 |
|
|
|||||
Rejection isnt just an inevitable part of successits the fastest path to it. Think about it: The most groundbreaking ideas, the most resilient leaders, and the most dominant companies all have one thing in common: theyve been rejected far more than their competitors. But heres the difference: they didnt just endure rejection; they weaponized it. After two decades as an entrepreneur, raising capital, launching products, and negotiating high-stakes deals, Ive been told no more times than I can count. And every single one of those rejections made me sharper, tougher, and more creative. Most people treat rejection like a full stop. The winners? They treat it like a detour to something bigger. Heres how you can do the same and find how every “no” can lead to a competitive edge. 1. Use Rejection as Market Research When you get rejected, most of the time youre handed brutally honest insight for free. No focus group, no consultant, no customer survey will ever give you feedback this raw. The catch? Most people never ask why. Early in my career, I lost a major client after pitching what I thought was a flawless campaign. Their feedback? Its too polished. We dont trust it. That stung. But instead of dwelling, I decoded the rejection: Was my messaging too salesy? Did I overengineer the proposal? Was I trying to impress instead of connect? I stripped out the buzzwords, simplified my decks, and started leading with vulnerability instead of perfection. My close rate jumped 40% in six months. Here’s how you can improve your success rate, too. Ask for blunt feedback. Its not just Why did we lose? but What almost made you say yes? Look for patterns. Are you getting rejected for the same reason repeatedly? Thats your blind spot. Treat every no like a data point. The more you collect, the clearer your winning strategy becomes. 2. Make Rejection the Training for Bigger Risks Most people avoid rejection because they fear failure. But what if I told you that early failure is the best thing that can happen to you? When my first startup crashed, I was devastated. But afterward, something unexpected happened: I lost my fear of risk. I started pitching ideas that were too bold. I took swings others wouldnt. And one of those bets became my first million-dollar business. A 2023 McKinsey study found that companies that doubled down during downturns captured 1015% more market share than competitors who played it safe. Why? Because most people retreat after rejection. The ones who keep pushing face less competition. Begin building your own risk tolerance: Start small. Take calculated risks where the downside is manageable. Reframe failure. Every no is a rejection of the idea, not you. Track your resilience. The more rejections you survive, the stronger you get. 3. Turn Rejection Into Free Publicity Most people hide their rejections. Big mistake. When I lost a six-figure deal, I wrote a LinkedIn post about what I learned. It went viral and led to a deal twice as big from someone who admired my transparency. People connect with struggle more than success. Sharing your rejections makes you relatable, shows confidence, and attracts opportunities. Be honest, not self-pitying. Focus on lessons, not complaints. Know timing matters. Share the story after youve processed it. Turn it into content. A tweet, a post, even a podcast story. 4. Let Your Rejection Force Innovation When my safe product failed, I had no choice but to try something radical. That bad idea became my most profitable offering. Psychologists call this creative constraint: when youre forced to work with fewer options, you innovate in ways you never would have otherwise. Heres how you can: Ask: Whats the unconventional solution? Embrace the bad idea. Sometimes the worst concepts lead to the best outcomes. Use rejection as a reset button. Its permission to start fresh. 5. Make Resilience Your Unfair Advantage Rejection is like a filter: 90% of people quit after a few nos. The ones who keep going face less competition with every step. Track your rejections like a scorecard. The higher the number, the closer you are to a win. Find a rejection buddy. Someone who holds you accountable. Rejection isnt just part of the gameits the game itself. The next time you get rejected, dont retreat. Smile, take notes, and swing harder. The best competitive advantage in business isnt talent, luck, or connections. Its the ability to turn rejection into fuel.
Category:
E-Commerce
Over 80% of Middlebury College students use generative AI for coursework, according to a recent survey I conducted with my colleague and fellow economist Zara Contractor. This is one of the fastest technology adoption rates on record, far outpacing the 40% adoption rate among U.S. adults, and it happened in less than two years after ChatGPTs public launch. Although we surveyed only one college, our results align with similar studies, providing an emerging picture of the technologys use in higher education. Between December 2024 and February 2025, we surveyed over 20% of Middlebury Colleges student body, or 634 students, to better understand how students are using artificial intelligence, and published our results in a working paper that has not yet gone through peer review. What we found challenges the panic-driven narrative around AI in higher education and instead suggests that institutional policy should focus on how AI is used, not whether it should be banned. Not just a homework machine Contrary to alarming headlines suggesting that ChatGPT Has Unraveled the Entire Academic Project and AI Cheating Is Getting Worse, we discovered that students primarily use AI to enhance their learning rather than to avoid work. When we asked students about 10 different academic uses of AIfrom explaining concepts and summarizing readings to proofreading, creating programming code, and, yes, even writing essaysexplaining concepts topped the list. Students frequently described AI as an on-demand tutor, a resource that was particularly valuable when office hours werent available or when they needed immediate help late at night. We grouped AI uses into two types: augmentation to describe uses that enhance learning, and automation for uses that produce work with minimal effort. We found that 61% of the students who use AI employ these tools for augmentation purposes, while 42% use them for automation tasks like writing essays or generating code. Even when students used AI to automate tasks, they showed judgment. In open-ended responses, students told us that when they did automate work, it was often during crunch periods like exam week, or for low-stakes tasks like formatting bibliographies and drafting routine emails, not as their default approach to completing meaningful coursework. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}})}(); Of course, Middlebury is a small liberal arts college in Vermont with a relatively large portion of wealthy students. What about everywhere else? To find out, we analyzed data from other researchers covering over 130 universities across more than 50 countries. The results mirror our Middlebury findings: Globally, students who use AI tend to be more likely to use it to augment their coursework, rather than automate it. But should we trust what students tell us about how they use AI? An obvious concern with survey data is that students might underreport uses they see as inappropriate, like essay writing, while overreporting legitimate uses like getting explanations. To verify our findings, we compared them with data from AI company Anthropic, which analyzed actual usage patterns from university email addresses of their chatbot, Claude AI. Anthropics data shows that technical explanations represent a major use, matching our finding that students most often use AI to explain concepts. Similarly, Anthropic found that designing practice questions, editing essays, and summarizing materials account for a substantial share of student usage, which aligns with our results. In other words, our self-reported survey data matches actual AI conversation logs. Why it matters As writer and academic Hua Hsu recently noted, There are no reliable figures for how many American students use AI, just stories about how everyone is doing it. These stories tend to emphasize extreme examples, like a Columbia student who used AI to cheat on nearly every assignment. But these anecdotes can conflate widespread adoption with universal cheating. Our data confirms that AI use is indeed widespread, but students primarily use it to enhance learning, not replace it. This distinction matters: By painting all AI use as cheating, alarmist coverage may normalize academic dishonesty, making responsible students feel naive for following rules when they believe everyone else is doing it. Moreover, this distorted picture provides biased information to university administrators, who need accurate data about actual student AI usage patterns to craft effective, evidence-based policies. Whats next Our findings suggest that extreme policies like blanket bans or unrestricted use carry risks. Prohibitions may disproportionately harm students who benefit most from AIs tutoring functions while creating unfair advantages for rule breakers. But unrestricted use could enable harmful automation practices that may undermine learning. Instead of one-size-fits-all policies, our findings lead me to believe that institutions should focus on helping students distinguish beneficial AI uses from potentially harmful ones. Unfortunately, research on AIs actual learning impacts remains in its infancyno studies Im aware of have systematically tested how different types of AI use affect student learning outcomes, or whether AI impacts might be positive for some students but negative for others. Until that evidence is available, everyone interested in how this technology is changing education must use their best judgment to determine how AI can foster learning. Germán Reyes is an assistant professor of economics at Middlebury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
Being yourself is not always an easy taskespecially at work. But new research finds the ability to do so comes easier to some than to others, for a surprising reason. The ability to be authentic on the job also has a great deal to do with how well-liked you are. In a series of studies involving thousands of participants, social psychologists at Columbia Business School found that social status (defined as how well liked someone is) is deeply important when it comes to being yourself. Our findings suggest that social status may be as important as self-esteem in increasing authenticity, which is surprising, said Erica R. Bailey, a Ph.D. student who worked on the studies, said. Dr. James T. Carter, another one of the researchers and an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University, told Fast Company that the study used Bailey’s previous work, which developed ways to quantify authenticity. The studies involved conversations between strangers which took place over Zoom. The researchers then manipulated social status in follow up experiments. Researchers created scenarios, such as one where participants were told if they were selected or not for Employee of the Month, which was based on being “well-respected and admired by others.” They were asked to write about how the experience made them feel. Carter said the experiments showed that social status increased “felt and expressed authenticity.” The experiments seemed to indicate that popularity matters deeply (even long after high school). So much so, Carter says, that it’s an even more important factor than rank or position when it comes to being able to show up as yourself at work. “This is interesting from a research standpoint because prior work would argue that formal rank (or power) is critically important for authenticity, but we find the story is a bit more complicated than that,” Carter said. Carter added, Although both are relevant for authenticity, it is social status that really lets people be their authentic selves.” The ability to feel comfortable being authentic at work matters. Previous research has found that authenticity is a huge driver of happiness. A 2020 meta analysis found that authenticity is key to employee engagement and overall well-being. The latest research suggests that high school guidance counselors were wrong. Popularity does matter even after high school. In fact, it may be one of the most powerful tools one has at the office. And, perhaps, in life.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||