80 - Halima Nawaz - There is gladness in rejection.

TRUE STORY 

On good coming out of bad... 

Once upon a time I was 20 and I applied for a summer internship at KPMG. Abba (Urdu for father) had qualified with them many moons ago and I guess you could say I had designs on following in his footsteps. 

I submitted my application and was invited to a phone interview. I passed that and then was invited for a final stage assessment day. 

Here they would put a laptop with a fake inbox in front of all candidates and make us do an e-tray exercise in which I would entirely lose the plot.

A week later, I vividly remember sitting in the Edward Boyle Library when my phone buzzed from a private number. It was KPMG. “We’re sorry to inform you that at this stage you’ve been rejected from the process, we wish you the best of luck for the future.” 

My first taste of rejection. Your heart sinks and with it any intellect you thought you possessed. You’re not good enough. That’s what rejection means, right? Wrong.  
 
Of course at this stage I didn’t know that so I rang Abba crying to inform him of my rejection. He was in the car at the time with Imran Khan (yep the current PM of Pakistan), it was at the time when he was Chancellor of Bradford University and so he’d come to attend the degree giving ceremonies. So I blubber cried whilst Abba had me on speaker phone with IK in tow. Embarrassing. I didn’t know it at the time, though. I thought I’d just talked to Abba. 

Cut to our kitchen and IKs departure later that day. And I recall these parting words from IK “beta, aapke Abba ne bataya ke apko KPGG ne reject kiya? Beta yaad rakho ke Allah ke har kaam mein behtri hoti hai, when one door closes, a better one will open in its place.” Translation: “kid(do), your dad told me that KPGG rejected you, but remember that in every work of God there is goodness...” 

I didn’t have the heart to correct him on KPGG and I didn’t have life experience to understand what he’d meant. That was until of course, a couple of months later, the wisdom of his words manifested themselves for me; I got a job offer from PwC, the largest Professional Services firm in the world. I spent 8 years of my career with them and whilst it certainly wasn’t a merry-go-round (!) it was a life altering experience, one that introduced me to new parts of myself, life long friendships, financial independence and the prestige of PwC itself.

Who knows what would have happened at KPMG, who even cares anymore. I know now that how life unravelled for me was better than anything I was rejected from and I’ve truly come to find now through many more lived experiences, that rejection doesn’t mean you’re not good enough, it doesn’t mean you’re not worthy, it just means that particular thing or person isn’t right for you personally. Now I view rejection as the world (or rather God) removing from my path what isn’t good enough or right for me. It isn’t you that’s wrong; it’s them that’s wrong for you. 

Rejection is painful. But if you keep focusing on that pain, you’ll miss seeing the doors and windows of better opportunities wide open for you. Rejection has always led to better alternatives in all my experiences since that one and boy can I tell you I’ve had my fair share more since then. Take the advice of the PM of Pakistan if you don’t believe me. The man spent 22 years of political struggle, 22 years of rejection before he was finally elected to lead the country to gladness. 

There is gladness in rejection. 

Best wishes, 
Halima 

The BeGlad Movement is aiming to collect 100 stories of good coming out of bad and reasons to be glad by the end of 2018 to help support each other with our experiences and to raise money for the Samaritans and Action for Happiness. If you would like to donate it would be so greatly appreciated. Thank you!

https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/beglad