28 Nov The Doors
“You have to look at everything as a new opportunity! Stop looking at things the way they appear. To most people, it’s just a doorway.…. #CantHurtMe” – ex Navy Seal @davidgoggins
I am always looking for a topic for my blogs. I need that spark to get myself started. A while ago, I posted a quote from the “superfood hunter” Darien Olien “Every step you take opens a new door”.
Thinking about this quote and a similar quote I noticed on the door of a shop by Ralph Waldo Emerson[1] “Be an opener of Doors”, I realised that this idea of a door has also come up in three brilliant books I have recently read. All these books have many lessons and different views on the opening of doors.
“A story told is a life lived” – Quote from Netflix program – Outlander[2] S03:E09
“The Third Door[3]” by Alex Banyan, describes the larger-than-life journey of an 18-year-old college freshman who set out from his dorm room to track down Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, and dozens more of the world’s most successful people to uncover how they broke through and launched their careers.
“Life, business, success . . . it’s just like a nightclub. There are always three ways in.” – ALEX BANAYAN
There’s the First Door: the main entrance, where 99 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, crack open the window, sneak through the kitchen–there’s always a way.
“The mission of this book is to inspire people to believe in what’s possible….” – ALEX BANAYAN
“When you change what you believe is possible, you change what becomes possible.” – ALEX BANAYAN
Alex Banyan asked his readers in an Instagram post to summarise what they believe is the essence of his book[4] and what lessons can be learnt from the book.
- @Edwardrooster “The third door is us at our best, when we surrender expectations about being like everyone going through the first two doors”
- @Drsarahsarkis “Perseverance and grit are the keys that unlock the third door. So, get going. Stop waiting for someone to answer door 1 & 2.”
- @omar.rp “Maybe the hardest part about taking a risk isn’t whether to take it, it’s when to take it….Big decisions are rarely clear when you’re making them – they are only clear looking back. So the best you can do is take one careful step at a time…”
- @healthystepswithnicole “Doors one and two seem real because you can see them, but if you’re willing to believe, the third door is always there!”
- @treisss “Don’t judge yourself (so hard). Stay in the game and focus on the goal. Things take time.”
- @Brianapristineprince “Luck is like a bus… If you miss one, there’s always the next one. But if you’re not prepared, you won’t be able to jump on.”
- @Desenaofattention “Creativity, plus courage, plus commitment, equals the #thirddoor.”
The second book is “The Choice” by Edith Egar[5]. The Choice is the most inspirational story of Edith Eger, a survivor of Auschwitz who became a psychotherapist, using her pain to heal that of others. A female counterpart of Viktor Frankl, showing us how, in the face of evil or despair, to “choose life.”
In the book she quotes her father who said that if you can’t go through the Door, go through the Window.
“Edith’s strength and courage are remarkable…her life and work are an incredible example of forgiveness, resilience, and generosity.”—Microsoft COO, Sheryl Sandberg[6]
The Choice is just an unbelievable lesson to us all. It would be impossible to document all the quotes and life changing lessons, so I thought I would share a few thoughts from readers of this incredible book:
- Life is about choices, … I was raised to take responsibility for my choices. I pride myself on this responsibility. What this book has made me realize that often in my experience, this has been a punishing idea – there are choices, and there are consequences. But life is not that simple, there are choices and more choices. Often we choose to punish ourselves. In doing so, we are imprisoning ourselves with our own beliefs – of not feeling worthy, a fear of making a bad choice… The author is open about choices she made in her own life, and that they may not have been the best ones. Everyone suffers. Everyone has endured the consequences of their own poor choices. But to live our best life, we must continue to make choices, instead of allowing ourselves to be imprisoned by our past.
- … But she is not satisfied to make this book only about her experience. She is clearly a committed therapist who understands pain and forgiveness uniquely and has a very powerful message that to truly live a full life, we need to make the choice not only to forgive, but to forgive ourselves.
“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separate from the rest―a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness…” ―Albert Einstein
The third book is “Einstein and the Rabbi”, by Naomi Levy[7]. The book is on one level a mystery about a letter that Albert Einstein wrote to a grieving Rabbi (see quote above); and it is on another level about the mysteries about the soul. Intertwined with this is her mission to find out who this grieving rabbi (Rabbi Marcus) is and his story. In her quest she was hoping that “perhaps with time a new door will open”. Just when she was ready to give up she explains that “…there are openings available to us every day that can help us break through…”
I noticed a few excellent quotes in her book:
“Sometimes life forces you to rise beyond your limitations” – Naomi Levy
“The Challenge of life is not that you can change. The challenge is, can you remain changed.” Naomi Levy
Elie Wiesel was helped by Rabbi Marcus a Auschwitz survivor. In her search, Naomi Levy tells Elie Wiesel, that she had heard him speak to a full auditorium when she was a young girl. This was shortly after her father had been murdered. While Naomi sat in the large auditorium listening, she told Elie Wiesel that he could not have realised that he had “…opened a new door for some lost 15-year-old kid who was listening and taking it all in”
Naomi ask us all “What opening are you seeking?”
To end a quote, I noticed a few days ago on my Instagram feed “Doors can open when you least expect it. It’s not about trying harder. Softness opens doors that force cannot open” – @shityouregosays
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/68017-be-an-opener-of-doors-for-such-as-come-after
[2] https://www.netflix.com/au/title/70285581
[3] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804136661/ref=as_at?imprToken=nIH.gCJ2l45KzkULI2l3sg&slotNum=1&ie=UTF8&tag=ricroloffweb-20&creative=9325&linkCode=w61&creativeASIN=0804136661&linkId=3fd6ead506349e011934528687845942
[4] https://www.instagram.com/p/BnCh4JEgZQB/?taken-by=alexbanayan
[5] http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Choice/Edith-Eva-Eger/9781501130793