I didn't really realize it until I got to college, but I didn't have to work hard for things in high school. Maybe it was the fact that I was just a "coddled millennial," but I didn't hear "no" too many times when it came to things that I applied for growing up. The point of this is not to prove that I'm a spoiled brat, but to help you imagine how surprised I was when I received a rejection letter from the student government organization here at UNL my freshman year. I was in shock. I was the student body president at my high school and my freshman self was convinced I had a position on the UNL student government waiting for me. NOPE.
As it turns out, in the real world you don't get everything you want. What a concept. After the student government "no," many more rejection letters followed. Perhaps the most heart breaking was a few months later when I received a rejection letter for a job that I wanted so badly. Let me set this scenario up for you. Going into college I had my sights dead set on working at Red Bull, in their marketing department. I was, and still am, in awe of how strong of a brand they have established. They do things so differently from any other company that it's not necessary for them to invest in traditional advertising anymore. I imagine this is how things down in their pitch room:
Marketing person 1: "So the plan is we'll just buy these Youtube ads."
Marketing person 2: "Yes, we could do that, OR we could have a guy jump out of a Red Bull space ship and set the record for the world's highest free fall, while wearing a Red Bull astronaut suit."
Then I imagine everyone clacking their papers, dusting off their hands and dropping their invisible mics as they left the room, knowing they had just thought up the greatest marketing stunt maybe ever. (In case you missed Felix Baumgartner's skydive from the stratosphere in 2012, I've hyperlinked it for you here.) Genius. Perfect for their target market. Perfect for publicity. Just perfect.
WOW. That was a very long way to say that I really admire the way Red Bull does things. That is why freshman year I really, really wanted to work for them and why I was crushed when I found out that I wasn't what they were looking for at the time. I took that "no" as a slammed door on my hopes and dreams of working at Red Bull. But what it actually was, was a wake up call. A call to action for me to get up and go work my ass off to get things that I wanted. A call to get better, be bold and swallow my pride enough to do the dirty work to grow as a marketing professional.
Since then, there's been many more rejection letters, quite a few unanswered emails and even an "is this a joke?" after presenting my portfolio. But the thing about these rejections are that I learn, now. I learn what I can do better; I learn what people are looking for, and what they aren't looking for; I learn what's considered average and how to shatter the ceiling that houses it. Each "no" has knocked me down, but caused me to grow as I got back up. These "no"s have pushed me to be confident enough (or at least fake confidence enough) to hand out my business card to the two ladies, I had never met before, talking about how they needed marketing help at a Starbucks. They've caused me to spend countless extra hours editing and getting an assignment critiqued that had been turned in months ago. They've inspired me to cold call an agency in Denver and say "here's why you should hire me" and land my first advertising internship. And now it has inspired me to spend my Friday night writing a blog to add to my personal website that I built because I love this industry so freaking much.
So to all the people who just got their first "no," congratulations. You're about to get a whole lot better.