It's never been easier to get rejected.

In fairness, it's also never been easier to apply for things. When I applied to college, I had to get a form from a guidance counselor, fill it out, and put it in the actual mail. With a stamp. The whole thing felt like I should've saddled up my horse afterward and ridden into town for provisions.

And then you'd wait. It was work. Not grueling, coal-mining work, but enough that you didn't just apply to a dozen schools on a whim. You applied to two or three. Maybe five if your family had a typewriter.

Now there's the Common App. Upload your essay, answer some questions, click a few buttons. Both my kids applied to eight schools each. The anxiety is just as real as it ever was, but the barrier to applying is a whole lot lower.

Same with jobs. Go on Indeed, LinkedIn, or Craigslist. Upload a resume. Pound out a cover letter. Apply. I talked with a recent college grad a few months ago who'd applied to over 150 jobs and internships. She tracked every single one in a Google Doc.

There's almost no friction anymore. Jobs, schools, apartments, home loans, credit cards, dating apps, freelance gigs, even volunteer positions.

What a time to be alive.

But it also means you're on the receiving end of more rejection than ever before. When I lost my job and applied for a couple of new ones, I was actually hurt when I got my first rejection. Like, what the hell? They didn't want me? And of course, I was lucky to even get a rejection. So many places just ghost you. When you can apply for anything under the sun and rack up the numbers, you also risk suffering an onslaught of no's. Silence. Email after email saying thanks but no thanks.

Oof. That's rough.

So this week, let's talk about perseverance, why rejection feels personal even when it usually isn't, and how to keep moving forward when the world keeps telling you no.

When you get rejected, your brain asks a question. It's automatic, almost instantaneous. And the question is almost always the same.

"What's wrong with me?"

And yeah, it feels like a sensible thing to ask. You applied. They said no. Clearly something about you didn't measure up. Right?

Usually, no.

Most rejection has very little to do with you. I know that sounds like something you'd stitch on a pillow and hang in a therapist's office, but it's true.

Think about what happens on the other side of your application. A hiring manager is juggling twelve priorities and got pressure from her boss to promote internally. A landlord already promised the apartment to his sister's friend but had to post it anyway. An admissions officer loved your essay but ran out of slots for applicants from your state. A person on a dating app swiped left because they were half-asleep on the couch and their thumb moved wrong.

None of that is about you. It's about timing, politics, budget, bandwidth, or pure randomness. You'll never see any of it. All you get to see is the no.

And when applying takes five minutes and a few clicks, the no's start piling up fast. Your brain doesn't distinguish between a rejection from your dream job and one from a company you'd forgotten you applied to. It just registers the hit. Again and again.

It’s tough, but you need to stop personalizing rejection. When you do, something shifts. You stop fearing it. And when you stop fearing it, you start taking chances you wouldn't have taken before. You apply for the reach job. You send the pitch. You put yourself out there more.

The lie your brain tells you is that rejection is a verdict. An endpoint. But it's not. It's just a moment in time. One you can walk right past on your way to the next opportunity to shoot your shot.

Somewhere along the way, we've made perseverance way too romantic.

The comeback story. The training montage. The moment where everything clicks and the crowd goes wild. It sure does make for a great movie. It's also not how perseverance actually works at all.

Real perseverance is, point of fact, quite boring. It's sending another application when you don't feel like it. It's revising the pitch after the last one got ignored. It's showing up again when nobody asked you to and nothing about it feels inspiring. It's drudgery.
(Oh an case you want more, I've written before about why starting feels harder than doing.)

There's no soundtrack. No slow clap. Just you, doing the thing, again and again. And again.

Psychologist Angela Duckworth spent years studying what separates people who achieve long-term goals from people who don't. Her research on grit found that talent matters less than sustained effort over time. The people who win aren't necessarily smarter or more gifted. They just didn't quit when it got tedious.

And it always gets tedious.

Which brings me to Ivan Lendl. If you're not up on your Czech tennis greats, here's what you need to know. Lendl was one of the most dominant players in the history of the sport. He reached nineteen Grand Slam finals. He spent 270 weeks ranked number one in the world. And he did it without the natural grace or flair of a Jimmy Connors or John McEnroe.

Lendl had a different kind of superpower. He had a relentless, almost mechanical commitment to improvement.

He was famous for his training regimen. Endless hours on court. Grueling work in the weight room. He'd engineer his practice environment to match tournament conditions down to the surface and the altitude. He didn't rely on talent to carry him. He built his game through repetition, discipline, and preparation. Day after day, year after year.

Early in his career, Lendl lost his first four Grand Slam finals. Four times he made it to the biggest stage in tennis. Four times he walked away empty-handed. Most players would start wondering if they had what it takes. Lendl just kept showing up. He adjusted. He worked harder. And then he won. And kept winning. Eight Grand Slam titles by the time he retired.

To me, that's what perseverance really looks like. Not a flash of inspiration. A thousand moments of showing up when it would've been easier to stop.

Lendl's career is proof. The drudgery came first. The dominance came later.

And the same is true for you. Every unanswered application, every ignored pitch, every polite rejection is part of the grind. It doesn't feel like progress. But it is. You're building the muscle. You're still in the game.

This is what the work looks like.

So how do you actually get better at this? Welp, some people practice getting rejected on purpose.

Jia Jiang spent 100 days seeking out rejection. He asked a stranger for $100. Asked Krispy Kreme to make him donuts shaped like the Olympic rings. Asked to be a greeter at Starbucks. He filmed the whole thing and wrote a book about it called Rejection Proof.

It sounds absurd…and it kind of is. But there's a certain logic to it. The more no's you collect in low-stakes situations, the less power they have when the stakes are real. You start to see rejection as just a thing that happens, not a judgement on your worth.

You don't have to go full Jia Jiang. But the principle is sound. Get comfortable with no, and no stops running your life. The good news is you don't need to film yourself getting rejected at Krispy Kreme. Here are a few more practical ways to build the muscle:

On this last point, I had a quick check-in recently with someone I met at a networking event this summer. She found out she's getting downsized in the coming months and has been looking for a new job. We talked. We didn't solve anything. We just commiserated on how hard the whole process is. How demoralizing it can feel. How easy it is to start doubting yourself when the inbox stays quiet.

By the end of the call, neither of us had a new strategy or a breakthrough. But we both felt a little lighter. That's what talking about it does. It reminds you that you're not broken. You're just in the hard part right now.

None of this makes rejection feel good. It still sucks. But you get faster at recovering and you spend less time spiraling and more time in motion.

The world is going to tell you no. A lot. More than ever, actually. But every no is just a data point. It's not the whole story.

Perseverance isn't loud. It doesn't announce itself. It's the quiet decision to wake up tomorrow and get back in the game when it would be easier to sit it out. Progress doesn't come from one big moment. It comes from a hundred small ones that nobody sees.

And most people won't see that work. But you'll know. And over time, that quiet persistence adds up. It becomes a track record. Proof, to yourself and eventually to others, that you are someone who doesn't quit.

The no's will keep coming. That's just how it works. But they don't get to decide what happens next. You do.

Ever forward.

As always, thanks for reading,
Derek (aka Chief Rabbit)