Dr. Chao Profile picture
May 27, 2019 11 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Over time I have learned a number of lessons about rejection, whether professional or personal. Over time, I realise that rejection has gotten easier to deal with and in fact, an impetus for many of my wins.

Let me share a few of these lessons.

A thread.
1. A 'no' is a good answer. It is better to receive a no than no answer at all. What with many applicants never hearing back or socially, loved ones who don't say they are leaving.

When you receive or hear a no, that's a good start.

Now, to work on dealing with it.
2. I have learned to apply myself fully to everything I set myself to doing, whether or not there will be a rejection at the end.

I realised that this has been one of the ways I have built my skills, my resilience, and socially, my ability to love. The end notwithstanding.
3. I have grown to a point where reading rejection emails, letters, messages is not cringeworthy.

I have learned to read rejection-related reviews with the objective of doing better than best the next time.

In the process, I have learned to be a better reviewer myself.
4. More times than I can mention, rejection has come because (quite literally) there is a better chance ahead.

This has been evident many times in my life and it has helped to simply accept that 'it is not yet time' or 'this may not be it'.
5. I cannot emphasize enough the need not to overlook the process, even as we seek the result.

Some of my best wins have required significant work behind the scenes. Yet, even if I didn't win, the amount of work would have still been well worth it.
6. Does rejection still pinch? Of course - almost always. But if I didn't feel bad about it, perhaps it wasn't important.

We feel bad about things that mean something to us. And indeed, those are the things we should be expending time & energy on. & this isn't a waste of time.
7. A side effect of learning how to take rejection, is that one becomes empathetic to others when you are in a position of delivering rejection yourself.
8. Lastly, a technique I've used time & time again, is to be involved in important projects. When rejection comes, it doesn't take away from fact that you're still doing important work& that your skills are valuable.

Even if no one reminds you, your work does. Remember that.
So, rejection hurts & can be destabilizing in some instances, but I hope that you put in the work anyway, and you show up anyway.

In the end, that place or that person many not have accepted you, but you are even better than you were because you did not quit.

Keep going. 💓
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More from @chao_mbogho

Aug 7
The 'bystander effect' is quite deeply embedded in Kenyans. I dare say mostly among millennials & Gen X's.

You can see it everywhere. Even at work. You can be going thru a difficult work situation & people will support you, but privately. In public, you'll be on your own.

1/4
Don't get me wrong. We do support each other, evident from the past protest months, but most of us would rather do it without showing our faces.

Anonymous support is fine, but sometimes, especially in injustice, support means doing it with your chest & full face.

2/4
So when you see people concerned if we'll ever be truly liberated bc we don't really show up in the numbers that may lead to this, don't blame them.

See how long it's taken for most to realise the protests aren't about "GenZ" or "anti-govt". Even up to now, months later.

3/4
Read 4 tweets
Aug 1
I'd like to say something about what could be decent 'digital skills & jobs' driven by a govt.

Here are my back-of-the-envelope low-hanging fruit ideas.

So here goes a 🧵
Let's start with digital skills.

Like any good class should, we begin with a definition.

'Skills' is something you're taught as new or a refresh of competencies & shall (mandatory) be transferable to other areas of your work/life, that you may (optional) pursue now or later.
Consider the different groups of people who might need digital skills:
- Kids
- Teens
- Young adults waiting to join uni or in uni.
- Young adults not in uni.
- People in informal/formal sector.

All these people need different digital skills. It's not one size fits all.
Read 27 tweets
Jul 9
Let's see if I get this.

I make 100 shillings from the hard work of my hands, then you say you need 20/- from me to buy books because our village doesn't have enough books.

I complain since you'll be taking the 20/- from my food budget. But you insist.

🧵
So I cut back on my food budget when you bring a lawyer to take the 20/- from me.

Then you "buy books" with 5/- and take 15/- to an interest-earning account in a bank that you own.

That 15/- becomes 16/- then 17/- and maybe more.
But only you and the bank benefit from those 3 extra shillings. As I squeeze my budget to buy food, I don't see a cent of those extra shillings.

When I meet you, I ask about the books. You show me the books - but none of them are books I'd read.
Read 5 tweets
Jul 1, 2021
The discourse here over the past day has shown, once again, how we get emotionally blackmailed into poor relationships, bad marriages, & retaining harmful relations.

These 'curses' and 'lack of blessings' that we are so much afraid of seem to be curiously one sided.
This is how people can disappear from their families for 20+ years then show up one day & you're expected to receive them b/c they are now "elders".

How you have to "vumilia tu" when your emotional, mental & sometimes physical life is at stake b/c "you were blessed by wazees".
This is how abusers will show up eons later to ask for help (financial or otherwise) and you are expected to 'forget the past' because 'they are now 'older and wiser'.
Read 8 tweets
Jun 29, 2021
This is actually the best part, for me.
Here's why:
- You are onto something if you find that someone else has thought/is thinking about the same thing. Don't quit, instead:
- Read the related papers, chances are that their angle isn't yours. And if it is, go through >
<their recommendation for future work. Good researchers would have this as a section in their paper. It provides insight into some of the potential research areas that you can explore.

In short, there's LOTs of research ideas to go around, infinitely. You just need to look.
A respected leader in Comp Sci education (my field) published a paper in the same week I was submitting my PhD thesis, essentially questioning the approach that was my entire framework.

My supervisors & I talked abt it as it was important that I don't ignore this contribution..
Read 4 tweets
May 29, 2020
I have just completed running a seminar with 145 participants, 78% students and the rest staff. While we had some slight technical issues at the start, we had an excellent 2.5 hours and I'd like to share some pointers for large virtual seminars.
- Choose a platform that doesn't require you to admit each participant one by one. E.g. Google meet usually asks for one by one admission.
- Automatically mute all participants and only the host should unmute those who speak. Zoom and others have this feature.
- Include audience interaction to enable audience try out things and also participate in quizzes. Today I used Kahoot for a game, Direct Poll for a live poll, and Zoom polling for an after section exercise.
Read 8 tweets

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