How I Made It to TED

On 12/6/2016, a fateful day, TED published my talk on TED.com. It changed my life. And based on the feedback I received, it also changed many people’s lives. Since then, the rejection talk has become a top 5 most viewed TED talk of 2017, with over 3 million views. Here is how it all happened. 
 

Have a dream

It has always been my dream to give a TED talk. You can do it by either being invited to speak at one of the main TED events, or having your TEDx talk chosen to be featured on TED.com. Both are mystically hard. TED invites whoever they want, and less than 1% of TEDx talks get featured on TED.com.
 

Be invited to a TEDx event

In July 2015, I was invited to give a talk at a TEDx event in Portland. I was a little reluctant at first, since I did three previous TEDx talks. While some were good, none was picked up by TED. But I decided to do it anyway, since it’s an honor to speak at TEDx and I was friends with the organizer.

Prepare for the speech

I gave my all preparing and rehearsing for the talk. It helped that I had become an experienced speaker by then, speaking at many events for the past two years. I used each speaking engagement as an opportunity to get better, honing my stories and takeaways. I also got feedback from live audience.

Giving my speech

I was the first speaker on stage that day. Being the first had its advantages and disadvantages. You aren’t bothered by speakers before you, but you could face a cold audience too. I made sure I slowed down, made eye contact, and spoke about a very personal story to draw people in. It went great.

The (non)wait

All TEDx talks are published on Youtube. So was mine in Aug 2015. After that, I simply moved on and focused on other parts of my life/business, because waiting for TED to feature you on TED.com is a dumb game. It almost never happens (<1%), and they never contact you until they decide to do it.

Happyness

For the next 15 months, I never bothered to think about TED for above reasons. Then one day, I received a call from the TEDx organizer who said TED was interested. I still didn’t want to get my hope up. Finally, I received an email from TED to confirm it. It was one of the happiest days of my life.

Aftermath

On the day when my talk was published, I didn't know what to expect. Nothing really happened, except the views for my talk was comparatively high. But the next few months, everything happened. It became one of the most viewed TED talks of 2017, and generated a lot of discussions and feedback.

Conclusion

Not all dreams are fulfilled, especially the ones that are out of your control. But you can push as hard as you can. It took me giving 4 TEDx talks, over 30 hours of writing and practice, over 50 hours of live rehearsal, and publishing a book to fulfill my TED dream. Do your best and let God do the rest.

Sharing My Proudest Moment with You

Life is full of ups and downs. But there are moments that when you experience them, you know your life would never be the same. Maybe your girlfriend just answered "YES"; maybe you got the acceptance letter from your favorite school; maybe there is now a newborn crying in your arms, or maybe you just landed your dream job... But those moments almost never just pop up out of nowhere. There was usually a long buildup. As a professional speaker, I just experienced one of those moments. I will now have a TED talk... and I'm still in shock.

For those who don't know, a TEDx talk is given at independent TEDx events all over the world, but a real TED talk is only given either at the annual mainstage TED Conference or is a TEDx talk being featured on TED.com. TED just decided to feature my TEDxMtHood talk on TED.com and make it an official TED talk.

But again, this didn't just pop up out of nowhere. It was a series of moments that led to this. If you know me and my story, you know my life first changed after I walked into that donut store almost exactly four years ago. My personal experiment of 100 Days of Rejection Therapy became a viral sensation, and I started telling this story to inspire other people. My first "speaking engagement" was at a local chiropractic studio to about ten people. A month later, I presented at a company to an audience of 100 people and got a round of applause. Three months later, I gave my first ever TEDx talk at TEDxAustin in front of a group of 1,000. I received a long standing ovation. From 10 people to 100 and then 1000; it was the perfect snowball.

And the snowballing didn't stop there. In subsequent years, I published my first book and achieved #1 bestselling audiobook, took many people through the rejection course and workshops, founded a corporate training company, and even acquired the original Rejection Therapy.

All these great things happened because I took the chances and opened myself up to the world. People related to me not because I was smart or awesome, but because I was real and open.

But now, it just got to a whole new level. Having a TED talk has been a dream-come-true.

You know, I am not here to congratulate myself, but to thank you, because other than God, I owe this all to you! I can't thank you enough for believing in me, supporting me, and giving me the courage I needed along this journey. After learning my story, many of you have in turn started your own journeys by risking more at work, finding better jobs, building new businesses, starting new blogs/podcasts, becoming artists... I could go on and on. You have inspired me every day.

So what's next, you ask. Well, to make the world an even more amazing place, I am asking you for one of two things:

1. Simply watch and share my TED talk with your colleagues, friends, and loved ones. We are all held back by rejections on some level, and this talk will make a difference in them.

2. Join me by becoming a Rejection Ambassador (here are the rules). You can lead other people in your organizations or communities to get out of their comfort zones and to start writing their own stories.

Because amazing things only happen outside of your comfort zone. Someday, you will share your own TED moment with me and the world.

Happy Rejection!

Jia Jiang

Talk That Makes You Rejection-Proof

Hello fellow fearbusters, how have you been? It’s been a while since my last post as I went on this crazy book tour around the US. I hope all of you in the mean time turned many rejections into opportunities. During my tour, I heard plenty of stories about you wanting to take your careers to the next level, or start something new, but you feel stuck in some way. A lot was based on the fear of rejection, failure, unknown, or just fear in general.

To help you move forward and turn fear into gifts, I delivered a talk at TEDxMtHood that was specifically written for you. It was based on the principles I wrote in my book – Rejection Proof, and designed to help you get unstuck from the puddle of fear that’s underneath your feet, and to know that if you embrace what you are afraid of, you can find your true calling and gifts.

Enjoy!

Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking

It is often said that people fear public speaking more than death. But if there is one person who can attest that the fear of public speaking can be conquered, it would be me. Two years ago, I was a shy guy who was self-conscious about his accent and was extremely fearful being in front of a crowd. Failure had a lot to do with it: I bombed most of my speeches as a student and an employee. Even when I became an entrepreneur, I still had a really tough time with speaking in public.

Fast forward two years – now, not only do I speak all the time with ease, composure and humor, I actually do it for a living. I frequently talk at companies like Google, and conferences like the World Domination Summit. My TEDxAustin speech became one of the most popular TEDx talks of all time.

Of course, I do have something to talk about now days. I lived through an unusual story, and people love to hear inspiring stories. But plenty of people with good stories and great content are still crippled by fear when delivering them. So what happened to me - the shy dude who got rejected a lot?

Well, a lot of rejection happened. More precisely, rejection training happened, especially with these two:

1. Making announcement on a plane

2. Speaking on the street

In each one of these episodes, I was honestly scared beyond my imagination. When making an announcement in front of a plane full of passengers, I thought someone was going to mistake me as a terrorist and tackle me. When doing unsolicited speaking on a street corner, I had no idea how I was going to be treated by people walking by.

However, by not retreating from these types of mentally challenging environments, and actually carrying through with my speeches, I gained the toughness and confidence that I would not have been able to obtain under any other circumstances. When I finally went on real stages with a real audience, I relied heavily on these tough experiences.

This was my speech at World Domination Summit one week after my street practice.

In his book The Obstacle Is the Way, author Ryan Holiday discussed that obstacles not only don't inhibit success, but actually create it if we respond to obstacles the right way. The same goes for public speaking, when we are put in the least welcoming environment and endure the situation with our actions, we gain enormous courage and confidence as the result.

Since you might not always have the challenging environment at your disposal, such as company presentations in front executives or startup pitches in front of investors, what you can do is to create these environments, like I did on the plane and the street. In other words, you can manufacture obstacles.

I can’t promise that you will become a professional speaker afterward, nor can I guarantee you success on Youtube. What I do know is that you will become a better public speaker in whatever you do by facing rejections head on, and use them as your tools.

My Talk at Google: Why Rejection Is Awesome

They say Google has the highest concentration of smart people on Earth. People there are busy organizing online information, building self-driving cars, defying death, and designing smart glasses that record video while making everyone looks like Jeff Goldblum.

So when I was invited to speak there on my learning on the topic of rejections, part of me wondered if they could relate to rejection as well as the common folks. After all, being a Googler means having been accepted to work at the mega of corporate America.

Then I thought about the fact that:

1. the more influential you become, the more likely you’ll be rejected (e.g. Barack Obama)

2. people succeed because of rejection, not in spite of rejection (e.g. Michael Jordan in high school)

3. the most influential ideas were often met with the most violent rejections (e.g. Nelson Mandela and MLK Jr.)

I told myself, “yeah, these people know rejection as well as anyone”.

In front of an audience jam-packed with brainpower, I gave my talk. After a great reception and lively Q&A session (you can fast forward to 38’. Great questions) after my talk, I knew I was right - everyone knew rejection.

Five Things I Did to Get a Standing Ovation at WDS

A month ago, I gave a keynote speech at the World Domination Summit (WDS). Standing in front of an audience of 3,000, I spoke with my heart to share my story, learning and the vision for a world without the fear of rejection. It was a magical moment. After receiving a long and emotional standing ovation, I kept getting this question from the people I subsequently met - your talk was so great, were you nervous at all?

My talk at WDS

The truth was, I was as nervous as a I could be. The stage was shared by all-star speakers and bestselling authors such as Gretchen Rubin, Nancy Duarte and Donald Miller. It was going to be tough to measure up. Before my talk, I paced back and forth in the preparation room. I tweeted that it felt like the opening scene of 8 Miles. A staff member even took pity on me and offered to teach me how to stretch, so I could calm my nerves. How could a guy this nervous looked so calm on stage?

Here are five things I did:

1. Prepare hard - nothing can substitute hardcore preparation and rehearsal, both physically and mentally. Physically, I rehearsed this talk for about 25 times. Mentally, to toughen myself up I even did a rejection session to give my talk on the street in from of strangers. At WDS, I kept telling myself, if I could connect with strangers on the street, I can connect with these people who paid to be here. If you prepare through tireless practice, you can always fall back on your experience.

2. Accept fear - The nerve kept me focused and prepared. I found that if I were too relaxed and start to feel cocky, that's when I get in trouble. So I conquered the fear by embracing it, just like what I did with rejection therapy. When you accept the fear and still do it because it is a worthy cause, that's when you are at your best.

3. Control self-talk - before a speech, what really messes people up is the negative self-talk they have in their head. I steered away from negative ones such as "what if they don't like me?" Also, I avoid any traditional positive thinking or "declarative self-talks" such as "I can do it". "I am gonna rock the audience". In his latest book To Sell Is Human, bestselling author Dan Pink talked about the power of "interrogative self-talk". So I asked myself "will I connect with the audience with my story?" The answer was an unequivocal 'yes'.

4. Love the audience - this sounds corny, but it is very powerful. Love is one of the strongest emotions in the universe. Before my speech, I talked to many attendees, learning their struggles and aspirations. I loved each one of them, and knew my message of overcoming the fear of rejection would help them. It was my duty to deliver the message in the most loving and caring way. When you love someone, it will show through the way you talk.

5. Start with 'I' - I love great speeches. One of the things that turns me off the most about a speech is when speakers start too many sentences with the word 'you'. While conventional thinking encourages us to say 'you' to make sentences meaningful to the listener, those talks would always feel like lectures and even authorities talking down on people. For me, I always like the word 'I', because I don't want to speak for others. I want to share my story and learning from my perspective, and leave it to the audience to judge. I always tell myself to remember: 'inspiration' starts with 'I'.

Is this helpful to you to overcome the fear of public speaking? Also, what is your experience with speaking?

Bonus: my hangout with speech coach Dr. Michelle Mazur:

Rejection 97: Give a Speech on the Street

Based on my Google keyword search, there are 10 things people fear the most. On that list, I’ve already tried: #1 Fear of Flying and #3 Fear of Heights,

this entire blog is about tackling #8 Fear of Rejection,

and for now at least, I have no interest in confronting #6 Fear of Death #9 Fear of Spiders…

I want to take a shot at #2: Fear of Public Speaking.

Of course, I have done public speaking before and I have a great passion for it. However, my previous speeches were in places where people expected me to speak and were receptive to my message. What would happen I held up a sign on the street and give a speech there instead of in the auditoriums? Would people still welcome my message? The thought of that makes me want to throw up already. In fact, I might have to reconsider which is worse: public storytelling or spiders.

On my 97th rejection attempt, I made a sign and went to the streets of Austin, attempting to tell strangers my story.

As you can tell in my video, the toughest part was not the speech but the time leading up to it.

I keep shaking my head at how purely psychological fear can be. Even knowing that I shouldn't care about how others perceive me, and understanding that the worst that could happen is being ignored, the fear of being judged and rejected by strangers is still there. There was a classic book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway and that was the exact approach I took with this request. As soon as I opened my mouth and people stopped to listen, the rest was smooth sailing.

In the end, I am so glad I did it.

Learning: Sometimes no matter how hard you train yourself, the fear of rejection will still be there. However, you've strengthened yourself and minimized your enemy - fear. If you rely on the strength, and "feel the fear and do it anyway,” you will always be glad you did.

My TEDx Talk

Finally my TEDx Talk is up! For those of you who are new to my blog, I shared my feelings and thoughts on the talk here: From Rejection To Magic.

It was truly an amazing experience. I couldn't have done it without all of your support. It's just a start and let's continue this journey together.

Rejection 60: [Special] - My First College Lecture

When I stumbled upon this article on regrets, I couldn't help but imagine what my life would have been if I hadn't made the decision to pursue my dream to become an entrepreneur last year. I would still be collecting paychecks and live a life others expected of me... and I would still be filled with regrets. Now, after I embarked upon my entrepreneurial journey and fought rejection with rejection, I saw many miraculous things happening in my life which I will for sure smile upon when I get old. I got a box of Olympic symbol shaped donuts, found a job in one day, got Jeff Probst to sing a song to my son, and so many more. Now, I fulfilled another life-long dream - to give a lecture to college students (background episode).

Before class started, for rejection of the day, I asked the students a very personal question - what do you fear the most, and what are you going to do about it? I thought no one was going to answer that question to a stranger without any context.

When you are fulfilling a life-long dream, you take it seriously. After researching and pondering upon the topic, I decided to use the biblical story of Apostle Paul spreading Christianity as an example of communication and rejection in social change. Based on the feedback from both students and Professor Rollins, I have connected with them very well.

Oh, and the rejection, I didn't get one! I was very surprised that more than one students chimed in on their greatest fear. I don't know the exact reason, but my hypothesis is that young people like college students are much more open to expressing their feelings than older people. After all, they haven't had to put on the façade of invincibility workplace and society have forced upon them yet.

What do you think?

Learning: In her famous TED talk, Dr. Brene Brown described the power and necessity of vulnerability. Maybe in this sense, we can all learn something from college students.

From Rejection to Magic

Yesterday, I gave a talk at TEDxAustin, sharing my story and learning about my 100 Days of Rejection Therapy. I had experiences in giving talks at meetups, companies, small conferences and churches. Also, coming from a family of teachers (my father, grandparents, uncle are all teachers), I have had the influence of public speakers since I was little. However, I had never given a talk at a stage on the level of TEDxAustin, which is probably the most highly regarded idea conference after SXSW. In attendance were the most accomplished and brightest minds in the city. During the day, the 13 speakers went before me were talking about saving the world through technology, education and art. Some of them invented things such as XBox Kinect and the Ethernet. They had titles with the words 'PhD' or 'Professor' in them. And me? I am a guy who looked for rejections after failing to land investment for my startup.

As my time slot was inching closer, my mouth started to dry up, my nose started to hurt (no idea why), and I couldn't come up with one coherent sentence when talking to my wife. Saying 'I was nervous' was the biggest understatement of 2013. I thought about fleeing the scene, mentioning my accent as an excuse, or starting my talk with a joke about the stage carpet and playing mini golf. Thank goodness, none of those happened. One thought came to my mind - hey, I am the "Rejection Guy". If I had the guts to knock on stranger's door, to give a flight safety announcement, or to dance with a waitress in the public, I can now use my teacher genes to do what I am really good at - communicating ideas. If anything, I should be the most fearless speaker of the day.

As 5:00pm hits, my time has come, and the host introduced me. I stepped on the beautifully crafted stage, and walked into the limelight and cameras. As I glanced down into the crowd, I saw a thousand faces I had never seen before. What immediately came to my mind were you guys - my dear readers and followers.

You read my blog, watch my videos and write me emails because you also share my fear of rejection. You are inspired by my journey and the people like Jackie from Krispy Kreme, Scott from Costco, and Jeff and Dana from Southwest. The people in the audience were also like you and me, governed by both pride and fear, hope and doubt. It was my duty to share this story and let them know that rejection is nothing to be feared about. It ain't about me anymore.

Then, I had an out-of-body experience. It was as if I left my body in the form of a spirit, watching this guy talking about his story. In the next 10 minutes, he was smiling, joking, pausing, nodding, and hand-gesturing. He was not fazed by the timer countdown, verbal mistakes, or anything. He knew what he was talking about, and knew exactly what to say. Ten minutes and many laughters and applauds later, it was over, and I went back into this guy's body. What I saw in front of me was a long standing ovation. I smiled, blushed, and became this incoherent and nervous guy again.

Back in November, when the investor turned me down, I could have never imagined that I would be giving a TED talk three months later. My 100 Days of Rejection Therapy has taught me hundreds of things. But if I had to pick just one thing, it was that when bad things happen, if you treat them like good things and fight forward, magic will happen later.

Rejection 50: [Special] - My Only Day at New Job

On day 34 of my rejection therapy, I went out and looked for a job, and got it at BigCommerce, an Austin-based eCommerce and web hosting company. Today, I reported for duty and had my one day employment there.

My day at BigCommerce can be described as fun, engaging and surprisingly emotional. I knew the company is a good place to work just based on my interaction with the kind and gregarious Jennifer. What I didn't know was the company's family-like culture. People were extremely hospitable to me, chatting with me about my experience and sharing why they are proud to be a BigCommerce employee. As a proponent of strong company culture, illustrated in Tony Hsieh's book - Delivering Happiness, I was very delighted to witness the pride and mission BigCommerce employees showed. Yes they are a high-growth business whose goal is to make money, but they also possess a desire to empower their customers to make them successful.

At the end of the day, the company held a All-hands meeting, where all Austin-based employees shared their news and thoughts with each other. There was one employee talked about his family going through tough times due to his wife's illness. He held back tears while describing how the company is like his family in pulling him through the hardship. I have been to many company all-hands and culture-talks, but I haven't seen anything so human and so genuine like what I witnessed that day.

If you are a business owner and would like to build an online store, I would highly recommend BigCommerce. You will be in good hands.

About rejection therapy - at the end of the day, I gave a speech on my journey, the topic of 'rejection', and good customer service. It was very well received and we all shared insights and laughters together. I also requested to have my picture to appear on BigCommerce.com. The idea was from Cori Carroll from Florida, and it was ingenious. BigCommerce actually followed through on the request and put me on their homepage.

Learning: as a business, if you are generous and genuine to your employees, they will have exceptionally high morale and pride, and bring happiness to your customers. If not, don't be surprised to be rejected by both of them.