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Public speaking lessons from 100 days of rejection

Liam Sandford
3 min readApr 24, 2023

Is your fear of public speaking holding you back? Do you find yourself avoiding challenges or opportunities because you are afraid of the speaking elements? You are not alone in this, 75% of the population have a fear of public speaking. I used to be one of them.

But there is an easier route to overcoming your fear of public speaking than you might think. Let me tell you a story about Jia Jiang and his 100 Days of Rejection.

Jia Jiang is an entrepreneur who had a mission to hear ‘no’ every day for 100 days in order to overcome his fear of rejection. He made crazy requests, like asking for a free burger refill, or if he could plant a flower in a strangers front garden. He learned that rejection was not actually that bad. In getting to hear ‘no’ he found opportunities to grow in confidence, and become comfortable doing something that initially felt out of reach.

Indirectly, Jia Jiang was performing a daily nano speech for 100 days. A short 10 second speech with a simple open, body and close. In overcoming his fear of rejection, he also built confidence and began asking more outlandish questions. That did not take 100 days. When you start small, you have the ability to build successful reps quickly. Build on those reps, grow your comfort zone, and scale up.

How can you apply the 100 days of rejection to your speaking journey?

Commit to 100 days of nano speeches

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Liam Sandford
Liam Sandford

Written by Liam Sandford

I help ambitious people scale their impact with quiet communication • Best Selling Author of Effortless Public Speaking • liamsandford.com/subscribe

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