school.
And something else was starting to change: my confidence and demeanor.
Less than a week after I approached the security guard asking for $100, I started noticing changes in how I carried myself and how I moved through the world. I was still working with my start-up team, and we were still trying to lift our app off the ground. But instead of approaching my leadership of the company with a vague sense of dread, I felt more engaged than ever. I was smiling a little more and conducting meetings with more poise. I offered my opinions more freely, without constantly studying other people’s faces to see if they liked what I was saying. I asked for feedback without searching for praise and got a little better at not taking criticism personally. Without the negative emotion I usually attached to it—hearing criticism in any comment—the feedback became much more useful. I felt like I was becoming a leader who asked, listened, and inspired, instead of just a person who gave directions. My confidence soared.
The changes weren’t just happening in my business life, either. As I became more aware of how my demeanor impacted the world around me, I was also becoming much more clear and deliberate in my conversations with my wife and with friends. Within the first few weeks of my 100 Days, several people told me that I seemed different somehow, more sure of myself. Even my in-laws started looking at me differently, with something that felt like the beginnings of respect.
It felt like the start of the kind of magical transformation that people talk about in those late-night infomercials for self-improvement products. I had always believed in working hard to pursue my dreams and had never put much stock in life-transformation stories. But now, it seemed, I was actually beginning to live one myself. I was discovering something new, exciting, and useful. And I couldn’t wait to see what I would learn next.
But then something happened and interrupted everything I was doing and learning.
—
Fame.
CHAPTER 3
TASTING FAME
Since I’d started recording and posting my rejection attempts, the traffic on my website had steadily increased. My Krispy Kreme adventure was especially popular; it got hundreds of views soon after I posted it.
Then someone posted the Krispy Kreme video on Reddit.com, a social news and entertainment website where users can submit web content, and others can vote up and down based on whether they like it. The most liked content gets featured on Reddit.com’s homepage, exposing it to thousands more viewers. My video—submitted by someone with the username “BHSPitMonkey” under the title “Man tried making strange requests in order to get rejected; awesome doughnut shop manager steps up to the challenge”—quickly caught fire. It generated more than 15,000 “up” votes and stayed on Reddit’s front page for two straight days. It also drew more than 1,200 comments, most of them from people gushing over Jackie:
“She transcended her position in life. Very inspiring.”—userofthissite
“She’s my hero. I’m a manager at a pizza place and this stuff gets to me.”—Ghostronic
“I teared up when she didn’t charge. I should be a better person.”—HectorCruzSuarez
There were also a lot of comments about Krispy Kreme as a company:
“This definitely improved my image of Krispy Kreme, even though I know they don’t employ a clone army of Jackies at every location yet.” —anonymous
“This woman did way more for Krispy Kreme than giving those donuts away, this PR is priceless for a company.” —ubrpwnzr
“I’ve always been impressed by Krispy Kreme.”—Wingineer
There were heartfelt comments about customer interaction and customer service:
“When I worked retail I always liked challenging questions like this (if you’re nice about it, that is). Seriously, any chance to think a little more deeply about something made my day.”—mollaby38
“This is the kind of customer service that not only keeps a customer loyal, it keeps them returning and telling others to go there.”—Peskie
“She just seemed so happy, I bet it made her day, maybe even made her week. A difference in your routine can make a huge difference.”—Benny0_o
And it wasn’t just Jackie and Krispy Kreme drawing attention. People had comments about me, too:
“The real point is that if he takes some risks and puts himself out there, he won’t get rejected as often as he expects and there’s even a chance that some awesome things will happen.”—demilitarized_zone
“I think the fact this woman wanted to help him should end any fears he has of rejection.”—unknown
“Definitely would befriend a guy who’s willing to overcome his fears by putting himself in funny situations where he’s gotta confront it head on.”—MrMiday
Reddit was only the beginning. The following week, the story was picked up worldwide. Yahoo! News put the video on its front page. Gawker, MSN.com, the Huffington Post, the UK’s Daily Mail, and the Times of India quickly followed suit. Overnight, the Krispy Kreme video became an international sensation with millions of views.
Krispy Kreme suddenly got the kind of publicity marketers only dream about. Calls flooded into their national headquarters and the Austin store, praising Jackie Braun. The company itself publicly honored Jackie with a tweet: “Yes, well done Jackie! #heartjackie.” Clearly, the story had struck a nerve. And it seemed that this little act was not just warming hearts all around the world. It might also have come with some real financial benefits. The week after the video went viral, Krispy Kreme’s stock price leapt from $7.23 to $9.32. Of course, I have no scientifically proven way to attribute a 29 percent stock price jump worth hundreds of millions of dollars to a single video. But I am sure it didn’t hurt.
I was sitting in a coffee shop doing work on the day the story caught fire. All of sudden my phone started vibrating like mad. Friends and family were practically screaming into the phone and flooding my in-box with e-mails. Media outlets like MSNBC, the Steve Harvey Show, Fox News, and radio stations I’d never heard of bombarded me with interview requests. They clogged my voice mail with messages urging me to call them back immediately so they could write about my story or book me on their shows. Bloomberg Businessweek—which happened to be one of my favorite magazines—even flew a reporter down from New York to interview me for a story they titled “The No Man.” It made me feel like I was some sort of superhero.
The story also caught the interest of Hollywood. Almost overnight, reality TV producers started pitching me ideas about turning my story into a TV show, where I would be the rejection expert helping others overcome their fears and solve their life problems. One of them dubbed me the “Rejection Whisperer,” after the bestselling novel The Horse Whisperer, and the popular dog-training reality TV show The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan. And I was even approached by a former movie executive who had somehow already written a script loosely based on my story, in which I was a depressed single guy who finally “finds himself”—and his true love—after 100 days of rejection. Never mind that I was a happily married man or that my 100 days had only just started.
People started to recognize me on the street. I was walking down the sidewalk one day when a driver slowed down his car, waved to me, and yelled out, “I love your video!” The next day, my wife and I were buying movie tickets when the ticket clerk started studying my face. She asked me if I was the person with all the “cool videos,” and then she asked if she could take a picture with me. I said yes—I might be the “No Man,” but I had better say yes to this kind of fan request! But I also felt dumbfounded, not just by her r
equest, but by everything that was happening to me. What was it about this video that struck such a nerve with people?
These kinds of encounters went on and on. It’s hard, even now, for me to believe that a video I’d created as a tool to help me overcome my fear of rejection—a video about customized donuts—somehow managed to catapult me into the spotlight in a way that I’d never intended and frankly never craved. I had imagined myself achieving some sort of fame as a by-product of building the next Microsoft or Google, not because I was trying to battle my fear of rejection.
—
And then it got even stranger.
100 DAYS OF REJECTION: HAVE A TV HOST SING TO MY SON
I have been a casual viewer of the show Survivor for years. I like it for its competition, characters, and good old reality TV drama. But more than anything else, I like its Emmy-winning host, Jeff Probst, and the way he interacts with contestants on a personal and compassionate level. So when the producer of the nationally syndicated Jeff Probst Show called and invited me to come on the show, I knew I had to say yes.
Two weeks later, CBS flew me to Hollywood. They also flew in Jackie Braun from Krispy Kreme. I have seen Jackie a few more times since that day, and every time I have been impressed by her humility and grace. In the greenroom before the show, while the makeup artists were getting us TV-ready, Jackie and I chatted about our strange journey—from a Krispy Kreme store in Austin to national television. Since the video had gone viral, hundreds of people had stopped by the Krispy Kreme where Jackie worked to meet her. She thanked me for giving her the chance to be appreciated by the public. But she also insisted that what she had done wasn’t extraordinary, and that many of her coworkers would have done the same thing.
The producers had invited one more person to join us onstage: Jason Comely, the inventor of the Rejection Therapy game that had inspired my 100 Days of Rejection quest. I’d never met him before but liked him instantly, and we have since become good friends. He told me that my blog had brought a lot of traffic to his site and his business. He also confessed that he’d been going through a tough time of his own and was finding the videos and my story inspiring.
Our segment came after Danica Patrick, the racecar driver. I was surprised, given my outsized fear of rejection, that being on national television didn’t scare me to death. Maybe it’s because the one person in the world whose acceptance and recognition I crave above all others was in the studio audience that day. My uncle—the person who was my role model growing up and whom I named my son after, but whose rejection of my entrepreneurial idea fourteen years earlier had left me stunned and unsure of myself—had driven all the way from San Diego to watch me on the show. Seeing him in the audience, smiling his encouragement and beaming with pride, made me feel like the luckiest man in the world.
It also gave me the courage to launch another rejection attempt—right there on TV. At the end of our segment, I asked Jeff Probst to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to my son. It was Brian’s favorite song. Jeff not only did it, but he got the entire studio audience to sing with him. Afterward, Jeff shook my hand. “Congratulations,” he said. “What you are doing is fabulous. You are onto something big here. Continue to inspire!”
—
All the attention from the media and from the public was pretty extraordinary. But if I had to pick one event that was the most unexpected, it was an e-mail reply from my personal hero.
I used to be very hesitant about contacting people through “cold calls” or “cold e-mails,” because the chance of being ignored or rejected seemed overwhelming. And the possibility of being rejected by famous, busy people was close to 100 percent, at least in my mind. But the momentum of my videos gave me the courage to send a few e-mails to some of my role models. I desperately wanted to get some advice on running my fledgling start-up.
One of the people I e-mailed was Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, the popular online shoe retailer. I’d read his book Delivering Happiness over and over again for inspiration when I was working at my old job. The book shares his early dreams of becoming an entrepreneur and how he fulfilled those dreams by building LinkExchange and later Zappos, overcoming all kinds of obstacles in the process. As a fellow Asian entrepreneur, I could relate to his struggles and his ambition, and I badly wanted to have the same impact that he has had.
It’s crazy what can happen if you just ask. To my shock, I received a reply from one of Tony’s assistants. It turned out that Tony had heard about my story and liked my videos. He wanted to invite me to fly to Las Vegas, where Zappos is headquartered, to give a talk as part of his Las Vegas Downtown Project.
In 2012, Tony was working on revitalizing downtown Las Vegas, moving it out from the shadows of the Las Vegas strip and transforming it into a cultural and technology hot spot to rival Austin and San Francisco. The Downtown Project was all about inspiring local businesses to think of themselves as part of a larger vision, and he thought hearing my story might help them think bigger about their aspirations.
Tony Hsieh, an inspiration of mine, wanted to invite me to deliver inspiration?
A week later, I was in Las Vegas, giving my speech. The event was held in a temporary theater made out of construction trailers, designed to symbolize the rebuilding of the city. Las Vegas had been deeply hurt by the great recession. Housing values had plummeted by more than two-thirds. Many people who had come to the city during the boom were devastated by the bust, and some had simply moved away to start over somewhere else. Those who remained felt that their city had been rejected by the world and were struggling to keep their spirits high amid efforts to rebuild and revitalize.
On the stage, I shared my own dreams and struggles and talked about my rejection journey—from my decision to quit my job to pursue my childhood dream, to getting rejected by the investor and the magical experience I’d had so far during my 100 Days. I encouraged the audience not to give up, but to march forward and follow their dreams for the city and for themselves, no matter what anybody thought about them.
After the talk, the audience gave me a standing ovation—the first I had ever experienced in my life. I felt completely overwhelmed. Even more surreal, people surrounded me afterward, shaking my hand and thanking me for sharing my story, as if I was doing them a great favor by trying to tackle my own fear.
When the crowd started to thin, Tony Hsieh tapped my shoulder and invited me to his office for a private meeting.
Tony’s story and achievements have made him a superhero to aspiring entrepreneurs like me, so sitting in his office was a rather dreamlike experience. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d thrown on an Iron Man suit and taken me for a ride. But after some small talk, Tony got down to business. He looked me in the eyes and asked: “How would you like to move to Las Vegas and work for me?”
—
On the flight from Las Vegas back to Austin, I watched out the window as the lights of the Las Vegas Strip shrank into the distance and then disappeared. The lights were replaced by total darkness; the only sound was the steady humming of the plane engine.
A few hours earlier, Tony Hsieh had offered me a job, or more like a business proposal. If I moved to Las Vegas, he would form a new business and hire me to work for it as a professional speaker. I would travel the country giving inspirational talks at conferences and corporations.
So Tony Hsieh wants to hire me for a talent I never knew I had until today—in public speaking.
The urge to say yes to whatever this man asked of me was so strong that I had almost agreed on the spot. But moving to Vegas and abandoning the company I had just formed was a decision that involved many more people than myself. So I’d asked for some time to consider the offer.
Now, sitting inside the plane, I had to ask myself: What just happened? Within a month, I’d gone from getting rejected by an investor, to asking for bizarre customized donuts, to being featured in newspapers, magazines, and national talk shows, to staring across a desk at Tony Hsieh, who was tryin
g to convince me to come work for him on a national platform.
Was this another dream, like the ones I’d had before that investor turned me down? If so, I didn’t know if I wanted it to keep going or to wake up.
But it wasn’t a dream. And I had choices to make. Should I become the “Rejection Whisperer” on my own reality show? Play the depressed guy who finds true love through rejection therapy in a Hollywood movie? Work for my idol Tony Hsieh? Or go back to doing what I was doing—running a struggling tech start-up while video-blogging about rejection?
As much as I loved my start-up team and the app we were building, totally disregarding what had just opened up and going back to my routine seemed a little unwise if not crazy. Not everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame, and mine had been pretty spectacular. If I wanted to capitalize on the new opportunities my “flash fame” had opened, then I needed to figure out which one of these new career paths would be the most meaningful in the long term. Maybe it was a combination of all of them.
As for Hsieh’s invite, something about going back to working for someone else in his or her company didn’t feel right. My goal in life has always been to make a positive impact in the world. Fame and celebrity had never been my main motive. So the idea of chasing after these flashy routes made me uneasy.
Also, I didn’t feel ready for it. Basically, I was a guy with a cool story, and I had just learned that I could tell it pretty well. My rejection journey had just started yet I was already being seen as some sort of expert. It was as if I’d set out to climb Mount Everest and had only just set up my base camp, yet the world was already trying to helicopter me out and crown me a great adventurer. I still yearned to discover the rest of the mountain.
On the other hand, if I didn’t jump on these opportunities now, would they still be there when I was ready for them?