Kelly leans into the discomfort with Jia Jiang, author of “Easy Discipline: An Unconventional Way to Achieve Ambitious Things.” You may have heard of Jia, as his story has been told in numerous books on how to successfully handle adversity through a concept called “Rejection Therapy.” Over 100 days, Jia put himself in a position to get rejected: asking to work behind the counter at a fast-food restaurant or asking a cop to drive a police car. In his new book, he explores how a simple reframe can unlock anyone’s ability to do the thing they love to do. 

One of the first stories you tell in the book is the myth of Sisyphus, and you offer that we may have gotten the lesson of this story wrong over the eons. 

“When I first learned the Sisyphus story, I thought there’s one question that came to my mind, right? So, this guy is pushing the rock eternally and can never get to the top. Every time the rock gets to the top, the rock will roll back to the bottom. And the only question that came to my mind is, ‘What’s the mental state of Sisyphus?’ Is he alive or dead? Does he have free will and agency? But what if the curse is on the rock itself, not on Sisyphus, then why did he make that decision? There must be only one conclusion. He likes pushing rocks. You know, and if he likes pushing rocks, then this is no longer a curse because Zeus just built him an eternal Peloton.” 

Your origin story is when you had business failures and faced a sea of rejection. What happend next? 

“I’m really afraid of rejection, as it turned out. So, I did a reframe. Instead of running away from rejection, what if I looked for rejection? I found this thing called rejection therapy. I later on actually bought the website and bought all the games and stuff. It’s a game that invented by this Canadian entrepreneur. And so basically it asks you to look for rejection instead of running away from it. I started doing this project called 100 Days of Rejection Therapy. My goal was to look for rejection once per day for 100 days. So that’s what I did. And it completely blew up and it became a viral sensation, got millions and millions of views and developed a cult like following online.” 

Explain the concept you talk about in the book called “Repetitions with variations,” which is a pivot on the idea of deliberate practice. 

“Yeah, so the idea of deliberate practice has become very popularized, right? Which is when you practice a particular skill set, a relevant skill set with feedback – instead of just mindlessly spending hours. Now, in my book, I also say that’s good, but you’re in an environment that is very static. But a lot of times in a very dynamic environment, like, say, basketball. In basketball, you can practice all you want, but if the opponents do a defense you don’t recognize, that can actually take you out of your comfort zone. They can take away your number one option, number two option. You know, now we’re in the NBA finals, if you don’t adjust, you’re going to lose. So how do you adjust to that? So, I started observing this idea called repetitions with variation. Basically, you practice, but you play different roles; you change your environment every day.” 

Photo Credit: Chenxi Zhao