Getting projects involves a lot of rejections. And so I’ve had to deal with how to handle them.  I keep all the rejections. I have a folder on the computer that goes back to–I don’t know–2002 or 2004.  There’s probably more than are there, but those are the documented rejections.

Why do I keep them?  Sometimes I crib off of them, because they were really good applications.  They had a really good set of slides that might be appropriate, or whatever.  But I like opening it and seeing the sheer amount of rejections because it’s a reminder that I’m active.

And all I can say about rejections is that I’m definitely not happy.  I haven’t gotten to the point yet where I can completely blow a rejection off. But I have gotten to the point where I can minimize the time spent being upset about it.  It can be pretty short. I might be bummed for a half hour or less and then I’m ready to move on.

It was worse at the beginning because then you’re nervous about entering something, and when finally you find something to enter, you spend all this time working on the entry, the application, and you submit it, and it’s a big deal, and wondering what’s going to happen and waiting, and a month goes by and you haven’t heard anything, and it’s kind of been in the back of your mind for the month, and then there it is, it’s a rejection, and your whole world’s upset.  That has definitely shifted. Now I look at them like–I have a folder, another folder of applications that I’ve submitted. It’s like a savings account. The goal is to get a bunch of entries in there. And I don’t even remember them all. And the minute one of those rejections comes–which I just assume will come–I’ve got to fill that account back up. Just keep it filled.  

The goal is to have 20 active applications at any given time.  That is the goal, which I don’t always reach. Depending on how long it takes to hear back…  One day I got four rejections in half a day! And even with my new improved resiliency, that was a test.  Actually it became funny after a little while–how many more times can I be rejected in the course of a day?  That was the record!