I had reached out to Gina Trapani, founder of Lifehacker, for an interview for the Real Leaders Project this weekend. She responded within 48 hours (thanks Gina) and said it didn’t look like she’d be able to make time for it in the foreseeable future.
Instead of being disappointed, I was actually pretty happy. And I spent a couple of minutes wondering why that was the case – I had just been rejected after all.
When it comes to requesting some of the more famous people for interviews, I have come to accept that it sometimes takes up to 12 months or 18 months to make it happen. Sometimes, I get lucky and it works out almost immediately. But, otherwise, it can take pretty long. I think of it as the “testing intent” phase. I’m pretty sure these folks receive multiple requests for interviews. An interview with the Real Leaders Project is more an act of giving as we don’t have the sort of reach (yet :)) that would benefit them. They have multiple giving options and are understandably not entirely sure if they should invest in us. That’s fine by us. We’re more than happy to follow up multiple times in the next few months and not take the wait personally. We know we’ll stick around because we’re in it for the long run.
The long run… that’s what makes the difference. If my time horizon was 1 month, I would be disappointed by Gina’s response. But, since my time horizon is many years long, I am sure we’ll end up finding a time.
Rejection don’t feel like rejections when you think long term.
A Learning a Day 