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Getting Back Up (After a KO š„)
46 Plays6 months ago
"YOU'RE SIMPLY NOT GOOD ENOUGH ...." with those words, my heart sank. I'd used my ingenuity and craftiness to skip the line and get a job interview directly with an award winning Creative Director. But after a heap of excited anticipationāthe call ended in under five minutes. š£
Sooo, how did I respond?
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Transcript
The Sting of Rejection
00:00:03
Speaker
Today's story is about pursuing one's dreams and what is required to actually achieve them. And I'm gonna tell this little anecdote from back in I think 2021 when I got fucking rejected hardcore by a high profile person and it stung badly, man. Stung so bad.
Unorthodox Career Path
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome, friends, to life's effin' nuts. I am JR, one man's stories and ruminations on being human in an upside down world.
00:00:46
Speaker
I've had a very unconventional career path. When I was younger, all I really wanted to do was create art and follow in the footsteps of my my artistic heroes, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, Woody Guthrie, Ken Kesey. And I found some success with my art and some of the products I was working on. Doing things my own way, not having to play by the rules. And so that buoyed me in a way that in some ways was good and in some ways was bad because it made me feel like when I, anytime I had success working around the system, it gave me more and more confidence to be like, fuck the system. I don't have to play by the rules. I'm going to live my life my own way and forge my own path, et cetera. And so because of that, I don't have a college degree when I was younger. I worked a lot of odd jobs. I worked on some entrepreneurial projects and things like that.
00:01:45
Speaker
And so I just don't have a traditional resume.
Seeking Stability in 2019
00:01:54
Speaker
And in 2019, I got a little bit tired of living paycheck to paycheck and always hustling and always grinding and always swimming upstream, even though I'd found some success. At the end of the day, it was wearing me out. Something inside me told me that getting a, quote unquote, real job a more stable job, a better paying job, more secure job, would provide more spaciousness or relief for my soul, would give me a break from all this grinding that I've been doing for most of my life. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna conquer this challenge. I'm gonna figure it out. I hate everything about traditional job landscapes, from resumes to cover letters to job boards to interviews. I hate it all.
00:02:39
Speaker
In season one, I have a whole episode called, I hate work and it is true. I loathe, I despise all those elements, all the hoops you have to jump through, but I was determined to figure it out. And early on, as I was Feeling so much dread and despair as I searched endlessly through these horrible job boards and feel just completely outmatched, because all the requirements that were being asked for these jobs, I had none of them. I didn't have a college degree, I didn't have five plus years of experience, none of it. And so I was like, what the hell am I gonna do?
00:03:15
Speaker
But because I was determined, i I sat with attention. I just sat with attention. Throughout my life, Sitting with tension can often bring about amazing things, because usually I wanna avoid tension. It's uncomfortable, it's unsettling, and I just wanna do something that feels certain and clear, and so I will avoid tension. But when I've been able to sit in the pocket of tension, usually from that tension, some kind of insider clarity emerges.
Creative Cover Letters
00:03:55
Speaker
Let me be clear really quickly. this is a It's gonna take a little bit longer than usual for me to tell the backstory to get to this actual story that I wanna tell about this guy who rejected me. So i just bear with me. I promise you, we're getting somewhere. So I sat with attention and then from that tension, I just intuitively, and ah in a very subconscious way, and usually for me, intuitive and subconscious is where where the magic's at. I was so frustrated with this whole process. with just the imbalance of the job search where these employers are just dangling these job opportunities. There's more job seekers than there are job opportunities usually. So they're just dangling these little bits of cheese above the heads of all these job seekers. And we're all we're all clamoring for the cheese and fighting each other and like, look at my resume, look at my resume.
00:04:52
Speaker
And I was like, this sucks. this is ter And then the employers like objectify you and interview you and prod you and like judge your worth and value based on some stupid piece of fucking paper. it's not um I'm ranting a little bit. i I understand and I recognize that there are some good employers who go through good interview processes and are genuinely looking for so certain specific qualities. So I'm ranting a little bit, forgive me. I don't have entirely negative feelings about the thing, but I definitely have critiques of the whole job system. And so anyway, from that tension and also this frustration, I just decided that I'm going to start writing my cover letters as if they're creative writing assignments. I'm going to
00:05:41
Speaker
I'm going to write as if I have nothing to lose because I do have nothing to lose. I cannot stack up against these people with conventional career arcs and formal education and training. I just couldn't stack up. And to my surprise, it
Success in Job Applications
00:05:53
Speaker
ended up being very successful. I would write these very, very bold, brash, outlandish cover letters. And one of them actually landed me my first job in the corporate world. paying me more than i ever thought i could possibly make and i was at that job for almost three years and then they downsized and i got laid off and so when i went back into the job searching mode
00:06:12
Speaker
i was already sort of schooled and skilled at the art of standing out in a crowd in terms of cover letters And also, sending personal little messages to people on LinkedIn to decision makers, bypassing the traditional hierarchical system of hiring. I don't wanna talk to the hiring manager. I wanna talk to the CEO or the CMO, the chief marketing officer, the ones making the decision. I cannot make it past the hiring manager. Hiring managers are designed to reject me. They are looking for things that I don't have. And so I needed to bypass that system.
00:06:48
Speaker
And so I already had some skills from that. From when I got my first job, my first corporate job, I picked up right where I left off and I got better because I had learned a lot in those few years in the corporate world as a copywriter. I had become a student of the game. I started studying assiduously marketing and copywriting skills. And I fell in love with it. I really, really enjoyed learning in this capacity where i I was just devouring techniques and skills and philosophies and approaches. And then I would test them out and use them and learn from them and then test new things out. It was this beautiful learning process that I'd never experienced in my entire life. And the more I did it, the better I got.
00:07:36
Speaker
Okay, and now now we're starting to get to the real story, the heart of the story, the story I actually want to tell. My success rate was quite high for either getting a response from a decision maker, from a CEO or a CMO or a director of marketing. or from getting an interview through my creative cover letters. Pretty high success rate. And even though I had a high success rate, it did take me a few months to get an actual job. I had a lot of interviews. I sent out a lot of messages, a lot of applications. I was getting a lot of positive feedback. I remember at one point I was a finalist for a position at Eventbrite.
00:08:16
Speaker
I was a finalist, the director of marketing or whatever whatever he was, the guy hiring for the job. He had told me, he he had an and he set up a call with me to let me know personally that I hadn't gotten the position. And he said, I just want you to know like, You,
Facing Rejection at Eventbrite
00:08:32
Speaker
your writing stood out from hundreds of other writers. and And we came down to the wire and like, you are a great writer. We're going with someone who has some skills that that we're looking for, but that is not at all an indictment of your writing. So this is like a high profile person at a big company had told me that. Nevertheless, I wasn't getting a job and and my bank account was dwindling. And so I was feeling the pressure, feeling the stress.
00:09:00
Speaker
every time I would get rejected it would it would fucking sting man it would sting and and I would question myself and I would feel discouraged I mean I guess I had a little bit more of a formal background at this point because I'd had the few years in the corporate world and I had become more refined and polished in my understanding of how work works still though I question, am I ever gonna get a job? do i Am I good enough? do i have like What if I'm just a fucking loser?
00:09:48
Speaker
I'd always been fascinated by athletes. Once Twitter came on board, once Twitter was created, I was even more fascinated because I loved following athletes on Twitter and seeing, you know, sometimes they would share their workouts or their mentality. And I really related to it a lot. This idea of Continuing to work, never giving up. Keep pushing forward, believing in yourself. If you have a dream, if you have a vision, if you have a goal, you just keep working at it. You keep working at it. You don't let little setbacks define who you are. You just keep working. And so and so I'd follow a fair amount of athletes who would sort of share this energy, this vibe, this spirit. I grew up, I was an athlete. I was i played competitive hockey for 14 years at a very high level.
00:10:37
Speaker
I like to compete. I like that, that sort of warrior spirit. And so I got into it. And when I would get these rejections, it would sting. And like I said, I would question myself. And part of me would just feel like, I'm a fucking loser. This is not working. This is not going to work. And I would catch myself. I would i would sort of sit with myself and I would recenter on this sense of belief and confidence and and this this competitor in me.
Encouragement from a Creative Director
00:11:11
Speaker
And so I'm in this process over a few months and at one point I had sent this message to an award-winning
00:11:20
Speaker
I think he was a CMO, a Chief Marketing Officer. No, no, no, he was a creative director. And he had worked at big companies, Google. I think he might've worked at Facebook. He worked for the White House. He did some marketing stuff for for Obama's campaign. Like he was the decorated marketing elite. And I'd sent him this very creative, very bold message on LinkedIn. And I'd also sent him the cover letter for the position that I was applying for at his company. And it was super bold and super brash, and I get a message back from him. It just wrote, it worked, period. Let's talk.
00:11:57
Speaker
And I was like, ooh, yeah. I did it again, man. I am a creative genius.
00:12:11
Speaker
And I say that facetiously. I generally have been humbled a lot in my life and I value being humble. But I also, there's truth in the fact that every time I would pierce the veil and beat the system and and and bypass all the layers between me and the position I wanted and I would go straight for the decision maker and it would work. Every time that happened I felt so gratified and thrilled and empowered. So there was this elated feeling, got this message back from this guy.
00:12:50
Speaker
And I was like, okay, like this is this is the one, I have a feeling. No way I'm not landing this job, I'm gonna land this job. like this is This is the one, I'm gonna get this. I sent him a message back and we scheduled a time to meet and I was excited. I really just felt like ah i like this is it, man. I cracked the code, I just feel it. like this This is gonna work. And it was doomed from the start.
00:13:25
Speaker
So we set this meeting but he never gave me his phone number. I didn't have any way of contacting him other than LinkedIn or email.
Miscommunication and Cold Rejection
00:13:34
Speaker
or what I think I think i'm might have emailed him. I think I might have found his email address and emailed him directly. Anyway, I didn't have it until I was completely ready to go prepared. I'd prepared all day, three minutes early for the meeting. But then I was like, who wait, wait, wait, wait. He didn't, where there's no, there's no link. And i'm i'm I'm like frantic. I'm like, there's no link. There's no phone number. What am I supposed to do?
00:13:57
Speaker
and I emailed him like I like should I call you here's my number what's going on and I'm like no no no no this is not going well I guess I don't know something weird happened where like I don't know he didn't get my email and he wrote me back he's like he was upset he seemed upset his tone was like what's like forget this I don't know it was just a weird thing I don't know what happened but finally I did get his his phone number something like we were able to get on the same page I got his phone number I called him and from from the jump he seemed upset or frustrated about the miscommunication around the meeting time but it just It was a bad vibe from the start and then almost immediately he was like, can you send me your Portfolio right now and I didn't have a portfolio and like all copywriters need a portfolio But I'd i'd made it this far without one and the idea of creating one felt daunting Even though I'd spent three years at that previous job and and had done well I got a lot of positive feedback had done a lot of projects, but I didn't feel like the work was
00:14:52
Speaker
representative of who I actually was or what I was capable of. I've gotten this far without a portfolio. I've been a finalist for interviews at big companies without a portfolio. It's not worth my time and energy to to do a portfolio. That's what I thought. That was my thinking. I said, oh, um you know, like I generally just use my LinkedIn. I have a few samples of my work up there. And so he went on my LinkedIn. and he looked at some of my samples from my previous job and immediately, this is like within like 90 seconds, he's like, you have potential, but no, that's not gonna work. He's like, you just have potential.
00:15:29
Speaker
And I was like trying to explain myself. I was like, no but like, no, man, I've worked in all these different areas. Like I've done all these cool things. Like i I know how to do this job. I could just feel it in his voice. He was just, it seemed like even before we got on the call, he he was just not having it. And the the whole call probably was four minutes long, I would say. And he would he just brushed me off so easily and so swiftly. You have potential, but I need stuff that's above the fold. i need I need people who've done above the fold work, which would be like brand videos and major campaigns and things like that, which I had worked on a little bit at my previous job, but I didn't have anything like super polished. And so then the call ended and I just felt
00:16:13
Speaker
I was defeated, defeated because I felt like there's this there was this surge of energy and momentum and confidence and progress that was happening for me over this couple month period when I was unemployed. And I really believed that I had reached the the the pinnacle, the apex. I really, really felt like I had gotten there. I had gotten rejected a bunch of times. ah took my lumps, picked myself up off the mat. My writing just kept getting stronger and stronger. And I and i felt like I had gotten to a place where like, this was the one. I just felt it. This was the one. And then to have such a swift rejection and also the coldness with which he did it. It was just so cold. I just, I i was i was dead. I was dead inside. I sat there staring at my screen after we hung up for 10 minutes.
00:17:11
Speaker
just staring like I'm never going to get a job. I'm a fucking loser, man. This is, he just indicted my entire future. That's how I felt.
00:17:28
Speaker
I'd been practicing picking myself up off the mat. I had this sort of mantra at the time. I was like, What do you do when you get punched? It was like ah like a riddle. And I would say, you punch back. You punch back.
00:17:48
Speaker
But this, this was like, felt like a knockout blow, man. A knockout blow. Coincidentally enough, I actually had my boxing class to get to. I would often go to boxing class on Fridays after work, or or whatever, after after the work
Resilience and Renewal
00:18:00
Speaker
day. And so I dejectedly, out a part of me didn't even want to go, just wanted to flop, flop in my bed, pull the covers over my head and just fucking just, just disappear forever. Just, I was so defeated, but I picked up my bones and I dejectedly walked to my boxing class. And at boxing class, I started very listlessly. I still remember. I was just like punched in the back and I just felt like I just had no juice left. I was just so defeated. I was just dead inside.
00:18:31
Speaker
But something shifted as I was out there at boxing. Like my my fighting spirit came back and my sense of conviction and like determination and relentlessness and resilience came back.
00:18:46
Speaker
I ain't stopping, man. I'm not stopping. I mean, I didn't have a choice anyway because I had bills to pay and my bank account was dwindling and I had a, um how old was my son at that time? He was four or five years, and I have a fucking five year old to feed. I even went back after my workout and I emailed the guy and I said, people have been counting me out my whole life. I've always worked against the odds and all I'm asking for is an opportunity. I'll i'll do a project for you for free just so I can, I know how to do this work. Just give me a sample assignment. I'll show you what I can do. If you don't like it, I promise I'll leave you alone. And I sent that.
00:19:21
Speaker
Never her back. And within a few weeks, I ended up getting a good job that I was looking for and got paid even more money than I thought was possible. It all kind of worked out. But the thing that I want to focus on as I wrap up this episode. So like back then, I was very, I was like all in on this like warrior mindset, competitor mindset, relentlessness, determination, I was all in on it. I still think there's a lot of value in that mindset. But I have some critiques of it, too. i like I think, ultimately, the design of our society, I think, kind of broken where we have to, like, be so relentless and compete so hard just to get by, just to get a little slice of the pie. Like, I have a lot of critiques of
Reflection on Rejection and Perseverance
00:20:05
Speaker
that. I wish we could redesign society where we didn't have to fucking work ourselves down to the nub, fucking climb on top of each other just to try to get to the top.
00:20:16
Speaker
I wish we had had a better society where we could work hard and show up as we are, but not have to feel like we're in constant state of competition or survival. like I wish that we could design a better society.
00:20:32
Speaker
Given that this is the society we live in and it is hyper competitive, I think the lesson that I learned there, during and especially that during that whole unemployment period, it was pretty brutal, pretty rough. Even though I was gaining in confidence and getting better every single day as a writer and was experiencing all these new elements of determination and resilience that I'd never had before as a creative person, which was very invigorating and enthralling to have those. Even though i you know I had that, ultimately it was an incredibly difficult time period. so It was just so much rejection and so much insecurity around my finances dwindling. And so when I think back about that time and then specifically about this rejection from this one guy, the four minute rejection swiftly indicting me, it's just a reminder that for me, at least in my life, anytime I've tried to do something big,
00:21:28
Speaker
You know, I've had some kind of dream or some kind of a vision to level up, to not just sort of... flounder around in a muted kind of existence where i'm going I'm trying to go big a little bit. Like I want to i want an opportunity. I want more abundance in my life. Anytime I've tried to do that, there's been a lot of rejection, like on the path to trying to turn a dream into reality. For me, there's there's been massive amounts of rejection. And early in my life, when I would receive those rejections, I didn't have the mental strength or resilience
00:22:06
Speaker
keep going I didn't have what I had during that unemployment period. I assumed because I had one setback or two setbacks or whatever it was that that was the final answer like that the society or the universe or whatever was telling me like no you don't got what it takes you're done stop turn around and I'd be like okay fine
00:22:37
Speaker
But thankfully, during that time period, the unemployment period, I did learn that like just because one person rejects me. or many people reject me. It doesn't mean the idea doesn't have value. It doesn't mean that the dream doesn't have substance. It could mean that that person who rejected me doesn't see it. It could mean that person who rejected me is looking for something else, which is fine. It could mean that I need to improve, that that the dream that I have might have substance, but I need to get better at it. I always want to remember those three and a half months or whatever it was when I was unemployed.
00:23:14
Speaker
because I feel like I learned that lesson in the most visceral kind of way. And it's it just feels like it will always be applicable for me. Remembering that if I have a dream and I'm trying to bring it into reality, there's gonna be a lot of rejection, a lot of setbacks, and that if i'm if the dream is true to me, if it's something that I genuinely enjoy, something that I genuinely want to do, all I have to do really is just keep doing it. Keep practicing. Keep getting better. Sticking with it. Keep putting myself out there. And not giving other people the power to sort of define my story.
00:23:53
Speaker
It was a gut punch. It was very close to a knockout blow. It was just so brutal, man. That four minute phone call was so bad. But I just remember being at the boxing class and just feeling my fight come back. and just feeling like, nah man, like like this is too true to me. What I've been working on, developing my skills as a writer, as a communicator, it's it's like, i he can't he can't indict it. It's impossible because I have too much passion around it. I don't care if I don't get paid for it, I'm still gonna be doing it. And when I had that kind of unconditional orientation to the thing, I couldn't be stopped.
Podcast Conclusion and Follow-Up
00:24:38
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to Life's F&Nuts. I hope you enjoyed that story. New episodes drop every Tuesday on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and you can follow us on social media at Life's F and&Nuts Podcasts. I'm JR. See you guys soon.