Thank you for the fresh air that is this substack post. This sounds like a great topic for a class! Embracing and learning from rejection is a powerful mindset to bring to any table.
Thank you for sharing your experience! I definitely relate. It wasn’t until my divorce that I had to really face my fear of rejection. Now I see asking and taking rejection as a skill like anything else. I can get better at it, but it also takes energy to develop and exert.
this was helpful. i've had many people tell me i seem like a high agency person but i've never *felt* high agency and i think it's because even though i did unconventional things, i always sought permission internally. thx for the good articulation of that experience.
I think this post, while excellent, like many others in this category, misses something important. Rejection is good, but most people take this idea to empower themselves to pursue lots of costless rejection, similar to buying lottery tickets—i.e., emailing 100 strangers on the internet or applying for jobs they're not qualified for. While this can be beneficial, the biggest advantage of embracing rejection comes from costly rejection—where you put a lot of effort into things/projects/initiatives with a high chance of rejection or ask specific favours or requests from people you actually know — where you actually need to live with some of the shame of the rejection.
The workshop seems very interesting! I almost bought a ticket before realizing it was in NY and not SF...do you have a sense of when your next SF workshop will be?
This came at the perfect time for me, thank you so much for writing.
Can relate so hard to everything in this post. Felt stuck and this lighten me up. Thanks for sharing! ❤️
Thank you for the fresh air that is this substack post. This sounds like a great topic for a class! Embracing and learning from rejection is a powerful mindset to bring to any table.
Thank you for sharing your experience! I definitely relate. It wasn’t until my divorce that I had to really face my fear of rejection. Now I see asking and taking rejection as a skill like anything else. I can get better at it, but it also takes energy to develop and exert.
this was helpful. i've had many people tell me i seem like a high agency person but i've never *felt* high agency and i think it's because even though i did unconventional things, i always sought permission internally. thx for the good articulation of that experience.
Really need this🥲 Thank you for writing this! Bless your soul❣️
desperately needed to hear this. I’m always forgetting that I have agency and free will 🥲
This was brilliant, Ava!
I think this post, while excellent, like many others in this category, misses something important. Rejection is good, but most people take this idea to empower themselves to pursue lots of costless rejection, similar to buying lottery tickets—i.e., emailing 100 strangers on the internet or applying for jobs they're not qualified for. While this can be beneficial, the biggest advantage of embracing rejection comes from costly rejection—where you put a lot of effort into things/projects/initiatives with a high chance of rejection or ask specific favours or requests from people you actually know — where you actually need to live with some of the shame of the rejection.
by this do you mean that we should embrace more high cost rejection? or seek more high cost rejection?
We should seek more high cost rejection (and embrace it).
I wrote a whole set of affirmations I use to help myself be more ambitious:
https://danfrank.ca/things-i-tell-myself-to-be-more-agentic/
The workshop seems very interesting! I almost bought a ticket before realizing it was in NY and not SF...do you have a sense of when your next SF workshop will be?
have you ever considered doing these workshops abroad? massively interested :)
Great post as usual. Readers might also enjoy this great post on learning how to ask for more things:
https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulfictions/p/how-to-be-more-agentic
TIL i’m an asker 😄 i wonder if there’s a relationship between asker/guesser and giver/taker.
also, hearing about these workshops makes me wish i was in new york!
you're on a roll! Another great post. Great advice about being bold and just trying things, dammit.