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What's this newsletter about? What two questions motivate it? What will you find here? Might 'The Rejection Deal' be for you?

Why are we in such a rush to shout about ‘successes’ from the rooftops? And yet, head down, embarrassed eyes fixed on our feet, in no mood ever to unpack ‘failure’? 

Those small mysteries motivate this newsletter, are a constant undercurrent flowing beneath the surface of ‘The Rejection Deal’. Why? Well, first, from a personal perspective, there is a devil in me which enjoys talking about things we often find uncomfortable. I’m curious. I was a daily newspaper journalist for more than a decade.  

Second, I believe we succeed more when there is an honest will to acknowledge and learn from failure. If we talk about it. And yet if we never talk about, how will we learn? How will good things happen? From my experience, when we are browbeat into fearing mistakes, we never try anything new. An anecdote. 

A barcode. A swearing newspaper editor. And an unafraid girl from Glasgow

In my daily newspaper days, it invariably fell on me, for more than 10 years, 4,300-odd occasions, to insert a barcode on the newspaper’s back page each night. Without the barcode, how would anyone easily buy it in shops and at stands the next day? Well. You’re probably going to predict what I’m going to reveal next. 

I forgot it. One night. One bonkers night when I was, no excuse, hungover from the previous night. We were busy. Well, when aren’t you always busy on a daily newspaper, working the late shift on sport? Lots of sport happens most evenings, with fans eager to catch up on the news and scores first thing each morning. 

I was working on the desk alone and I forgot to properly check that the barcode was on tomorrow morning’s back page. There was mitigation in my defence [a bug in the system waiting for years to bite me or whoever was tasked with the responsibility], but, for the sake of the story, ultimately it was on me. 

Oh. The next day. A Saturday. I wasn’t working. I received a voice message on my mobile and didn’t listen to it until that afternoon. It was the paper’s editor. He explained what had happened. His tone didn’t sound good.   

Fast-forward to Monday in the office and the walk of shame in front of hundreds of editorial and sales staff, to the editor’s office. Everyone knew what had happened, what ‘Sport’ had failed to do Friday night. Idiots. I always knew it.

I closed the door to the editor’s office behind him as I entered with a trepidation, but with positive knowledge in my notebook: I had devised three new processes to put in place on the paper; make sure this was never allowed to happen again. Never. 

The editor didn’t care. He didn’t wish to listen. This task was on me, would always be on me, until Hell froze over, or until Tesco [for US readers, think Walmart] refused to stock our paper, because it didn’t have a barcode to bleep efficiently through its tills.

‘How do you feel?’ the editor asked me, twisting the knife, from behind his large desk.

Was this a trick question? 

I hesitated.

‘I felt bad,’ I said simply. You might wish to close your ears to my memory at this juncture, because it was at this point that the decibel levels ramped up.

‘You should feel f**king bad!..’ he exploded.

Et cetera. Et cetera.

I never forgot the barcode again. I had learned my lesson. And I did implement two of my three new processes, but I alone carried the can for each one. I remained a single point of failure [ha, that word!]. Nobody ever helped me carry the responsibility for my remaining years on the paper. But. The paper’s deputy editor was wonderful. And she always had my back and had a smile and a kind word. We had a private joke when we wished each other good night at 10:15pm or so [the paper went to print at 10pm]... ‘Don’t forget the barcode!’ we would both smile.

An unafraid girl from Glasgow

There’s a kicker, if you care, to the story. Said swearing editor finally picked on the wrong prey, a trainee reporter. A petite girl, who looked entirely innocent. Lisa. That was her name. I liked her. We used to have a laugh, because she wasn’t what she seemed. She was from Glasgow, a rough part of Glasgow. And she wasn’t afraid. Of anyone.

All she wanted was two weeks’ holiday timed to match her husband’s. He was in the Navy and he would be on leave for said two weeks. The editor refused. We were too busy. She was a trainee. Suck it up. Be grateful you’re even here. Well.

Lisa did her homework and she discovered it wasn’t entirely legal to refuse her two weeks’ off, at her time of choosing, each year. So she threatened to sue the paper. The high-ups blanched and sacked the editor so fast he barely had time to empty the drawers from his large desk.   

Imposter syndrome. And Thomas Edison

Maybe there is something simply within us, you and me. A nagging subconscious we wear like a second skin. 

How can I meet a new colleague, upon their happy first day at work, at the company where I have shone on and off for six years… and yet they appear right at home as they greet everyone, and it is I who continue to feel like I don’t quite fit? Maybe I still need to get over the barcode thing.

The great American Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb in 1879, was asked at the time by a newspaper reporter, who had inside knowledge but who taking a glass half-empty view questioned Edison, ‘How did it feel to fail 1,000 times [during its invention]?’

Edison simply and now timelessly for history replied, ‘I didn’t fail. The light bulb is an invention with 1,000 steps’.  

So. Maybe we’re in good company: me, you and Edison.

The perspective of successful authors

From time to time, we’ll talk here too to other people and authors [I love reading and, in spare time, have been an aspiring author], authors who have enjoyed a good deal of success. How has ‘failure’ shaped their journey? 

You can already see here that there has been some fantastic conversations with wonderful authors, who nearly all have a common experience: they wouldn’t be where they are today without ‘failure’. It is often at that lowest point that their spirit rallies and they begin to ‘succeed’. Give them a read or watch. They’re under ‘Interviews’ from the newsletter’s home page.

‘How often will I receive an email from ‘The Rejection Deal’? Not super often, honestly. At a guess, fortnightly, and likely on a Friday or Saturday. But I currently have no schedule.

If you’ve read this far, I hope that catches your intrigue and that we might see you again from time to time. We can chat. Share experiences. Connect. Learn a little, learn a lot. And, dare we say it [in case my old swearing editor is still somewhere in the building listening], laugh at our failings, because when we’re happy to make a mistake, like we said at the top, I find is when together we make the greatest noise.

This post was inspired by

Elin Petronella

and ‘Follow your gut’

7 things I intentionally did in my hero post and why writers should pay attention

And huuuuuuuuuuuuge and heartfelt thanks to

Anne Brooke

to

Remy Bazerque

and to

Sunhats and Chardonnay

for generously recommending ‘The Rejection Deal’ to their subscribers. I appreciate you Anne, Remy and Sunhats!