Lawyers love their trophy walls, but when I was practicing law at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, I did something different. Above my awards and photos, in the uppermost place of honor, I framed and hung three letters–rejection letters, in two of the three cases.
These were the letters I’d received the first couple of times I’d applied for to work at Justice–my dream job, at least I thought so, back then when I was just out of law school.
- Letter #1 came after I’d originally applied as a law student to the Attorney General’s Honors Program at Justice. (“Sorry, not sorry,” wrote the attorney general–or words to that effect.)
- Letter #2 reached me 14 months later, after I reapplied for the same job. Nope, again. (“Did you not receive our first letter?”)
- Letter #3 arrived a few months after that. This time, I’d broken the rules, skipped HR, and sent my application to a Justice Department official I’d met in an interview during Round 1. Fortunately, this letter contradicted its predecessors, and it offered me a job as an entry level trial attorney (with the princely salary of about $39,000 a year).
Some people don’t like to admit that they’ve failed or been rejected in life. In fact, many of my colleagues at Justice had gone to elite law schools and had platinum resumes. They’d probably never been rejected for anything in their lives. But that wasn’t me–state law school, cum laude but not summa–and so I framed the letters.
Nothing is inevitable
The rejection letters looked like framed letters that other attorneys had on their walls: commendations, thank-you notes, evidence from particularly memorable litigation. You had to look closely to notice the difference.
But I always knew they were there. They reminded me–as the months went by, and as I did my job well, and as it began to feel almost inevitable that I would have been hired at Justice–that I’d been a long-shot who’d had to hustle and persist to get the job. I didn’t want to forget where I’d been when the offer came–crashing on the couch at the home of my Marine Corps officer brother in Hawaii–no job, a dwindling bank account (but in fairness, the best tan of my life.)
So I hung the rejection letters for motivation, and to ensure I never grew complacent. Most importantly, when I later realized practicing law wasn’t quite what I wanted to do for the rest of my career, I knew I’d need that hustle again. I didn’t want to forget what I’d gone through to get there–or to lose faith that I could do it again when I needed to.
May it please the court…
I don’t practice law anymore,. If you look on my LinkedIn profile, the entire time I spent at Justice now barely gets a single line. Still, I’m proud.
Barely a month after I landed the job, I was in a federal court, wearing a $45 suit I’d bought at a flea market, arguing my first case–doing exactly what I’d wanted to do when I went to law school to begin with. Ultimately, I was the lead attorney on more than 200 cases, I went to court constantly, all across the United States. I almost always won.
No, I wasn’t the best trial attorney of the 50 or so in our office, not even close. There were some really, really good lawyers, and I was fortunate to learn from them. But I was pretty good, and I’m an even better ex-lawyer.
So now the rejection letters are in a box somewhere, packed away. Frankly, one reason I’m writing this column is that I hadn’t thought of them for a long time, and I don’t want to forget. For while Justice was the better part of two decades ago no, and my goals have changed radically from what they were, the same traits that got me where I wanted to go then, are the ones I need most to get where I want to go now.
Hustle, Murphy. Hustle.
Remember how you got here
Chances are, I don’t know you. (I mean, my wife and my mom and my dad read these columns, so maybe–but I’m as vain as the next writer, and I hope the audience for this article will be a bit broader.) Regardless, I probably don’t know your struggles, what it took to get you where you are.
But, I do know you’ve almost certainly had to overcome challenges to achieve the things you’re most proud of. Also, you’ll probably have to do it again–overcome another hurdle, conquer another goal–sometime before too long.
Most importantly, you’ve probably failed a few times. You’ve got your own version of the Justice rejection letters–just as I have a lot of other failure mementos filed away, too.
But my message to you is not to forget those failures, or paper over them or explain them away. Instead, celebrate them. Put them in the place of honor on your version of a trophy wall.
Because it’s never about the failures; it’s about what you learned from them and how you overcame them. And you never know when you’ll need that reminder again.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.