The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World’s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers by Alex Banayan is an incredible and captivating story about how an unknown college freshman ends up interviewing some of the world’s most successful people.
Pairs With: a Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme candy bar you grabbed at the gas station on your road trip.
Overview
The Third Door by Alex Banayan is a captivating story about how a freshman in college set out to interview some of the world’s most successful people to learn their secrets to success.
As he sat bored and unfulfilled in his dorm room, he wondered how the most successful people got their start and what helped them launch their careers. After being unsuccessful in finding any answers in books, he set out to write the book he was looking for himself. He hoped to get advice and lessons that they could pass to his generation and help them also be successful.
This story is filled with life lessons, laughter, sadness, ah-ha moments, and incredible adventures.
Honest, Vulnerable, and Real
It took Banayan three years to write this book and it shows. He did an incredible job at retelling the stories that brought him in contact with each successful person and sharing the lessons they taught him and the lessons he learned along the way. You also get a real feel for who that successful person really is.
This isn’t another dry magazine Q&A filled with the same questions these people have answered 700 other times. Banayan asks intriguing questions in hopes of getting incredible answers that no one has ever heard of from that person before. He wanted real advice that could help the younger generation also launch their careers.
My favorite part though is how honest, vulnerable, and real Banayan is at retelling the journey. Some authors may have been tempted to write only the highlight reel of this story and leave out any of the embarrassing parts. But Banayan doesn’t shy away from being raw when retelling how nervous, anxious, or upset he really felt in the moment when face to face with these brilliant minds.
The Third Door
Banayan spent 4 years and interviewed an incredible amount of big names.
Below is a list of names of the people you’ll hear from in no particular order:
- Warren Buffet (this is a great and cringe story all at once!)
- Lady Gaga
- Maya Angelo
- Larry King (he’s now friends with this guy after basically accosting him at Whole Foods 😂)
- Bill Gates (it took him 2 years to get this interview but it sounded incredible!)
- Tim Ferriss
- Jessica Alba (she sounds like a total gem!)
- Elliott Bisnow
- Quincy Jones
- Jane Goodall
- Qi Lu (my new favorite person. Yes, he’s up there with the Obamas.)
- Steven Spielberg
- Steve Wozniak (love him. The real Apple creator.)
- Tony Hsieh
- Pitbull
- “Sugar” Ray Leonard
What he found is that all of them used what he called The Third Door to launch their careers.
He explains it as they all treated life, business, and success like a nightclub – there are always 3 ways to get in.
“There’s the First Door: the main entrance, where ninety-nine percent of people wait in line, hoping to get in. The Second Door: the VIP entrance, where the billionaires and celebrities slip through. But what no one tells you is that there is always, always… the Third Door. It’s the entrance where you have to jump out of line, run down the alley, bang on the door a hundred times, climb over the dumpster, crack open the window, sneak through the kitchen—there’s always a way in. Whether it’s how Bill Gates sold his first piece of software or how Steven Spielberg became the youngest studio director in Hollywood history, they all took the Third Door.”
Interestingly enough, Banayan often has to use the Third Door to get his interviews.
Conclusion
This is a great book if you enjoy learning about how the greats made it to the top. This isn’t a book filled with information you can find by Googling the person. These interviews provided something deeper and a real connection to who each person truly is.
My favorite part was how willing each of these super busy, highly successful people was willing to help a little unknown kid out. It blew me away how happy they all were to share their journey and to help him be successful in his. They all gave me the impression that they genuinely and selflessly wanted Banayan to succeed. They didn’t agree to the interview for money or for publicity but they agreed because they wanted to help.
This is a feel-good story that will have you laughing, crying, cringing, and feeling inspired. I enjoyed this one more than I could’ve imagined.
10/10 WOULD recommend.
P.S. The audiobook is read by Alex Banayan and is so good. I love when authors read their own book because it’s hearing the message directly from the horse’s mouth. Banayan does a great job of making you feel exactly what he’s experiencing in his stories.
P.S.S. If you enjoyed this one, you may also like The Man Who Solved the Market by Gregory Zuckerman. Zuckerman does a great job of telling the story about the highly successful quant trader Jim Simons.
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