Selling the Price Increase

4Developing Emotional Self-Control

Imagine that you're sitting at home when suddenly the doorbell rings. You weren't expecting a visitor.

You begin running through a series of images in your mind. Who might be at your door? A door-to-door salesperson, religious group, police, neighbor, politician, delivery, someone who wants to harm you?

With a measure of curiosity and trepidation, you open the door. But it's not any of the things you expected. There, standing before you, is a young, well-groomed Chinese man wearing soccer cleats. With suspicion in your voice you ask, “May I help you?”

Sporting a big grin, he responds, “Yes, I came by to ask if you would take a video of me playing soccer in your backyard.”

Imagine what your reaction might be to such a strange request. Then step into the soccer player's cleats and consider how you might feel standing on a stranger's steps making that same request. Both parties, in this weird moment, would be swept away by a sea of disruptive emotions.

This, by the way, is a true story of how Jia Jiang, an expert in rejection and emotional intelligence, became rejection proof.¹ Jiang built immunity to the fear of rejection by intentionally seeking it out.

Each day, he would make these same types of ridiculous requests of total strangers. At times, it was terrifying. He made video recordings of his physical response to rejection and recounted his emotional responses on a public blog. As he faced each new rejection and monitored his response, he ...