I commented before going to bed (I'm on tokyo time) so I missed a lot of the developing commentary here. As I said, I think this could be useful to overcome a s

I commented before going to bed (I'm on tokyo time) so I missed a lot of the developing commentary here. As I said, I think this could be useful to overcome a specific personality flaw. I think a lot of us here can probably identify with growing up with too many rules and boundaries. I definitely have to push myself to be less concerned with what people think of me. I'm happy to have helped by rejecting your idea. :-) Although it was online so it's was far too easy on my part. To be frank, if you had told me your idea in person, I would have either picked up that you feel inhibited by your boundaries or I would have thought to myself "What a self-centered jerk" and said nothing. Maybe my opinion of this is being colored by living in Japan. Most Japanese will never outright reject you and you have to pay close attention to make sure you're not overstepping social bounds. I've seen so many foreigners who live and work here completely oblivious to these cues and it only serves to ostracize them. On the other hand, they have a completely different startup culture and that strategy doesn't cut it in NYC. I guess my advice is to practice letting go of inhibition but also practice the other side of the equation: empathy. You're probably already good at the empathy part. It would be too easy to deal with rejection by simply putting on blinders. All of this talk of rejection, empathy, letting go, etc… reminds me of buddhism. (P.S. my sister is a reliability test engineer at a forklift company and she had to get licensed to drive them)