Bassant Sherif: A 24 Egyptian Girl Who Seek to Inspire Young Student To Deal With Rejection

Inspire.D platform was launched on the sidelines of the World Youth Forum in Sharm El Sheikh, to address stories about dreams, successes and achievements, as well as failures, with the aim of encouraging young people to achieve their dreams.

One of the most remarkable speakers was 24 year old Egyptian girl, Bassant Sherif who has been working for 2 years in different industries and currently in a multinational oil and gas company, and who graduated with a bachelor degree in international business management.

Her number one goal in life is to provide assistance to young students and inspire them to become the best version of themselves after Rejection.

The slogan of Bassant’s initiative is “Rejection is only a step closer to success.” She pointed out in her speech that the future is always scary because we simply don’t know anything about it. In a contemporary world, excellence in education is given high regard by the society. Everyone dreams of excelling in life and having a great future and this usually means getting straight as or so they tell us.

Here is Bassant’s full speech that earned her a great round of applause from the audience:

Have you ever been rejected? Do you have a plan B if plan A doesn't work out? Do you often overthink about your future?

The future is always scary because we simply don’t know anything about it.
In a contemporary world, excellence in education is given high regard by the society. Everyone dreams of excelling in life and having a great future and this usually means getting straight As or so they tell us.
There is this great picture that we’ve all seen a thousand times before on how our education system works. (Slide 3)
Albert Einstein said” Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”
In a perfect world we’d all be great at everything, we could simply all be cardiologists. (Slide 5). Luckily this isn’t how the world works, don’t get me wrong education is super important, but it isn't the only skill you need to acquire.
While being a student, I was promised that hard work and consistency (waking up at 4a.m, maintaining a healthy diet and so on and so forth) would one day earn me a good degree and a dream career.

Hence, I kept my eyes open on these assurances and tried my best to succeed in my education. Well there you have it...I graduated high school, my grades were somewhat good so what now? The next step is applying to as many colleges and universities as possible.

Major in whatever you're passionate about. Easy right? Nope. this step was to shape my entire future, the level of anxiety was out of the roof. What if my chosen major wasn't what i wanted? Will i be stuck in a dead-end job just to pay the bills and that’s it? Confusion at its finest!

We’ve all been seventeen before, lost and unexperienced. This is one of the first tests of adulthood. At this situation, that we’ve all been through, we usually either turn to google (hey google what is my passion) or turn to your support system like friends and family, like i did.

You’re not a superman or superwoman, you’re not expected to do it on your own.

At 17 or 18 we usually don’t think that our family gets us, but in that specific situation they get how the world works. and so i did what everyone would do, hey mama help. i don't know what i want to be when i grow up, she laughed and said, “you figure out where your power base is and work on it with the gifts that you have, that’s the real reason why you are here”.

Based on that, I chose to take confusion as the first step of any goal.

So, I started to focus on what I was good at, got a pen and paper and divided the page into 2 halves pros and cons. This might be an easy step, but it was literally life changing……
by the way I apply it on everything in my life.
I don't know what i want yet but at least now i know what I'm good at.
I applied to as many colleges as i could, my dream college was in Egypt like i said now I'm not confused, everything is going great right? right. i got rejected.

My plan, my list all thrown out of the window, the level of demotivation was intense, i felt depressed my plan failed. I didn't take rejection well,
I mean none of us do, it’s kind of in our blood, our pride just doesn't handle it well.

Where do i go from now? I go to my mom sobbing in tears (Slide 7), yelling my future is destroyed like, any dramatic teenage girl would do. She said honey sleep on it, it’s not the end of the world.

After a while, I checked my emails thinking perhaps they have mistaken my application with someone else, suddenly an email pops from another university i applied to after i got rejected!
Congratulating me for a FULL scholarship!
I couldn’t believe my eyes!
I now finally have a plan B, that was 10x better than my plan A. Turns out that rejection pushed me somewhere I never thought of.
Days passed working even harder on my list and figuring out my purpose to grow my potential.
I read this motivational quote that made me think twice about how my plan should work; The will to win, the desire to succeed. The urge to reach your full potential – these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.
!!!!
History repeating itself, applying for different jobs in several industries and having the perfect plan to work in my dream “multinational company”
Guess What?!
Rejected again after a tiresome of application process!
What now?
This was my goal, what should I do?

After refusal, I changed my strategy again and applied for different positions, but I got even more rejections.
Going through a lot of interviews and getting rejected was the moment that I got a new sense of direction.

So I decided to make my own Plan B and not give up…I joined a couple of colleagues that had a new idea that is new to the market in Egypt.
We worked hard, day and night to let people know what we’re doing.
Rejection was at its finest in our lives at this stage… but to be honest it was those encounters that sharpened my skills and built my most important values.

Nothing stopped me from working on my dream, those rejections were the main push and motivator I needed. I kept working on myself and using all the sources I had to get where my plan A was, days passed with standing as strong as I could, but finally “Hard work always pays off!”

I finally got into a multinational oil and gas company the one that I was always working towards achieving. (Slide 9)

Last but not least, Oh this is where I have to add some facts :p
Aristotle was the first to suggest that there were five senses (Slide 9) that governed our reality, and this is something we still believe but we never thought what happens if two or three senses of those worked together.
So, let’s test ourselves and know how our senses can make us overcome any rejection or problem we go through.
Let’s try this; For example, imagine yourself sitting in a restaurant while reading a book, don’t you hear people chitchatting, don’t you smell the food and above all you’re using your sight.
Which means you’re using more than 2 senses at a time. Scientists have revealed that using 3 or more senses will lead you to the highest level of concentration, and the ability to face/solve any problem. You’ll still be able to understand the book.
We all have different abilities of senses that we must use to overcome any rejection. This connects to how I used my senses in working to achieve my goal, I read, I listened, and I created my list.
In conclusion, Success demands making small steps out of our comfort zone.
I realized that whatever dreams we are pursuing, we must be ready to go through difficulties and struggles.
Yes I still didn’t experience everything but from the small steps I took in my path,
I learned that having an open eye to learn new strategies in life is from your losses as much as you do from your victories cause losses wake you up, at this point you understand that you don’t get completely thrown by a grade or by a circumstances because your life is bigger than anyone can experience.
The way through any challenge is to get still and ask yourself what is the next right move? BUT always keep in my mind that your life is bigger than that one moment.
Always focus on your goals no matter what it takes. Do not identify yourself with rejection because it does not define you.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Be hard and be strong.
As mum said, it’s okay to fail, it’s not the end of the world.


I would love to make our rejection strength boom the internet with this hashtag #Rejectionismymotivator
The hashtags first selfie should start here (Get phone out and take a picture)