Beat Down the Doors
Opportunity doesn’t knock. It presents itself when you beat on its doors.
April 11, 2017.
The day was pretty typical. Go to school and then head over to work. Nothing real special. At this time, I was working on Burlingame Avenue and I was getting off of work at 8:30. The plan was to get that over with and then get to work on some other things. Earlier in the day, however, I heard that something was going on on Burlingame Avenue. At Dunk Contest, Marcus Thompson II (@ThompsonScribe) would be at the store for a meet and greet for his new book Golden: The Miraculous Rise of Steph Curry. At the time, Marcus was working for the Bay Area News Group. He currently writes for The Athletic. This was a book that I had been waiting for awhile actually and the event was literally a block away from where I was working. The thing was, the event started at 7 and I was down to my last few dollars in my bank account. Oops.
Golden Signing at Book Passage
Even though I was supposed to get off at 8:30, I figured I would try to go and see if the meet and greet was still going on by the time I was done anyway. After work, I quickly made my way over to the meet and greet and, to my luck, the event was just finishing up. I went ahead and used the last few dollars I had in my account, bought the book, and waited in what was left of the line to go meet Marcus.
Shot I took for Marcus Thompson II for The Athletic
The conversation started off like a typical conversation. I’m sure he had extremely similar conversations with everyone else in the store who went to meet him.
“Oh, is this book for you?”
“Are you a Warriors fan?”
“Who’s your favorite player?”
Our conversation pretty much went the same way. However, right before ending the conversation, I did something that I had planned to do but wasn’t sure if I would actually give it a shot. Before walking into the shop, I took one of my business cards out of my wallet and stuck it in the pocket of my shirt. When it was my turn and the conversation was ending, I simply said: “By the way, if you ever need a photographer, let me know and I’ll do it for free.” I handed him my business card and the next person was up, restarting the whole process of the typical conversations that evening.
April 14, 2017.
A few days later, Marcus messaged me asking if I’d shoot his next book signing. I was beyond excited to be honest. It’s nerve wracking when you just go up to somebody that you’ve never met before and try to promote yourself to a certain extent. The fact that he actually hit me up to work with him was surprising and I was just glad that the business card and a simple sentence decided to work out for me.
The idea here is this: shoot your shot. This really goes with anything that you feel like doing. Whether that’s wanting to work with someone, trying to get a job interview, or trying to get at somebody that you think is cute or interesting. I spoke with Marcus a few days ago as we were on our way to a photoshoot and he said that the reason he even hit me back up was because I actually had the courage to present myself. Something as small as having that interaction can make a huge difference. With Marcus, I’ve done a couple of shoots and book signings and I know we’re going to be working together in the future. Although I won’t be there, Marcus will be at Adapt tomorrow (September 16, 2017) for a meet and greet. Be there.
Book Signing Information
Beating down on the doors of opportunity really does make an impact on trying to accomplish your goals. This same concept is how I ended up working with In The Lab and Devin Williams (@Ten000hours). I’ll tell that story in the future.
Don’t be scared to ask for opportunities. The worst thing that someone can say is “No.” Why wait for opportunity to knock when you can knock instead?
-Jsquared