Spring: Bouncing Back from Rejection

by Ambi Parameswaran

Rejection is inevitable in every stage of our lives. But what if this inevitability were a tool? What if it could be used as leverage to spring forward at every setback? What if there was a way to systematically process rejection and become a super-spring?

Ambi Parameswaran - best-selling author, brand and leadership coach and former CEO of FCB-Ulka Advertising - was rejected at his dream job interviews, he was denied promotions and clients turned down his business pitches. He now knows that he eventually succeeded because of these rejections and the way he handled them.

Spring is packed with tales of rejection and redemption. Walt Disney, The Beatles, Thomas Alva Edison, Michael Jordan, Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the founders of Infosys, author Amish and others have used rejections as a pivot to swing their careers and businesses around.

Ambi brings his decades of experience to bear on perhaps the vital life and career lesson you could learn from rejection. In Spring, he puts a gentle arm around your shoulders and helps you bounce back stronger than ever from every rejection.

Genres: Nonfiction

Audible Audio

Published September 15, 2020

About the author

M G Parameswaran, or Ambi as he is known is a Brand Strategist and Founder Brand-Building.com. In a career spanning three+ decades Ambi has handled assignments in marketing, sales and advertising with companies like Rediffusion DY&R, Boots Company and UDI Yellow Pages before dropping anchor at Ulka Advertising over two decades ago. He has helped build numerous brands including Digene, Brufen, Santoor Soap, Sundrop Cooking Oil, TCS, ICICI Bank, Wipro, Indica Cars, Zee TV among others.

Reviews

[Vidhya Thakkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spring- Bouncing back from rejection is another gem book that you must read. We all face rejections in our lives, how we cope up with them, is what matters. How we can bounce back, even more, stronger with every rejection is what this book teaches us.

Filled with the tales of Rejection and redemption of famous personalities, the author tells us about how we can process and recover from rejection with various techniques to multiple shades of rejections.

I loved the way the book is sequenced. I enjoyed reading this book. Each chapter has a lesson to learn, inspires the readers. Not to forget the Takeaway note after each chapter. The stories, the worksheets at the end of the chapter, the notes, made this book interesting.

It has the power to motivate each one of us, it encourages each one of us to stand up again, face the rejections and become better. A book that one must definitely read. For all those who love reading non-fiction, do not miss this book.

[Prerna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spring: Bouncing Back From Rejection is a good and educative guide that is full of motivation and inspiring examples.

The book is divided into three parts that take the reader from facing and getting in terms with rejection, analysing it and finally bouncing back from it.

I really liked how tightly the book is written. Each chapter begins with a great quote and a real-life story which causes one to stop and think and introspect. After each chapter, there is a key takeaway which is truly eye-opening.

There are a lot of preconceived notions and beliefs about failure and rejection that this book helped me unlearn through a lot of great stories. For someone who is interested in the field of advertising and marketing, this book will be highly relatable since a lot of examples are quoted from that field. For someone who isn't, these examples can be eye-opening still but a lot of repetition may not resonate with such people.

While I really liked the idea of being as resilient as a spring and really admired the author of giving the advice of separating ourselves from our idea, there are some things that didn't sit well with me because of the beliefs that I have. Hence, in some places, the book got a little uninteresting and I would have DNFed it if it were any longer.

But that doesn't in any way be that this isn't a good book. It is truly a great guide for anyone who is trying to cope and deal with rejection. So I would recommend it to people looking for an educative read.

My true rating for it would be 3.5/5

[Trinanjana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books and the time of reading them makes a huge impact on one’s thought process and interpreting the message hidden in between the lines. When I picked up my current- almost done nonfiction read, I was at a stage of questioning my decision of pursuing my career and if I made a huge blunder. You see failing once and getting rejected is normal but having a stint of it for 3 years gives a blow to your self-confidence and then begins the spiral of negative thoughts.

“What if I am incapable of doing it”.

As I was reading this book, I found out that every rejection gives us that much-needed pause in our otherwise rushed life and lets us rethink, strategize again so that we can resume working. Those pauses give an opportunity to travel on an unknown path to see if maybe that one is better but the spark generates only when we take that little pause in life.

After flipping a few more pages, I found that every chapter starts with a real story. Readers and people, in general, connect to a personal story faster than something which only talks about graphs and academic data. Slowly these stories take a larger space and stories of huge brands enter on how they started and took a leap in the growth curve. Towards the end of each chapter, the author throws a question or two and takes the discussion to an interpersonal level where one directly connects with the author. The flow is so smooth that it never feels like a heavy-duty marketing related book. While those who are interested in the field of entrepreneurship will thoroughly enjoy reading and get a lot of inside views but someone who wants to read this for motivational purposes will equally like it for the logical reasons given in the book and how to deal and take those rejections in a positive way. The added benefits of worksheets at the end of the book make the reading wholesome and the information gathered from the book to stay for a longer run.`

[Avani ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spring by Ambi Parameswaran is a non fiction on bouncing back from rejection and it provides the readers with a guide on how to do it. I liked how the author has provided seven worksheets at the end of the book. The author has also provided list of different books and movies to watch after reading this.

The book is divided into parts so it makes it easier for the readers to actually go through the entire process. In the start we see and get in terms with ourselves that yes we are facing rejection, and as we move ahead with this, we see with the help of examples how to go through the process and turn the negatives into the positives.

Then we talk about bouncing back and being resilient. I liked how author has given key takeaways at the end of every chapter. If you are the one like me who is facing rejection and can't deal with it positively, this book will definitely help you in facing and working towards the same. Especially with the recent pandemic times, things have gotten worst and this book will be your guide.

[Chaithanya Sukumaran · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that one must definitely read and what a beautiful title - SPRING ❤️


"Becoming a SPRING that can bounce back after being pushed or pulled".

[Salmaa Gafoor · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Remember an arrow can only be shot by pulling it backwards; so when you feel like life is dragging you down with rejections and difficulties, it simply means that it's going to launch you to something great. So just focus and keep aiming - Unknown”.
.
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Failures,setbacks,rejections are all a part and parcel of life,and is an inevitable part of everyone’s no matter who are are,But what really makes the difference in a person’s life is the attitude towards rejection that determines your altitude in life.

In “Spring ,Bouncing back from Rejection” ,@ambi talks about how we can use failures and rejections to better ourselves and who we can grow through it.

The author compares our lives to the Spring .
A spring that is coiled can go through any kind of transformation but it always returns its original state, like wise our lives may be filled with any kind of obstacles ,that may be hard while faced but that is what adds to who we actually are after it .

The book is divided into 3 parts like the 3 steps that is required to make a spring.

*Anticipating and Facing rejection
* Processing and recovering from rejections
*Learning and progressing post rejection

In this he talks about how you should analyse and prepare yourself to undergo rejections without let it destroy your performance.

He starts each chapter with a quote followed by a story and ends it with the takeaway. The book also contains worksheets which will help you analyse rejections and failures and identify ways to improve it.

Failures always gives you a lot of lessons to succeed and this book is reaffirms that despite the number of failure ,the correct approach to failures will definitely help you succeed .

Read this book to find out the rest!

[Jermina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spring bouncing back from rejection is about handling rejections and overcoming them or as Ambi would say #springingback

The book details how to anticipate & face rejections, recover from them & finally the learning these rejections give us to reflect upon & move ahead. All with real life examples.

Read it to know that you are not the only one who faces rejection, read how ordinary people handled rejection to move ahead, and even famous people like Walt Disney & Nitesh Tewari sprung back.

The engineer in Ambi Parameswaran is evident - his last book title Sponge was more scientific than philosophical. Same with Spring (the scientific ability to spring back).

The Teacher in Ambi too makes this book valuable. Each chapter begins with an #inspiringquote & ends with a takeaway. That also makes it an easy reference guide and get your daily dose of inspiration.

The book ends with a guide to manage rejection, simple exercises that make it easy for one to realise that rejection happens to all, managing it is key to surmouting the,.

The engineer in Ambi Parameswaran is evident - his last book title #sponge was more scientific than philosophical. Same with Spring (the scientific ability to spring back).

The Teacher in Ambi too makes this book valuable. Each chapter begins with an #inspiringquote & ends with a takeaway.

Read it to know that you are not the only one who faces rejection, read how ordinary people handled rejection to move ahead, and even famous people like Walt Disney & Nitesh Tewari sprung back.

Interesting trivia - While Spring was written Pre-Covid, Serendipitously it also becomes an ideal book for managing Covid life.

[Aditya · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Why do we fall? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."
A memorable quote from the movie Batman Begins

We have all faced rejections and failures. Rejected at dream job, denied promotions, clients turned down business proposals...
Success happens because of these rejections and the way we handle them.

If there is one book you need to read this year, then make sure it is ‘Spring – Bouncing back from Rejection’ written by Ambi Parameswaran.
I first thought this would be a book for young MBA graduates who are about to enter the corporate world, but realised while reading, that it should be read by everyone – from those in the corporate world, by entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, film makers and from sports.
Written in a simple, easy-to-read format on facing rejections, processing and recovering and finally, progressing post rejection. Packed with tales of greats who turned rejection into reclamation! From Walt Disney, The Beatles, J.K. Rowling, Michael Jordan to Dr A.P.J., who used rejection as a pivot to swing back to action… to become a little better at what they did.
It’s the most sensible thing you could do to bounce back stronger than ever from every rejection you have faced.

[Sheetal Jain · Rating 4 out of 5]

"No one can truly define success and failure for us—only we can define that for ourselves. No one can take away our dignity unless we surrender it. No one can take away our hope and pride unless we relinquish them. No one can steal our creativity, imagination and skills unless we stop thinking. No one can stop us from rebounding unless we give up" These lines from the book sum it all.

Rejection can turn your self respect, your pride to tatters. But at the same time it can be seen as a means to redirection and growth. How can one see rejection as a redirection and move ahead in life is what this book takes you through. The book builds on rejection experiences of the author himself, famous writers, sports persons, artists and corporate world and their journeys of springing back.

A short book written in simple english on a subject applicable to all. Coming from Corporate background, I could relate to many stories in the book. The magic of reframing is something I would really like to try.

[Devanshi Sanghani · Rating 5 out of 5]

We have all read stories about how people became successful and how their glory began but we have hardly heard about the hardships and the rejection faced by these well known people before they became famous.

I do not read Non fiction much but this book kept me soo hooked that I almost finished it in one sitting. Everyone goes through rejection in their life again and again be it personal life or be it professional one. Spring: Bouncing Back From Rejection is basically based on how to react, when to react and what to react when you face rejection in your life.

Some important lessons I learned from this book are:

1) Never take rejections personally.

2) See them from a different perspective. See them with an optimistic point of view.

3) Rejection will always bring better opportunities, better life.

4) Do not give up because rejection is an inevitable part of life and without it success is rarely possible.

[Jyotsna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating - 4 stars
NPS - 9 (Promoter)

Apparently, we relive the emotional pain of rejection more vividly than physical pain. So the slap from your mom may be soon forgotten, but the rejection from your dad, or from your bunch of friends who did not include you in their team, is going to be remembered for long.

This book was on its way to become a 5 star read, but the repetitive writing put me off, hence it ended at four.

The author talks about a series of rejections, faced my athletes, academics, corporate executives, etc. and that from his own experience, to help us give insights on how to overcome rejection.

The content matter is great, but the repetitiveness was irritating - but drives the message home.

Read it if you have face any form of rejection in a while.

[Jonathan Harries · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Parameswaran rarely takes the “simple” route in his excellent books. Mainly because in real life things rarely are. Instead he uses clarity to help readers understand the complexities, pitfalls and opportunities that those about to enter the world of marketing, and those who have already embarked on their career, encounter on a daily basis. Spring is no exception. Anyone who’s faced rejection or anyone terrified of the thought, will easily understand how critical it is to growth and success, and come to understand that the most successful people in the world have thrived on it. An essential read.

[Dayanidhi Krishna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ambi Parameswaran effectively combines personal experiences, anecdotes along with secondary reading in the form of various books, articles on the subject of rejection and building resilience. The book was a great read and it gave me the right frameworks to tackle rejections going forward. I am sure readers going through a rough patch in their lives, irrespective of the magnitude of rejection/failure will find this a timely and useful read.

[Dev Ayan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was going through a lot of rejections in the recent past, I was giving interviews, getting rejected, my videos were not getting the traction I wanted, my manuscripts were being turned down.

In such a time, this book came as a savior and I savored each page of it. Would recommit to everyone going through a tough time.

[Siddharth Raman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice light read on resilience and bouncing back from failure/rejection

[Arunprakash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pragmatic book that offers ways to deal with Rejection. Simple and useful.

[Pramod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book on developing resilience against rejection in every aspect of life.