RACHEL O'MARA: I'm Rachel O'Mara.
I'm based in San Francisco.
And I'm here today with a very exciting speaker.
I'm really excited to bring Jia Jiang here from Austin, Texas.
He flew in all the way just to be here with you today.
And we are going to talk about how awesome rejection is.
Who's excited to talk about rejection?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
RACHEL O'MARA: Yeah cool.
Well, rejection means a lot of things to many people.
But I think what we'll learn today is how you can really
think about rejection differently.
A lot of times rejection stirs up not the nicest emotions
for people-- maybe a little bit of fear in there,
a little bit of anxiety, all kinds of things.
And what Jia has done is really mastered this as an art form,
I would say.
It's actually an art form now.
And what I think is really interesting is that if you
shift how you think about rejection,
and actually jump into the fear, lean into it,
and use rejection to learn about yourself--
whether it's what you are afraid of or what you may not have
done but want to take a risk -- you learn a little bit more
about yourself.
And you learn about what, maybe, is stirring that up for you.
And you get an opportunity to work
on yourself and personal development.
So that's why I think it's pretty cool.
So I actually wish all of you to have
as many rejections as possible.
[LAUGHTER]
RACHEL O'MARA: Whether it's today or one a day,
like Jia, or whatever it is.
And think of it like an opportunity for yourself.
And when you jump into that and think about it,
it's really a way to work on yourself really, and not
tiptoe around something that you may have thought
wasn't necessarily something that you were in to or wanting
to look into before.
So embrace.
It love It.
And Jia is here to talk about it and what
he does for it on a daily basis.
And then just a quick note as well.
I met Jia last summer at the World Domination Summit.
Has Anyone actually heard of that?
Has anyone actually been to it?
Good, good.
So the World Domination Summit is hosted by Chris Guillebeau
up in Portland, Oregon.
And last summer, we had about 300 bloggers, travelers,
and just life enthusiasts gathering.
And so Jia was one of our keynote speakers
who got a standing ovation.
He's also on a TEDx talk where he spoke about rejection
in Austin.
So we all loved what he had to say.
So that's why I thought it was really important to bring him
here.
He's also working on a book about rejection,
so there's no books for sale today.
But it will be available in the future.
So with that, I will pass it off to Jia.
Thanks.
[APPLAUSE]
JIA JIANG: Thank you.
So it was a warm November afternoon.
It was Sunday in Austin Texas.
A man in his 40s just sitting in his living room just minding
his own business.
Actually, the Dallas Cowboys was on.
And it was actually going to overtime.
And then the doorbell rang.
And he was like, that's odd.
Because his kid and wife are away.
Who could that be?
And is that a sales person?
Who does sales on Sundays?
Then the doorbell rang again.
Well, there must be some really motivated sales person.
So he got up kind of reluctantly and opened the door.
Instead he saw a 6 foot tall guy with a soccer ball
with a uniform, and cleats, and shin guards, and all
decked out.
And he's asking, "Can I play soccer in your backyard?"
And the guy's name is Scott.
And the guy who was asking the question was me.
But by now you've probably figured out what I was doing.
But you might be asking why?
Why did you do this?
What were you doing?
What were you thinking?
It was a love story.
It was really my story.
I was in a love story with rejection.
When people run away from rejection,
I really love rejection.
For a period of 100 days, I dated rejection every day.
And the end of me almost here was rejection.
It was like we're a married couple now.
But just like all good love stories,
it didn't start with me embracing it.
It started with me running away.
It started when I was a teenager boy growing up
in Beijing, China.
Some people want to ask what I want to do in the future.
What's the meaning in life?
And I got that figured out pretty early.
I want to be entrepreneur.
I want to someday build a company like the one
I'm standing in right now.
I had that dream.
And when I was 14, Bill Gates actually
came to my hometown to speak.
And it was a big deal.
It was the first time he visited Beijing.
And I remember he was in Peking University.
And there were people hanging on trees just listen to him talk.
I had no idea what he said because I don't know English.
But you all sounded so good to me.
[LAUGHTER]
JIA JIANG: I thought he was the prophet.
He knows everything.
There he is.
I have no idea what he held in his hand.
I'm sure it's not an Android or an iPhone.
It's probably not Windows Phone either.
But I was mesmerized by his story.
And ever since I want to be a great entrepreneur.
In fact, I wrote a letter to my family telling them by age 25
I will build the greatest technology
company in the world.
I will buy Microsoft.
Yes, I really embraced his spirit of domination.
I didn't make it up.
I actually wrote that letter.
I found it.
And you don't have know Chinese to read this.
It's not good writing anyway.
I marked some key words.
[LAUGHTER]
JIA JIANG: So I didn't just have a dream.
I actually acted on it.
When I was 16, I was given the opportunity
to come to the United States to do cultural exchange program.
It's idea is for me to live with a American host family.
And I go to high school.
Then go to college later on.
Funny thing is in that letter I talked
about I want to go to Houston.
Somehow I want move to US.
I want to go to Houston to achieve that dream.
I have no idea why picked Houston.
It's probably because that was the year the Houston
Rockets win the NBA championship.
And I am a fan so I'm like, Houston sound good.
It's all about branding, you know.
But when I came here, and I landed in the US,
I went to the host family.
And it's a place I did not sign up for.
It's not Houston.
It's not Silicon Valley.
It's not LA or New York.
It's rural Louisiana.
So I'm not sure any of you are from there or been there.
It's a town of 500 people.
There are more cows than people.
You get on Google Earth.
You type in Simpson, Louisiana.
And you zoom in and zoom in, and do that about 10 times you'll
start seeing some streets.
There's only a few streets.
But the thing is at the time, I thought,
this is the start of a dream.
I'm just starting small.
This is small town.
I'm from Beijing-- 50 million.
That's OK.
I'm here.
I here in America now.
And then over the subsequent years I did achieve a dream.
I did.
But actually it's a different dream.
It's not the dream I thought.
It's not the dream I wrote on this letter.
It's called the American dream.
Basically, I went to school, got a job,
made money, went to a better school, got an even better job,
made even more money, got a care, got a house, got a dog,
got married, and everything.
And one day I woke up, I'm 30 years old.
I didn't achieve-- I was comfortable.
I was living in a situation where
99% of the people on Earth would envy.
But I didn't achieve this dream.
Instead I actually chose a path of security and conformity,
and looking for family approval.
The thing is no one rejects you when
you are 30 years old making a lot of income
at a Fortune 500 company.
They think you're doing great.
In fact, some people would ask me for a job.
And I'm sure people here get that all of time.
People think you are doing great.
But I'm not saying everyone should an entrepreneur.
But for me, this is my dream.
And I didn't go for it.
And I really kind of run away from the risk and rejection.
And in the end I rejected myself.
I couldn't stand myself anymore.
It felt so shiny on the outside, so wrong on the inside.
I remember, it was last year 2012 just about 15 months ago,
July 4th weekend.
I was going to community park, sit on the grass.
There were families all around me.
Dogs, kids, and ice creams, and laughters.
And I was as depressed as I could be.
My wife was, at the time, nine months pregnant.
And I was watching the colorful explosion in the sky.
When everyone was enjoying it, what
I saw was a mental slideshow of what's the rest of my life's
going to be.
I'm going to have more responsibilities at work.
I'm going to develop more processes.
And I'm going get promoted and build a big 401(k).
And at home, we're going to have two or three more kids.
That's always our goal, two or three more kids.
Our life will be in a cycle of sending them
to school, summer vacation, send them to school, and then
holidays.
And then we're going to through that cycle about 18 to 20 times
and we'll be old.
And I would not make no real impact in the world.
The slideshow ended with a picture of my funeral,
of my eulogy.
That eulogy is very touching, but I would hate to have it.
I would hate it.
And I cussed.
And I'm not an actual cusser.
So when I cussed, my wife was concerned.
It was like, what's going on with you?
And I told her I would die full of regret some day.
And she's really concerned now.
[LAUGHTER]
JIA JIANG: It's like, lady, what's going on?
And I told her about this situation of me
right now, this dream I had and why I'm not pursuing it.
And then I actually expected her to give me a lesson.
I expected to tell me that, hey, our life is great.
You should be grateful.
Be a great husband.
You're going to be a great father in about a month or so.
But actually no.
She told me, you know why I met you and fell in love with you?
It's because you told me the first day
that you're going to be entrepreneur some day.
And I need that man in my life.
How come you're not doing it?
[LAUGHTER]
JIA JIANG: And if you're not happy, I'm not happy.
We can have another car, another house, another great job.
But you cannot have your life back.
So why don't you try this?
Go out and for six months, build your company.
Just go give it a try.
At least to do your best.
Six months.
At that moment, I knew I married up.
So I did.
This is the day my son was born.
And four days before, that I quit my job.
And I turned in my badge.
And I asked my manager to take a picture.
I don't think she was happy because it wasn't good picture.
But I remember that day I walk out my office building.
And this moment of joy but also nakedness came to me.
Because before I could always blame that,
hey, I have a company.
I'm making money.
Now, the only thing in between me and my dream is me.
I've no more excuse.
It's all on me now.
So I hit the ground running.
I did.
And I formed a team.
It's a lot of rejection, but I used LinkedIn.
I used a local network, and I built a team of five engineers.
I'm the only engineer guy.
But I built a team of five engineers
and across the country, actually across continents.
And we used the Lean Startup methodology.
Interviewed customers.
Built MVP.
We did all that.
We built our prototype and a lot of people
like what we're doing.
Four months into my venture-- really
I didn't have a lot of time.
Four months into my venture, I was
presented with a major investment opportunity.
And I actually thought, this is the answer to my prayers.
I'm going to get it.
This is fate.
This is dream come true.
This is destiny.
I believe in destiny.
I thought, there's no way I'm not going to get it.
I even dreamed about on, five different occasions,
I dreamed about getting that investment.
And I remember vividly in those dreams I woke up
and got the investment.
I called my wife.
I call my parents and telling them the good news.
I remember those feelings still today.
But then those were dreams.
The reality hit.
One day, I was at the restaurant celebrating
a friend's birthday.
It's a bunch of friends.
And then my phone vibrated.
And I pulled it up and I saw email.
The email was from the investor.
It's a very simple letter basically said no.
And I had to just walk out of that restaurant
so other people wouldn't see me cry in front of them.
It felt personal and impersonal at the same time.
And I don't know why I was hurt that bad.
Because I thought I'm mentally tough.
I'm well-educated I'm actually prepared for no.
I know there's a possibility for no.
I prepare for it.
But still when it comes,
I want it so bad, it really hurt.
And I started thinking, maybe this is not to be.
Maybe this is some sort of Higher Being telling me
that this is not your destiny.
You should go back to work.
I'm like, if I look for a job now,
I could save two more months.
And it's a lot of income.
So I told my wife.
I started talking with my wife.
My wife's like this quarterback grabbing
the offensive lineman's face mask like he gave up a sack.
She's like, I gave you six months.
I didn't give you four.
So you have two more months left.
You got to keep trying.
Leave no regret.
And but I try.
But, you know, I don't want to go through the whole thing
and get rejected again.
I learned how easy it is for investors to reject ideas.
They're presented with ideas all-- great presentation--
all day long.
So I'm like, more than likely I will get rejected.
And I don't have enough time.
But I thought, would Bill Gates get
crushed like I was with a single rejection?
Would Thomas Edison get crushed like that?
So I started thinking.
It's not just about this investment.
If I want to be a better entrepreneur,
if I want to be a better professional if I go back
to work, want to be a better father a husband,
I need to not be afraid like this.
Not be afraid of rejection.
So I started searching online and using, guess what?
Google.
Google is my friend.
And I searched how can I overcome the fear of rejection.
I came across a website called Rejection Therapy.
It's a game that basically asks you
to go out and look for rejection.
The goal is to desensitize yourself
from the pain of rejection.
And you know what?
I love the idea.
I'm like, this is a great idea, one the greatest I've heard.
Let's do it.
Let's blow this out.
Instead of doing this just kind of a half-heartedly,
I'm going to build a blog.
I'm going to record the process.
And I'm going to do this for 100 days every day.
So the world will keep me accountable,
and I wouldn't quit halfway.
So I did.
This is the original blog.
And I started asking for some crazy stuff to get rejected.
You see I was asking to play soccer in someone's backyard
as day six.
For example, one day I saw a police officer.
I flagged him down saying, hey, can I drive your car?
It's my revenge for pulling a police officer over, you know?
And then one day I thought, what would it be like to fly?
So I went to an air field and saw a pilot and say, hey,
can I fly your plane?
He's like, do you have a license?
And I was like, no.
[LAUGHTER]
JIA JIANG: I don't know anything about flying
I just want to fly your plane.
But the crazy thing happened.
People start saying yeses to these requests.
The three things I said, they say yes to all of them.
And here's the proof.
So and now I'm all like, whoa.
I'm looking for rejection but I'm getting yeses.
What I do?
I'm confused.
And then there's one instance where it actually
made national news, that it really
encompasses the idea of looking rejection and not getting it.
And here it is.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-I'm driving toward Krispy Kreme.
I'm going to ask them to make me some specialized doughnuts.
And we'll see what happen.
-What kind of specialized doughnuts
are you talking about?
-I like to have getting-- you link the five
doughnuts together make them look like Olympic symbols.
-And when are you looking for these?
-Huh?
-When?
-The next 50 minutes?
-Let me see what I can get.
-OK.
-But what do you think?
-Wow.
That is really good.
That's really good. [LAUGHS] Yeah.
All right, so do I pay there?
-Don't even worry about it.
That one's on me.
-Are you serious?
You serious?
-Yeah.
Extremely.
-Wow.
-Extremely.
-[INAUDIBLE] today.
All right.
Thank you.
-You're very welcome.
-All right.
See you.
Give me hug. [LAUGHS] OK.
-Enjoy.
-All right.
Thank you.
See you.
-You're welcome.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
JIA JIANG: I will never forget that doughnuts.
It's very sweet.
But the spirit is better than it tasted.
So I couldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe it.
And then I posted it online.
And in about a week or so, it got over 5 million views
on YouTube.
And the Krispy Kreme stock actually went up.
[LAUGHTER]
JIA JIANG: I cannot prove this scientifically it's all
because of this.
But I'm sure this didn't hurt.
People who saw this and they started following my blog.
And they started finding what I'm doing somehow inspiring.
And they started sending me thousands of emails.
Today, I got over 3,000 emails from people,
just from strangers all over the world.
And on social media-- on the Twitter,
everywhere-- they send me stories about their rejection.
Why they are afraid of rejection.
So for example, there is an artist in Austin.
Her art is beautiful and profound.
But no one noticed.
She didn't tell anyone because she's like, this is my art.
It's my baby.
I don't want to share with the world because--
But one day she saw this.
It's like, those doughnuts are pretty nice.
But I'm real artist.
If that video can go viral, why shouldn't I
share my art with the world?
And she did it.
And then it made national news pretty soon.
She went to Washington, DC and has own show.
Then there's this man.
He's afraid of rejection his whole life.
And he said for things like going to a restaurant
and ask for ketchup would churn his stomach.
And so he sent his kids to do it.
But just last year, his wife was diagnosed with cancer.
And he learned, for good and for bad,
the in the American medical system,
you have to keep pushing for things.
You have to keep asking the doctors, the nurses,
the hospitals to get things done.
And he's like, if you have the courage
to us crazy stuff for some sort of rejection therapy,
I'm trying to save my wife's life here.
You know, why shouldn't I ask?
So he did and he thanked me with a letter.
It's me getting these kind of a letters every day
that give me a chance to see rejection face-to-face.
I thought this is some sort of monster
that everyone's afraid of, but I started reading more on it.
I started talking to people-- talking to successful people--
how they see rejection, how they overcome rejection.
And here's what I found.
Rejection is not what I thought it was.
One it's constant.
Rejection is constant.
And some people write me emails saying, yes, I'm
afraid of rejection.
But I might want to try something on my own.
I might want to try some new idea.
But let me get to a certain place in life first.
Let me get that promotion.
Let me get higher in the corporate ladder somewhere so I
cannot get rejected as much.
Actually, that's not true.
In fact the higher you go, the more you'll get rejected.
For example, President Obama, right?
He gets rejected more than anyone.
Think about it.
Even in the last presidential election,
he won 51% of the popular vote.
All right, he won.
He's a big winner.
He's cover of "Time" magazine.
He's the most powerful man on Earth.
But he got rejected by half of his country.
And think about this is the leader of free world.
He got rejected 61 million times.
And I'm sure Google is probably the pinnacle of technology
world.
And I'm sure you guys get rejected.
It's not like there's no place that's rejection proof.
And then I learned that rejection is actually
just a number.
There's no mathematical way, statistical way for you
to have an idea and get rejected by everyone in the world.
No way.
No matter how crazy, how good or how bad you idea is.
You'll find someone who would agree with you.
And it's true.
And I just learned a few days ago J.K. Rowling, her
work "Harry Potter" was rejected 12
times before the first publisher would take it.
And it was because of the chairman's granddaughter.
She insisted on it.
It was like, this has got to be-- Grandpa, please.
But think about if she quit any of the 12 times when she got
rejected.
We would not know who won the fight between Harry Potter
and Voldemort, right?
And we wouldn't know he existed.
No wait, he doesn't exist.
But anyway, we would not be introduced
with that amazing world.
And there's also you think about Abraham Lincoln.
We heard the story that he got rejected eight times
before he was elected a president, right?
He lost in the election, local election, state election,
the national election.
Then he became the president.
But what I was interested was the movie "Lincoln".
Last year, it almost won the Oscar's.
It came in second, I think.
The director, Steven Spielberg, he actually
tried to convince Daniel Day Lewis
three times before the actor would say yes to be Lincoln.
He got rejected three times.
All right, this is not some up-and-comer in Hollywood.
This is Steven f-ing Spielberg.
And he can get rejected three times.
But every time instead of saying,
how can you say no to me?
He actually re-wrote the script, completely re-built the script,
and went back to Daniel Day Lewis.
It's like, so does this work?
It's like oh, thank you for doing this.
It's great.
But for some reason, I can't.
He went back, re-wrote it again.
He did that three times.
And in the end, the movie was a masterpiece.
And lastly rejection is nothing more than opinion.
I feel the world needs many things.
It needs more trees and love and sympathy.
Definitely more free drinks and bathrooms.
Google has that covered, I'm sure.
But one thing we'll have plenty of is opinions.
Everyone has them, and they're more than
willing to give you for free.
But somehow, when they get rejected,
rejection is really nothing more than the preferences
and opinion of the rejector.
It actually says more about the person
who'll give the rejection than the person who receives it.
It's about the fear, how he grew up,
his opinion, his preferences.
It's about that person.
It's a lot about that person.
But somehow, we twisted it.
When we get rejected, we think about that
as some sort of objective truth about who we are.
And we take it so personally.
Rejection is really like chicken.
It's either yummy or yucky, depends on how you cook it.
But it's the fear of rejection that really cripples us.
So much so that we're more willing to reject ourselves so
others wouldn't reject us.
Have you had idea that you thought
is a really cool idea that you want to try it.
But you thought, this is kind of far-fetched.
There's no way it's going to work.
Or maybe you take it out.
You ask for opinions.
People tell you, that's a stupid idea.
That's not going to work.
Then you're like, OK that's not going to work.
Then maybe a few years later, you saw someone else did it.
You'll start kicking yourself.
Or a more common example, have you had a crush on a girl
or see a girl or guy that you like
that you're afraid to ask that person out
because you don't want to get rejected.
I heard people writing me this email a lot.
They're like, I know this girl and, oh my gosh,
I'm leaving school in about two months.
What do I do?
I feel like I'm not going to see her again afterward.
And then you don't do it.
And you thought about what's it like?
You always fantasize, oh, what it's like
if my life I spent with that person?
Actually I had these thoughts.
Sometimes I have those thoughts as well.
But the thing is when whatever happens,
you have to leave no regret.
You have to keep asking for things
so you don't get rejected.
So you don't leave regrets saying, would that ever happen?
I've never heard of one person who actually
say I regret trying something.
I regret asking someone out.
I regret making this initiative, making that conversation.
I haven't heard it.
So I learned a lot about things-- business,
communication, sales through my rejection therapy for 100 days.
It's actually amazing the body of knowledge, actually,
I'm rang into.
Because I have a camera, I talk to a stranger and asking
something crazy.
I started learning it's like, wow.
Actually, if I do with this-- and I
started analyzing other people's reaction.
I found actually you can say things,
you can act a certain way, and get people to say yes to you.
I'm going to write this in the book "What
I Learned From 100 days of Rejection".
I'll just share one thing.
For example, we thought about sales, right?
We thought about sales is about maybe
trying to convince other people.
Trying to do something.
Trying to buy something.
We watch movie like "Glengarry Glen Ross", right?
There's, "Always be closing," you know the rah rah talk.
Actually I found that to be the opposite of my experience.
When that company I'm trying to be closing something, trying
to convince someone to do something,
I started feeling anxious.
I started trying to analyze the reaction.
I started trying to say things I didn't mean.
I started becoming who I'm not.
So instead of actually trying to convince someone,
I learned I try to make a good argument, make a good case.
They sound like they're pretty similar.
They're actually very different.
Because the metrics, one, is on the other person.
You get a yes or a no.
The other one is for myself.
I can totally control what I say.
I can totally control my body posture.
I control my confidence.
I cannot control that person say yes or no because that's his
preference and opinion.
But I found out if I focus on who I am and what I do,
I'm liberated by other people's opinion.
I'm liberated by this desire to get a yes.
And it turned out, I will get more yeses.
In this 100 days, I got almost 50%
yes with no matter how crazy I went.
This is just one small things I learned and they're a lot more.
But I'm actually start to work with some professionals,
and sales professionals, and people in customer service
about how actually to turn this into helping them
to not be afraid of which rejection,
how to be better salesperson.
But the most important thing I learned are just two words.
Just ask.
Remember I told you I asked the pilot to fly his plane?
When I think about flying, they I
think about going through the airport,
and taking off my belt, and make sure my pants don't drop.
And I walk through that cancer-inducing bone scanner.
And charging my phone on the dirty carpet.
That's what I think about flying.
But that day, I had the best flight of my life.
I've never forget it.
For a minute I was two feet above the cornfield.
I was just skimming through.
I felt like I was a seagull.
I was looking for fish above ocean.
And then the next minute, I was 1,000 feet into air.
I felt like an eagle.
And all this time, I just kept looking back and thought, wow.
What if I didn't ask?
What if I wasn't crazy that day and asked
them to fly someone's plane when I have no permit or nothing?
I would have none of this.
Then I thought about my life.
What if I didn't ask?
Or people who write me emails, what if they didn't ask?
Companies might not be built.
Or they might be quit prematurely.
Art might not be shared and appreciated by the world.
And lifesaving treatment might be delayed or not even happen.
When we think about rejection, we
think about as something so negative, so terrifying.
So by actively avoiding that rejection, by not asking,
we're avoiding a negative feeding
so it's and positive, right?
That's actually a lie.
That's a lie that people say to themselves every day.
I say that to myself too.
But I learned that if I'm not going out there and getting
rejected on a daily basis, I'm actually rejecting myself.
And as a result, I'm getting ignored by the world.
I might get rejected, I might get accepted.
I won't let someone else do it.
Not myself.
As a result, I will not let the world ignore me.
So what's next for me?
This "100 Days of Rejection", I've completed it.
I am actually writing a book.
I just not too long ago I got a book deal.
It will come out until the 15th.
But that's actually not the most important.
Like writing a book, being and inspirational
speaker or keynote speaker.
That's actually just sounds good.
But what I really want to do is, when I think about rejection--
now I know what a rejection-- is I start
thinking about rejection in history.
And I found that the people who made
the most impact in the world in this history
are the people who get rejected, sometimes violently.
We think about Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr,
Nelson Mandela, even Jesus Christ.
They met the most violent and gruesome rejection
in the world.
But in turn, they made history.
They changed history.
And I want to do that as well.
Remember I wrote this letter?
I said I want to conquer the world
and be like next Bill Gates?
Actually I don't want to conquer the world anymore.
I want to make it better.
I want to find a new world in this world
where no one is afraid of rejection.
I want to see what it's like.
I want to see, out of this curiosity,
I want to see how many more lives will be fulfilled.
I want to see how many more ideas will be realized.
How many love stories will be written.
I want to see that world.
Being an entrepreneur is not about making
a whole lot of money or having a cool idea.
It's about finding a need and developing
solution for that need.
And by accident, I found one of the biggest need
in the world which is we're afraid of rejection.
And I want to find a solution for it.
Now, I'm at Google.
This is where the smartest people are.
And I'm going to give you two challenges.
One is-- I, personally, I will write a book,
and I will continue blogging.
I'll be a speaker.
But you know what?
Deep down, I'm a technology guy.
That's why I quit my job before.
I want to build the greatest technology company.
I want to ask you for ideas.
How can I use technology to develop solutions
so people are not afraid of rejection?
It's not just, yeah let's do a game.
Let's do an app.
It's actually what are the goals?
How can I actually make that happen?
How can I encourage people?
And two, if you have friends or loved ones,
or family members who's also afraid of rejection,
share my story with them.
Just tell them that this guy actually so scared of rejection
he went out there for 100 days.
In the end he changed his life.
Share story with them and see how they react.
And it's going to help.
It's going to help.
If it doesn't help, buy them a box of doughnuts.
It will always help.
All right, thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
JIA JIANG: Yeah, I guess I have a few minutes
to do a quick Q&A. So if you have any questions,
let me know.
Go ahead.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]?
JIA JIANG: Right.
How do I record?
I own a iPhone.
The thing about iPhone is it's small, right?
So I hang it on my chest and I don't actively hide it.
I just hang it there.
And so most people will think it's just
an iPhone that I would listen to music to.
But actually, when they ask me, I always tell them.
So--
Why didn't I try to be an entrepreneur in Beijing?
Do you know what Beijing was like in 1995?
It's different from Silicon Valley.
A lot has changed.
But I learned where Bill Gates is.
And actually I thought, I might knock on his door
and be his partner something.
But America has this-- if you want
to be technology entrepreneur you had this dream of coming
to the US and making that happen.
So that's why I wanted to come here.
Go ahead.
Yeah, so the question is if I get
rejected, most of the things I've done
are not going to be life-changing things.
They're going to be like, rather if it didn't happen,
it's OK, right?
Well first of all, it's hard to have life changing rejections.
A hundred of them.
But I see this as in like practicing basketball.
The games are won and lost not on the court when
they're 20,000 people watching.
It's in the dark gyms where you are practicing free throws.
And I see the courage and I see the gumption
to ask these questions, not to be afraid.
It's almost like a muscle.
You have to keep practicing.
So I use these type of things to practice myself.
And you can try some of them.
These are the things, some of them are just frightening.
Like small things, am I going to lose my live after this?
No, it's not.
But before you do it, it's actually frightening.
But gradually I found out, toward the end,
I'm not afraid of asking anything.
I'll ask anyone anything.
I'm not afraid.
But at beginning, I was a different person.
So I see this as a practice.
I see this as a course for myself to develop more courage.
Go ahead.
That's actually a very good observation.
The thing is-- OK, the question is what about a sports analogy.
In baseball, you take a swing.
You might miss and, I guess, strike out, right?
In basketball, sometimes you take shots or you pass.
When do you pass?
When do you take a shot?
Is that the question?
So I feel like instead of worrying about making shots,
instead of worrying about strike outs, I worry about my form.
I worry about my mentality.
I worry about the posture when I stand up plate.
I worry about making the best decision when
the ball comes to me.
And in basketball, I worry about in that situation,
should I shoot or should I pass?
So it's not about getting that score.
That's not my metrics.
I worry about making the right decision.
And somehow, this rejection therapy thing,
after I'd done this for 100 days,
I started making decisions a lot more clearer.
Because in the past, when you are afraid,
we are wanting to win so bad, you want to get a yes so bad,
you started trying to-- it does cloud your mind.
You started trying things that you didn't mean.
But now, I learned that I actually
don't care about yes or no.
I care about making the right decision.
So I think that's how I would answer that sports analogy.
Go ahead.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
JIA JIANG: Absolutely.
The comment is I should be talking
about doing this more on a more academic approach, right?
Doing more research and experiments, and with test
groups, and find the right sample size,
and start experimenting to see how it would work.
Actually, yeah.
That's in my plan.
A couple of things.
One is the most thing that I know is my story.
I know this from firsthand.
I know the impact it made on me.
And I know the impact it made on the people who actually go out,
and they saw what I'm doing.
They start trying this.
And they came back to me to say, this is amazing.
That's a lot anecdotal evidence.
And that's actually very strong evidence.
I see this in the mirror every day.
But as you were mentioning, as someone
who wants to develop technology, this
is highly crucial to me to someday
to actually be able to do the research,
be able to have the data to back it up as well.
So it's not just anecdotal.
Here and there.
So the question is when I get rejected,
how do I repair myself?
One is I see rejection differently now.
I used to think you equate rejection with a failure.
And I use to equate rejection as something
that says bad about me.
But now, because of how I see rejection differently,
I get rejection I almost laugh at it, almost celebrate it.
Just because, again it says more about that person than me.
In fact, I found that rejection, actually,
is a lot a way to qualify that person.
Do I want to do business with that person?
My goal, I found, is not trying to convince someone
who doesn't like me, doesn't like my stuff.
My goal is to find a person who is open to my idea,
and then to try that.
And I don't get hurt anymore because of how I see rejection.
And also I should start trying to celebrate it.
And here and there.
Go ahead.
So the question is what do with my kids with the rejection,
right?
So that's a great question because the rejection
is so relevant in any area.
Parenting is a huge area, right?
You don't want to get rejected by your kid.
But you ought to have your kid to learn
how to deal with rejection.
Because I feel like in modern society,
especially in a rather affluent upper middle class
or middle class, that our goal is we
try to make the kids feel good.
That's our only goal, trying to feed him and make them happy.
I think that's important.
But also one very highly important thing
for being a parent, what I learned from my experience
is I actually need to expand his comfort level.
I need to tell him that it's OK to get no.
Actually, why don't you go out and keep trying and getting
no's.
And I wish I've done this when I was eight
instead of when I was 30.
So I hope it answers question.
Yeah, I do.
Because the whole thing is to look for rejection
by ridiculous request.
But when I get there, I try my best to negotiate.
And I have again, I've developed a body of language.
There's a couple things I learned.
For example, when someone's saying no to you,
instead of turn around, instead of just looking
for a place a hide, you actually start a conversation.
You ask why.
Why would you say no to that?
And sometimes the why is a lot more important than the what.
If you can find out the reason, and if you started negotiating,
started trying to tackle the reason he has fear,
it turned out more than likely they
would come back and say yes.
And sometimes they think you are crazy asking this.
That's why I did say no to this.
But then when you start talking, it's
like, huh, this guy looks normal.
He's very respectful.
Let's talk about this.
So you have a style.
And also there are things like when someone said no to you,
one of the ways, you can actually provide alternatives.
Ask them, what about this?
If you can't do this, what about that?
And then what I learned is sometimes
when the people start collaborating with you, instead
of negotiating, instead of sitting across table,
if you sit on the same side and trying to tackle a problem,
the solution is actually better than what
you thought you would get.
Because that person has the expertise.
And he has a resource that you need.
All right?
Go ahead.
So the question is as a Chinese American,
how culturally does that have an impact on me?
This is very deep question.
I actually got this question a lot
with especially people international, like immigrants,
first generation immigrants or even second generation.
They send me letters saying, wow, what you're doing
is great.
But actually, what's more awesome is you're actually
are talking to white people and black people and every one.
And to me, that's actually to allow deeper issue
on cultural difference.
Because someone wrote me letter saying,
I'm afraid to talk to people that's
not my race because my mom told me don't ever
talk to a black guy or white guy because they have guns.
I literally heard this.
And that sounds laughable, right?
But when you are told like this in the beginning, when
you are young, it does have an influence
of how you behave in the future.
Even subconsciously.
Even now you think is laughable.
Even your colleagues are people from different race
and culture.
So what I have found is deep down,
I can't believe how similar we are.
Yes, people look different.
Yes, they have different languages.
Yeah, they're from different places.
But deep down, we have the same fear.
We have same aspiration which is we just want to do better.
Right?
We want to do better.
Mostly, we are kind.
So I started looking past the race.
I started looking past the culture.
Actually, it never started with me
that looking at people who are different.
I just see people are human beings.
And in that way, the connection is
a lot stronger than I thought.
Great point.
So the question is he wants to think
about things in the other side.
It hurts to get rejected, but what about rejecting others?
And I found how unwilling people are to reject you.
I found firsthand.
Because people are generally nice, it's hard to say no.
And then I learned in few instances
where someone said no to me, but the way they said it
make me a fan of them.
And this has a big implication in customer service
because in customer service you got to say no all the time.
You can't just say yes to every request.
But how do you say no and improve your brand?
That's very important.
So it's a couple things.
Instead of saying no, make it upfront.
We can't do this.
And tell them why you cannot do this and be very honest.
We can't do this because of here are the reasons.
But here's how you can get to a yes.
There are alternatives, and they're a path to a yes.
And here's what you can do.
Now you put the ball into the other person's court.
And it's on him to actually fulfill
those requirements to get a yes.
So it is tough to give a no sometimes.
But if you learn how to do it, you
can do it and still make people like you.
No and because when I do it, I'm very respectful.
And I don't expect a yes.
And I don't come in and I would say,
I will make you feel bad if you say no to me.
This is what I learned very early
is I don't want put people in a situation
where they would feel bad saying no to me.
I want to make it like, it's OK to say no.
It's really OK to say no.
I'm all about having this playful spirit when I do this.
In a lot of cases I actually become friends
with these people, strangers I met.
And some of them are like-- for example Jackie
from Krispy Kreme who did this.
I talked to her many times after this.
And she was grateful that I would ask this kind of question
because it's like, my job is boring.
Like, I would love to be challenged like this.
Just come on out.
I hope everyone tell me to make something good.
Yeah the most common reason people
fear rejection is they take it very personally.
It sounds very easy.
We talk about research.
The fear of rejection goes way back to our hunter gathering
states where you get rejected by your tribe, well you're out.
And you cannot survive on your own.
Right and that fear stayed with us for over the centuries,
over the millenniums.
We in here know actually the people
done study in their brain and they're
both psychological and physiological.
They find out when you get a no, the pain
is the same type of pain that you
will get if you're kicked somewhere or get hit somewhere.
So it's psychological but physical reaction
is the same as physical.
RACHEL O'MARA: Yes.
JIA JIANG: OK.
All right.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]