"Don't beat yourself up; there will always be someone there to do it for you."
Rejection is part of life. Job rejection, school rejection, relationship rejection.
31 publishers rejected James Patterson's award-winning first novel. Remember the scene in the Queen movie where Freddy Mercury laments the rejection of Bohemian Rhapsody.
Stephen King hung publisher rejections on a nail. They became so numerous he needed a spike.
Lincoln lost numerous elections before winning the presidency. Even then, his presidency was not universally acclaimed during the Civil War.
Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team. Bill Russell got one scholarship offer, USF, in high school.
Ulysses Grant sold firewood in St. Louis before being recruited to lead the Northern Army during the Civil War.
Winston Churchill was considered a disaster because of the complex chaos of Gallipoli during World War I before emerging as a statesman whose principal achievement was saving Western Civilization in World War II.
Thomas Edison said the three keys to invention are, "imagination, persistence, and analogies." Before inventing the lightbulb Edison said that he "learned 999 ways that lightbulbs didn't work."
Kurt Warner played in Arena football before becoming a Super Bowl winner and a Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback.
Bill Belichick's tenure in Cleveland is remembered as catastrophic. He is widely acclaimed as the greatest football mind in history.
Great figures in society and sport often failed over and over before breaking through to success.
Don't allow others to steal your dignity and self-respect. In The Four Agreements, Miguel de la Ruiz reminds us, "Never take anything personally." Others' criticisms say everything about them and nothing about us.
Be concerned about qualities that we can award ourselves, "commitment, discipline, effort, empathy." Heraclitus said, "Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become." Do the work. Never give up.
Lagniappe.
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