The Don Vaughn Method
Reach the person you need from three different angles inside 48 hours.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 95%
The Don Vaughn Method is named after a 16-year-old who met Eagleman at a Salk Institute high school science day and asked to work in his lab. Eagleman told him to write his number on the dry-erase board; the board got erased and Eagleman forgot him. The kid then left a voicemail — Eagleman meant to call back and forgot. Then a letter arrived from his high school teacher recommending him. Then another call. Then an email. At that point Eagleman thought: wait a minute, I don't want to miss this kid, this kid's amazing. Don Vaughn ended up working in the lab and has been Eagleman's closest collaborator for sixteen years. Eagleman explicitly extracted the method — hitting someone over and over from different angles to make sure they don't forget — and then deployed it himself. After seven years writing Sum and a stack of rejection letters as high as the book, he targeted one specific literary agent and figured out three different ways to hit her so that within 48 hours she was hearing from three different people. She took him on as a 'hip pocket client' — not really a client, just kept in her pocket in case she saw an opportunity. Two days later she called back: Sum had been bought. The book went on to 33 languages, two operas, and repeat runs in Amazon's top 100.
Origin
Eagleman was the target of the method first: a high school student named Don Vaughn refused to be forgotten and reached him via dry-erase board, voicemail, a teacher's letter, another call and an email. Eagleman was so impressed he named it and reused it on the literary agent who sold his first book.
Core principles
- 01Busy people do not reject you, they forget you — the failure mode is memory, not judgment.
- 02A single channel is trivially forgettable; three channels inside a short window are impossible to lose.
- 03The angles must be genuinely different — voicemail, letter from a third party, email — not the same email resent.
- 04Compression matters: the same three touches spread over three months reads as nagging, inside 48 hours it reads as unignorable.
- 05The method is copied from the receiving end — Eagleman was on the wrong side of it and found it impressive, not annoying.
- 06It only works if the underlying ask is worth saying yes to; multi-angle contact amplifies whatever is already there.
How to run it
- 1
Pick one name
Choose a single specific person who can actually unlock what you want. Eagleman targeted one particular literary agent, not a list of agents.
Pro tip The narrower the target, the more angles you can find on them.
Watch out Running this on twenty people at once is spam; it depends on being individually researched.
- 2
Pressure-test the ask first
Make sure the thing you are pitching genuinely warrants attention. Multi-angle contact amplifies the ask — if the ask is weak you have simply made your weakness memorable.
Pro tip Eagleman had spent seven years on the manuscript before he ever ran the method.
Watch out Rejection letters that say 'I don't know where I'd put this on the bookshelf' are a positioning problem, not a persistence problem — fix positioning first.
- 3
Find three genuinely different angles
Map channels that arrive by different routes: a direct message, a third party who knows them, a physical letter, a shared event. Don Vaughn used a voicemail, a teacher's recommendation letter, a second call and an email.
Pro tip A third party vouching is the strongest angle because it carries independent credibility.
Watch out Three emails from the same address is one angle repeated, and it reads as desperation rather than substance.
- 4
Compress into 48 hours
Fire all three so they land in a tight window. Eagleman's agent heard from three different people within 48 hours, which is what made him impossible to file away.
Pro tip Line all three up before firing any of them so the timing is under your control.
Watch out Spreading the same touches over months converts an impressive convergence into a slow drip of pestering.
- 5
Take the partial yes
Accept whatever the first opening is, even a heavily qualified one. Eagleman was taken on as a 'hip pocket client' — explicitly not a real client, just held in case an opportunity appeared.
Pro tip Once you are in the pocket, the relationship can convert fast: Eagleman's converted in two days.
Watch out Negotiating for a better label at this stage risks losing the opening entirely.
- 6
Stop on contact
The moment they respond, the method's job is done. Switch from multi-angle outreach to being an excellent, low-maintenance counterparty.
Pro tip Deliver something within days of the yes so the bet on you pays off immediately.
Watch out Continuing to hit someone from three angles after they have engaged converts persistence into harassment.
In the wild
A high school student wrote his number on Eagleman's dry-erase board, which was wiped the next day. He then left a voicemail, had his high school teacher send a recommendation letter, called again, and emailed. Eagleman, who had genuinely forgotten him twice, hit the point where he thought he did not want to miss this kid.
→ Don Vaughn worked in Eagleman's lab and has been his closest collaborator for sixteen years.
Eagleman wrote Sum over seven years, submitted it repeatedly, and accumulated a stack of rejection letters as high as the book itself. Rather than submit more widely, he narrowed to one literary agent and engineered three separate routes to her inside 48 hours. She signed him as a hip-pocket client, sent the manuscript out, and called back two days later, incredulous, to say it had been bought.
→ Sum became an international bestseller in 33 languages, was turned into operas by Brian Eno at the Sydney Opera House and Max Richter at the Royal Opera House, and still returns to Amazon's top 100.
Common mistakes
Repeating one channel instead of finding three
The mechanism is that different routes are stored differently in the recipient's attention — a voicemail, a letter and an email each survive a different kind of forgetting. Sending the same email three times gives them one thing to ignore three times, and correctly reads as nagging.
Pitching past the gatekeeper layer
Eagleman's actual bottleneck was that he had been writing to publishers directly. As he learned, agents are the first filter — a publisher will only look at something an agent has taken on. Running a perfect multi-angle campaign at the wrong node in the chain wastes it.
Running it on a weak or unready ask
The method makes you unforgettable, which is only useful if what you are attached to is worth remembering. Eagleman had a finished, seven-year manuscript that several rejectors had personally praised. Firing three angles at someone to promote an unfinished idea burns the one shot you had at that person's attention.
Is it for you?
Best for
Getting on the radar of one specific overloaded gatekeeper — an agent, an investor, a lab head, a hiring manager — when you have no referral.
Not ideal for
Mass outreach, anyone who has already given you an explicit no, or situations where the ask itself is weak.
From the transcript
“And I call this the Don Vaughn method of just hitting someone over and over from different angles to make sure that they don't forget.”
“I managed to figure out three different ways to hit her so that within 48 hours she was hearing from three different people.”
“I ended up collecting a stack of rejection letters as high as the book.”
From the episode
#674: Neuroscientist David Eagleman — Exploring Consciousness, Sensory Augmentation, The Lazy Susan Method of Extraordinary Productivity, Dreaming, Improving Hearing with a Wristband, Synesthesia, Stretching Time with Novelty, Lessons from Titans of Science, and Much More