Ep 212. Jessica Bacal: Learning from Rejection
“In doing interviews for this book, I learned that it’s possible, after the initial bad feelings, to separate yourself from a rejection and use your reaction to it as data about your future path.”
Jessica Bacal
Jessica Bacal is director of Reflective and Integrative Practices and of the Narratives Project at Smith College. Her latest book is The Rejection That Changed My Life: 25+ Powerful Women on Being Let Down, Turning It Around, and Burning It Up at Work. It’s is a sequel of sorts to Jessica’s first bestseller, Mistakes I Made at Work: 25 Influential Women on What They Got Out of Getting It Wrong. The Narratives Project at Smith encourages students to explore their passions and articulate their values and goals through personal storytelling. Before her career in higher education, Jessica was an elementary school teacher in New York City, and then a curriculum developer and consultant. She received a bachelor’s degree from Carleton College, an MFA in writing from Hunter College, and an EdD from the University of Pennsylvania.
In this episode, Stew talks with Jessica about how to learn and grow from rejection, a kind of experience everyone has. She describes how to glean useful data from rejections, especially about your values; cultivate creativity on the other side of the awful feelings that follow rejection; build the “rejection muscle” by exposing yourself to small rejections regularly; and take a new path in a rejection’s wake. All this comes to light through stories of fascinating women and from exercises derived from their wisdom.
Here then is an invitation for you, a challenge, after you’ve had a chance to listen to this episode. What small rejections -- at work, at home, in your community, or in your private sphere -- can you induce in order to build your rejection muscle? Share your reactions to this episode and your suggestions for future shows with Stew by writing to him at friedman@wharton.upenn.edu or via LinkedIn.
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