Unless you're extraordinarily lucky, you'll be rejected multiple times in your life. Whether in your personal or professional life, rejection is a normal part of life, even for the best of the best (like the Beatles). In this episode, I encourage you to move past your rejection.
Unless you're extraordinarily lucky, you'll be rejected multiple times in your life. Whether in your personal or professional life, rejection is a normal part of life, even for the best of the best (like the Beatles). In this episode, I encourage you to move past your rejection.
Hey everyone and welcome to Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cottrell. I'm your host and today is an inspiration episode. Inspiration episodes happen once a week. They're intended to be the 1% of inspiration to go with your 99% perspiration throughout the rest of the week. And today I have just a short story for you rather than a quote. So have you ever heard of a band called The Tremolos? You might have heard of them. They had a few singles that went gold or a few releases rather that went gold back in the 60s and they've had quite a few singles. So they've been making music for years. In fact, the band is technically still around. They're still current members. They're active. Now, of course, you've probably heard of them. You've probably heard of The Beatles. And what's interesting is The Beatles and The Tremolos actually have a moment in history that they share. Back in 1962, actually on the 1st of January in 1962, The Beatles auditioned at Decca Records. And apparently somebody at Decca Records turned The Beatles down. They rejected them and they said, Guitar groups are on the... That's a quote. And that The Beatles have no future in show business. Now, I don't know about you, but when I look at the Wikipedia page that has The Beatles discography on it, I see every single release having gone either gold or platinum. The Tremolos, not so much. I mean, certainly they're a good band. But what's funny... The funny is Decca Records actually chose to go with The Tremolos. Instead of The Beatles, they decided to sign on The Tremolos. They auditioned on the same day. It's kind of amazing, isn't it? You think about the massive success of The Beatles and you think about how that kind of eclipses so many other people in the music industry. And you think, wow, nobody would ever turn them down. And that's just simply not true. And the reason for that is we don't know the future, first of all. And secondly, not every single day is your best. There's been quite a few conversations about whether or not The Beatles performed well that day. It's very possible that somebody at Decca just simply saw the audition and thought, well, they aren't really that good because maybe they didn't perform that well that day. The truth of the matter is The Beatles were successful over the course of many, many years. So why am I telling you this story? Well, I want you to take a lesson from this story that just because your idea or just because you as a person are rejected or maybe you aren't hired at a job that you wanted or maybe somebody is telling you that your idea has no legs, just because you hear that from another person does not make it true. Even if that person is in a position. Position of authority. Even if that person is in, maybe they're a developer that you really respect and they tell you that you're just not cut out for the job. I'm here to tell you that just like The Beatles had a future in show business, even though a record label told them they didn't, you very well may have a future in this industry. You don't have to listen to what everybody tells you necessarily. Now, am I saying this? Am I saying to ignore what smart people are telling you? Am I saying to ignore the wisdom of the people around you? Absolutely not. What I am saying is that there isn't a person that is in charge of your future other than you. There isn't a person that knows your future. You don't even know your future. You are the most effective part of your life. You are the one who has the most effect over what happens to your future. So don't let, somebody telling you that your idea has no legs, get you down. Don't let a lost interview get you down. If you're applying to, in fact, I recently applied to a few conferences and my talks were turned down. And I share that with you because I know that I have some valuable things to say. And you very well might be applying to a job knowing that you have valuable skills to add to that team. And just because you don't get that, that job does not mean that you don't have valuable skills. Just because I got turned down from a conference does not mean that what I have to say doesn't have value. If you walk away with one piece of inspiration from this episode, make it this. Only you are the one who is in charge of where you're going. There's nobody else who can absolutely know your future. There's nobody else who has the keys to the entire, uh, development industry. And they'll either let you in or, or keep you out. You don't have to depend, especially, uh, in this industry. You don't have to depend on somebody, uh, signing you to a record label to have success. So stay driven, keep on doing the things that you love doing and chase after the things that you're good at doing. Just like the Beatles believed that guitar music had potential. You can believe in your idea. You can believe in your own talents, your own skills and your own drive and make those things come to pass. Make them a reality. Thank you for listening to developer T. I hope you were inspired by this episode. If you'd like to get in touch, you can reach me at at developer T on Twitter or developer T at gmail.com. And until next time, enjoy your tea.