The Third Door by Alex Banayan Summary

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third-door

The Wild Quest to Uncover How the
World’s Most Successful People
Launched Their Careers

My Thoughts

This is a fun book, my wife I enjoyed listening to it on a recent road trip. Here is a brief description from the publisher’s summary.

The Third Door takes listeners on an unprecedented adventure – from hacking Warren Buffett’s shareholders meeting to chasing Larry King through a grocery store to celebrating in a nightclub with Lady Gaga – as Alex Banayan travels from icon to icon, decoding their success. The one key they have in common: they all took the Third Door.

My Favorite Quotes

  • Pre-meds don’t have other plans. (Statement from Alex’s pre-med advisor)
  • Life will keep hitting you over the head with the same lesson until you listen.
  • If you don’t ask, you don’t get. – Richard Saul Wurman, Founder of TED
  • If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture. –Frank Gehry American Architect
  • When you change what you believe is possible, you change what becomes possible.

Key Questions

  • How do you create new ways of doing things?

The Spielberg Game

  1. Jump off the tour bus.
  2. Find an inside man.
  3. Ask for his or her help to bring you in.

Finding the inside man is the most important step. Someone willing to put their reputation on the line to bring you in.

Elliot Bisnow’s Rules

  1. Never use your phone in a meeting. Not even for just taking notes. Always carry a pen in your pocket. The more digital the world gets, the more impressive it is to use a pen.
  2. Act like you belong. Never ask for pictures. If you want to be treated like a peer, act like one. Fans ask for pictures, peers shake hands.
  3. Mystery makes history. No-one actually changing the world posts everything they do online. Keep people guessing what you are up to.
  4. If you break my trust, you are finished. Never, ever, go back on your word. If you act like a vault, people will treat you like a vault. It will take years to build your reputation but seconds to ruin it.
  5. Adventures only happen to the adventurous.

Exponential Life

Successful people don’t follow a linear path, they opt into an exponential life. Rather than going step-by-step, they skip steps to move to the top.

The only person whose permission you need to live an exponential life is your own.

If you actually want to make a difference in the world. If you want to live a life of inspiration, adventure, and wild success, you need to grab onto that exponential life and hold onto it with all you’ve got.

Richard Saul Wurman, Founder of TED

Two rules he lives by:

  1. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
  2. Most things don’t work out.

Pitbull’s Keys to Continued Success

  • Always staying an intern.
  • Humbling yourself to learn, even when you are at the top of your game.
  • Knowing that the moment you get comfortable being an executive is the moment you begin to fail.
  • Realizing if you want to continue being Mufasa, at the same time you have to keep being Simba.

Jessica Alba

It’s tough to find job candidates who are intelligent and focused, but who are also dreamers.

I don’t care about where you got your degree. I don’t care about your past work experience. I care about how you solve problems. I care about how you take on challenges. How do you create new ways of doing things? Having hustle and drive is everything when it comes to the best people here [The Honest Company].

Related Book Summaries

Hope you enjoyed this and got value from my notes.
This is the 54th book read in my 2019 reading list.
Here is a list of my book summaries.

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