Borrowed belief and the long road to success

Stephen King has written a LOT of books. Classics such as Carrie, The Shining, The Green Mile, and (one of my faves) The Shawshank Redemption. And those are just a few that have been adapted into films. All in, he’s written more than a whopping 65 novels.

It’s no surprise that he started writing at a young age, submitting short stories to magazines to chase a dream of getting published. But it would be a solid six years of rejection before his first article was printed. In his book On Writing, he says that by the time he was fourteen, he’d impaled so many rejection slips onto a nail on his wall that the nail could no longer support the weight of all that paper. So he upgraded the nail with a spike.

A spike full of hundreds of rejections. On his wall. As a teenager.

King’s mentality, even as a young man, is what hits home for me. He treated those rejection letters as proof of his reps. They were reminders that he was doing the work. He kept them close, within sight, and believed that each rejection was a step forward to success.

And then, eventually, it was his turn.

Carrie.

After King wrote the first few pages of Carrie, he threw them in the garbage. It’s reasonable to think that his confidence was low after dealing with so many rejections, but he was also concerned whether he could write convincingly from a female perspective.

However, in one of those moment’s that reminds us of the razor’s edge of life, his wife, Tabitha, found the crumpled pages in the bin. She pulled them out, liked what she’d read, and encouraged him to keep going. She also offered her input and female perspective as he continued with the idea.

It’s easy to romanticize this moment as a partner just being supportive, but it’s a moment worth analyzing. It shows that even Stephen King had moments where the doubt won. What he needed at that exact moment was for someone else to show him there was value in what he was doing.

Sometimes resilience is borrowed; it could be that one person encouraging us not to throw out the idea, or reminding us that we do bring value, but we leverage the energy of others to keep us moving forward. Great leaders know this and tap into it when they can.

He persevered and finished the manuscript for Carrie and sent it out into the world, only to be rejected 30 times. More rejection! Finally, one publisher said yes and sent him an advance of just $2500, which was modest even then. However, it was enough to feel like progress, but he didn’t quit his day job and kept on teaching.

I love this part of the story for two reasons. First, it is wonderfully ordinary. After so many rejections, the breakthrough wasn’t a movie moment or some giant instant payoff. It was a small yes. Second, even after finally getting that yes, King stayed on as a teacher for another school year to ensure there was an income coming in. That detail says so much. After years and years of rejection, he didn’t suddenly act like everything had changed overnight. He stayed grounded and practical.

Then came the moment that changed everything. Once Carrie was finished, the paperback rights sold for $400,000, and that was the beginning of the Stephen King legend. Carrie went on to sell around 4 million copies.

Our own spikes

Most of us have plenty of rejection slips on the spike wall, we just don’t see them as clearly as King did. Perhaps it’s the proposals that have been ignored, or the job applications that have disappeared into the silent void that is modern job-hunting.

When we face these overbearing rejections, it’s worth remembering the battle of people like Stephen King, and using those important ideas to forge our own way forward.

Here are a few tools for our toolkit:

1. Embrace the spike wall. This is about tracking attempts more than outcomes. It means prioritizing the reps rather than results. We can keep a simple log for each week: the pitches made, the resumes submitted, the hard conversations had. Our brain needs proof of motion, not proof of perfection.

2. Find our Tabitha. How fortuitous that King’s wife found those pages in the bin and encouraged him to keep going! It proves the power of relationships and those who believe in us. Sometimes we just need one person to tell us to keep going. They don’t have to be a hype machine, but someone who just believes in us. And, of course, we can also be a Tabitha to others. Find the person out there who just needs a reminder to keep going and tell them not to stop.

3. A two-line reset. After any rejection, if it’s really getting to us, try to remove the emotion and break the moment down logically. Line 1 is what happened (facts only). Line 2 is what to do next (one real action). This generates a solution-focused mindset and begins the forward momentum to help us keep going. Because what else is there to do other than the next best action?

4. Don’t quit on hard days. Even if we want to quit, just give ourself one more day. We can want to quit, but make a note that we just can’t quit today. Sleep on it, breathe a little, move the body, then reassess. Just by staying in the fight, we buy ourselves a little more confidence to continue.

The legend of Stephen King only exists because of everything that led up to that moment of success. It was the spike on the wall holding his rejection slips, the manuscript in the bin, the borrowed belief from his wife.

Life is full of moments that don’t go our way. It might look like clients who say “yes” but then disappear, or the endless job applications that aren’t even acknowledged. Rejections in life are guaranteed. The real value is how we use them to find a way forward.

Until next time friends, stay resilient.

Carré at Resilient Minds

PS - I speak to a lot of sales teams who deal with rejection and adversity daily. If you’d like a session with your team about bouncing forward, hit reply.