Handling Rejection

Good morning readers,

Having been in sales for most of my life, the common thread or trait, among other qualities, that most salespeople have is the ability to handle rejection.  Psychologist Guy Winch writes, “The greatest damage rejection causes is usually self inflicted.”  When we lose a job, get ostracized by friends, or go through a nasty divorce, the pain can hurt like slamming your finger in a door of a 1982 Sedan de Ville.  But, just as that agony will, at some point, dissipate, so will the rejections that we will encounter in life. Possibilities and resistance go together like ice cream and cake at a six year old’s birthday party.  When we look at past experiences, we find that out of all the antagonism, disapproval, and objections in life, we made it anyway.  I remember as a child when I had my first encounter with rejection, I sought out the most renown expert that I could afford at the time, my mother.  I can still hear her prophetic words in my mind today as if it was yesterday when she looked me squarely in my coffee brown eyes and said, “boy life isn’t always fair and you better get used to it.”  Profound words from the smartest lady that I have met to date.  So, when rejection occurs, shake it off like a dog getting out of a swimming pool in Winter, and move on.  Winners never quit and quitters never win. It is up to each and every one of us to outlast the adversary.  For my bible readers, Jesus experienced rejection more than anyone who ever lived.  In my addiction, I was dismissed, spurned, repudiated, brushed-off, and rebuffed more than Cinderella, the scullery maid, by her cruel stepmother and stepsisters.  Did I quit?  I must admit there were times when I thought all hope was lost like a shipwreck survivor on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific, but I kept crawling like a bubbler crab sifting sand through its body to extract the nutrients.  Purpose served and energy spent within the cycle of birth, metamorphosis, union, and death springs the promise of new life.