One More time–Rejected by NASA Again!

True story.  This comes from Good Morning America’s Bill Shapiro, in a book he wrote about dealing with rejection.  Among others his book tells of a young man (Clayton Anderson,  May of 1996) 29 years old,  who had applied to NASA 15 times and had been rejected 15 times. The last rejection gave him a glimmer of hope.

The reason for the hope? This rejection came in the form of a letter ( the stationery, the letterhead, the big NASA logo ) all previous correspondence came by way of a postcard.  For some reason this rejection coming in the form of a letter rather than on a postcard signaled something to him.  Shapiro, in the interview, stated that NASA always sends rejections to the astronaut program via postcard.

Clayton talked to his wife about it and about the inkling inside of him, telling him not to give up but to try again.  Clayton Anderson did try again.  He applied one more time
to NASA for the astronaut program  and this time on his 16th attempt he was accepted.

We’ve all heard the Rocky Balboa-against-all-odds- success stories. We’ve seen “Facing The Giants” and “Remember The Titans”.  It’s just good to hear about the real live ones from time to time.  Clayton is just one of the many successful people who refuse to quit or cave in to rejection, denial and previous failure. In them (actually in all of us) is an indomitable spirit an unstoppable mentality that just won’t give in or give up. I said that spirit, that won’t quit mentality is in all of us and it is. It’s just that some of us tap into it while others will, when the going get’s rough…tap out.

Someone once said, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight–It’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

I was watching ” You are Unstoppable” the Olympic remix by Rascal Flats and got inspired to write  this.

I hope you enjoyed sharing your moments with my moments, I know I did.  So until the next post…

Have A Great Day!