The third door by Alex Banayan is based on Alex’s quest to interview famous people like Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, Larry King, Tim Ferriss to learn the mantra they applied in life to become successful.
This book is primarily concerned with the importance of a mentor. And how important it is to have a competent mentor who can assist us in achieving our goals. After interviewing some of the world’s finest thinkers, Alex learned that in the third door. They all chose the less-traveled road, which they discovered on their own, rather than the designated path. He refers to it as the third door. It implies that there are always three approaches to something. One is the common route that most of us adopt, which is to stand in line until our time comes. The second option is the VIP route, which is preferred by billionaires and celebrities. Then there’s the third way, which requires jumping out of line and pounding on the door a hundred times to break-in.
Quotes from The Third Door by Alex Banayan
Adventures only happen to the Adventurous
Many times the hardest part about achieving a dream isn’t actual achieving it-it’s stepping through your fear oath 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 form the comfort of certainty.
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.
Everybody has experiences in their lives. Some choose to make them into stories.
It’s better to make a fair deal today that sets you up for more deals down the road than a great deal that doesn’t set you up for anything. Choose long-term positioning over short term profits.
Being an entrepreneur is about pushing, not tipping.
The hardest part about taking a risk isn’t whether to take it, it’s when to take it.
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
Big decisions are rarely clear when you’re making them—they’re only clear looking back. The best you can do is take one careful step at a time.
You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.— Steve Jobs
Figure out your opponent’s fears, then use them to your advantage.
No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time.
Ego isn’t particularly healthy, but what’s worse is having it and lying to yourself that you don’t.
Also Read: 20 Quotes from You’re too good to feel this bad
If you want the whole story, you have to dig deeper. You can’t rely on headlines or tweets. Gray doesn’t fit in 140 characters.
Most people do things because that’s what society tells them they should do. But if you stop and do the math—if you actually think for yourself—you’ll realize there’s a better way to do things.
Instead of getting frustrated by repeating the same old problem, reframe the question in a new way that is amenable to a different kind of solution.
When you change what you believe is possible, you change what becomes possible
It’s the biases we don’t know we hold that are the most dangerous.
I’d always seen success and failure as opposites, but now I could see they were just different results of the same thing—trying.
Conclusion
The third door does not speak anything new that we already haven’t heard of. But open up our perspective on approaching success. My personal favorite is the interview with Steve Wozniak where the author learns the meaning of success. The book is a must-read if you want to be successful and learn from the best about how to become successful.
