The Third Door: The Wild Quest to
Uncover How the World’s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers
Published 2018
This is a New York Times bestseller, and the author has built a successful speaking and consulting business. The publicity statement on the book’s website reads: “The larger than life journey of an 18-year old college freshman who tracked down the world’s most successful people to uncover how they broke through and launched their careers.”
I was intrigued by the idea of an 18-year-old discovering the secrets of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Lady Gaga. Technically, the book delivers on its promise, but I was somewhat disappointed after reading it. Maybe I had set up an unrealistic expectation by focusing on the second part of the publicity statement as opposed to the first part. While the book contains direct advice from some of those highly successful people, I felt the book was more about the author’s journey of self-discovery.
Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of learning points in the book, but many of them are life lessons the author learned in the course of his journey. Some people mentioned in the publicity statement were never actually interviewed, even though the author tried his best to get to them.
The book reads like an adventure quest and is a perfect example of the hero’s journey, one of the classic story lines. Young Alex Banayan wants to please his family by graduating from college but is struggling with boredom. One night in the library, he stumbles upon a biography about Bill Gates. He gets inspired by Gates’ success in starting a business while in college and starts reading the biographies of other successful people.
What he couldn’t find in the pages of those biographies was how they got people’s attention before they became famous, when they were young and struggling. Banayan came up with the idea to write a book filled with the best advice for young people on how to launch a successful career or business. Being a broke college student, he needed to find a way to fund his dream. About this time, he saw a Facebook post about free tickets to the Price is Right game show and got the wild idea to go on the game show, win big, and use the money he won to finance his book project.
The story of his trip to the Price is Right is hilarious and I’m not giving away any secrets when I say that he won the big prize and sold it, getting the money he needed. The rest of the book covers Banayan’s quest to contact the people on his dream list and get interviews with them.
The premise of the book is that just like at a nightclub, there are three doors to gain access to any opportunity. The first door is the main entrance where 99% of people enter. That line is usually long and you may or may not get in. The second door is the VIP entrance where those with celebrity because of their birth, the amount of money they have, or some other reason can bypass the main door and enter.
The third door is for people who have a burning desire to enter the room but don’t want to wait in line and don’t have the VIP credentials. Those people get out of line, run down the alley, find an inside man, trudge through the mud, and take the third door. It might be the back door, but they get in. What Alex found in almost every case, the successful people he studied figured out how to take the third door.
The rest of the book covers Banayan’s journey of taking the third door himself to get to all the people he identified as potential interviewees. He created the list of people he wanted to interview by asking his friends who they would like to be the professors for each subject in a dream university.
After that, the book lost me a bit. Banayan’s lack of maturity and life experience caused him to spin his wheels through much of the rest of the book chasing interviews. Many of the stories were entertaining but didn’t provide the actionable strategies I was looking for to apply to my business. Banayan seemed to have no actual plan other than the brute force approach of cold calling and emailing the people on his list.
Sometimes, he made such a pest of himself he could never get the interview. During his quest, Alex found a mentor, Elliott Bisnow, cofounder of Summit series. Bisnow became Banayan’s ‘inside man’ introducing him to a circle of people he would not have gotten access to before.
Here are the major takeaways I got from the book:
The importance of building a mastermind team
Even as an 18-year-old college student Alex understood the importance of building a team of people to support him. His team comprised people with different interests and skills who all supported his dream and wanted to see him succeed. He didn’t label them as a mastermind group, but that’s what it was.
Tell everyone you know about your goal
Alex told everyone he knew and everyone he met about his project. Because of that, connections were made and doors were opened that never would have if he had kept his dream a secret. This is why I encourage my clients to share the premise of their book, status updates on the book project, and excerpts from the book. Some are reluctant because they don’t want someone to plagiarize their ideas. When you share your work in progress, opportunities you haven’t thought of will appear. Someone you tell may have a connection who can be a resource for your book project or a marketing partner after you publish.
Adventures only happen to the Adventurous
This piece of advice was provided by Elliott Bisnow. To succeed, you must take a first step out into the unknown. As you keep taking steps, people and resources will appear to help you complete your goal. If you don’t take that first step, or as one of my mentors would say ‘put pen to paper’ you will never get your desired result. If you’re still thinking about writing your book, stop thinking and start writing! My free book planning download will help you take the first step.
It’s difficult to get a book deal
Bisnow told Alex that if you have no experience, if you’re unknown without a large following, it’s almost impossible to get a book deal. This is one of the reasons I advocate self-publishing. To get a traditional publishing contract, you first have to find a reputable book agent who agrees to take you on as a client. Bisnow gave Alex some creative advice on this, which was to purchase 20 books similar to the one he wanted to write.
Bisnow said to study the acknowledgments and see who the authors thanked as their agents. Then compile a list of those names and create an outreach plan to see if he could get one agent to represent him. Following that strategy, Alex got an agent and a book deal on the promise he could deliver an interview with Warren Buffett.
When you’re an unknown quantity, you have to sell your prospect on why they should do business with you
This advice came from Banayan’s interview with Bill Gates. When Gates was working on the deal with IBM, he first showed his knowledge and expertise about software to the point where it became undeniably clear he knew what he was talking about. Second, he sold IBM on the benefit they needed the most, which was speed to market. Finally, Gates sold the software for less than it was worth to gain a strategic position with other large clients down the road.
In the book world, that’s what authors do when they give their books away or sell them for less than the cover price. It’s a way to get your book in the hands of people who might give you a positive review, or refer you for a speaking engagement later on. It’s also a way to impress potential clients. When other people are handing our business cards, you can hand them your book. Choose long-term positioning over short-term profits.
There’s a fine line between being persistent and being a pest
When someone repeatedly tells you no, there is a point where you need to stop, reflect, and ask yourself if it’s worth continuing to pursue the opportunity. If it is, maybe you need a different angle or strategy. Maybe you need to come back to that person when you have more credibility. Successful people get asked for their time and resources frequently. What is it about you or your project that will cause them to pay attention to you?
There will be external factors outside of your control that will affect your success
Alex gained his mentor, Elliott Bisnow, when he cold emailed him along with a bunch of other people asking for advice. What Alex didn’t know is that a month earlier Elliott had made a resolution to find someone to mentor. You can only control your own actions, but sometimes your plan will intersect or support someone else’s goals and create a win-win for both of you.
Be a lifelong learner
This lesson came from the rapper, Pit Bull. To become the biggest rapper in Miami, Pit Bull signed up with the most successful label in the Miami area, but even after becoming successful, he constantly looked for new experts to learn from and collaborate with.
I’m a big fan of tennis stars Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Serena Williams. One thing that is so impressive about them is they are still winning matches long after many of their peers have retired. One reason is they all are constantly learning new skills, tweaking their game, trying new equipment, and bringing in experts who can help them get to the next level.
To really be great you have to be willing to learn from others even when you’re at the top of your game. Pit Bull calls it having an intern mindset.
Final Thoughts:
The last few chapters of the book resonated with me. Up to that point, Banayan had only interviewed men. Then he interviewed Jane Goodall and got a perspective of the challenges she experienced as a woman, which differed from the experiences he had heard previously.
After speaking with Goodall, he realized he had been asking interview questions purely from a male perspective and had left out the burning questions young women his age might want to know.
Banayan had a chat with his two sisters and incorporated their questions in follow-on interviews with Maya Angelou and Jessica Alba.
From Angelou he received an answer to the question How do you deal with the fear of not being good enough? You may have asked this question about your book project: “Who will read my book when there are so any others out there on the same topic?”
Paraphrasing Angelou’s response: I remind myself that what I do isn’t an easy thing. This is true when any person begins doing what they feel called to do. As a writer, you realize that everyone uses words. You have to take a few verbs, adjectives, nouns, and pronouns, put them all together and make them bounce. It’s no small matter. You should commend yourself for having the courage to try it.
Check out my blog post on what makes you an Expert.
