In this conversation, Jia Jiang shares his transformative journey through rejection therapy, where he intentionally sought rejection for 100 days to overcome his fear. He discusses how this experience not only helped him build resilience but also led to his rise as a speaker and author. The dialogue explores the importance of humor in handling rejection, the psychological aspects of dealing with obstacles in the speaking industry, and the balance between persistence and adaptability in pursuing goals. Jiang emphasizes the value of turning rejection into learning opportunities and creating momentum in projects, ultimately advocating for a life open to new experiences.
Rising to notoriety with his most-viewed TED Talk (top 200 out of 60,000), “What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection,” which became the basis for his bestselling book and #1 audio book, Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection, Jia Jiang has become the world's foremost expert on rejection. A top-booked speaker, Jia is the sought-after authority on empowering confidence and resilience, overcoming one's fear of rejection, and daring to be bolder in both life and career. His upcoming book, The Art of Achieving Ambitious Things (Simon & Schuster, May 2026), expands on his mission to help anyone overcome obstacles and achieve their dreams and goals by adopting his breakthrough One Action Goal system.
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Hear from the world’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests’ Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter its starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is sponsored by ImpactEleven.
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While proud of his business success, his roots are in the dangerous world of jazz music. Josh has been playing guitar in smoky jazz clubs for 40 years, studied at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, and has performed over 1000 concerts around the world. His experiences in both business and music led him to become one of the world’s foremost experts on innovation.
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Jia Jiang 0:00
If you're not getting rejected a lot, that means you're not doing enough, you're not shooting high enough.
Josh Linkner 0:15
Hey, everyone. Josh Linker, here. Welcome to Season Four of Mic Drop, the number one podcast for professional speakers. We believe deeply that words and ideas delivered with passion and precision change the world to help you create the biggest possible impact. We dig into what it really takes to scale your speaking business. You'll hear behind the scenes stories from speakers at various stages, from those experiencing early success to those who have built seven figure speaking practices and beyond. You'll also hear from bureau execs, meeting planners and industry experts to help fuel your continued growth and success. Wherever you are now, there's a next step. Let's take that step together.
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Josh Linkner 2:05
This one's gonna hit you right in the soul. Today on Mic Drop, I sit down with Jia Jiang, best selling author, entrepreneur and the global authority on rejection. You might know him from his viral TED talk or his widely creative 100 days of rejection experiment, where he got turned down day after day just to rewrite his relationship with fear. But here's the thing, this isn't just about getting told no. It's about flipping fear into fuel. It's about building momentum when the world pushes back. Jia shares how rejection became his superpower, how humor became a secret weapon, and why you should aim higher if you're getting too many yeses. Jia, also unpacks his launch and ascent to become one of the most booked keynote speakers in the world. We talk about rejection videos, rejection poems and the art of staying in the game even when the door slams shut. If you've ever been rejected, you are going to love today's episode.
Josh Linkner 3:02
Jia, welcome to Mic drop.
Jia Jiang 3:03
All right, Josh, thank you for having me.
Josh Linkner 3:05
Yeah, man, ever since I first saw you, I just been a big, super fan of yours. I love your style, I love your approach, I love your insights, and I'm really looking forward to unpacking some of that with you today. You are known as the rejection guy, which I find fascinating,and you really took it upon yourself to get good at this through an experiment that you ran. Can you give those that don't maybe know you as much a little bit of understanding of this crazy experiment that you ran for 100 days, what you did and what you learned from it?
Jia Jiang 3:32
Yeah, it was about 10 years ago, and I maybe I shouldn't start by dating myself. That's a bad start. But well, it was about 10 years ago. I started as a tech entrepreneur, and I didn't have all the skills you had, Josh. So when I was a tech entrepreneur, I was like, you know, I gotta do all the stuff. Gotta raise money. And the thing is, when I got rejected, was an investment, the first thing I thought was, you know, I'm not good enough. You know, I got rejected by someone like Josh, you know, ... in Austin, Texas. And I was like, man, this Austin version of Josh knows so much more about the business than me, you know. And he's so if you didn't like the business, then my business sucks. Then that's where I was like, Yeah, I can't think this way, you know, this this is a this is weak, this sucks. Like, I can't keep, keep fearing rejection, you know, and wanting to quit. That's why I started this 100 Days of rejection therapy project where, you know, I started getting, I bought these cards. There's a card called Rejection Therapy. It was a game invented by a Canadian guy. So I started just using the concept where, every day I'll get rejected on purpose for 100 days to over to, you know, to desensitize myself from the pain so I can become this, like, really tough dude, you know. And so that's what I did. I started putting this on YouTube. I started just filming myself doing this, and it got really popular. You know, the thing is, people start to not only ... I didn't die, when I started doing that I really thought I was gonna die. You know, people can reject me and violently laugh at me and call me names, and none of that happened. You know, people reject me, but they're very nice about it. And then people start to say yes to me. You know, there were all kinds of crazy requests, you know. And you know, I, you know, I was played ... I was able to play soccer in someone's backyard. I was play, able to, you know, fly someone's plane, I was able to give an announcement in front of an airplane just because I asked. So my my blog became quite famous, and so later on, I wrote a book and started my speaking career on this various subject of rejection. A lot of people found this fascinating, because they're like, looking for rejection — that sounds pretty cool, but I try to keep it light hearted. I try to make it fun and start speaking about it.
Josh Linkner 5:45
It's so good. And I want to get into a few things there. One of them is that, you know, so you'd ordinarily think on the surface, if you want to be an expert at something, you need to spend 15 years and get three PhDs and, you know, have a whole career in that field. You got deep expertise through a hands on experiment that you conducted over a 100 day period. So less than a half a year, you became really a world renowned expert in this particular thing because you immersed yourself in it. I love that you did that like, can you maybe describe the thinking that led you to say, hey, I want to get good at this, so I'm going to run this experiment, put myself in the middle of it. And any advice for other thought leaders or speakers that want to bolster their expertise on running a similar type of experiment for themselves?
Jia Jiang 6:26
Oh, that's a great way to put it. Because when I started, I didn't know what speaking was. I didn't know what expertise was. I didn't come in with the idea that I'm going to become this expert on rejection. That's why I'm doing this. When I started, my genuine motivation was to overcome my own fear of rejection. And also, you know, I was running a business, no one was paying attention to my business. And, like, I had a I had this website, I got the app, and no one was paying attention. So I was like, if I can run this and people like what I'm doing, maybe they will pay attention to my company as well. So it's almost like a little bit, like a content marketing type of piece, and then it just became popular. I mean, I thought about this, right? If I wanted to really learn about rejection and do all the, you know, do, as you mentioned, getting the PhDs doing all the research, take a long time. And in fact, if and when I did that, I probably just give you the similar content of everyone else's doing, you know, and but because I was able to cut a place my own trail, I just did it. And I just I did something that no one else was doing, and that was fascinating to me, and that became fascinating to other people. Speaking is all about storytelling right there. And I was able to tell a great story of me looking for rejection and all the funny things that I had encountered and unexpected things, but also the insights I got because I was getting a hands on experience. It wasn't an angle that all these researchers, all these people who spent so much time in school and in academia is not the type of research, it's not the type of insights they were getting, because they were sitting just doing research and looking at other people. But I did it myself. I was able to articulate my own thought process and experiences, and that's in a way that very few other people could. And that's why I feel like, you know, I totally agree with you. You know, a lot of people think you have to become this expert by all this experience. Sometimes you got to just do things that's different, you know. And in that, in the uniqueness, in the in the funness that you put it together a lot of times, that gives you the superpower in this subject matter.
Jia Jiang 8:37
It's so cool, man. And so for anyone who's listening, you know, if your first instinct is you want to be a speaker, but, but okay, then here's the reasons you can't, you know and you can. You can spin yourself up in your mind and stop doing it. Jia, you came to the United States with 100 bucks in your pocket at age 16. Didn't speak English, so you're giving keynotes now in a language that's not your native language. You taught yourself your expertise through a hands on experiment over a 100 day period. Like the thing I love about it is that you just busted through, you rejected all the obstacles, and you just pushed yourself to get to where you wanted to go, which is really inspiring for people. So I want to also add talk about the notion of humor. One of the things that's so cool about your work is you're really funny. And I find you to be funny just chatting, by the way, you have a funny personality, but you use humor in a very cool way, and I think you're much better than many other speakers do. Can you expand your thoughts on humor? How you think about humor, how you've used humor to really bring your message forward?
Jia Jiang 9:31
Oh, thank you. Now I'm becoming very dry when you mention humor. That's when I lose my humor. But the thing is, I think humor is a mindset. Humor is a mindset like when I did rejection therapy, when you just mentioned those two words, rejection and therapy. Man, you're just your brain goes numb, right? You just don't want to do anything about it. But because I want to have some fun with this.
Jia Jiang 9:59
Yeah, that's my mindset. I want to come in with the mindset that I want to have fun with rejection. I want to have fun, you know, it's such a heavier subject, but I want to just kind of try to make myself laugh, try to make my... just crack myself up during interactions. In this way, when I get in that mindset of having fun, I'm way more creative. You know, I'm and I feel like I can. The thing is, when I do that, I'm relaxed, and when I'm relaxed, and people like me, you know, and I like them. Now, people don't feel like I'm coming and cornering them, asking for this type of stuff, right? Asking for getting rejected, rejection purpose. Lot of people, people didn't know what I was doing. They when I came in, they just thought I was asking them for tough things. Can I borrow $100 from you? But if I do this in a very serious and threatening way, people feel cornered, and they start pushing back. But when I came in, when I come in, just try to be relaxed and see all right, how can I crack myself up using this experience and how can I ask for some most hilarious things. How could I make the other person laugh? When I had that mindset is things became so much easier, so and, yeah, so that's, that's really my mindset to start. There are a lot of skills involved in humor.
Jia Jiang 11:16
You know, I had this friend. In fact, I want to introduce her to you. You know, one day Josh, you know, her name is Claire Lee. She studies all kinds of comedians, how, you know the stand up comedians, or the late night show guests, how they use humor to get themselves out of a tough situation, you know, and but, and there are a lot of skills involved, but I think the starting point is the mindset you want to have, this mindset of having fun, of trying to make yourself laugh, then that's how you start.
Josh Linkner 11:47
Yeah. So good. So speaking of rejection, and you know your path, you wrote, you did this experiment, you got a lot of acclaim on social media. The TED Talk goes viral, but day in and day out, there's still rejection for us in the speaking industry, I've been at it for a long time. I lose deals all the time. I'm sure you do too. But my question is, it's one thing, if someone rejects your product or service, but when they reject you as a speaker, they're, to a degree, rejecting you. What advice do you have for speakers who get a lot of nos? Takes a lot of nos to get to a yes. But how do you psychologically manage that or process it and keep moving forward with your energy up high?
Jia Jiang 12:23
So a couple of things. One is, if you're not getting rejected a lot, that means you're not doing enough. You're not doing things enough and and also, you're not shooting high enough. So if you aim really low, with your budget, you know, with your scope. A lot of times you get a yes, because you settle, right? But you only raise your fee. You should go higher. You should go higher for bigger events. You shoot for events that have the budget. So once they have that type of budget, they're choosing someone who they feel like it's worth it, right? So the more, the more you come in, a lot of times, you'll get rejected more. You're in a competition with some really good speakers. I'm sure I've lost, I'm sure I've lost quite a few deals to you Josh. And but I'm like, Well, I'm competing against Josh. That's pressure, really cool, you know. And that means I'm, I've made it, you know.
Jia Jiang 13:16
The thing you don't want is you reject yourself. You're like, I'm, you know what? I'm not good enough. I'm gonna settle down. I'm gonna settle lower. I'm gonna be just, you know, be... you don't want to reject yourself. If anyone should reject you, let the world reject you. That's way better than the silent rejection you put in yourself. So you can just feel better. So I play this game where if I'm not getting rejected enough, that means I'm not doing enough. So, you know, that's I come in with that mindset.
Josh Linkner 13:43
I love that man, and I wanted to dig in on it. So, so you said, don't reject yourself. The way I started thinking about it once, once you mentioned that is like a rejection comes in from the outside. And most of us experience two rejections. We experience the rejection from the outside party, and then the words that we tell ourselves. Our internal feedback loop is really negative. So you actually, you get rejection. Actually, you get rejected from the outside and you reject yourself from the inside, you know? And so you're right. Maybe there's a way to have the natural rejection that happens, part of life, part of business, outside, but respond differently internally. Don't reject yourself along with it.
Jia Jiang 14:15
Absolutely it's like, you know, wearing a wearing a seatbelt, right? You have a car crash, and then if you don't want a seat belt, you have a second, third crash. That's what really that's what really kills you. It's the stories we'll tell ourselves after these rejections that either, you know, raise us up, they either elevate us or either diminish us, right? That's the thing. So you've got to have the mindset once you get rejected, how do you actually lift yourself up? That's when you have the spirit up. You can have all this kind of mechanism to turn that no into a yes. So once you get rejected, you can keep the relationship going. You can be, you know, sometimes I start writing. I've tried all kinds of things after I get rejected, right? I start recording videos — reaction videos. And, you know, it's very on brand. As you, as you told me, Josh, I'm being very on brand. I give some people rejection video after rejection video, and then I also sometimes I read people poems, like funny poems and rhyming songs. And sometimes I, you know, sometimes I may just crack jokes in the email. A lot of times, by doing that, I make myself feel better because I wrestle back the control. When some people reject you, it feels like they're in control. But what do I do? I choose to do this after rejection, even though that might or might not lead to an acceptance eventually, but it feels like I'm still in control.
Josh Linkner 15:37
It's so good man, so just so everyone understands that, you know, let's say someone sends you a gift and you send them a thank you note that you get rejected, and send them a rejection note, basically. And that could be a written note or a video, but you respond to the rejection with like, like a note the way you would a gift, which is so bright. Of course, it's totally on brand. You're right and but what a cool thing. And then you're right that could, that can reopen the relationship.
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Josh Linkner 17:11
The other question I want to ask you about with respect to rejection... I've always loved flipping you know, because setbacks are part of life, rejection is part of life. We're not going to avoid it completely, but it's you know, how you respond and also what you learn from it. So I've always loved the flip from win or lose, which is what most people think to win or learn. So whether you know, if you get rejected, okay, there was a cost to that, maybe it's an economic cost, or whatever else. But what does that tuition buy you? My question to you is, how do you think about flipping rejection into learning?
Jia Jiang 17:47
Well, first of all, I going, going back to what I was saying, rejection if you're not getting rejected ... life is not about avoiding rejection. You know that's not a mindset I want. Life is about meeting big reach like worthy rejections. The more things you're doing, the more influential they are, the more impactful they are, the more rejection you're going to get. You think about like the presidents, right? Any presidents, they get rejected by practically half of the country. And the thing you do, the more, the more influential thing you do, the more you're going to impact other people, and the more likely they're going to think about it and reject you. And sometimes the rejections are, you know, are not pleasant in fact. In fact, the more impactful ones are, are the least you know, are the least pleasant ones? So, you have to think about: It's not about me avoiding rejection, right? Life is not about a path of least resistance. It's about you meet those rejections. Think about, are these worthy? Like, is your cause worthy? So I first, I flipped the mindset, you know, I'm if I get rejected, do I rather get rejected by looking for a job, or do I want, like, a normal job, or they won't get rejected by speaking at this conference with like 5000 people? I'd much rather do the latter, right? They're both getting rejected. I might as well get the better rejection. And once I have that mindset, I started to find out: Rejection — a lot of people think that's the end of the conversation. You know, if you tell the story, that's it and move on. But hey, you got a rejection. That's a gift, because now I get to just put on my crazy scientist hat. Let me see what I can do here. Let me see how I can use rejection to make myself feel better. And also let me try different things to see, can I actually turn that no into a yes, or turn it into a future maybe, or turn into a, you know, something funny? So once you have that mindset, I will start experimenting all kinds of things. And I came up with all kinds of thingsthat, you know, as I mentioned, like I would say, thank you letter, right? And, you know, I would write funny things, but also I would try to, you know, say, you start using skills that I learned.
Jia Jiang 20:00
Say, for example, after I get rejected, I'm like, Okay, how can you get a yes? I think everyone really want to make this happen. Eventually we'll make this happen. But how do we do it? Let's do it so I started putting the mindset on the other person to kind of do a problem solving session, right? It's like, okay, a no here. What if there could be a yes, what would that make like ... what would that look like? How would you, you know, how can we both contribute to that future outcome, Possible outcome. And now people switch people's hat from a rejector's hat to a problem solver's hat, right? So people are like, Oh, okay, maybe next time, maybe next year's, you know, or maybe you have another event later on this year. Right away, I can invite you. Maybe you can do this. So that's how I started, you know, using different mindsets and put on different skills after rejection.
Josh Linkner 20:45
I love it, and one call-out that I thought was really cool: We're going to get rejected anyway, that's part of life. You might as well get rejected on stuff that matters. I mean, go after good things to get rejected, not boring stuff. I wanted to chat with you about the concept of persistence versus adapting as it relates to rejection. So there's a woman named April KOH — K, O, H — I don't know if you've heard of her, but she was very passionate about mental health issues. I guess there's about 60 million people in the United States alone that suffer from mental health issues. And the problem with mental health, you know, you break your arm, that's pretty easy to diagnose and fix, but mental health is very complicated to get the right diagnosis. There's often multiple contributing factors. Treatment is very difficult. It's a mix of behavioral and medical and all that kind of stuff. So very complicated to diagnose, very complicated to have a prescriptive treatment plan that works. And so she thought, well, that's a perfect opportunity for AI. You know, couldn't you have AI help? But with the diagnosis and the treatment plan, she starts a company called Spring Health, and she's all excited about it, and she goes, goes to an investor and gets rejected, goes to another investor and gets rejected. And as the story goes, she got rejected 110 times. And now she became the youngest CEO and founder of a $1 billion dollar company in history, and on the surface anyway, that looks like persistence, you know, like, just keep doing the same thing, 110 times. Maybe she adapted a little bit along the way. Where do you just crush on persistence, like, do the same, go after the same thing, just again and again and again, versus, okay, I need to adapt my approach and try something different? Is it persistence or adaptability, or some mix of both?
Jia Jiang 22:20
It's definitely a mix of both. So on the persistent part, this is a tool I have right before I start a project. You know, I would put a number of no's I would take before I quit, and I write this on piece of paper, on a post it note, and put it on a wall. And then I wouldn't quit until that number. I would get rejected, I subtract the number from it, one from it. I wouldn't quit until the number turns zero. This give me a tool, to turn rejection into fuel, right? You know, gasoline is another thing that you wouldn't stop until it hits zero, right? I turn rejection into like, gasoline. Now I'm just using this as a tool, and it also gives me a pretty good judgment at the beginning of anything. Like, how much is this worth? Worth to me? I will say, Well, this project is worth 50 rejections. That thing, that project is worth two, right? And so I would make myself, you know, make a mental judgment, so I will have no regret after I quit in this way after that recession hit zero, because it's worth it for me.
Jia Jiang 23:25
Now the second thing is, during these, you know, this kind of repetitive outreach, right? You reached out to one person or another, like in this type of thing, or a lot of times it feels like very numbing, right? I feel just, you're just doing it. I try to turn them into fun art forms of outreach. Sometimes I would be like, you know, I have a bunch of tools in my, in fact, I'm writing my second book about this, right? I'm having a bunch of tools in my outreach. And, like, for example, I will try to, sometimes I will try to elevate, you know, my outreach, my next outreach, is actually building on this story I learned from my previous outreach, or even I'm talking the same sometimes I'm talking to the same firm or same client. I will just try to build a story, you know, I will send talking again and again, right? No, I don't want to just spam them with the same email. That's boring follow-up, right? I don't want to follow-up. I want to be like, All right, here's what we talked about before, and here's what I learned about you. So every time I read something new, and I would kind of add something, and they now they know that I'm actually, like, a real person. I'm not just like kind of just nominally talking to them, or this is not AI, I'm actually just learning about them in this way. My outreach becomes like a living organism and like a living project, a growing project. And I'm doing this primary reason is to keep myselfengaged, make it fun for me, and then that, because I know a lot of rejections come from internally, like when you lose confidence, when you're not having fun, that's where you feel dry, right? And that's where you start just giving up on things. So this will keep myself engaged, but also I feel I give myself a better shot, because, again, I'm doing something different. You know? I'm actually even if this is a one way...even if this is a reach out to someone, it's a one way conversation. You know, sometimes people are not responding. Lot of times they don't respond until, like, I don't know, seven or eight emails down the road. What if I make the seven, eight emails to be a little story, and everything is adding up a little bit by the end. This becomes a lot of fun. So I tried to play these games with myself as I do these repetitive like rejections.
Josh Linkner 25:43
It's so good. I mean, what I'm hearing... first of all, I love the idea of a rejection threshold. So before going in, this one, I'm going to give 50 shots. This one, I give two shots. That's really smart. And then the idea of it kind of gets back to that, like there's a rejection, but instead of just keep doing the same thing, again, expecting a different result, you're adapting, you're tweaking, even though they could be small adjustments, but you send a different email, you get to know them better, and you keep working at it till something clicks. So you mentioned that you're working on your next book, and I'm really excited to learn more about that. It's "The Art of Achieving Ambitious Things," coming out published by Simon and Schuster in May 2026. Give us a little run on what's the thrust of the book, and what has it meant to you so far, bringing this new project to life?
Jia Jiang 26:24
Yeah, so the book is about, how do ambitious people get things done? You know, I grew up in China, and I came on as a teenager, and there's a Chinese word saying, high eyes, low hand disease. These are type of people who have a lot of ambition, a lot of ideas, but they don't know how to execute. They don't have the discipline to get things done. And guess what? I'm one of those people, so that's why that.. but I found my flaws are actually my treasures. This is where the rejection came in, right? I was afraid of rejection. Now I'm like, rejection is my treasure because I found a way to solve it. This is a very entrepreneurial way to think about problems, you know. So I have this problem of having a lot of ambition, but I don't like to do things. I don't have the discipline do them. That's why I came up with this mindset, like mindsets and systems and environments for me to be able to do things even though I don't have the discipline, you know. The whole idea is I want to start liking things, you know. And so I want to make myself like the things more, and use that as a fuel, you know, use the idea of having fun, the idea of making art, make that as a fuel for me to move forward in this project. So now discipline to me is not just like eating bitterness, just pushing the drug uphill. No, it's more like my fuel is I'm gonna have fun, and my fuel is I'm gonna make art. I can now do this, you know. So that's the theme of the book. I think I just gave away a big theme of the book.
Jia Jiang 27:57
But yeah, writing the book... what I found is writing the book requires what I'm writing in the book. You know, I'm actually just using the what I'm writing to do this. Because, man, writing a book, especially if you feel the book is really useful and that's paying a lot of times you... it's a lot of work, you know, and it's not persistent, and you don't have immediate feedback, right? Like you think about, like, I also write a Substack, and then the thing about writing something like a Substack or blog is you write something and put it out, people give you feedback, or just, you know, you get it done. Writing a book takes a lot of discipline, so I'm starting to use a lot of ideas that I have in the book to apply to, to me writing it myself. So it's kind of a, you know, they say you try to fly, you know, like entrepreneurship is to, you know, fly a plane, like, build a plane while flying it. This is pretty much it. I'm trying to use my own ideas to get me to write the book.
Josh Linkner 28:55
Well, having written four books myself, I know you're right, it's a lot of work. And there are good days and bad days, and sometimes you get into a real good streak, and other times you're in a bit of a slump. You talk about something in the book called a momentum loop. Can you give us a little insight into what's a momentum loop and how you used it to drive your work and move things forward for yourself?
Jia Jiang 29:12
Yeah, momentum is so important in life. If sometimes you feel like you're pushing things, right? And at the beginning, it's really slow. At the beginning, you're trying to start a standstill object, and it's like Newton's Law, right? But then as you start pushing then, the same effort that you put in, you would actually make this stuff, the object, go a lot further, because the momentum is already on it. The same thing with projects, right? So you... every movement you want to do, you want to keep the same direction, but also try to, as I mentioned, try to build on what you did before, right? So if you can build on the activity that you had before, whether that's the outreach, whether that's a new idea, and you don't stop, you keep doing the same way. All of sudden, you go faster and faster the same day, the effect of the same day, I don't know, day 20 should be way more effective than day one, because again, you start having momentum. That's the idea of momentum loop, you know, just trying to build on what you have before.
Jia Jiang 30:25
I said, like, the example I mentioned earlier, right? Writing emails to reach out to people. That's if you don't have momentum,every email is like, Can I get an update? Can I get a you know, what's going on with this deal? Well, what if I don't do that? What if I'm gonna build momentum? Want to be like, Hey, I'm gonna share something with you, you know? What if I'm gonna say here's what's happening to me? Oh, here's what's happening to the industry. I start building on this momentum. Start building on this. You know, on what's on my previous email, and that's the idea of momentum loop.
Josh Linkner 31:00
You and I have a lot of friends that are professional speakers. We're very immersed in this field that we love and care about deeply. What advice do you have for people that are struggling to get momentum, struggling, and it could be earlier on, just trying to get initial traction? Or they've hit a point of plateau and they're trying to recalibrate? In other words, the rejection is weighing on them, the momentum is slowed. What advice would you have for someone in that situation?
Jia Jiang 31:22
A couple of things: One is, sometimes you need to shoot high, you know. Sometimes you need to just, you know, first of all, elevate your own goal. In a lot of that you are in the same area, and then you are... this is like swimming the red ocean, right? And you have a lot of competition that sometimes the best way to elevate it is to shoot for a ridiculously high goal, you know, and it actually gets you out of this Red Sea competition, you know. And so that's, you know, I there's a, I think it's Ben Hardy, he showed a book called "10x is Easier Than 2x." Really good book. It talks about, you know, if you have a different set of goals, the amount of work that's required for you to succeed here and there, it's actually easier for the high goal, because once you have a really high goal, now your mind is clear. Now the activity that's required to get there is very selective, very few, right? You want to succeed here in the Red Ocean, there are so many things you can do. There's so many ways you can succeed. But to succeed in the Blue Ocean, to get to the 10x that takes a very specific path, and you just focus on that path.
Jia Jiang 32:39
So, you know, in my personal, journey to me, the way to get my momentum started again is to write a book. I wrote my first book 10 years ago, you know. And I took it very seriously, you know. And that took me like... you know, I worked with my publisher...took me a long time to write a book. It's the way to get my momentum going again, in speaking, is to write my second book. But this, this took me long. It's gonna take me a long time. It's like two years. And, you know, I mean, anytime you go with a big publisher, it's like a two year process, sometimes even longer. And so by shooting at that goal, and I want to sell a lot of copies, I want to make this book very accessible and applicable to a lot of people. To have that goal takes me out of this Red Ocean. And it made me focus on the blue path and a Blue Ocean path. But also, I feel like by writing something like that, I started getting new ideas that I didn't have before. You know, all these ideas that talk about this momentum loop, these type of things we're making are all these are from my writing, my new book. So, but aim at a different goal. Aim at a ridiculously high goal, and that, a lot of times, can restart your momentum.
Josh Linkner 33:56
Yeah, I love that. Love it. Well, I'm so happy for you and your continued success. I've been inspired. As mentioned, I've been a fan of yours for a very long time, and I know that you're going to continue to rock out there. As we close things out, I did have a fun question for you. You talked about, you know, aim high and big goals. Many people have bucket lists, as you know, before I die, I want to do this, that and the other. Do you have a rejection bucket list? And if so, what would be on your rejection bucket list?
Jia Jiang 34:21
I don't actually. I had 100 days of you know, when I had a list, I would do 100 days of rejection. I feel like I've gone through the list pretty, pretty well. And what I I don't like in terms of life, I'm trying to have a list once I get into a project, once I get to the reason I don't have a life list is, I mean, I have my family list, right? Like, I want to have a great relationship with my kids as I get older, I want to have a great marriage. I mean, those are maybe life lists, but because I feel like the more I explore life, the more I have this mindset of I actually don't know what's out there. I'm gonna lean into it. I'm gonna give it all in this way. I discover a lot of things that I didn't know before. Like, for example, I didn't know I could be a speaker before. I didn't know I could write books before. I don't know what's gonna happen afterward. I feel like, if my life is guided by a list, then it is already determined, right? All I have to do is just to kind of go through one after another. I want to experience new possibility of rejections. I want to have new possibilities of experiences in life by leaning into what I'm doing right now and exploring more. So in this way, I feel my life is still very much open ended, instead of governed by a list. You know, I do have lists for life, as I mentioned. You know, there's things that are really important to me: my faith, my family, all those things. But in terms of rejection, I don't have that anymore.
Josh Linkner 35:51
Well, I admire that you have gone after so much rejection voluntarily. You've built an incredible business, an incredible life. I'm proud of you, my friend. Great to be with you today. And thank you so much for contributing to this awesome rejection episode of Mic Drop.
Jia Jiang 36:04
Thank you, Josh. Thank you for having me.
Josh Linkner 36:18
What a conversation. Jia didn't just tolerate rejection, he invited it. And in doing so, he rewrote his own story. Instead of building expertise through decades and decades of research, he ran a bold public experiment that turned no's into know-how. That's a powerful reminder for us all, you don't need a credential to create change. You need courage, you need curiosity, and sometimes you need a little absurdity. What struck me most was this: Don't reject yourself. The world might hand you a no, that's fine, but don't let that no turn into a second rejection inside your own head. That's where momentum dies. That's where creativity dries up. So the next time you hit a wall, send a poem, record a video, crack a joke, or just keep going, because rejection isn't the enemy. It's evidence that you're aiming high enough to matter. Thanks for listening. Let's go chase some better no's together.
Josh Linkner 37:10
Thanks so much for joining me on another episode of Mic drop.
Josh Linkner 37:15
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Josh Linkner 37:23
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Josh Linkner 37:34
I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Thanks so much for listening, and here's to your next Mic Drop moment.