An Open Letter To: The Rejected Ones

“Sorry, but you’re not good enough.”

The rejection letters in those storage bins date from 1979 until 1982, one bin is from employers turning me down, one bin is from magazines turning my stories down.

I kept every one, 43 rejections while seeking a job, 61 rejections from seeking to get something in print.

I was a film major who sold my own blood at a blood bank to buy 35mm film.

Ektachrome to be exact.

I’m told some people thought I should look for another career. I wish I would have known because I would have invited them to come sit with me while I had a needle in my arm to raise a few bucks because maybe the next photo, maybe the next story would be THE ONE that would be the big break.

To The Rejected Ones.

There is only one way to survive all the “no’s” and that is simply to never lose faith in yourself.

Shitty things happen, it does not mean YOU are shitty, it is simply just life, it happens.

Move on, keep moving.

You hear a lot about: “Never stop trying,” “Never give up,” stuff like that and I’m sure it helps, easy to remember certainly and makes good bumper stickers, but for me THAT was a given and it still wasn’t working hence boxes and boxes of the same rejections because I in fact never gave up.

But then, I did give up.

On what I was doing and how I was doing it.

I gave up, and it changed my life.

To The Rejected Ones

Every “no” brings you closer to “yes,” BUT YOU HAVE TO QUIT DOING WHAT DOESN’T WORK AND STEP BACK…

…AND FOCUS

Hyperfocus, swing to your strengths, and most importantly BE YOU!!!

Put the “succeed” books down and look to the mirror, stand out be the you are not the you some non-fiction book writer thinks you should be.

When I gave up all the nonsense self help stuff that only helped the selfs that advocate it, when I said win or loose I can only be the weird ass dude I see in the mirror…everything changed.

An example…

Look closely at this photo…

…it is so important to me, to Barb, that we have it framed.

We are at a concert in Buffalo, New York, that young child is the daughter of friends of ours who were also at the concert.

Why is this photo so important…

…I am at a concert and I’m apply for a job!!!

You can see the pad of paper on my lap, that’s my application, I had sent some stuff to a TV News Director, nothing “on-air” but he wanted to see more.

Wait, what…more, um, huh…

…so I brought a pad of paper with me to the concert, I hyperfocus better with all sorts of stuff happening around me, with the pen in my hand I drew lines on the paper that made 6 boxes…

…in which I drew STICK FIGURES of me as a reporter doing 3 different stories complete with balloon boxes over my head that contained words just like they did in cartoons.

I applied for a Journalist/Feature Reporter position in the 60th market in the United States with stick figures.

…and I got the job.

Yeah sure in the beginning it was a rocky road, did I read any books or bumper stickers about what to do to get my start, nope…I simply circled the wagons around me.

It will always come down to you, and what’s inside of you, and it is okay to give up if you are giving up what doesn’t work to try something else.

Else works.

Life is fluid, what you are inside remains the same, duck and weave might be the best advise, but if you can focus on what you do best and highlight that, for me it was flat out 50% creativity, 50% balls.

Every strike out gets you closer to clearing the fences if you focus on what you can hit, not what you miss.

To the rejected ones please know this…

…I am in my heart, in my soul a blue collar bartender from Buffalo, NY who learned how to type. I hope they chisel that on my tombstone.

I stopped focusing on wins and losses, I quit that, and started focusing on what it is I can do best no matter how weird that was…stick figures an all.

To the rejected ones please know this…

…you can do it, never loose faith, I didn’t, please don’t you because…all things are possible…I may in fact be proof…