Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Alex Banayan on Unlocking the “Third Door” to Success

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

This episode of the podcast is a bit different. That's because in this podcast, I chat with Alex Banayan about his book The Third Door, the journey he went on in the process of writing it, and what he learned along the way. We’ll get into the details in the interview, but Alex went on a seven-year quest to interview some of the world’s brightest, most successful people in order to learn how they broke through in their respective fields. It all started with the common existential crisis of “what do I want to do with my life” and his research led him down a road filled with life-changing interviews with Bill Gates, Quincy Jones, Steve Wozniak, Lady Gaga, Warren Buffett, Maya Angelou, Steven Spielberg, Jane Goodall, Larry King, and more (and some wild stories). Now if you're wondering why I thought this was worthy of a podcast, many of my followers are entrepreneurs, people who want to succeed more in their careers, or people who want to improve themselves in general. So while this interview isn’t directly fitness-related, I think you’ll find it interesting and useful. In our discussion, Alex and I talk about . . . How he “hacked” The Price Is Right to raise funds for his book idea How he managed to secure big-time interviews The mindset commonalities he found among famous, successful people The difference between fearlessness and courage Social media and the importance and relativity of money And more . . . If you’re not familiar with Alex, The Third Door has made him the youngest bestselling business author in American history, and the book is a number one international bestseller. He’s been named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list and Business Insider’s “Most Powerful People Under 30,” and been featured in Fortune, CNBC, Businessweek, The Washington Post, MSNBC, Fox News, and NBC News. So if you want to hear some of Alex’s wild stories from his journey and what he learned on his quest to study success, definitely check out this interview! Timestamps: 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $13,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 7:07 - What is the premise of the book? 13:01 - How Alex hacked The Price Is Right 15:21 - How did you get interviews with famous people? 17:16 - How successful people treat business 20:14 - The difference between fearlessness and courage 26:12 - What have you found fulfilling and is there anything you thought would be fulfilling that hasn't been? 31:50 - What you think you want and what you really want may not be the same 42:45 - Who is the third door for? 44:05 - Dealing with setbacks 51:48 - The opposite of success isn't failure 53:32 - What types of mistakes are acceptable to you? Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $13,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ The Third Door: https://www.amazon.com/Third-Door-Uncover-Successful-Launched/dp/0804136661/?tag=mflweb-20 Alex Banayan’s website: https://thirddoorbook.com/ Alex’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexbanayan/

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not just lame PDFs that I say are worth $100 each. Check it out, muscleforlifebook.com. Howdy, howdy. This is Muscle for Life Life and I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today. And quickly, if you haven't already, please do subscribe to the show in whatever app you are listening to me in so you don't miss any new episodes. And it helps me because it boosts the ranking of the show in the various charts. And so this episode is a little bit different. I enjoyed it. It was a nice change of pace. I chatted with Alex Benayan about his book, The Third Door, which is all about a journey, an odyssey he went on, to learn about success, to learn what some of the most successful people in the world

in different areas and different disciplines attributed their success to, to learn how they broke through in their respective fields. And this quest of Alex's started with the proverbial existential crisis of what should I do with my life? Should I keep doing what my parents want me to do with it? Or should I follow my own inner voice? And as you can guess, Alex went with his gut and he went for what excited him, which ultimately culminated in this book, The Third Door. And in it, you learn what he learned from interviews that he did over the course of, if I remember correctly, seven years with Bill Gates, Quincy Jones, Steve Wozniak, Lady Gaga, Warren Buffett, Steven Spielberg, Jane Goodall, Larry

King, and many other luminaries. And of course, he shares some very interesting stories about how he got to do these interviews because Alex was not a celebrity. His parents were not connected. He didn't come from Hollywood royalty, for example. He was just a kid in college who had a wild hair and decided to pursue it to the bitter end, to do whatever it took to make this book a reality. And as for why I brought Alex onto the show, why I thought this was worthy of a Muscle for Life podcast, I know that many of my followers, many of my listeners, many of my readers are not just fitness folk, but they are also entrepreneurs. They are people who want to succeed in their careers. Maybe they're not entrepreneurs. Maybe they work somewhere, but they're always looking to do better in their work and move up the ladder. And also,

I have a lot of people in my orbit who just want to improve themselves in any way they can. And so while this interview is not directly related to health or fitness. I do think you are going to find it interesting and useful if you are one of the people I just mentioned. Hey, Alex, thanks for taking some time out of your afternoon to come talk to me. I'm stoked to be here, man. Thank you for having me. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I have been looking forward to this conversation because it's a change of gears for me. As I was saying before we started recording, most of my time goes into producing health and fitness related content. But I do dabble in business and career advice and self-development.

I'm happy to dabble with you. I'm happy to dabble with you. Yeah, exactly. So, and I know I have a lot of people following me who are entrepreneurs or considering going down that path or who want to succeed more in the career that they've chosen, even if it's not, you know, owning their own business. And a lot of people who just want to improve themselves in many different ways. And of course, health and fitness is one of those ways. And so that's why I thought it would make sense to get you on the show and talk about

not just the book that you wrote, which people can see if you're watching there, The Third Door, but also what you learned through that experience. So maybe we should start this interview. We can skip all the backstory. I'll mention that kind of stuff in the intro. But what is this book? What is the premise of the book? And then from there, I have some specific questions that I have that speak more to the content of the book. So with The Third Door, the basic premise is it's the seven year quest to uncover the mindset of success. So I spent, you know, the past 10 years obsessively studying success.

I spent thousands of hours researching, going through hundreds of biographies, and most importantly, sitting down one on one and asking questions to the people I was dying to get answers from. one-on-one and ask the questions to the people I was dying to get answers from. So for business, I interviewed Bill Gates. For music, Lady Gaga. Science, Jane Goodall. Poetry, Maya Angelou. Steve Wozniak, Mary King, Quincy Jones, Jessica Alba, Pitbull. It's been this really exciting journey filled with surprising lessons at every turn. And to give a little context to how the whole journey got started, I sort of have to take you back 10 years. So I was a freshman in college.

And I spent every day lying on my dorm room bed, staring up at the ceiling. And I don't know if you ever went through the what I want to do with my life crisis. But I was going through it and it was hitting me really hard. And to understand why I was going through it, you have to understand that i'm the son of persian jewish immigrants which pretty much means i came out of the womb my mom cradled me in her arms and then she sent md on my behind and sent me on my way yep you know you know the story and you know i've had i've had uh friends over the years similar similar experience in indian friends in particular it's also i guess pretty common yeah and it's it's funny because when you're a kid you don't even realize it's

happening you just think this is normal life yeah and you know in third grade i wore scrubs to school for halloween i thought i was cool um surprised i wasn't invited to any parties you know and most likely to become a serial killer uh yeah i remember but you know i kept going because in high school i checked the boxes i took all the biology classes i you know studied hard for the sats i even went to pre-med summer camp so by the time i got to college i'm the pre-med of pre-meds but very quickly i find myself lying on this dorm room bed, looking at this towering stack of biology books, feeling like they're sucking the life out of me. And at first I assumed, you know, maybe I'm just being lazy. But very quickly I begin to wonder, maybe I'm not on my path.

Maybe I'm on a path that somebody's placed me on and I'm just rolling down. So now not only do I not know what I want to do with my life, I have no idea how the people who I looked up to, how they did it. How did Bill Gates sell his first piece of software out of a storm room when nobody knew his name? How did Spielberg become the youngest director in Hollywood history without a single hit under his belt? This is what they don't teach you in school. So I just assumed there had to be a book with the answers.

So I'm going through the library and just ripping through business books and biographies and self-help books, assuming there had to be a book with the answers. So I'm going through the library and just ripping through, you know, business books and biographies and self-help books, assuming there had to be a book. Not at a particular age in life, but really a stage. When you have a big goal, you have a big dream, but no one's taking your calls. No one's taking your meetings. How do you find a way to break through? And eventually, I was left empty-handed. So that's when my naive 18-year-old thinking kicked in. I thought, well,

if no one's written the book I'm dreaming of reading, why not write it myself? I thought I'd just call Bill Gates, interview him, interview everybody else. I'll be done in a few months. That I assumed would be the easy part. The hard part, I fear, was getting the money to fund this journey. I was buried in student loan debt. I was all out of apartments for cash. So there had to be a way to make some quick money. So two nights before final exams, I'm in the library doing what everyone does in the library right before finals.

I'm on Facebook. And I'm on Facebook and I see somebody offering free tickets to The Price is Right. And I'm sure you know the show, you know, growing up, you know, biggest game show in American history. And I see somebody offering free tickets to the show. And the show is filming the next morning. I'm in college in Los Angeles, not too far from where the show films. And my first thought was, what if I go on this show and win some money to fund this book? You know, not my brightest moment. Plus, I had a problem.

I'd never seen a full episode of the show before. You know, of course, I've seen bits and pieces of it growing up. You know, when you're homesick from school in fourth grade, it's the only thing on TV at the time. But I'd never seen a full episode. So I told myself it's a dumb idea and to not think about it. I don't know if you've ever had one of those moments where, you know, no matter how ridiculous an idea, for some reason it keeps pulling itself back into your mind. So I almost approved myself this is a bad idea. I remember I was sitting at this round wooden table in the corner of the library.

And I take out my spiral notebook and I write best and worst case scenario to prove to myself this is a bad idea. And I'm writing, you know, worst case scenarios. Fail finals, get kicked out of pre-med, lose financial aid, mom stops talking to me, no, mom kills me. You know, there's about 20 cons. And the only pro was maybe, maybe wouldn't it be funny to fund this

dream? And it's almost as if somebody had tied a rope around my gut and was slowly pulling in a direction. So that night I decided to do the logical thing and pull an all-nighter to study. But I didn't study for finals. I said I had to do the logical thing and pull an all-nighter to study. But I didn't study for finals. I said I had to hack the prices right.

And I went on the show the next day and did this ridiculous strategy and ended up winning the entire showcase showdown, winning a sale vote, selling that sale vote, and that's how I funded the book. And that's how the journey really set off. And what was the hack? I mean, people, they're going to want to know. Unless it's true in depth, I'm just curious if there's a no i can give you i give you the 30 second version the full price is right story is this like preposterous 30 minute story the 30 second of it is when you watch any game show but particularly price is right there's you know 300 people in the audience of The Price is Right. Out of those 300 in the audience, eight of them get called down to play the games. And out of those eight, one wins.

So if you just run the numbers right there, let's assume it's blind luck. It's not, but let's assume it is. The odds of being eight out of 300 are way harder than the odds of one out of eight. So I just had one night to prepare. So I said, all right, let me just focus all of my energy on the hard part, which is guaranteeing you're called out of the 300. So that's where I put all my research. And what I learned is that while the show makes it look random, they make it go like, you know, Mike, come on down as if they pulled your name out of a hat there's a casting producer who interviews everyone in the audience and then what i discovered at like 3 a.m on a message board

is that there's an undercover producer planted amongst the audience who's also studying the group so once you know that that the three hours before the show begins, when you're just waiting is actually essentially like a job interview. And it's not a 10 second interview. It's a three hour interview because you're on stage. Exactly. And once you know that what most people do is they figure out that they have a 10 second interview, but the rest, they're just scrolling on Instagram on their phone. They don't realize it's a three hour interview. And once you know that you're golden. So, all right. So you fund, now you have the money to do this book. And, and that's, that's a fun way to get to the beginning. And now, all right, well, I just call up Bill Gates

and ask him some questions now surprise uh he doesn't take calls from 18 you can't just you can't just look up his uh cell phone number on an online database you can't just pay 30 no surprisingly uh press of bill gates.com doesn't and and so then how did you get a lot of these interviews before we get into the content content interviews i'm just curious because uh it was every single one was its own adventure so bill gates it took two years to track him down for lady gaga took three years for larry king i chased him through a grocery store for uh you know stephen spielberg i almost died on a boat in the south france trying to get to him. With Warren Buffett, I spent eight months writing him letters.

And then I ended up hacking his shareholders meeting in front of 30,000 people. With Tim Ferriss, I hid in a bathroom at a conference. Like it was every single one was its own wild adventure. And what the book accidentally ended up being, because it wasn't the original intention. ended up being because it wasn't the original intention. But what the book turned out to become was this series of wild goose chases that led into the interviews. And then the interviews had the content and the wisdom. But the original intention was, because I was naive enough to think all these people would say yes right away, I thought it would solely be just the wisdom from these people and the insights and the lessons.

But the books turned out to be both this wild sort of catch me if you can heist movie that led into each different interview. And there's something probably to be learned simply from that that, I mean, it makes me think of the title, right? Trying to find the third door into each of these interviews. And it sounds like it was very much whatever it takes, creative thinking, outside of the box thinking, going into it with the assumption, there is some way that I can get to an interview. I don't know what it is yet. And it might take years. And it might require years and it might, it might require a ridiculous stunts, but there is a way there is a way. Am I, am I willing to try to figure it out and do it is the only question. That's exactly. And you know, when I

started this journey in the beginning, at the very beginning, when I had started, there was no part of me looking for that one key to success. We've all seen those business books or those TED Talks, and normally I just roll my eyes. What ended up happening over seven years of interviews, I started realizing every single one of these people treated life and business and success the exact same way. I don't care if it's Warren Buffett in Omaha, Nebraska, if it's Pitbull in Miami, every single one of them treated life and business the exact same way. And the analogy that came to me is that it's sort of like getting into a nightclub. There's always three ways in. So there's the first door, the main entrance, where the line

curves around the block, where 99% of people wait around hoping to get in. You've seen that line, people standing out in the cold, hoping the bouncer lets them in, right? That's the first door. And then there's the second door, the VIP entrance, where the billionaires and celebrities go through. For some reason, society has this way of making us feel like those are the only two ways in. You either wait your turn or you're born into it.

But what I learned, and what I'm sure you've seen in your own career, is that there's always, always the third door. And it's the entrance where you jump out of line, run down the alley, bang on the door a hundred times, crack open the window, go through the kitchen. There's always a way in. And it doesn't matter if that's how Bill Gates sold his first piece of software, how Lainey Gallagher got her first record deal. They all took the third door and that's a good segue into the next question i want to ask you which is what are some of the commonalities that you found among a lot of these people you just mentioned that they view life and success and uh in many in many of

the same ways what are some of those same ways just just playing off of what you just mentioned? You know, definitely the third door is this broad framework and mindset. But within that, there's definitely other things too. I'll tell you one of the more surprising ones that I didn't expect. Because we all know there's obvious things that they all have to have. But what's interesting to me

is the things you don't expect. One thing about me personally if you ask my sisters what it's like growing up with me they would tell you i was the most scared kid you would ever meet you know night light on until i was 12 never went on roller coasters just terrified uh so naturally when i started this quest you know terrified the whole way through every single step of the way so a natural thing that I was curious about is how did all these people who I looked up to, how did they become so fearless? And you look at Elon Musk, you look at Bill Gates,

they had to be fearless or else how else they have done what they did. And what ended up happening every single time and every single interview is they started realizing not only were all of these people scared in the beginning too, they were terrified the whole way. And that didn't make any sense to me at all. And what I ended up having to learn is that it wasn't fearlessness they achieved. It was courage. And while the words sound very similar, the difference is critical. So fearlessness is jumping off a cliff without thinking about it you know that's an idiot you do not want to be friends with the friends of that guy right that guy will lead you to a lot of bad situations that's fearlessness courage on the other hand is acknowledging your fear, analyzing the consequences,

and then deciding you'll still take one step forward anyways, because you care so much about it. And again, while those words sound so similar, the differences are night and day. And it's the difference between someone who jumps off a cliff and you never hear about and ends up versus someone who ends up starting SpaceX and Tesla. You have that reckless type of fearless. And then you also have some people who maybe don't experience as much in the way of fear. But again, that is different than what you're talking about. In some cases. Super, super different. And in some cases, I can think of some examples of people who

I think should have experienced some fear before they made certain decisions that did not go well. Their fearlessness was inappropriate. It wasn't the right emotion. You see that in finance a lot, right? Yeah. Yeah. You see these stories all the time. Their just, you know, their whole hedge fund just went under and you're like, damn, weren't they a little afraid before they, uh, shorted, you know, AMC with their entire portfolio. I mean, I know a guy who, who did, did, I mean, he, he, he lost $700 million in a day in a day. And he was so confident that before he made the decision that led to that, that he just had his finger on the pulse. He knew the market. And I mean, how he would tell the story is there was fearlessness. It was, you know, because he had been riding high the previous year. He had done 100% in his fund.

Everyone was talking about him. He was, at this point, surrounded by a lot of sycophants. And then in one day, he melted his fund down, essentially. Yeah, life has a way of putting you in check whether you like it or not. I mean, it's the the whether you look to the story of of icarus right flying too too close to the sun or or just what's that old saying uh it's essentially to it's it's a little bit more poetic but it's like who the gods want to strike down they first fill with pride or something like that sure and you know one of the lessons i had to

learn the hard way is life will keep hitting you over the head with the same lesson until you listen it will keep hitting you over the head with the same lesson until you listen sometimes it takes losing 700 million dollars for you to listen uh and sometimes it's you know you lose 10 bucks and you learn your lesson. Ironically, that same guy. So his fund is gone within probably six months. The remaining funds were withdrawn. Obviously, that was the end of that. But he had still made, I want to say, he probably had made about 70 million that he had, right?

And invested in various ways over his time running that fund. And, um, he then proceeded to lose most of that, his own, that was just his personal doing, doing a lot of bad real estate deals. And so to, to, to your point, that lesson he did not learn. Yeah. Uh, a very, very, very, very successful person once told me something that stuck with me, which is you only have to get rich once. And essentially what they're saying is once you haven't, once you have, you know, more than you need, change your risk caliber a bit. There's a lot of stories of, and again, I can't relate to these. I'm not there personally, but I study this topic. And there's a lot of stories of people who lose their entire fortune when they get $900 million.

Yep. Because of a psychological defect they have, which is they think they will be more whole, more loved, more worthy, more special. loved more worthy more special when the 900 million turns into a billion they take they're so desperate to to to the idea of what they think it will feel like and be like that they risk the whole house and there goes there goes everything um now i can't relate to that. And frankly, I have zero pity on them. I mean, it's hard to sympathize. These are not these are not soft stories that I care about. But the psychology of it is interesting, too, because I know we all can relate to. Having things inside of us that, you know, there's an old ancient saying, which is one of the worst things in life is to have a hole in your pocket where no matter how many coins you put in your pocket still remains

empty yeah and that hole is an analogy for actually our you know our our souls right you can you can feel full right You can be surrounded by a hundred friends at a birthday party and feel completely lonely, right? You can achieve, you can have millions of people listen to your podcast and still feel like you're not making an impact. Like, right, these are curses. And sadly, they're all around us.

So a lot of my studying of success has to do with not just how do you accomplish a goal but how do you feel that you accomplish the goal those are almost two completely separate things and how has that played out for you i mean it's obviously relevant to your personal story so you were in med school and feeling like this is not for you and you and you chose uh to do something very theatrical and dramatic and and now and now here here you are uh what what about what what you have done and are doing are there are there parts of it and you know because i i've spoken about this myself i'm sure you've experienced the declining utility of money, for example, and no, I'm not rich and I'm not implying that I am, but that's a common experience.

But from where you were to where you are now, what have you found is actually fulfilling? What draws you as opposed to the things you have to push yourself into? And are there any things that you thought were going to be very fulfilling that were not? Oh, yeah. Okay. I'll tell you a crazy moment. Again, no one will sympathize for me in this, and that was not the point of it, but I will say it was a great moment. It almost felt like a moment from God to just nail the lesson in for me. So, you know, I work on the third door for seven years. The book comes out in the United States and I am just blood, sweat, and tears

level of hustle to try to get this, you know, essentially I'm a guy in my twenties with no platform, no name, trying to get this book onto a bestseller list. It normally doesn't work that way. And thankfully, it did end up becoming a national bestseller. But it was just, I'm out of breath on the book launch day. I'm not sitting back and pumping my fists, right? Now, flip side is a year later, the book starts coming out internationally.

And I land in Japan. And I've done, I haven't lifted a finger yet. I land in Japan. The next day is when I'm supposed to start working and doing press and things like that. I land in Japan on the day the book actually comes out. And I see on Twitter, the book, The Third Door in Japan is the number one book in Japan. And this is how skewed my brain is because of how hard I worked in America.

And it barely, barely cracked the best. And I literally mean, I'm being honest. It barely cracked, you know, I'm grateful it did, but it barely cracked. In Japan, it's number one. So I'm thinking like okay you know you know how amazon works it's probably like number one in some random subcategory i've never heard of you know underwater basket weaving for entrepreneurs yeah it's number one in that category great and i go on to amazon japan and all over the amazon page of the book it has the

number one on it and i'm like literally taking screenshots, sending it to people who I know, know Japanese saying Google translate claims. This is like, is this, and apparently the book debuted as the number one book in the whole country. Now it felt crazy.

It felt really, really, really good. You know, I'm FaceTiming friends. It's feeling really good. About an hour know, I'm FaceTiming friends. It's feeling really good. About an hour later, I'm in the hotel room. This is all on that first night.

So it was just amazing. It happened in the same moment. I get a random cold email from this like 19-year-old kid. And the email pretty much said like, you know, dear Alex, I'm so sorry for the cold email. I just recorded this like one minute video to say thanks and I was like alone in a hotel room so it was like sort of just random timings I just like click on the video um as this 19 year old kid telling me about how he got his dream job um because he read the third door and that was the first business book he'd ever read and that the

book had changed his life and I'm like crying because that kid was me like that kid was the kid was the me who started the book um and i started like tearing up and i started crying and i remember that moment being like just having this moment of clarity like wow there were no tears of joy with the number one by the way i'm not saying the number one didn't feel good i'm not saying like oh i felt empty no i felt great but the level of fulfillment uh it felt great in a different way yeah and i remember in that moment trying to almost like yell at myself saying remember this because it's this second moment that made you feel like you were on your destiny and that's a much better why why do this why continue that that email and i can relate to that yeah it means more than oh why maybe i can hit another list or I can sell another abstract number of books. Oh, okay.

You open Instagram and I'm just as susceptible as everyone else. I see a guy on a private gym like, man, that looks great. I see someone with the bottles and the face and I'm like, man, that looks really fun. Again, right now now with crypto it's a whole nother realm of thumb over i was i was gonna mention that like now the price is right that whole story you would have just gambled it on some shit coin and that would oh look at that i yeah i've never heard of that and that is the funniest thing the 2021 version of the price is right is fucking dogecoin yeah exactly and now you know you didn't actually fund a book project you funded your retirement oops right i i still it's actually still a struggle that i i work on

which is it's there are lots of more shiny objects now than there were 10 years ago 20 years ago 100 years ago a thousand years ago, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago. And a lot more messages by society. And a lot more sophisticated messaging. The art of propaganda has come so far. So far. Yes, yes, yes.

This is actually something that I forget about. The messaging not only is more, it's more effective. I have, and again, I study success. So I just, this is my job. I get, you will actually, you, because I know you live in this world too, you will believe this.

The number of people who, I was once doing a speech once for an organization called YPM. Everyone in that organization, as I'm sure you know, has to have an organization in the tens of millions. I was a member, actually, of YPO DC, and then I didn't feel like I was getting much out of it, honestly, so I stopped. Yeah, so I'm at this YPO event. So you know the caliber of people in there, all running very, very successful organizations. This one guy comes up to

me after a ypo event um i you know i give the speech and he's just like sort of creeping you know you know just like sort of like looking at me from across the room standing in the corner uh in front of that like ypo you would expect someone to just come up and shake your hand and you know say what's ever on their mind but this guy's sort of like creeping in to the point where like i just looked at him like waved him over like what's what's going on man uh and he's like can i talk to you in private i'm like uh okay so you know when the event's done i'm done with the book signing i'm you know i go outside i'm like what's what's going on he essentially explains to me that he just sold his company for hundreds of millions. And I think the payout to him was

maybe 50 million, 60, 70, something like that. And he essentially tells me that this was the moment he dreamed of his whole life. Yet when it happened, he felt empty and miserable. And again, this is not a soft story. This is not a boo-hoo. But it is an insight for those of us who are on the hustle, who are on our grind, who are chasing big goals, to realize that what this man was looking for was, he thought he was looking for the 50 million. But he wasn't. Because clearly, he was given given it and it didn't give him what he wanted, which then informs us who are on our hustle to reevaluate what we're actually aiming for. mansions, cars, private jets. They think they want that because they've been sold that by Forbes magazine, by fucking Instagram influencers. When in reality, what they're actually looking for is,

first of all, I'm not discounting money. Yeah, you do want to feel safe and supported and comfortable and know that you can take care of yourself and your lover. Yeah. Now this is another thing though. You said not worried about bills. I know people with tens of millions who are worried about bills. Depends, I guess, on how extravagant your lifestyle is. Right. I know. Right. So it actually draws into question. I know people with hundreds of millions

who are still afraid of getting broke and they still don't have the security they were hoping for. So what you actually are looking for isn't what you think you want. And it is a mindfuck of grand proportions. Will Smith talks about it. He has hundreds of millions million dollars that he still wakes up afraid of being broke man my heart goes out yeah that actually does make me sad um and i again what i've had to learn is that the

accomplishment and the thing you're actually searching for are not always the same. You think you want the mansion, but what you actually want is the community and the respect and the sense of belonging you think the mansion will give you. I mean, that's a perennial theme in storytelling. It goes back to the beginning of time, right? It's the person who gets what they want and finds out that they should have wanted something else. Yeah. There's a great line from Jim Carrey. This is, I hope Everett gets rich and famous so they can realize they didn't want to be rich and famous.

What they wanted was a sense of significance, a sense of impact, a sense of, again, security and comfort financially, of course. But- What is that for you? Because it sounds like you've thought about this. You have to have thought about it for yourself. I think about it a lot. I think about it for myself and I study other people too. For myself, a huge thing. I was talking about this a lot with friends the past couple weeks too which is for me first of all again i'm not one of those people who's like money doesn't matter follow your purpose money fucking matters you know there are people in america who cannot afford

the insulin for their diabetes many americans can't gather $500 in case of an emergency. So I'm not going to be out here like preaching money doesn't matter. Just enjoy your life or follow your bliss or any of that stuff. No, money matters. What I will say is the people listening to your podcast, they wouldn't be listening if they weren't, and they wouldn't have made it 30 minutes into this. They wouldn't still be listening. They wouldn't still be listening if they weren't motivated, hungry, ambitious, and smart. So to people like that, what I'll say is be very thoughtful about the, you know, the metrics you use to measure your own success, because what's really easy is

to say, okay, when I make, I don't know, pulling numbers out of the air. And when I make a hundred thousand, then I'll be happy. As soon as you get the a hundred thousand, what happens is all your friends that you now are surrounding yourself with all make 500,000. So you feel poor. So the number is okay. 500K. When I get that same, I'm not kidding.

I then, and by the way, time passes. So all of a sudden that was when you were a kid. Now you're doing 500 K and all your friends, because you met these cool people at YPO are all 10 mil and have double houses. And you go, man, that guy looks like he's really living up. Right? So you gotta be super careful and thoughtful because at the end of the day, you're in charge of your own end zone.

You're in charge of your own finish line. You're in charge of your own definition of success. Did you know that right now I am in the middle of a big book launch bonanza for my new fitness book for men and women of all ages and abilities, Muscle for Life, which is releasing on January 11th and is currently available for pre-order over at muscleforlifebook.com, muscleforlifebook.com. And why should you pre-order? Well, to invoke an electrochemical response in your brain and stimulate something approximating joy, I am celebrating the release of this new book by giving away over $12,000 of glorious fitness goodies, including a Bowflex C6 bike, that's $1,000, a Hypervolt Go, that's $200,

bike, that's a thousand bucks. A Hypervolt Go, that's 200 bucks. An Instant Pot Duo Crisp Air Fryer, another 200 bucks. A Vitamix E310 blender, 350 bucks. A 30-minute Zoom call with yours unruly, and that is priceless, of course. And much, much more. Now, there are several ways to enter to win too. You can buy books, you can spread the word, you can follow me on social media and more. So again, to get all of the giveaway sauce, go over to muscleforlifebook.com, muscleforlifebook.com. Just to point that up, I have a buddy who is is rich he's worth hundreds of millions of dollars he has billionaire friends and one of his billionaire friends uh is worth i don't know one or two billion and and he jokes i don't know this person but via my friend my friend was telling

me this guy jokes but he's kind of not joking at the same time that yeah he's a billionaire but but he's a poor billionaire because his billionaire friends, they have $500 million boats and they have multiple planes. And the guy, he's joking, but he's not joking. He's actually partly serious. That he feels like he's one of the poor guys in his social circle because he can't buy a $500 million boat. Yeah. Okay. So Oprah Winfrey, let's say has what? 2 billion, 3 billion. I'm just throwing these numbers out there. 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion, 5 billion. I don't know. Who knows? I don't know. But let's say it's in that category. Do you know who she goes on vacation with?

People who have $50 billion. And who live like they have $50 billion. And who live like they have $50 billion. So again, and that, but let's bring that back down to reality too. Right. Which is like, if you're making 30 K and your homies making 70 K,

like that is a tangible difference. Yes. And again, the only reason we're even talking about this is because of the point, which is the first seven years of Third Door Journey was about how do you achieve a goal at any cost? That's what the book is about. And how do you get there in a creative way that doesn't make any sense when you're doing it, but in hindsight feels spot on. There should be a word for this characteristic. I'm trying to think i don't i

don't know if there is a you know people will the reason i like the third door is it sort of encapsulates a lot of things that have already been out in the world in a single thought in a visual phrase you know you can if you wanted to you know define the third door in the dictionary i'm sure synonyms in the thesaurus would be you know grit creativity ingenuity resourcefulness but resourcefulness pluckiness um stay at it with this yeah stick to itness you know stick to itness perseverance all these like world war two phrases a lot of them are so are so hackneyed. You just go, yeah, oh, yeah, I think I heard that Ted talk. Right, but the truth is the difference between the third door and just like stick-to-itiveness is like,

bro, you can be stick-to-itiveness in the first line and just be grinding a job you hate your whole life. That's not the third door. The whole point of the third door is that if you want to do something new, if you want to start a new job, start a new industry, start a new company, start a new relationship, it requires you to do things you've never done before, which is then going to bring fears you never felt before. It's going to give you scrapes and scabs on your knee. It's going to

cover you in mud, but that's the way. I don't know a single, after 10 years of studying success, I've never seen a single person achieve their goals without scrapes and scratches and bruises. It's just the way it works. And if you don't want those scrapes and scraps and bruises, by all means, I love you. It's all good. Like keep at it and keep doing it and keep following inertia. And by the way, you're just as worthy as a human being. And I mean that without sarcasm. I really do mean that.

The third door is for people who want to reach for something new and want that growth. That's who the third door is for. that's who the third door is for. And as far as some of these other commonalities that you found among the successful people, I'm sure there was something related to dealing with setbacks. And so, and then you yourself, I'm sure you exhibited some of those qualities

and it might've been interesting for you to be like, oh yeah, then you yourself, I'm sure you exhibited some of those qualities and it might have been interesting for you to be like, oh yeah, that, that, that resonates with me because that's what, that's how I responded to. And I'm sure you experienced a lot of setbacks going through that seven year journey. How did you deal with, with them? And how did that compare to what you learned in these interviews? So I'll tell you the interview that taught me the most about that topic. And this interview completely changed my understanding of the relationship between success and failure. This interview took place at the end of the journey in the third door.

And it was the interview with Quincy Jones. Now I knew what a lot of people know about Quincy Jones going into this. I knew that he has more Grammy Awards than any music producer in history. He produced the best-selling album of all time, Michael Jackson's Thriller. He produced the best-selling single of all time, We Are the World. He's worked with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles. In the world of television, he created A Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In the world of film, he produced The Color Purple with Steven Spielberg. He discovered Oprah Winfrey and will smith he's undeniably one of the most successful people i mean he's just he's just another species i mean that's that's how yeah he's not exactly he's undeniably one

of the most successful people in entertainment history and the second i walked into this house i realized i don't have half of it now some context to this story. Right before this interview with Quincy Jones, I had a disastrous situation with Mark Zuckerberg. And it's a story for another time, but pretty much what you need to know is I ended up getting introduced to Zuckerberg over email. I was freaking out. I had a meeting set with him, but because I dropped the ball logistically, when I showed up, the event security thought I was an imposter. The building security wouldn't let me in and ended up missing the meeting and it was one of those situations where it feels like you fumbled the ball during the

super bowl yeah and and then and then the other team grabbed it ran it back and then you lost the super bowl it's probably right exactly yes exactly exactly you like your it was you it was you yeah and you wake up every morning it doesn't matter how much you tell yourself. You didn't even get punched out. You just fumbled the quarterback gave it to you. And you just go. Through a perfect, through a perfect Hail Mary for you to win the game. And you caught it and then fumbled it.

You didn't even miss the catch. You got the catch. And then you fumbled it. That's how it felt. Because you tripped. Over yourself. Exactly. There was no defenders around you. You tripped over yourself. And that's how it felt. So I

essentially was beating myself up every single day to the point where my insides were black and blue. And that's how I felt as I walked into Quincy Jones's house. So you sort of have to picture his living room. It's this perfectly circular room with gold lighting coming from the floors. And right in the middle is a couch. So I'm sitting down on the couch and in walks in Quincy Jones. And he's about 80 years old at the time. So, you know, he walks in very tenderly and he's wearing this long blue velvet robe with gold stitching on the bottom.

Sits down next to me and asks me where I'm from. And I go, hey, you know, I'm from Los Angeles. And he goes, no, I said, where are you from? And I'm, you know, looking around wondering if this is like a trick question. And finally, I realized what he's saying. And I go, Oh, my family's from Iran. And he goes, that's what I thought. And he launches into a 30 minute story about dating a Persian princess,

trying to break the Ayatollah out of prison. And he sucks me into the Quincy Jones vortex. And it is the happiest place on earth. Now the guy has a story for everything. He's been everywhere. He's met everybody. Somehow he has the craziest stories you've ever heard. And about halfway through this interview he tells me a story that completely as i mentioned completely changes my understanding of the relationship between success and failure so quincy begins

to tell me that early on in his career, when he was just starting out in music, the whole music industry was run by the mafia. The whole music industry was run by the mafia. So, you know, one day Quincy had to go in and get a music publisher deal from a music executive.

So he goes into this executive's office, sits down, the executive is sitting behind the desk, flies a contract across the table quincy reads it and it says that quincy will only get one percent of his own publishing he'll only get one percent of his own publishing and quincy's about to say something but he looks up and sees that behind the executive are all his cronies and the executive leans forward and says, look, you can ask for whatever you want, but you're only getting 1%. And, you know, I'm sitting there on that couch hearing the story.

I'm cringing. But I look at Quinson. He's laughing. He's like, oh, man, they stole all my stuff. And I'm like cringing even more. And he's smiling now. He's like, oh, I'm still trying to get that stuff back. even more and he's smiling now he's like i'm still trying to get that stuff back and i'm just i just uncontrollably burst out saying that's messed up

and he looks at me you know confused why i would have an outburst like that and only in hindsight can i see that i was still so beat up internally from that experience in zuckerberg that any story of someone young making a mistake and taking advantage of was completely setting me off. And it's almost as if Quincy understood something about me that I didn't. He put a hand on my shoulder and he said, it's all right, man. It's how you learn.

And it's almost as if my body was this overinflated tire and Quincy had just hit this escape valve and all the excess pressure was rushing out. And he looked at me and said, listen, 99% of people hate their mistakes. They don't want to talk about their mistakes. They want to pretend their mistakes don't ever happen. They treat their mistakes as their biggest enemy. And that's the biggest mistake you can make. Because it's only when you treat their mistakes as their biggest enemy. And that's the biggest mistake you can make. Because it's only when you treat your mistakes as your best friends. It's only when you cherish your mistakes can you learn from them. Only then can you grow.

Your mistakes are your greatest gift. So, you know, of course, that was good advice. But before I know it, you know, quincy jones vortex keeps on going and at a certain point you know you start feeling conversation come to a close and i looked at my watch and i've been about three hours at this point so i thought now would be a good time to just you know wind down and i look at it and i say you know mr jones i have to let you know this conversation has changed my life and he he goes, that's amazing. You know, how so? And I said, well, you really showed me what it takes to, you know, grow and be, you know, a person of the world. And he said, that's beautiful, you know, in what way? And I said, well, you showed me that

the only way you can grow is by traveling and going on adventures. And he goes, no. on adventures and he goes no very millennial no i knew it i knew the wanderlust was the key i knew i know i knew that eating the food and looking at the rocks that's the key he goes no you need to cherish your mistakes and it's almost as if he wasn't going to let me leave that room until that lesson sunk in. And in that moment, it did. I remember sitting there on that couch and having this epiphany that I'd spent my entire life assuming that the opposite of success is failure. You know,

what do they teach in kindergarten? The opposite of up is down. The opposite of success is failure. But it wasn't until I was sitting with Quincy Jones that I realized that success and failure are not only not opposites. They're just different sides of the same coin. They're both a result of the same thing. They're both a result of trying.

So that means that the opposite of success is a failure. The opposite of success is not trying. is not trying. I remember sitting there on that couch and having this epiphany and swearing to myself that from this point forward, I'd be unattached to success and unattached to failing and instead be committed to trying and growing. And that's the biggest lesson I could have learned. Yeah, that's a great point and a great lesson to learn. One follow-up question on that is, what are your thoughts as to... This is something I've put thought into because I agree fundamentally with what you just said and with the message that you just shared. What are your thoughts, though, on the types of mistakes that...

And this is a personal thing. People respond to this differently. I don't know if there's a universal answer, but what types of mistakes are you... Okay, chances are you would like to make no mistakes. We all would like to make no mistakes. Sure, yes, I do. Life would be easier.

Sure, we'll take it, right? It might be a little bit less interesting because mistakes give us some excitement. No, I'm fine. Exactly. Don't give me the straight success. Thank you. Yeah.

Maybe one day if I just get bored of that, I'll go back to the other thing. However, what types of mistakes do you feel are, maybe you could say, acceptable to you personally to make? Or what types of mistakes tend to be more productive? And just to give you an example to understand what I'm getting at is in my own work, a mistake that I really try not to make is I don't want to fail at something. It doesn't mean I'm going to give up, but I don't want to experience failure because I didn't work as hard as I feel like I should have. Right. That's, that's, that's an example of. That's a painful regret to know that you had more in you that if it, and then it eats at you of, I wonder what would have happened if I tried

harder. Right. And, and for whatever reason, I don't tend to be, my mind just doesn't tend to be wired that way. But yes, I mean, that is 100% true. And I just don't think it's an appropriate way to fail. I just don't think it's appropriate to fail for lack of effort, right? And so in my own business adventures, I've been perfectly okay with failing at things when I look at what I did. Did I work? Did I put in an appropriate amount of effort? Yes. Did I put in an appropriate amount of thought in terms of how to direct that effort? Did I come up with what I thought was a good plan that at least had fair chances of success? Yes. You know what I mean? So those types of mistakes, I also find those to be more productive and I can learn more from them because they're not as maybe silly as, oh, well, I just didn't really work at it.

So no wonder it didn't work out. You know what I mean? Does that make any sense to you? Yeah, I think when it comes to, there's different kinds of mistakes, right? There's different flavors. there's different kinds of mistakes, right? And there's different flavors.

You know, I'll even go as far as to say there's even, you know, mistakes of integrity are a lot more painful than, you know, the worst thing is not just to fail. It's to fail and know you did it in a fucked up way. Yeah.

This wasn't true to you or just unethical. You just compromised your own, what you felt is right, right? Yeah. And then there's other kinds of mistakes too. There's mistakes, like you just said right now, there's mistakes that aren't true to yourself. I know a lot of people who have dreams in life, want to you know play it safe and do the safe thing like at a job at a let's say an accounting firm and then an economy you know a bad economy comes in the firm lays everyone off and there goes their safe job so now they're out of both the safe

job and their dream so i think there's different kinds of mistakes. And then there's mistakes that are valuable. You know, mistakes like, dude, I made tons of mistakes. Like the Zuckerberg mistake was a huge mistake. The Warren Buffett, huge mistake. Taking a boat out to the south of France to try to track down Steven Spielberg's yacht. Huge mistake. That one boat out to the south of France to try to track down Steven Spielberg's yacht. Huge mistake. That one sounds deadly, actually, because I'm sure you have security.

You would be surprised. Actually, that's the end of the story. The security had some guns, bro. Oh, yes, they did. That's a story for another time. But those are the mistakes that, yes, they burned at the don't, did not enjoy making them. They were just as painful, but in hindsight, they're almost, uh, they make you feel good because you fucking know you at least try for what you cared about.

Yep. Um, and the same is true. And you know, in love and romance, you're going to make mistakes either way, but are you making mistakes chasing after a partner that makes you look good to others and you'll probably make mistakes there too or are you going after the person that really makes your heart feel warm

even if it doesn't give you the external validation that you crave. The likes. The Instagram likes. Right, the Instagram. Dude, we live in a... I think about this a lot, particularly the past two or three years. There are things going on. Because this is the thing about studying success. Most things when you study success actually are true just as much now as they were a hundred years ago.

You know, persistence just as important now as it was a hundred years ago. You know, all these things, you know, just as true. But there are some things that are happening now that have never happened in human history. There are some phenomenons that are happening now that have never happened in human history. And that I'm becoming a bit obsessed with studying, which is there are some effects that are happening to our generation in particular when it comes to achieving their goals

and achieving a life of serenity and happiness and fulfillment. There are new variables that have entered the game it sounds like is this is this going to be another book is this the beginning of a book project well uh we'll see we'll see i don't i don't know i don't know what but i do know though i just talk about every fucking dinner i go to right now and everyone nods their head which is social media has changed in the past five years from being a way you you know connect and share and learn things to being full-out addictions

um it's much more similar to the effects of alcohol than it is to the effects of like being burnt out at work you know way people treat TikTok and Instagram scrolling is much more similar to the way an alcoholic treats alcohol at the bar, which is you know it's not good for you. An alcoholic isn't dumb. They know they end up passed out on the floor, but they can't stop. You know that when you are scrolling Instagram and you are someone with body image issues

you probably are going to feel worse about yourself at the end of that one hour scroll but why do we keep doing it i mean it uh it's partly because many, many brilliant people have spent a lot of their time figuring out how to get us to want to do and return day after day i mean not day after day hour after hour uh for more of something that is bad for us yeah it's just bad yeah and and they know they know it's bad for us we know it's bad for us just like fucking the beer companies know it's bad for us the the jewel companies the e-cigarette companies they know it's bad for us the the jewel companies the e-cigarette companies they know it's bad for us and the consumers no one's no one's dumb you know maybe it's a bit more obvious that cigarettes cause lung cancer than it is that instagram and tiktok cause depression you know i still think our society has more work to do to but i just thought i literally saw yesterday it was it was just it was disgusting

50 increase in just one year in suicide attempts amongst teenage girls 50 increase and that's not even keeping to account that it's the highest teenage suicide rate in american history so um you don't hear much about that though no it's just like it's it's not you hear about a friend of mine jeff or lost yeah you know the social dilemma did a good job of like taking a hammer and cracking this glass uh but the glass is so fucking big and that was also that was also a movie too so it could be like oh that was that was a fun story right i i was just at dinner with someone last week and i told them hey you should watch the social dilemma they said i know all about it no interest in watching i said what

they said because i know it's going to make me feel bad about myself. And I just love that. It's like the equivalent of someone saying, like, I'm not going to watch the smoking cigarettes gives you lung cancer commercial because it's going to make you realize how you're smoking. It just makes me feel bad. And if I feel good, I think everything will work out. That reminds me of a buddy of mine. So I met him in a gym I was going to. And long story short is he was overweight and he wanted to know how to lose weight. And I'm pretty fit. And so he just came up to me in the gym and said, hey, you're like the fittest guy in this place.

It was an equinox in D.C. So that wasn't necessarily that, that, uh, high of a, of a bar to get over, but, but I stay, I stay in, in good shape. Right. So, um, so, so he's like, just tell me, I want to lose 30 pounds. Can you just tell me very simply what I should do? And, um, so he probably weighed two 30 And I said, yeah, sure. Eat, go online, figure out, let's call it, you know, anywhere from 2000 to maybe 2300 calories per day and maybe 180 grams of protein. I'll let you figure out carbs and fat. Doesn't really matter.

Just go online, look at the foods you like to eat, put together a real simple plan for yourself of stuff you like to eat and just figure out how to get your calories around there and your protein around there. And if you do that, I promise you, cause he was in the gym five days a week, he was working. So I was like, you do that. And I promise you, you will lose weight. Right. And he thought that was funny because up until then he had that's that that was what he did not want to hear he had tried fad diet after fad diet and fad exercise routine after fat and it didn't a little bit up a little bit down here he is though still 30 pounds plus overweight and and uh we ended up becoming friends and he's a he's an interesting guy he's a smart guy, well-educated. At that time, he said, it's funny because Carl

Jung spoke about, he had this thing, in filth it will be found. And that basically the things that really matter that are really going to change you are the things you least want to look at. And he was like, that's the dietary filth that I did not want to look at. But I'm going to do it. I'm going to take your word and I'm going to, I'll go online tonight and I'm going to start paying attention to my calories and my protein. And, uh, 15 pounds later, you know, he was laughing saying, well, uh, I guess I learned the lesson because it really is this easy, isn't it? Yeah. His name's Josh. It is this easy. That's it.'s it you just keep going yeah if there's one thing i've learned over the past 10 years of sending success is that you can

give someone all the best tools and tactics in the world and their life can still be stuck but if you change what someone believes it's possible they'll never be the same and you essentially just in that moment sort of change what people believe is possible and like look it's this easy you just have to do it. Well, we could probably go on and on. This has been a great discussion. Why don't we wrap up? Obviously people have heard the title of the book, which is The Third Door. If they want to follow you on social media, if they want to scroll on your page and like everything, or if you want to share where they can find you or if you prefer to share something else, where can they find you if they want to learn no that's great yeah no as you said

you know the book is wherever people like to buy books whether that's you know audiobooks right i read the audiobook uh on audible or you know physical books with amazon or parts noble and if you ended up listening to the podcast and got the book because of it you know let me know you know instagram is at alex you know, Instagram is at Alex, but I in Twitter's at Alex, but I, um, and dude, I just want to say thank you to you. Uh, this has been so fun. And this conversation went places I did not expect. Uh, so that was very enjoyable.

Yeah. I enjoyed it as well. And again, thank you for your time. And maybe we can figure out, uh, another discussion to have after this one is out. I would love that. it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your

thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.