The object of our affection
With the greatest spectacle in American sports just ended last week, the spotlight was on one Copper Kupp, almost undrafted, the guy no one wanted, who bagged MVP honours and took the Rams to Super Bowl glory.
From an article in slate.com “Los Angeles Rams receiver Cooper Kupp looks like a classic sports story: doubted, undervalued, and ultimately good enough to prove everyone wrong on his sport’s biggest stage. When Kupp graduated high school in Washington state in 2012, he did not have a single scholarship offer from the Football Bowl Subdivision, college football’s top division. This description undersells Kupp’s origin story by a good bit. Kupp didn’t prove anyone wrong, because he couldn’t even get most schools to notice him in the first place.
Kupp had tried to get the attention of the coaches at the University of Washington, where his grandfather played, in a region where he’d been an all-state high school player. “We had a lot of connections there,” Kupp said “We couldn’t even get a reply back from them. We couldn’t get a letter back or an email back that simply said, ‘No, we’re not interested.’ We couldn’t get anything from them, so, you know, it was frustrating.”
Kupp is definitely known more today, for sure.
Closer to the corporate world, One of the most all time great comebacks post rejection, has to be Brain Acton’s on being rejected by Facebook and then ultimately being bought over by the rejecter company itself
However one thing was noteworthy was his outlook and reaction to this rejection,
This attitude while looking good retrospectively, is extremely hard and there is no playbook which can help in this.
Whether it’s that pitch which does not get funded (26 and counting ) , that article not published( 10 and counting ), that story not believed in (Compared to the ones of others that were believed L ), that customer which went the other way (Disaster, this week) or that offer which never came through (Will never know why).
The high road of perseverance without losing confidence is very difficult and challenging.
Seeking approval and validation is very important and comes probably naturally, with us living in a society and continuously seeking agreement, but basing our decisions and more importantly making it a success benchmark or metric may not be the best idea or path to go about in life as it will only result in despondency and self doubt.
One must, after all, motor on, pretty sure with the knowledge that there will be another chapter to be written, another pitch to be given & another throw to make for all of us, if not sooner, definitely later.
As Rodney says in the movie “ The Object of My Affection ” One shouldn’t be too hard on oneself when the object of one’s affection returns the favour with rather less enthusiasm than one might have hoped.
https://slate.com/culture/2022/01/cooper-kupp-background-rams-super-bowl-eastern-washington.html