Build the Resilience to Match Your Ambition, with Jia Jiang

**Dave Stachowiak** (0:00)
No pain, no gain. We've all heard that before, and there's a reason we've heard it before, because it's true.
One way to achievement is through a lot of pain. Good news, though, there are other ways, too. In this episode, how to harness the ambition you already have through easy discipline. This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 794

**SPEAKER_2** (0:25)
Produced by Innovate Learning and Maximizing Human Potential.

**Dave Stachowiak** (0:33)
Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren't born, they're made. And this weekly show helps leaders thrive at key inflection points.
One of the realities that happens at an inflection point, whether it is a new challenge, a new opportunity, a new position, or we just find ourselves being challenged in new ways, is that so many of us have such high ambitions for ourselves, for our work, for our learning, for our growth, as we should, right? But the resilience that we often need to match that ambition doesn't show up consistently. At least it doesn't show up in the long run. A lot of times we are very good at starting strong, but then we fall short. Today, a conversation on how we can help our resilience match our ambition. I'm so pleased to welcome an expert who's done so much thinking this is going to help us to do this so effectively. I'm so pleased to welcome to the show Jia Jiang. He is an award-winning speaker, entrepreneur, and the best-selling author of Rejection Proof. His TED Talk is among the top 1 percent most viewed of all time, and he has spoken to over 400,000 people worldwide. He is also the creator of Rejection Therapy, a platform designed to help people overcome fear and build resilience, and is the author of Easy Discipline, An Unconventional Way to Achieve Ambitious Things. Jia, what a pleasure to have you on the show.

**Jia Jiang** (2:06)
Hey, Dave. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here.

**Dave Stachowiak** (2:09)
I am too because I love the way you think, because it's different than the way I think about somebody thinks that you have just a wonderful gift for taking some of the conventional wisdom, stories, mantras that we think about and thinking about it in a new way. That's so helpful. And one of the stories you talk about in your work that comes out is the Ancient Greek story of Sisyphus. I think many people have heard it, but I'm wondering if you could remind us of the story. But more importantly, perhaps how you think about the story a little differently, because you have a way of looking at it that I've never heard before, and I think it's really powerful.

**Jia Jiang** (2:50)
Sure. So when you think about Sisyphus, this is a classic story of the man pushing a rock up a hill. It is in Greek mythology.
Sisyphus is a very smart and even cunning king, and he cheated death. He made Zeus really mad, so the Greek god, and he put a curse on him, and he would push up this rock on the hill forever. Every time before the rock hits the top of the hill, it would roll back down to the bottom, and Sisyphus would have to push it again. This goes down eternally.
It's just like all Greek mythology stories. It's meant to teach us something. It teaches us the futility of ambition. You try but never win. You almost make it, but you don't. A lot of people take that as they see this in their own lives, that they repeat. Their ambition doesn't come to fruition. The thing is, that's a classic story.
I'm sure you've heard of this story.

**Dave Stachowiak** (3:49)
Oh, yeah.

**Jia Jiang** (3:50)
But when I think about this story, I see it otherwise. And I just ask myself a question, what is Sisyphus thinking at that moment? Is he even thinking at all? So if he's not, meaning he's just bring dead, the curse is on him, he just does this. Then I'm like, well, that's not a tragedy per se. It's not even a curse because the guy is dead. He's just like a zombie doing this, like a horror show. However, if he had agency, if he's actually thinking, that means he must have chosen to go back down to the bottom and push rock again.
He's a smart guy, smart king. He knew this wouldn't succeed. He tried the first time, the hundreds time and the mutants time. He never gets to the top. He'll be like, let me try something else. Let me buy some ice cream. Let me get some coffee.