The Thing About Gatekeepers

Is that they still exist and they always will. Vimeo, YouTube, Kickstarter all have gatekeepers. New Gatekeepers. The world needs filters to avoid entering pure chaos.

The other thing about gatekeepers is that you don’t need to pass them once. You need to pass them all your life. After one gate is just another gate.

So what do you need? You need one yes. To pass one gate.

But once you’ve passed the first gate, if you’re aiming to grow, you’re probably trying to tackle a bigger and more challenging project. Which means soon enough you are going to meet a new gate with new gatekeepers who are likely going to ask you to prove yourself all over again. Unless…

Someone can vouch for you.

This is how the system works. You go from one gate to the other. You’re never enough unless someone says you’re enough or you hit really big several times.

Christopher Nolan’s first feature (shot over a year for $6,000) helped him open the gate to shoot Memento. And Memento was a hit in its own scale. Yet, it didn’t open the gate for Nolan to shoot the film he next wanted to do: Insomnia. The Gatekeepers didn’t trust him and weren’t impressed with Memento.

So how did Nolan got his foot in? With Steven Soderbergh.

Soderbergh taught Nolan how to deal with Studios but also convinced the studios to trust this little British kid he was seeing potential in:

“(Soderbergh) told the story of how a younger Christopher Nolan wanted to get a chance to direct Insomnia. But he could not even get the meeting. The people in question did not love Memento. Soderbergh simply had to make a call telling them to meet with Nolan. He knew, correctly, that Christopher Nolan would take it from there.” (source)

The challenge is not to make the first feature or get the first feature noticed, or get the second feature greenlit. The challenge is to understand and accept that after each Gatekeeper is another one. And that you need allies. You need people who will see in you what most people don’t.

The question is: can you find people who will see potential in you and recognize themselves in you when nobody looks like you?

Soderbergh is 7 years older than Nolan. They are pals. Coppola is 5 years older than Lucas. They are pals. One enters and opens the door to his pals. It’s normal.

They help each other, they support each other. And they too become gatekeepers.

Can you vouch for someone? Can you help someone else get their foot in? You might have more power than you think. You might make a positive difference in someone’s life. Sometimes we are so busy trying to get up the ladder we forget to help others.

But let’s go back to the door that’s closed in front of you right now. The door hold by a Gatekeeper. Yes, there are a hundred more behind this one. Yes, it will take much more time than those with better credentials, connections, or in whom older gatekeepers can see themselves in to open it, but let’s focus on passing that door anyway.

Whatever that door is for you right now remember this:

All you need is one YES

Tim Ferriss recalls how he passed his second door for his first book that became a hit and put him on the global map. He first sent his book proposal to 4 agents he got a direct recommendation for. 3 said no. 1 said YES. For the second door:

“Somewhere between 27 or 28 publishers turned (my book proposal) down. But you only need one, that’s the thing. It’s not about how many people don’t get it. It’s about having the right person or people who do get it. You don’t need all the people in the world to think it’s a good idea, you don’t need half the people in the world to think it’s a good idea, you need the people it resonates with to resonate with. And it does not need to be millions of people.”

I share this as I am facing my own door. To remember that all I need is ONE yes. To remember that someone might vouch for me the same way that I have the power at my own scale to vouch for someone by giving them space on my blog, or putting them in contact with someone else.

We are all facing doors and able to let others enter the doors we’ve opened before.