Article October 25, 1999 Issue

Turning failure to success

Needed: spiritual training

By Henry G. Rutledge, Jr.

Rejection. I am getting nowhere. No one seems to care anymore. Why did I take this job? No one wants my services. I think I'll just quit; I can't take this. All the work I've put into this, and for what? Nothing. Not even a glimmer of interest. I feel like going home!

When I was a novice real estate salesman, those were my thoughts on many days. However, before I started the job, I had had some training. And the training is what carried me through difficult times. Even though the discouraging comments didn't seem to diminish after a few months, my negative reaction to them did. A few small sales occurred in between the negatives. Those few sales and my training encouraged me enough so that my thought became insulated from taking in negative thoughts. Soon the rejections didn't bother me at all, and it didn't matter how many I received in one day, because something good would always result from my contacts. I was able to take the rejections in stride as merely a routine part of the job.

We all have to deal with rejection in some form. Has a loved one spoken harshly? Did a hoped-for job fall through? Did the last project end in failure? Is the usual enthusiasm missing from activities? Whatever the "down-times," the best way to meet them is to put into practice a spiritual training, a training that exposes these negatives for what they really are—opportunities for more growth—and then enables one to get on with life without being affected by them.

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