Why rejection is the secret of success

The letter was polite but to the point. The PR firm where I’d applied for a job thanked me for my time but told me I hadn’t been successful. The position was going to someone else. Ouch.

This wasn’t the first time I’d been rejected, of course – and it certainly wasn’t the last. I’ve been dumped, ditched by friends and overlooked for work more times than I can remember. Who hasn’t? Not even the most successful among us is immune, as Sir Ian Rankin, 62, who has sold more than 20 million books, admitted last month. ‘I have had all kinds of projects turned down,’ he told the Write-Off with Francesca Steele podcast. ‘The rejections are abrupt. They are not at all apologetic, the buggers.’

Other high achievers to admit the sting of rejection include Walt Disney, fired from his job as a reporter for the Kansas City Star in 1919 for apparently lacking imagination and ideas, and Steven Spielberg, who was rejected three times from the University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television.