Nick HutchisonFounder and CEO, BookThinkers

Often times, you can find success through a side door or side channel like @guy_raz has!

21 Jul 2023 · 1 min

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1:01

In this monologue, the speaker argues that entering a competitive field through a "side door"—an alternative entry point—can be more effective than competing for the main, crowded path. He explains that early in his career he wanted to become a radio reporter but faced the classic chicken‑and‑egg problem of needing experience to get on air, yet needing on‑air work to gain experience. To overcome this, he started at a local alternative weekly newspaper, writing arts articles and gradually taking on larger pieces. By building a portfolio of published work, he was able to approach radio professionals, showcase his writing as evidence of experience, and ultimately secure opportunities in radio. The speaker emphasizes that side‑door strategies—starting small, building credentials, and leveraging them—are a practical way to break into desired roles.

Chapters

Always found more success coming in through a side door rather than going through the main door that everybody else was going through. When you go through the door that everyone else is going through, you are competing against many other people, and it's harder to stand out. And I have found in my career that when I go through the side door, which is to find another entry point in to eventually get to where I want to go, it's been really, really useful. So for me, early in my career, I really wanted to be a reporter on the radio, but I couldn't get in. I didn't know how to do it and it was very hard. And usually the question was, what's your experience? Well, when you're 21, 22 years old, you have no experience and it's a chicken and egg problem. If you have no experience, they won't put you on the air and you can't get experience if you can't get on the air. So the way I was able to do it was by starting really small. I went to a local alternative weekly newspaper and I started writing articles about the arts. And then they gave me more responsibility and I was getting bigger and bigger articles. And then eventually the people in the radio world, I would bring them these articles and say, look, I have experience. And once they saw