Jia Jiang

When you went into these experiments with the initial mindset assuming you would get a “no,” sometimes you still got a “yes.” Do you think it was your energy that got that yes?

I was having fun. I was positive. I wasn’t there demanding. I wasn’t there threatening. I was just there having fun. I was like, “Hey, can I do this?” But also, part of this, what I learned is, sometimes people just say yes to you. The thing is, if you don’t ask for things, your chance of getting it is 0%. If you do ask, it could be 20%, 30%, or more.

I’ve done experiments in a classroom or company, where I’ve asked people, “Hey, just think about one thing that you can ask the person next to you. Think of one thing that no way you think will get a yes.” Sometimes they ask and sometimes 30, 40% of them get a yes.  So by asking, sometimes automatically, you go from 0% to 30%. That’s an astronomical jump.

One of the things about a TED Talk that Chris Anderson suggests we coach is that there is a call to action which talks about a new reality, “If this is true, what else is true?” So, what’s your call to action when you go out and speak?

My call to action for people is, “Think about what you can do if you’re not afraid of rejection. What if that fear doesn’t exist? And then, what if rejection is actually a good thing. We all think rejection is a failure, is something that we’re trying to avoid, but some of the most successful people succeeded not because they run away from rejection, but because they embrace rejection.”

What if you can think through the world from that paradigm. What would you do? So next time, when you go out and when you are trying to make something happen, whether it’s making a sales call or maybe an idea you want to change the world with, if you are afraid of rejection, think about these stories I just told you. Think about this new paradigm.