The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World's Most Successful People Launched Their Careers - by Alex Banayan
Date read: 2019-03-16How strongly I recommend it: 9/10
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True story of a young college student looking for how some of the most successful people started out and the steps they took to begin their journey to the top. Great read for those trying to figure out what they want out of life and how to go about finding a mentor & network.
My Notes
Many times the hardest part about achieving a dream isn't actually achieving it-it's stepping through your fear of the unknown when you don't have a plan. Having a teacher or boss tell you what to do makes life a lot easier. But nobody achieves a dream from the comfort of certainty.
This was the Spielberg Game:
- Jump off the tour bus.
- Find an Inside Man.
- Ask for his or her help to bring you in.
"How did you gain credibility before you were a well-known author?" "Well, volunteering for the right organizations is an easy way to get some credible association,"
Ferriss didn't build credibility out of thin air, but borrowed it by associating himself with well-known organizations and publications. The phrase "Borrowed Credibility" stuck in my mind.
"The general composition of my emails," Ferriss said, "when I'm emailing a busy person, is: Dear So-and-So, I know you're really busy and that you get a lot of emails, so this will only take sixty seconds to read. [Here is where you say who you are: add one or two lines that establish your credibility.] [Here is where you ask your very specific question.] I totally understand if you're too busy to respond, but even a one- or two-line reply would really make my day. All the best, Tim."
He told me to never email someone and ask to "jump on the phone," "get coffee," or "pick your brain." "Put your question right in the email," he said. "It might be as simple as, 'I'd like to discuss a relationship of some type that could take this-and-this form. Would you be willing to discuss it? I think a phone call might be faster, but if you prefer, I could throw a couple of questions your way via email.'
"I'd also not end with something like, 'Thanks in advance!' It's annoying and entitled. Do the opposite and say, 'I know you're super busy, so if you can't respond, I totally understand.'
"And certainly, watch your frequency of emailing. Don't email a lot. It really does not make people happy."
"Luck is like a bus," he told me. "If you miss one, there's always the next one. But if you're not prepared, you won't be able to jump on."
I'd noticed at USC during fraternity rush that students gravitated toward people they looked similar to, which made me think that the more you look like the other person, the easier it is to strike up a friendship. So I spent some time that morning wondering what Elliott would wear. I put on blue jeans, a green V-neck shirt, and brown TOMS shoes, because I'd read that the founder of TOMS went to Summit events. Elliott was wearing gray jeans, a blue V-neck, and gray TOMS.
Rule number one: Never use your phone in a meeting. I don't care if you're just taking notes. Using your phone makes you look like a chump. Always carry a pen in your pocket. The more digital the world gets, the more impressive it is to use a pen. And anyway, if you're in a meeting, it's just rude to be on your phone.
Rule number two: Act like you belong. Walk into a room like you've been there before. Don't gawk over celebrities. Be cool. Be calm. And never, ever ask someone for a picture. If you want to be treated like a peer, you need to act like one. Fans ask for pictures. Peers shake hands.
Rule number three: Mystery makes history. When you're doing cool shit, don't post pictures of it on Facebook. No one actually changing the world posts everything they do online. Keep people guessing what you're up to. Plus, the people you're going to impress by posting things online aren't the peopl you should care about impressing.
Rule number four: If you break my trust, you're finished. Never, ever go back on your word. If I tell you something in confidence, you need to be a vault. What goes in does not come out. This goes for your relationships with everyone from this day forward. If you act like a vault, people will treat you like a vault. It will take years to bulid your reputation, but seconds to ruin it.
Frog kissing - It's a term Kamen coined to motivate his engineers, spun from the fairy tale of the princess and the frog. Think of a pond full of frogs. Each frog represents a different way to solve your problem. Kamen tells his engineers that if they keep kissing frogs, eventually one will turn into a prince. So even when you've kissed dozens of frogs-and all you have as a result is a nasty taste in your mouth-Kamen says to keep kissing them, and eventually, you'll find the prince. But don't try to kiss every possible frog. First figure out how many kinds of frogs there are and then see if you can kiss one of each kind.
I'm not here to give you a road map. I'm here to tell you: this is what you should expect to see. If I gave you the map Lewis and Clark made, it would be pretty easy to get from here to the West Coast. That's why everybody remembers the names Lewis and Clark and nobody remembers who read their map and took the trip the second time.
Ever since I'd been on my dorm room bed, I'd been obsessed with studying the paths of successful people, and while that's a good approach to learning, I couldn't solve every problem that way. I couldn't copy and paste other people's playbooks and expect it to work exactly the same for me. Their playbook worked for them because it was their playbook. It played to their strengths and their circumstances. Not once had I ever looked within myself and wondered about my strengths or my circumstances. What did it mean to out-Alex someone? While there's a time for studying what's worked for other people, there are moments when you have to go all in on what makes you unique. And in order to do that, you have to know what makes you, you.
You can't out-Amazon Amazon...
"You won't get anywhere significant in life until you come to the epiphany that you know nothing. You're still too cocky. You think you can learn anything. You think you can speed up the process."
"I don't understand why people give speeches with slides. When you speak with slides, you become a caption. Never be a caption."
"I live my life by two mantras. One: if you don't ask, you don't get. And two: most things don't work out."
It's about always staying on intern. It's about humbling yourself enough to learn, even when you're at the top of your game. It's about knowing that the moment you get comfortable being an executive is the moment you begin to fail. It's about realizing that, if you want to continue being Mufasa, at the same time you have to keep being Simba.
Approach writing, approach whatever your job is, with admiration for yourself, and for those who did it before you. Become as familiar with your craft as it is possible to become.
I asked if she had just a single piece of advice for young people as they launch their careers. "Try to get out of the box," she said. "Try to see that Taoism, the Chinese religion, works very well for the Chinese, so it may also work for you. Find all the wisdom that you can find. Find Confucius; find Aristotle; look at Martin Luther King; read Cesar Chávez; read. Read and say, 'Oh, these are human beings just like me. Okay, this may not work for me, but I think I can use one portion of this.' You see?"
"Don't narrow your life down. I'm eighty-five and I'm just getting started! Life is going to be short, no matter how long it is. You don't have much time. Go to work."
"There's a statute of limitations that's expired on all childhood traumas. Fix your shit and get on with your life."
I swore to myself that from now on I would be unattached to succeeding, and unattached to failing. Instead, I would be attached to trying, to growing.
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."