We all want to use the front door. We want our ideas to be accepted immediately, and for our ideas to usher us into success.
The front door is for the show. The front door has status, politeness and rituals.
When we’re trying to create positive change, the front door isn’t the place. It is a façade and a trap. The front door crowd wants you to fit in—the people who enter the front door need to be proper and well established.
It’s a hard thing to admit that you can’t use the front door. If your story worked for everyone, of course, you could use the front door. But your story didn’t work, and you can be ignored and left out. Now we have to find another way.
That’s why change happens when someone invites you to enter the space through the side door.
The side door is about connection. It’s about the right people, the secret clubs and the inside jokes. It’s where we can be kind and generous. We can meet without a spotlight that comes from being front and center.
The side door is where we grow ideas to make positive change. It’s the insurgency the front door tried to keep out.
The great thing about entering through the side door is that nothing stops you from exiting through the front door. You can grow your change from the inside and develop unique ways to infiltrate your audience and spread your message.
Anyone trying to make things better is telling a story. If our story worked, you’d walk right in through the front door. But since it didn’t, I guess we’re stuck together.
Go around to the side and knock twice. Welcome to the club.
