The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Secrets Of The Worlds Most Successful People Ft. Alex Banayan, Author Of The Third Door
Episode Date: July 27, 2023#593: Today we're sitting down with Alex Banayan, author of "The Third Door" and the youngest bestselling author in US History. Banayan hacked The Price is Right, won a sailboat, sold it, and used the... money to fund his quest to learn from the world’s most innovative leaders. Over the course of his unprecedented journey, Banayan interviewed Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, Larry King, Maya Angelou, Steve Wozniak, Jane Goodall, Jessica Alba, Quincy Jones, and more. Alex joins us to talk about his experience learning from the world's most successful people, the mistakes he made along the way & the one thing that every successful person has in common. He also gets into his stories: how he chased down Steven Spielburg in Italy, his unsuccessful experience with Warren Buffet, his rejections and his successful interviews. Finally we get into what he's learned after 12 years of studying success, and the common denominator of both successful and unsuccessful people. To connect with Alex Banayan click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Harmless Harvest Replenish your electrolytes and keep yourself cool so you can avoid losing yours. Go to HarmlessHarvest.com and use code SKINNY for 20% off your first order. This episode is brought to you by Just Thrive Pair the award-winning, gut nourishing Just Thrive Probiotic with the stress-busting, mood uplifting power of Just Calm. Use code SKINNY90 at justthrivehealth.com to get 20% off a 90 day bottle of Just Thrive probiotic + Just Calm. This episode is brought to you by Pillsbury Whip up a delicious, kid-pleasing dinner that's as easy as FIll, Roll, & Bake. Find more weeknight dinner recipes at Pillsbury.com This episode is brought to you by the Clean Simple Eats Clean Simple Eats protein powder is non-GMO, gluten-free, 3rd party tested, always grass-fed and made with zero artificial ingredients. You can get 20% off your first order by using code SKINNY at checkout at cleansimpleeats.com This episode is brought to you by eBay Ensure your next purchase is the real deal with eBay Authenticity Guarantee. Everyone deserves real. Visit ebay.com for terms. This episode is brought to you by Vegamour With Vegamour, you're able to have visibly thicker, fuller, shinier, longer hair, all without the harsh ingredients. Vegamour's products are 100% cruelty free and not formulated with any harsh chemicals. Visit vegamour.com/skinny and use code SKINNY at checkout to get 20% off your first order. Produced by Dear Media
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The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.
Fantastic.
And he's a serial entrepreneur.
A very smart cookie.
And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride.
Get ready for some major realness.
Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.
Aha! I lived in this fantasy of if I just work hard enough, eventually I'll hit the tipping point.
And most of my frustration, pain, and agony on this journey came from not accepting life on life's terms.
I was waiting for this magical tipping point where everything would just get easy.
I was banging my head against the wall wondering how come things, even after the Bill Gates interview, Oprah said no, Michael Jordan
said no, Steven Spielberg said no, three times after I went to France and tracked him down on
his yacht in the French Riviera. What I didn't understand is the difference about persistence
and over persistence is that persistence is not about knocking on one door a hundred times. It's about knocking on a hundred different doors.
Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. That clip
was from our guest of the show today, Alex Benayan, who is the author of The Third Door.
He is one of the youngest bestselling authors in US history, and he also hacked the prices,
right? That's correct. This is one of the wilder
stories we've heard on the show. He's got a lot to offer on this episode. We're mostly diving into
his book, The Third Door, and why he even decided to go and hack The Price is Right. So on this
episode, you'll learn about The Third Door, what he got from interviewing the world's most successful
people, including Larry King, Lady Gaga, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Warren Buffett, and many more.
We talk about the concept of over persistence if there is such a thing. And we also talk about the importance of resourcefulness. So this is really an episode all about perseverance, resourcefulness,
success. And to end it, we talk about the common denominator of successful people. So for anybody
that wants to level up, this is an episode for you. It's an incredible story. It's crazy. It's
got everything we love in a Skinny Confidential Him and Her podcast episode.
So strap in, buckle up. Alex Benayan, welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her show.
This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her.
You hacked the price is right.
What does that even mean?
What does that even mean? Walk us through that. It was less Albert Einstein and much more
Forrest Gump. When I was 18 years old, I had this dream to go on this quest to go interview the
people I dreamed of learning from. The only problem was I didn't have money to go on this dream.
Flying around the country, I figured, would take money. Money I didn't have. I was buried in student
loan debt. I was all out of bar mitzvah 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. Cramming. I'm on Facebook. Oh, okay. You're the smart student. I'm the one
who's procrastinating. You were at a kegger. You'd be the first person. I never even went to the library you were in my text message i figured that's what people do in
the library because i never went but um but we keep going no we're all we're all just scrolling
facebook at that time so i'm on facebook you know the night before final exams and i see somebody
offering free tickets to the game show the price is right and i was going to school in los angeles
not too far from where the show films.
And my first thought was, what if I go on the show and win some money to fund this book?
Not my brightest moment because I'd never seen a full episode of the show before. I'd seen bits
of pieces when I was homesick from school, but I'd never seen a full episode before.
Plus, I had finals in two days. So I told myself it was a dumb idea and to not think about it. But I don't know if you guys have ever had one
of those moments where no matter how ridiculous an idea, for some reason, it keeps clawing itself
back into your mind. And I remember sitting there and deciding to do the logical thing and pull an
all-nighter to study. But I didn't study for finals. I studied how to hack the prices right.
So again, similar to you,
I've seen the show on and off,
but I've never sat down.
How does one go about thinking about hacking the prices right?
All right, so this is what I did.
I didn't know how the show,
I'd seen bits and pieces,
but I hadn't seen a full episode before.
So the first thing I did,
I remember at that time I was 18,
I just finished reading a book called The 4-Hour Work by Tim Ferriss. And they talk about the 80-20 principle
in there. So I remember thinking, okay, what's the 20% of things I can study tonight that will
give me 80% of the results? And I realized with the game show The Price is Right, there are 300
people in the audience, but eight get called down.
So the hard part of the show isn't being one of the winners of the eight.
It's actually being one of the eight out of the 300.
The odds are way harder just to be called from the audience.
So I pull my all-nighter researching how to get selected on the show from the audience.
And what I found out, you know, I pulled an all-nighter.
I was on like the 23rd O of Google.
And I found out the price is right is not what it seems.
They make it look like they're like, Michael, come on down, as if they pull your name out
of a hat.
But what I learned in my research is there's a producer who interviews everyone in the
audience before the show begins.
And then on top of that, big secret I found out is there's also undercover producers
planted in the audience who then confirm or deny the original producer's selections.
So like many things in life, they make it look like random luck, but there's a system to it.
So, you know, I show up the next morning, you know, I'm wearing this like
big puffy jacket, a bright red shirt, you know, neon yellow sunglasses. I look like a chubby
toucan and I get to this Price is Right Studios. It's in CBS, right next to the Dear Media
offices actually in LA. And I show up to the studio and I realize I have no idea who the
undercover producer is. So I'm just going to assume everyone is. So I'm flirting with the
custodians. I'm dancing with the security guards. I'm breakdancing on the floor and I don't know how
to breakdance. Just doing anything to stand out. Just whatever I can,
because I realized it's not a 10 second interview. It's a four hour interview. They make you wait
outside for four hours and they're watching you the whole time. But finally you stand in this line
and eventually I found the guy, Stan, the casting producer. How did you know it was the guy?
So I had done, you know, I just did every Google search I could about who's the casting
producer, the Price is Right.
And I, by that point, knew where Stan grew up, where he went to college.
I pretty much knew like what he ate for breakfast that morning.
And I knew he had a clipboard, but it's never in his hands.
So he has an assistant who sits about 20 feet away from him.
And if Stan likes you, he asks you a few questions.
And if he really likes you, he'll turn around,
wink to his assistant, and she'll write your name on the clipboard.
So if the price is right as a nightclub, Stan's the bouncer.
And if you're not on his list, you don't get in.
So sure enough, he's in front of me.
And he's like, what's your name?
Where are you from?
What do you do?
And I'm like, hi, I'm Alex.
I'm 18.
I'm pre-med at USC.
And he goes, oh, a pre-med,
you must be really busy studying. How do you have time to watch The Price is Right?
And I was like, oh, is that where I am? It was a really bad joke. It didn't land.
And I could see him getting ready to move on to the next person.
So I'd read in one of these business books I had read recently that
human contact speeds up a relationship. So I had an idea.
I needed to touch Stan. But the only problem is he's like 20 feet away. So I'm like, Stan,
come over here. I want to make a handshake with you. So he's a bit reluctant. I like, you know,
beg him to come over. So he comes over. I teach him how to pound and blow it up. And he laughs a
little. And then he wishes me good luck and walks away. Doesn't look at his
assistant. She doesn't write anything on the clipboard. And just like that, it's over.
And I don't know if you've been in one of those moments where it feels like everything you want
is slipping right away from you, almost like sand going through your fingers. And the worst part is I felt I didn't even had a chance to really prove myself.
So as he's walking away uncontrollably, I started yelling at the top of my lungs,
you know, Stan! And you know, like the echo is like going off the walls and the whole audience
turns their head around thinking I'm having like a seizure or something. And he runs over. He's like, are you okay? Are you okay? What's going on?
And I had no idea what I was going to say next. All I knew he's right in front of me. So I'm just
like looking at him, looking at him. And he's very like typical Hollywood wearing like, you know,
a turtleneck and a red scarf, even though it's like 70 degrees outside. And I'm like,
your scarf. And now I really don't know what I'm going to say next. And I just look at him with all the seriousness I can.
And I'm like, Stan, I'm an avid scarf collector.
I have 360 pairs in my dorm room and I'm missing that pair.
You know, where did you get it from?
And he starts cracking up because I think he finally realized what I was trying to do.
And he gave me a scarf.
He's like, look, you need this more than I do.
And he turned around, winked, and his assistant put my name on the clipboard.
So you think that he knew that you were trying to get on the show?
It's impossible to tell, but it was a very knowing laugh.
So you can't tell as an outsider that he is a producer.
You thought he was just like a person in the audience.
So Stan is the main producer, and he's very clear.
He's going around and interviewing everyone.
But what happened next is about five or ten minutes later,
I saw this young woman walking throughout the audience line.
And I saw she had a badge sticking out of her back pocket that was sort of like tucked away.
And I saw she would look at everyone's name tag and sort of like make mental notes. So I just
sort of, you know, I was 18 at the time. I was like blowing her kisses and dancing and she started
laughing and I was dancing more. And she took a sheet of paper out of her pocket and made another
mark. And, you know, at that point you would think that was undercover more. And she took a sheet of paper out of her pocket and made another mark.
And at that point, you would think that was undercover producer.
So I'm on top of the world.
I finally got on the list.
But it was right then that I realized I had spent my entire all-nighter realizing and studying how to get on the show.
I still didn't know how to play.
But I thought, how hard could that be?
So I took out my phone and I googled
how to play The Price is Right.
And about 30 seconds later,
security taps on my shoulder and takes my phone
away. So now
I'm, you know, completely
useless at this point. Were you not allowed
to use your phone or were they looking
at what you were googling? They were
taking away everyone's phone before they
enter the studio, which makes sense in hindsight.
They don't want people filming.
Yeah.
So I literally,
I'm sitting on this bench
sulking next to this old lady
and she sort of looks at me
and she's like,
honey, what's wrong?
And I sort of tell her my problem.
I have this big dream.
I have finals tomorrow.
I didn't study for finals.
I'm here
and now I don't know how to play.
She's like,
you remind me of my grandson
and sort of like pinches my cheek and I ask her, do you have any advice on the show? And she's
like, honey, I've been watching this show for 30 years. And she gives me like 30 years of wisdom
in five minutes. And this light bulb goes off. I give her a big hug. And I start jumping around
the audience, asking everyone if they have any advice for the show. I'm like, hey, I'm Alex.
I'm 18. I've never seen the show before. Do you have any advice? And I end up crowdsourcing about half the wisdom of
the audience over the next 30 minutes. And then finally, the doors to the studio open.
And you step in there and the place smells like the 1970s.
The chairs are the same.
The ghost of Bob Barker.
Exactly. There's disco lights. Bob Barker was long gone by the time he went on the race. Yes. This was Drew Carey at this point. People were like, who The ghost of Bob Barker. Exactly. There's like disco lights.
Bob Barker was long gone by the time he went on the race.
Yes, this is Drew Carey at this point.
Yeah, people are like, who the hell is Bob Barker?
No, I wish it was Bob Barker.
So I get in there and sure enough, you sit down on the chair and it's time.
And you hear the famous voice, live from CBS studio in Hollywood, it's The Price is Right.
And they call down the first person and it's not me.
And they call down the second person, it's not me. And the third person, it's not me. But the fourth,
I feel it coming. So I literally get out of my chair and it's also not me. So I pretty much
sulk in my chair thinking maybe it just wasn't meant to be. But as you know, with the Price is
Right, after someone wins the opening round, there's now space for a fifth contestant. And that's when I hear, you know, Alex Benayan, come on down. And I lose my shit. You know, you cannot be cool and calm
when you're walking down to the prices, right? I'm hugging strangers. I'm dancing. And I get there
and they're like a new billiards table. And I'm an 18 year old in college. I don't even know how
much milk costs. So I'm like $600. And600. And the audience laughs at me because they know I have no idea what I'm saying.
And of course, I was way under, so I lose that round. And then the next round, a leather chair
and ottoman. I didn't know what ottoman meant. So again, I'm like, $300. And it was such a horrible
bid. And the audience laughed so loud that all the other contestants bid so high.
And if you know the show,
if you bid over, you're out.
So I won by default.
So I'm jumping up and down.
I run onto the stage.
I'm so excited.
And now the host drew carries
like it's time for your bonus round.
And they open the big doors
and there's a giant hot tub, you know, waterfalls,
LED lights, 12 jets. And all I can think is if I win this hot tub, I am the king of college.
So, you know, all the pressure's on. And I think I guess like $2,000 or turned out to be,
you know, $8,000. So I lose the hot tub. What were you planning to do with the hot tub?
I didn't even have room for a suitcase in my dorm room.
So I don't think my long-term thinking was very much developed.
But sure enough, you know, I think I'm done with the show.
And they say, we'll be right back with Alex with the wheel.
And during the commercial break, I asked, excuse me, you know, what's the wheel? And they're like, what's the wheel? Do you guys know the show well? Sure, I know the wheel. And during the commercial break, I asked, excuse me,
you know, what's the wheel?
And they're like, what's the wheel?
Do you guys know the show well?
Sure, I know the wheel.
I know the wheel,
but I don't know how to play the show.
So I'm learning as you're telling.
You and I are in the same place.
Yeah.
So Michael, you know how the wheel works.
Yeah, you spin it.
And well, I know that,
I know you spin it
and then there's one
that's like a million dollars.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Or it's like a hundred,
but you get extra bonus money on it. And can you spin it more than once? Yes. It's like blackjack like a million dollars. Exactly. Yeah. Or it's like a hundred, but you get extra bonus money on it.
And can you spend it more than once?
Yes. It's like blackjack.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay.
So sure enough, that was the explanation I got. It's like this giant slot machine. It's like
20 feet tall and has lights and glitter on it. And sure enough, after commercial break,
the three contestants go and spin the wheel and the first lady spins and, you know, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
80.
And the audience goes nuts
because everyone knows that's an insane spin.
And then it's my turn and I give it a spin.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
85.
And the audience loses their shit
because they know I have no idea what's going on.
So I end up moving to the winner's circle.
I'm freaking out.
And then the final woman goes, gives it a spin. She spins over 100. She's out. And I start
freaking out because I think I just won the whole show. And then Drew Carey says, we'll be right
back with the second half of The Price is Right. Don't go away. And sure enough, I get sent to the
side and I watch the second half of the show go by.
And I find out who's going up against me in the final round. And her name is Tanisha. And she blasted through the second half of the Price is Right as if she had been walking through Costco
her whole life studying price tags. She won the opening round. She won the bonus round. And on
the wheel, she spun a perfect 100.
This was like David going up against Goliath and David forgot the slingshot.
So now it's the commercial break before the final round of the show.
I believe in karma to a degree. So I put out my hand and I say, good luck. And she looks me up and down and goes, yeah, you'll need it. So the whole audience is like, oh shit. So now it's like really heated on the stage of The Price is Right.
It hit me right then
that she was right.
I got a bunch of advice
before the show began,
but no one gave me advice
on how the final round worked
because who would have thought
I'd make it that far.
Right.
So now I realize I have no idea
how to even play the final round.
There's a minute before it begins
and I just am freaking out.
And I look at the host, Drew Carey, and I just throw my arms up.
And I'm like, Drew, I loved you on Whose Line Is It Anyway?
That is a great show.
I was like my whole childhood watching that show on Friday nights.
I give him this big hug.
He like awkwardly like pats me on the back and he goes, you know, what do you need?
I'm like, so how does this showroom showdown work?
And he goes, first of all,
it's called the showcase showdown. So like, clearly I didn't even know what it was called.
And he ended up giving me some great advice. And a minute later, there I am standing behind this
podium and there's, you know, six blinding white lights in your eyes. There's, you know,
seven machine gun size cameras pointed at your face. You know, I'm sweating. Tanisha's dancing.
And now it's time for the final round.
And I didn't know that you have to listen very carefully to the announcer and they don't
give you an ear set.
So you sort of have to hear it over the cheers of the audience.
So this is what I hear.
You know, Alex, your first prize is a trip to Magic Mountain theme park, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. And I didn't hear the details. And you have to add up the prices of all the prizes.
And I thought, I grew up in LA. I know how much a theme park costs. It's like 50 bucks with a
can of Coke. I know how that works. So in my head, I think 50 bucks. What I didn't hear is that it
was a trip in a limo, VIP, all-you-can-eat food for six people.
But I'm thinking $50 easy, next.
And they're like, your next prize is a trip to Florida, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'm a freshman in college.
I don't know how much a flight costs.
I never booked my own flight before.
So I thought, how much does that cost?
Like $200?
What I didn't hear is that it was first class tickets, rental car, hotel
for two people. So I'm thinking, okay, 200 bucks, easy, next. While you're in Florida,
a trip into zero gravity, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm thinking this must be another theme
park. So I assume another $50. What I didn't hear is that this is how NASA trains
their astronauts.
I would find out later
that every
15 minutes in zero gravity
is about $5,000.
But I'm thinking $50
and I'm feeling really confident.
I'm really on one right now.
So I'm like, okay,
$50 plus $200 plus $50.
Like I'm feeling really good right now.
And they go,
your grand prize and the big doors open really good right now. And they go, your grand prize.
And the big doors open.
A new sailboat.
And you know, of course, I'm really excited.
But, you know, from where I'm standing across the stage, it looks really small.
Sort of looks like a dinghy.
And I'm thinking, how much does a dinghy cost?
I'm thinking maybe $4,000.
Was it just a model?
No, it was the actual sail but i would win okay so i'm thinking i don't know maybe four four thousand
five thousand i don't know how much the dinghy costs what i didn't hear is this was a catalina
mark ii sailboat with a trailer and a cabin inside so i'm thinking okay you know and if there was
ever a time to like listen to your, it felt like it was then.
This is what Oprah talks about.
You can't listen to the voice.
So sure enough, the audience is cheering and I'm just trying to hear the voice and I just,
one number feels right.
So I literally grabbed the mic and I go, $6,000.
Dead silence.
It's as if somebody had passed away on the stage. And I was very confused because the
audience knew me by that point. They had been cheering for me the whole time. So I'm looking
at them really confused. And then I realized the host, Drew Carey, is supposed to say,
we're locking in that answer, but he's not saying anything either. And I look over at Drew Carey,
and he's looking at me like, and it finally hits me. So I grabbed the mic and I go, just kidding?
And everybody starts cheering and laughing.
And he goes, oh, college students these days always joking around.
What's your real answer?
And I'm thinking, fuck, that was my real answer.
So I just turned to the audience and I start like pounding on the podium saying, I need
your help. And like a miracle,
they start chanting the same number. But is that allowed? Yeah, you're allowed to talk to the
audience. But they sort of like came together and started chanting the same number, which is very
rare. But it was a mob, so it's hard to hear it clearly. But I could hear the TH sound and
the producers are trying to cut me off because I'm taking way too much time.
So I hear the TH sound. So I go, Drew, I'm going with the audience on this, $3,000.
And he grabs the microphone and literally goes, you know, there's a difference between $3,000
and $30,000, right? And I'm like, oh yeah, just getting $30,000. And he goes, great,
we're locking it in, $30,000, moving on. Tanisha looks at me like she's going up against someone
in preschool at this point. So now it's Tanisha's turn. She gets a car and an ATV and a vacation,
and she guesses, I think, $35,000. And now it's time to reveal the winner tanisha you guessed thirty five thousand
dollars retail price thirty six thousand four hundred and tanisha jumps up puts her arms to
the ceiling thanking god she just won the prices right essentially in her head and i agree with
her i'm you know they're like alex you guessed thirty thousand and i thinking, okay, I have to go back to finals, go to the library.
I have two hours for bio tonight, three hours for chemistry.
I'm just doing crisis management in my head at this point.
I've already moved on.
You guessed $30,000, retail price, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I see the audience just losing it.
And I look at the producers and they're telling me, smile.
What are we talking
about? And then I see my podium is flashing. So I literally turn around to check it.
I had guessed $30,000. The retail price was $31,200. I beat Tanisha by $200. And my face
literally goes from this to jumping up and down, like dancing on the
sailboat, like hugging the supermodel. I'm like, oh my God. And I end up getting the sailboat,
selling the sailboat. And that's how I funded the book. So the in-between for a minute,
when you win, what happens right after you win? Do they just hand, they're like,
take this sailboat. We'll ship it to wherever you are. The first thing they actually,
I've never told this is they make you sign a release that you'll never come back onto the show for the next 10 years.
Okay.
Wait, has it been 10 years?
It has been 10 years.
You need to get back on.
Sounds like we're doing a field trip, guys.
Yeah, you need to go back on.
The funny thing is I actually have gone on a second game show right before the book came out
because I needed some extra money for the book launch.
And I just copy-pasted the Price is Right strategy to see if it worked. And me and my
two best friends went. And four hours later, I walked away with a brand new car.
Oh my God. What game show was that?
That was called Winsanity on the Game Show Network. And I'd never heard of the show before.
I just found tickets the next morning. And I used the same strategy and ended up...
I feel like a lot of people are going to start trying to get on these game shows.
I'm a big believer of not going to the bank for a loan and going to a
game show and using this strategy. I mean, I've trained three friends and all of them have made
it onto the final round. Wow. So, so wait, so when you win, they make you sign a contract that
says you'll never come back. And then how quickly do they send you the sailboat are you celebrating with them after what
does it look like afterwards so they and it reality hit me very quickly i said okay i cannot
fit a billiard table in this dorm room i can't fit a leather chair in ottoman either did you get the
hot tub too i lost the hot tub so i didn't get that but i got the trip to florida i took my mom
that's cute um i went into the zero gravity which was fun I took my mom. That's cute. I went on to the Zero Gravity, which was fun.
I took my cousins to Six Flags, which was fun.
But with the sailboat, that was the big one.
I got a call from a boat dealer saying,
okay, where would you like us to deliver your sailboat to?
And I'm thinking like,
there's not even enough room on the bike racks at my college.
Like where are we going to put a sailboat?
So, and I knew the reason I was going on the show
is I wanted money to fund this dream to go
interview the world's most successful people for the book. So I just told the guy on the phone,
I said, look, you're a boat dealer, right? He's like, yes. I'm like, so you sell boats to other
people? He's like, yes. I'm like, how about you just pocket a couple thousand bucks, keep the
boat and just send me a check? And he's like, done. So I got a check in the mail the next week and I pretty much sold it to the person
who was giving it to me.
Oh my God.
And I used that money.
I think it was like-
Do you get like a full,
did you get like what, 25,000 or 20,000 bucks?
I think for the sailboat,
I ended up selling it at like 17,000.
I got 17,000 in cash,
which for a college student is a million dollars.
Oh my God.
You know, I'm taking all my friends out
to lunch at Chipotle, you know,
free guacamole for everybody. You know, I was a real baller out to lunch at Chipotle, you know, free guacamole for everybody.
You know,
I was a real baller
at that point.
Did this boat dealer hose you
or he did right by you?
In hindsight,
I probably could have negotiated
and asked like,
can you do better?
I said,
what's the best you,
I said,
what can you do?
He said,
17,000.
Good.
This guy's talking in the,
but again,
like I,
I think the most money
I'd ever had in my life
was like my bar mitzvah cash,
which was like a couple thousand dollars.
So 17,000 was like, made it. I thought I needed like a wealth manager. Like I was in a really
good place in life. Cause again, I'm like buying Spirit Airlines, Chipotle is my fancy dinner.
So I was like, this is going to last me a long time. And it did last me a long time.
And that's how I ended up going and traveling and tracking down all these people,
literally using Price is Right money.
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I am all about interactive things to do with Saza. So I'm always baking with her or cooking with her or giving her little tasks or chores.
And I found a hack that is incredible.
It is the Pillsbury Crescent Rolls.
So what I like about these is you can add anything.
You could make whatever you want.
You could make, I don't know, pancake crescent rolls. You could do chicken bacon ranch crescent rolls. You could make whatever you want. You could make, I don't know, pancake crescent rolls.
You could do chicken bacon ranch crescent rolls. You could do ham and cheese. You could do pepperoni
pizza. You could make them sweet. You could stuff them with berries. So what I do is I have her add
all the stuff and then we bake them. It's so simple and it's just so cute if you're looking
for something to add to your weeknight dinner rotation. This is a way to get interactive with your kids. I also just find it really fun. You
can go to their website and there's like so many different simple ideas that you can do to fill
your Pillsbury Crescent Roll. And also for me, Pillsbury is just so nostalgic. I mean,
it brings up all the feels. If you want dinner prep in 30 minutes or less, you can find Pillsbury is just so nostalgic. I mean, it brings up all the feels. If you want dinner
prep in 30 minutes or less, you can find Pillsbury in the dairy aisle. The ones I like are the
Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. If you want dinner prep in 30 minutes or less, you can find Pillsbury in
the dairy aisle. And again, the ones I like are the Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. So cute for you and
your kids. So they're a fill, roll, and bake.
Find more weeknight dinner recipes at Pillsbury.com. That's Pillsbury.com.
So you had the idea for the book before you did The Price is Right. And once you get the money,
you decide that you're going to figure out how to uncover the most successful people and how they
launched their career. So how do you start? Who's the first person that you get and how do you get
them? So the way I came up with the list, and the context is important because I entered college as
a pre-med. And to understand why, you have to understand 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 stamped
doctor on my ass and sent me on my way. And to the point where I wore medical scrubs to school
for Halloween in third grade and thought I was cool. I was that kid growing up. And I understand
why I wasn't invited to parties or to play dates because I was literally, my nickname was the doctor as a kid. And when you're a little kid, whatever your parents and
grandparents applaud you for, you lean into whether you know it or not. And in high school,
I checked all the boxes. I took all the biology classes. I volunteered at a hospital. I even went
to pre-med summer camp. So by the time I got to college, I was the pre-med of pre-meds.
But very quickly, I found myself lying on this dorm room bed, looking at this towering stack of biology books, feeling like it was sucking the life out of me. And at first I assumed,
you know, maybe I'm just being lazy. But eventually I began to wonder, maybe I'm not on my path.
I think this happens to a lot of people, right?
Especially with people whose parents put that kind of pressure on them, right?
There's a lot of parents that do that.
Yeah.
And if you're lucky, I didn't feel lucky at the time, but you'll find yourself in bed
staring at the ceiling wondering, is this my path or is this a path somebody else placed
me on and I'm just rolling down?
So not only did I not know
what I wanted to do with my life,
I had no idea how the people who I looked up to,
how they did it.
You know, how did Bill Gates sell his first piece of software
out of his dorm room when nobody knew his name?
How did Spielberg become the youngest director
in Hollywood history without a single hit under his belt?
How did Lady Gaga get her first record?
These are things they don't teach you in school.
So I just assumed there had to be a book with the answers.
So I'm going to the library and ripping through business books and biographies and
assuming there had to be a book, not on a particular age in life, but really a stage.
You know, when you have a big dream and you have a big goal and 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? And that's where the idea of the book
came. And the way we came up with the list of the people to interview is, you know, I don't believe
in the Forbes 500. I don't think there's an algorithm for success. So I did the only thing I knew to do when I was in trouble. I would call my best friends
and we got together and brainstormed. And I asked them, if we could make
our dream university, who would it be? Our professors. And then it became really easy.
Okay. You know, Warren Buffett would teach us finance. Maya Angelou would teach poetry.
Jane Goodall would teach science. Pitbull would teach Latin American studies. We were just like goofball kids. But that's how we came up with the list. Spielberg would teach our film class.
Bill Gates would teach business. So we wrote down that list and that became the list for the journey
over the next seven years. Seven years.
It took two years to track down Bill Gates. It
took three years to track down Lady Gaga. When you say track down, first, let's just start with
your first person that you tracked down. Who's the first person that you were like, holy fuck?
And did you have to start, how do I say this, lower down the list? Meaning maybe you can get
to, listen, no shade Pitbull, maybe you can get to Pitbull easier than you can get to Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, or did you not have a run? No, I was such a knucklehead
that I started off like first, I've never talked about this. The first week I actually emailed
press at microsoft.com thinking, you know, Bill Gates loves, you know, has this whole charity of
helping people. Why wouldn't he want to help young people? Because you have to remember, this was right after the Great Recession.
This was what, 2009?
2010. So, you know, people were going to college spending $250,000 to get a math degree,
and then they were scooping ice cream across the street. So I knew very quickly when I entered
college, this system isn't what they promised in the brochures.
That still happens, but we're going back. That's the whole point.
It actually never went back.
Was it ever there? It was there, but
you're right, it never went back. No, but like
for longevity, was it ever there? For longevity,
I don't think so. I think there was a period
after the, you know, World War II where you
could go to college and get a job at IBM and stay
there for 50 years. As soon as the banks realized
that they could productize. And then like want to die.
You didn't get to do what you really wanted to do.
As soon as banks realize
they can productize.
They don't put that in the brochure.
No, they don't put that
in the brochure.
No, as soon as the banks realize
they can productize loans
and get people to sign up,
you know, very easily.
So, okay.
So, so go ahead.
You're emailing press.
So I'm, and it's,
it's a hundred percent no.
So I'm thinking, okay,
I need a different approach.
So I realized, okay,
I, what do I,
I know all the things I don't have going for me. I don't have connections. My parents are immigrants. They know the local carpet dealer down the street. We're not plugged in. But I thought,
okay, I live in a city and people must come for book tours events and things like that.
So I started out just going to events.
I didn't realize there's things called security.
And so again, I'm sort of like figuring this out.
And I realized my best chance was sort of to like pour my heart out to people.
One by one, every situation was different,
but they did all have a thing in common.
And one of the craziest interviews I got was,
the way I got it was about a couple years in,
and it was with Larry King.
And it's by far one of the most ridiculous of the stories.
Go for it.
That's a legit interview, especially since he's passed.
Yeah.
Rest in peace. The context of this was important,
because I had already spent, at this point now,
two years pretty much just getting
rejected over and over and over and over again. And you know, all entrepreneurs, you know, when
you're getting rejected for three months, it feels like there's a cloud above your head.
When you're rejected for six months straight, it feels like you're ready to cough up blood.
And I had been particularly at that time writing letters to Warren Buffett trying to get an
interview. And of course, the answer was always no. Side note, I heard that to interview him, you have to write the letter. Is that what you did?
That's what I did. Yeah, I hand wrote the letter. And he actually responded no or his team?
He hand wrote his response back to me, which I naively thought he must love me if he's handwriting
a response. That's a thing. If you do your research, as you know, on Warren Buffett, he actually reads his own mail.
So he hand wrote a response like, dear Alex, you know, it's beautiful what you're doing,
but I have too much on my plate right now to grant all requests, you know, wishing you
the best, Warren E. Buffett.
And I naively thought, if he is handwriting me a response back, I just got to keep at
it until he eventually relents, which was one of the biggest mistakes
I could make.
So I spent the next six months writing letters.
And eventually it gets to the point where I'm on the phone with Buffett's assistant
every week.
Every Wednesday morning, I'm calling Debbie saying, hey, has Mr. Buffett changed his mind?
And for some reason, that Wednesday morning I called her.
She's like, look, Alex, I can't keep taking these phone
calls from you. But how about as my guest, you come to our annual shareholders meeting?
And I was like, oh my God, I knew all about it. I was like, that's incredible. Thank you so much.
And she goes, look, you can even bring some friends. And I was like, wow, can I bring like
five friends? She's like, yes, I'll send you six tickets as my guest. And while I was on the phone, I said,
hey, Debbie, isn't it true that during the annual meeting,
there's a Q&A portion where people in the audience
get to ask questions to Mr. Buffett
during the meeting live?
She goes, Alex, Alex, Alex,
I know what you're trying to do, but it's not possible.
There's 30,000 people there
and only 30 get to ask questions and it's
a random lottery. I wouldn't get your hopes up. What Debbie didn't understand about me is I am
the king of hopes up. You know, there's one thing I learned from the Price is Right is, you know,
there's always a way. So sure enough, me and my boys who I grew up with, like my ride or die,
as we fly out to Omaha.
You know, we have no money. We're six of us staying in one room at the Motel 6.
We have my friend Andre sleeping on the floor. But again, no complaining. We're all in.
And we show up the next morning at 4 a.m. in front of the stadium so we can get in there.
And I can save this story for another time. But what's important to know is I ended up hacking Buffett's lottery. And out of 30,000 people, the odds are one in a thousand,
out of six of us, four got winning lottery tickets. Hold on, hold on. You got to give
us a little taste of that. Okay, I'll tell you this whole story and then we'll get into Larry.
What do you mean? Okay, so it was a real preposterous situation. So you have to visualize
this. We're in Omaha, Nebraska. It's blistering cold. So you have to visualize this.
You know, we're in Omaha, Nebraska.
It's blistering cold.
It's 4 a.m.
We're like right in the beginning of the line.
And about three hours later at 7 a.m.,
they opened the doors to the stadium for the annual meeting.
And for people who know finance, they know
the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting is like the Coachella of finance.
You know, it's Buffet-chella. People are going nuts. People
are spending the whole year thinking about this event because for a capitalist, it's like
the ultimate festival. So sure enough- Big Coca-Cola sponsorship there.
Big Coca-Cola sponsorship. And Warren Buffett is the most successful investor in American history. No one's come close. So people look up to him a lot.
So sure enough, me and my friends, we're 20, 21 years old. We're right in the front of the line.
The doors open at 7 a.m. And at that point, there's thousands of people already in the line,
all in suits and ties. And the second the doors open, it is a mad rush. People are pushing and
shoving and ties are flopping in the air and
their briefcases and they're like, pardon me, pardon me. It's a business casual running of
the bulls. And we get in there and me and my friends are fast. We're sliding down staircases,
jumping over railings, and we get right to the front and we get chairs right in the front row.
But we realize that, again, we had spent all this time just trying to get there.
We didn't know how the lottery worked.
So again, similar to the Price is Right, I just started running around the stadium talking to people asking for advice on how the lottery worked.
And sure enough, we found a loophole to Warren Buffett's lottery system.
And again, they say the odds are one in a thousand out of the six of us, four pulled
winning lottery tickets.
And did you guys have questions?
Like, did you have a specific question?
I had questions lined up for the past six months.
I was ready for this interview.
So I had no cards and I was like, okay, Andre, you're asking the question about the seize
candy acquisition.
You know, Kevin, you're asking about how to start your own fun.
You know, I was pretty much doing a
live book interview at Warren Buffett's annual meeting. But using your friends.
Correct. Because you usually get one. Okay. Correct. Everyone can only ask one question.
So I had each friend going up with a different question that I had researched. And I had read
every book I could on Buffett. Turns out Warren Buffett is a lot smarter than I had figured,
because he figured out exactly what we were doing. And by the time my
fourth friend went up to the microphone, he cut off the audience and said, you know, we're going
to end the meeting right here. Thank you all for coming. You guys all look the same. How does he
know that? Are you okay? You guys are all giving the same energy. You're in the same room in motel
six. You guys are all giving off each other's fair. We're all wearing our nicest white t-shirt
and our best pair of old jeans.
We're tucking in our shirts
and everyone else is in a 50-year-old
in a suit and tie. And we're asking,
everyone else is asking normal
questions about financial
things of that year. We're saying,
1967, when you
were opening your first...
I'm asking detailed questions about his
childhood and early career. And he caught on. And so what? And so did he actually end the meeting? He ended the meeting.
Again, who knows what was going on? Maybe he had to go to the bathroom. Who knows? But he ended
the meeting. He didn't even let my fourth friend ask the question. They cut off the audio right
then. So you got three questions. We got three questions, but he did not answer any of the three.
He sort of laughed them off and sidestepped all three.
And it was a giant train wreck to the point that it backfired in my face
more than I would know.
Also, if you did get the answers to the questions,
you have to have him sign off to be in a book, correct?
At that event,
it is public.
So you wouldn't need him.
And he's a public figure.
So as long as I, if you put his name on the book, you have to have him sign up.
But to just say, this is what he told me.
Okay.
And so why is this the biggest mistake?
Well, it got worse than I could have expected.
How?
So sure enough, as life happens, a couple months later through a completely different
avenue, I got the interview with Bill Gates confirmed.
They're a complete miracle on its own.
And they're like, they're close.
Exactly.
So Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are best friends.
So I go and do the interview with Bill Gates.
I fly up to Seattle.
I'm in Bill Gates's private office.
And we do the interview with Bill Gates. I fly up to Seattle. I'm in Bill Gates' private office. And we do the interview. And it ends up going so well that at the end, Bill Gates' chief of staff says,
Alex, we love your mission and we love what you're doing. How can we help? And let me tell you,
when Bill Gates' office says, how can we help? You take out a very long list and you hand it over.
And I handed them my whole interview list. And the guy looks at it and he's like, oh,
we can take care of all these next week. And it is like an entrepreneur's dream to have someone
essentially say, we'll wave the magic wand. And he's like, oh, Warren, we'll take care of that
one tomorrow, but the rest will probably take about a week. And I'm like about to cry from
happiness. I'll never know exactly what happened. But a week later, I get an email from Bill Gates'
office saying,
Dear Alex, please no more contact to Warren's office.
Thank you.
Oh, you creeped him out.
To say the least.
I found out not only was the answer no, I had got myself blacklisted.
Maybe he thought you were like stalking him.
I'll never know what happened, but I will always remember the pain I felt in that moment
where I realized there is a such thing as the dangers of over
persistence. Right. It's almost you were. I appreciate the hustle. Personally, I appreciate
the hustle and I get it. But like what you're saying is you also like if you would have toned
it down a bit, you would have probably got it through the Bill Gates. For sure. So in retrospect, the learning lesson was that you felt like
you should have toned it down.
By a long shot.
What I didn't understand,
I had read all these business books
that said persistence is the key to success.
You know, every book.
Gary V.
Everyone says it.
Persistence is the key to success.
Persistence is the key to success.
And when you are a knucklehead 21-year-old like I was,
you take it really literally. So I thought if I just persisted long enough, I'll win.
What I didn't understand is the difference about persistence and over-persistence is that the
secret to persistence is that persistence is not about knocking on one door a hundred times.
It's about knocking on a hundred different doors. A hundred percent.
That's a really smart thing, what you just said.
That's a very eloquent, eloquent, eloquent way to put it.
That is.
No, it is.
I mean, you're exactly right.
It's not over and over and over and over and over.
It's a hundred different doors.
It's the same thing.
I know this is going to be a weird analogy, but in the dating world,
if you're a
single guy you're out you know if you hit on the same woman a hundred times in a row and she said
no a hundred times like you know someone's calling the cops right right rightfully so right but if
you hit i have called the cops on you maybe upper debate but yeah to the point like if you're out
and you hit on a hundred different women odds are a couple of them will say yes.
Yeah.
No matter what.
And it's not creepy because you're not, I mean, you don't want to do that on the same
night, but you know what I'm saying?
It's not creepy because you're not overly.
Like there's a difference between energy that's persistent and desperate energy.
And I'm not, I don't know what the situation was.
No, I was desperate.
But it sounds like you made the line between that.
But that's a really great learning lesson.
Do you think-
And desperation clogs intuition.
You know what else?
One other thing I would say, sometimes when you're young, and I think this is important
for people to hear, you think that persistence enables you to jump ahead of the line.
And what it does is it makes you think that you don't have to put in the work.
For example, I'll just use the podcast world.
We produce a lot of podcasts. I will see new podcasters start and they're like, I need to go and interview this
A-list or this serial entrepreneur or this person that's at the top of the heap. And I'm like, hey,
why not start like putting some notches in the belt and, you know, proving your chops and proving
that you can actually like carry a show and carry an interview. But because when you, when you shoot
for the top and just, and you try to jump the head of the line, it doesn't work out all the time.
Totally. And I think persistence is essential, but if you don't understand the nuance of over
persistence, where I dig myself, I dug myself into such a deep hole, even Bill Gates couldn't
pull me out. And that was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn on the entire journey.
So do you think that Bill Gates, his team went to Warren Buffett and said,
we have this guy, Alex, who's writing this book.
And Warren Buffett was like, fuck, Alex.
Whether it's him or his assistant.
The assistant was like, oh, here's.
The assistant cock blocked you.
Who knows?
Who knows?
I'll never know.
But that's my assumption.
Listen, if you're going to learn about persistence,
let's learn about it through Warren Buffett.
So,
so after,
does Bill Gates
help you with the rest
of the list?
What's funny is,
oh my gosh,
there was,
look,
I'm very grateful.
I'm very grateful.
He didn't.
They,
they were very,
very helpful.
Oh,
they were.
They made introductions.
What I had to learn, which is such a weird mindfuck, is that asking interviews of people
who have that much demand on their time, an introduction from Bill Gates' office is not
a magic wand. Right. Because I think what people need need to understand and this is actually a learning moment
i think with emailing too when you come into someone's space with an ask you're taking
someone's time so if the person who's very busy they're giving up their time that's that's their
most important currency right well it also is someone in... In my opinion. I mean, that's so...
So I could see why some of them are so big.
The time and the reputation.
Well, yeah.
I mean, the reputation though, this is...
I think it's...
If you came to me, I totally do this.
It's a great idea.
Like I could see why people would want to do it.
But you are asking for their time.
So maybe that's why they said no.
I think a lot of these people too,
also when they give interviews,
they want them to be impactful, thoughtful interviews.
And if they know like,
hey, I don't really have the time
to fully dedicate to this.
Like they also don't want to do it.
It's not about like carving out three or four minutes.
It's about actually like using the time wisely
and having an impact.
And how long were you proposing the interview would be?
An hour.
And what's also tricky too,
and to give some compassion to these people,
I had no prior experience.
I wasn't at CNN.
I didn't have any books out at the time.
I was an 18-year-old college student.
I kind of love that though.
Personally, I kind of love that.
That's something that I would want to do
as opposed to something with more background.
I appreciate that a lot.
So out of the list,
did you get anyone with Bill Gates or no one?
Not, I don't think his office directly led to a yes.
Okay.
But his involvement definitely changed the energy.
Yes.
Because you already interviewed him
and you had that one in the bank.
Correct.
And one of the hardest lessons for me to understand
is we all know that book called The Tipping Point. Right. And I of the hardest lessons for me to understand is, you know, we all know that book
called The Tipping Point. And I lived in this fantasy of if I just work hard enough,
eventually I'll hit the tipping point. And most of my frustration, pain, and agony on this journey
came from not accepting life on life's terms. I was waiting for this magical tipping point
where everything would just get easy.
That's self-aware.
And well, at the time though,
I was banging my head against the wall,
wondering how come things,
even after the Bill Gates interview,
after the Bill Gates interview,
Oprah said no, Michael Jordan said no,
Steven Spielberg said no,
three times after I went to France
and tracked him down on his yacht
in the French Riviera.
Like the amount of no's even after Bill Gates
are so outrageous.
You fly to South of France yourself the French Riviera. Like the amount of no's even after Bill Gates are so outrageous.
You fly to south of France yourself to just track him down
on his yacht?
Not myself with my best friend,
Corwin.
We went together.
You have some great friends.
I have some phenomenal friends.
Did you know you were tracking
down Michael Jordan
when you flew there?
No, Steven Spielberg.
Oh, Steven Spielberg.
That's why we went.
We went for Steven Spielberg.
Oh, Steven Spielberg.
For some reason,
I thought you just said Michael. Well, I said Michael Jordan. I sent why we went. We went for Steven Spielberg. Oh, Steven Spielberg. For some reason, I thought you just said Michael.
Well, I said Michael Jordan.
I sent that request in.
Got it.
But the yacht is Steven Spielberg.
The yacht was to Steven Spielberg.
And I know this sounds ridiculous,
but at the time I thought it was
the best possible route.
I was going to say,
why don't you just go to like Ranch of Santa Fe
or L.A. where he lives?
Well, I had already met him. Okay. So the story with Spielberg, this is like opening up like the
old memories of trauma. So with Spielberg, he was actually one of the first people to go back to
your earlier, it was one of the first people I met when I decided I needed to emailing press
at Microsoft doesn't work. I need to go find these people in person and sort of like tell them my dream. Because my dream was that this isn't about promoting a product. This isn't about
launching a website. This is about all these people coming together for one purpose,
to share their wisdom, to help the next generation learn more and do more and be more.
And I believe if all these people came together, again, not to promote something, but to really help young people,
the world would be a lot better place. Sure enough, I was 18. And my best idea
was I would have a list of all the people I wanted to interview in my pocket.
So whenever I would meet an adult, because I assumed adults know things that I don't,
whenever I would meet like a smart looking adult, I would hand them this list and say, do you have any advice on how to get
to any of these people? Nine times out of 10 people would say no. But one time out of 10,
someone would say, oh, I know someone who knows that person or I know that person's going to be
at this event. So one out of 10 is actually great odds. That's persistence. Right. And you know all about odds.
So go ahead.
Thank you.
You really see me at this point.
So sure enough, this is one of the first people I talked to. So I found out Steven Spielberg would be at a fundraising event on the USC campus.
But it was no students were allowed. It was just a VIP fundraising event on the USC campus. But it was no students were allowed.
It was just a VIP fundraising event for the film school.
But I found someone who was working the event
and said I could essentially come along
if I wore a suit and be like an assistant
and not say I'm a student,
just say that I'm like a hired freelance assistant.
You should have dressed up as an ET.
That would have gotten his attention. That would have gotten his attention.
It would have gotten his attention
and also me thrown into a psych ward.
Go ahead.
So you would have been a very fun person
to brainstorm in the beginning.
Try sore jobs.
What the fuck is called?
What?
Triceratops?
Jurassic Park.
Fucking raptor.
Oh my gosh.
Yes.
So I'm wearing a suit.
I'm and again, at that time, I did all my research.
I studied.
I, you know, had questions ready.
And sure enough, I sneak into this party and there is Steven Spielberg standing like 20
feet away from me.
And I have this thing that I sort of call the flinch,
which started when I was a little kid, which is when everything you want is right in front of you,
for some reason, your body thinks now is the best time to completely freeze,
wire your mouth shut, tighten your throat, and turn your feet into stone.
And he was literally 20 feet in front of me, and it felt like my entire body was paralyzed.
There's something about actually building up a goal
so much in your head that you psych yourself out,
and sure enough, I just stood there completely frozen.
And he left and walked away and got lost in the party,
and I completely lost him.
And it wasn't until the very end of the event
that I saw him finally leaving the event.
And he was talking to this other person who I couldn't recognize, who was a little shorter
and bald.
So I thought, okay, this would be a good time to sort of like interrupt and go talk to him.
I didn't understand until later.
That was Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks.
I'm like, oh, he's talking to his assistant.
Then now's a good time.
Like, move, assistant.
This little intern. It's very embarrassing. So sure enough,
I go up and I literally go like, Mr. Spielberg, can I ask you a question as you walk out to your car? And he turns around, I think he's like going to yell at me. And he ends up, he just has the
softest, kindest look in his eyes. And he goes, absolutely.
Come with me.
And I didn't have an elevator pitch.
I didn't know what I was saying, but I just sort of like word vomited this dream.
And for some reason, I remember this very vividly.
We stood out, right?
He stopped in front of his car and he looked up as if he was, I don't know, it's impossible to say for sure,
but he looked up to the sky
and then looked back in my eyes and said,
I don't know why I have this feeling,
but I think you're actually gonna make this happen.
So instead of a no,
which I would normally say for something like this,
because I don't do interviews and lists for a movie launch,
I'm gonna give you a maybe
and you go out and do all the other interviews
and when you're done, come back to me
and we'll try to make it happen.
Well, that's cool.
I respect that.
So I really felt empowered by that.
So two years later, after I had the Bill Gates interview
and things had moved along,
the book was like sort of rounding a corner.
I thought now's the time to go back.
He asked me to come back.
So I sent a letter to his office. It got rejected. I sent a letter to go back. He asked me to come back. So I sent a
letter to his office. It got rejected. I sent a letter to his house. It didn't get responded.
I sent a letter to his PR person. Didn't get responded. So I thought, what am I going to do?
He, this is how naive I was. I was like, he wants, he wants to talk to me. Just these people don't
believe me. They weren't there. You had to be there. I thought like it was one of those things like he would want to hear from me.
Like he's waiting.
I love it.
So I was at that time, I was like, I think I'm like 21 or 22 at the time.
And I still had like the end of the price is right money.
It was sort of running out.
I was scrolling on Twitter, just sort of like trying to think of ideas of how to get to
Spielberg because I got rejected by every possible avenue.
So I saw on Twitter that he would be the judge of the Cannes Film Festival.
He would be the head judge.
And I was like, oh, if he's the head judge, that means he has to be there the whole film
festival.
And it's in the south of France.
And I'm like, how big is the town of Cannes?
He must be like walking the streets.
It must be a lot easier to run into him in Cannes than la so let me go to can and find him so we can make this interview happen so i call my
one of my best friends corwin and we go to the airport by the next available ticket on standby
we go to the south of france we're sitting in like the back last row in the middle c by the bathroom what do you mean
to me at that time it was the best like no i'm saying it's the worst to sit next to the bathroom
oh yeah where everyone's shitting and pissing and throwing up special this is my first time
in france i think i'm a baller i'm i'm on cloud nine you're like where's the penis me and corn
are going to the south of france you know we're it big. We're staying at a motel like 45 minutes away from Cannes, but we don't care. We're stoked.
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So we get to the South of France.
I have this letter perfectly typed out.
Like I showed it to my mom.
Like she like teared up, not from happiness, but of like terror that I'm completely lost
my mind.
And sure enough, this is the one story that's not in the book because it was so preposterous.
My editor thought it made me look crazy. I love it. This got cut out. Perfect. Well, if you were my editor, we would have a lot more
crazy stories in the book. Oh my God. Oh my God. So yes, this is the uncut version. So we get to
the South of France and I start doing my thing, walking around saying, excuse me, do you know
where Steven Spielberg is? And sure enough,
someone says he's staying on a yacht. And I said, thank you so much. I should have thought of that.
Thank you. So we go to the yacht dock in Kent and we start walking around saying, excuse me,
which yacht is Steven Spielberg's yacht? We have a letter to deliver to him.
And eventually someone goes, his yacht does not fit in a dock. I was like, what do you mean?
And they go, his yacht is so big. You take a small boat from the dock to the yacht. The yacht
is in the middle of the French Riviera. So me and Corin spent the next three days tracking,
you know how you can, there's like, just for like government purposes, private jets have to declare
where they are. If a yacht is so big, it's not a yacht,
it's a vessel.
So he had to register the location of the vessel.
I do not,
I just want to say,
I do not recommend anyone doing this.
I don't endorse this.
I love it.
I hope you took a boat out to find him.
We did.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
It was even worse though.
It started raining.
And it started in the south of France.
The rain can turn into a storm.
And no boat dealer would give us a boat because it was so dangerous.
But we were so thick-headed.
We thought, nothing's impossible.
We'll just find someone who believes in us.
These people are trying to help us from killing ourselves. So me and Corwin end up going an hour away from Cannes and find a boat dealer
who barely understands English, gives us a boat, a little small dinghy with a little motor in the
back. But, and this is one of the hall of fame moments of friendship. I get a call right as Corwyn and I are about to get onto this boat to deliver this letter.
I get a call from someone I met a couple days earlier saying, hey, I'm meeting with someone
right now who's meeting with someone with Spielberg.
And they want to pass the letter along the chain and make sure the letter gets there.
And I, of course, had sort of hoped for something like this because I carry two copies of the letter along the chain and make sure the letter gets there. And I, of course,
had sort of hope for something like this because I carry two copies of the letter in my pocket.
So I said, this is much more of a sure thing than trying to track a boat down in the middle
of the ocean. And I will always remember this. My friend Corwin stepping onto that boat and
looking me in the eyes and say, dude, you do your thing. I'll do mine. And takes a copy of the letter and turns on the engine of the stingy. And I like pray to God that he would be
okay. And he is just the greatest and gets on the boat by himself. I like take a taxi back to can
to deliver the second letter. Corwin goes into the storm on his own. Oh, Jesus Christ. And about an hour and a half later,
I get a call from Corwin.
And this is what I hear on the phone.
Dude!
I'm like, are you okay?
It's been an hour and a half.
He goes, listen, my phone's almost out of battery.
I don't have time to explain.
I'll meet you at the boat dock in Cannes.
But if you don't hear from me in an hour,
alert search and rescue. And hangs up. Corwin and hangs up corwin what the hell is happening so i'm sprinting on foot to
the dock this is i cannot believe i'm telling you guys this i'm sprinting by foot to the dock and
can and sure enough there is corwin drenched in seaw. There's water in the dinghy. And he's just sitting there
defeated. And I say, what happened? And he said, well, the waters out there are a lot rougher than
by the shore. And it turns out Spielberg's boat was a lot further than we had expected.
So it turns out what happened is Corwin, being the greatest of all time,
takes the dinghy out through these giant waves all the way to Spielberg's boat. And the waters
are really rough. They're so rough that when the crew on Spielberg's boat sees a little dinghy this
far out, they all rush down and throw a rope to pull him in thinking he's in danger.
So Spielberg's crew is pulling in Corwin and tying him up to the back of their boat.
And sure enough, they're like, are you okay?
What's going on?
And Corwin like straight into his shirt and goes, I'm here to deliver a letter for a Mr.
Benayan to Mr. Spielberg and hand them this letter that I wrote in like my little dorm room.
Oh my God.
And as life happens, the crew actually loved it.
And they said, look, we will get fired if we do anything.
The person who can make this decision is the captain.
So the captain of Spielberg's yacht comes down to Corwin's dinghy,
which is tied to the back of Spielberg's $250 million yacht. All the crew is lined up,
and the captain hears the story. Corwin explains to me that the captain said he's so moved by this,
but the number one rule in maritime law
is you do not accept foreign objects onto the boat.
And he said, even a sheet of paper,
we cannot accept without the client approving it.
And then the captain said, if I were you, the sun is about to set
and these waters are about to get exponentially worse
over the next 30 minutes.
Corrin knew that he was right. Except Corwin turns on the dinghy again and sees the gas tank is now
on empty. It took all the gas to get there. There was now no gas to go back. So that's how I found
Corwin sitting on this dock in can completely out of gas and drenched in water. And sure enough,
we found one of those
red jerry canisters of gasoline.
And we're going to go fill up.
We just like
hope that we're allowed to do this
and we start filling up the gas tank.
And a wave hits the dinghy
and corn trips
and spills the gasoline
on the electrical circuit of the boat.
I literally texted my parents
saying,
if you don't hear from us in the next 30
minutes, please call the American embassy in France and ask them to find us. And I sent a
pin of our location. My poor parents had a heart attack. But Corwin, before I knew it, started the
engine, wiped it off with his hands, the gasoline. It worked fine. And we made it back to the
original dock. The
only difference, though, is this time we had to pass Spielberg's yacht so I could see it with my
binoculars. This time when we passed it, they had security boats surrounding the vessels
with binoculars tracking us the whole way through. So what ended up happening is, again,
it ended in complete disaster. But the story was so ridiculous
that someone
who I had told it to
told it to someone else
who knew the president
of DreamWorks Television,
Spielberg's company.
And the president
of DreamWorks Television
wanted to hear the story firsthand.
So me and him
end up having lunch.
And I tell him
the whole Price is Right story,
the whole Spielberg story, the whole Franz story. And he goes, I'm going to call Stephen to make
this happen. And it happened. So Spielberg said no. And then I call the co-president of DreamWorks
Television. I say, look, how many times in your life has someone said no and someone went to bat
for you a second time,
and it was the second time they made it happen. Please think of all the kids who will learn from
this experience if you can just do it one more time. And sure enough, he went a second time back
to his boss in Spielberg's office and said no a second time. And it was a very humbling experience.
I'm so grateful for him.
I don't think it was personal. But again, it goes back to that lesson that there is no tipping point.
What I know for sure is I am a lot prouder of myself knowing that I tried and failed
instead of wondering what if.
Wow.
So before we go, I mean, everyone's running to buy your book.
What is the third door?
So the biggest thing I've learned over 12 years of studying success,
and particularly the seven years of interviewing some of the world's most successful people,
is that every single one of them treated life and business and success the exact same way.
And it didn't matter if it was Warren Buffett in Omaha, Nebraska, or Lady Gaga from New York City,
every single one of them treated life and business and success the exact same way. And it didn't make
any sense to me. It was almost like in music, there's a common melody, even though the song
is different. When you say they treated them the same way, in what way did they treat them? So 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.
Right. And you all know that line, people standing on the cold, crossing their fingers,
hoping the bouncer lets them in. That's the first door.
And then there's the second door,
the VIP entrance,
where the billionaires and celebrities go through.
And for some reason,
school and society have this way
of making you 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 all know
from your own journeys,
is that there's always
always the third door i call it the chimney right exactly you run down the alley bang on the door
a hundred times go through the chimney go through the window there's always a way in
always every single time and it doesn't matter if that's how bill gates sold that first piece
of software how lady gaga got the first record deal they all took the third door huh so that's
not only you know the title of the book
and the thesis of the book,
that's really the energy I'm trying to inject
into the next generation.
I completely agree with you on that.
I think that is a very, very, very accurate.
The problem is that most people, though,
they see successful people and they think,
obviously, they didn't go through the first door
and wait in line.
They went through the second door
and they were given it or they were born into it.
And they don't realize that most people-
And they use that as an excuse of why they haven't done anything.
Yeah.
They don't realize that most successful people went through the third door.
I have met the children of some of these people
who wait around hoping for life to hand them and nothing happens. And I've met people who,
one of the people I interviewed for the book, grew up in a village outside of Shanghai, China,
with no running water, no electricity. By the time he was 27 years old, he was making the most
money he had ever made in his life, $7 a month. Fast forward 20 years later, he's a president at Microsoft. So what's been mind-blowing for me is that resources are real.
If you're working three jobs, your mom has cancer, and you're still paying off student
loan debts, those are real.
But what I have seen time and time again, and you two are the perfect example, if you
have the right mindset, you will find the resources to make something happen.
Or you can have all the resources at your disposal,
and if you have a limited mindset,
nothing goes.
It's funny that you say this,
because Michael and I have a lot of conversation
about how we want to raise our kids,
and one of the things that we think
is the most important thing by far is resourcefulness.
If you're not resourceful, the rest doesn't matter. You have to be resourceful.
You have to go figure out a way to kill the tiger yourself, by yourself and bring it back.
It's much harder for people to look at successful people and admit to themselves that, hey,
those successful people probably did something and put in some hard work to make that happen.
Because if you admit that, then you have to also admit to yourself that maybe you could
be doing more.
But I don't just think it's about the hard work.
It's about finding the chimney and finding where that entrance is.
It's not just, it's also, it's being crafty.
Yes.
But what I'm saying is people, it's easier to make the excuse and say, oh, well, I don't
have those resources.
I don't have those upbringing.
I don't have that funding.
I don't have that connection because it gives you an out to not go and try.
And listen, resources are real, right? Some people get born with a leg up, some people
like down, but everyone knows the story of someone coming from absolutely nothing and
becoming an absolute Titan, right? And vice versa. You know, the stories of people born
on top of the world and just completely driving it into the floor. And so I think it's important to point out this third door because you're right. So many
people think it's just one way or the other way. They don't think, hey, I can maybe go around back
or go on the side or go down the chimney. The biggest thing that I've learned over 12 years
of studying the mindset of success is there is a single reason why most people don't go after their dreams. In the beginning of my journey,
I had misunderstood the answer. I had always thought, as you said, the hard part would be
taking the third door, finding the chimney, having the money, having the skill, having the resources.
What I've learned over the years is that most people are smarter than they give themselves
credit for. The number one reason most people don't take the third door
is their fear of leaving the line for the first door.
Yeah, you're 100% right.
I also think people are addicted to the narrative or the line.
They're addicted to-
They're the illusion of safety.
The illusion of safety.
They're addicted and to step out of that narrative and not maybe play the victim gives them anxiety.
To give compassion, because I've been there.
I've been in that line for the first door.
It's where your family raised you to be.
It's where your school taught you to be.
It's where your friends are.
And by the way, if you're a smart person and you have a good job, that's how you're paying
your rent.
Right.
So to give compassion, that's your sense of belonging, your sense of safety.
So it's almost counter to everything your brain is programmed to do, to leave where
you're being fed, where you're being housed, to run down a dark alley with uncertainty
and bang on a door and find that chimney.
What a lot of people don't realize is that they can always go back to that first door. They feel that if they leave it, they can never go back.
I always say, most likely when you start working, you had zero experience. Maybe you got out of
college. Maybe you were just out of high school. Maybe you didn't even go to school. You got that
job. You worked where you can always go. You don't start at square one again. If somebody that works
with one of the companies we run quits and goes and
chases their dreams, worst case scenarios, they can always come back, maybe not to this job,
but to an adjacent type of job or an adjacent career. I think they get scared. They think,
if I leave, I'll never be able to come back. I'll never be able to start here. They think they have
to start all over. That's not necessarily true. Yeah. So helping people with that fear,
that fear of uncertainty, which is a natural part of the entrepreneurial experience,
is one of the most important parts of this mission.
I think everyone should go run to buy your book. It's a national bestseller,
The Third Door, the wild quest to uncover how the world's most successful people launch their
careers. If you want to hear the story of how you chased Larry King through a
grocery store, because you didn't share that one, go read this. I have it in person, but I'm also
getting it on my Kindle too, because I like to highlight on my Kindle. I think this is genius.
I think it, I can't wait to see where you are even in five, 10 years. Maybe you'll be
speaking with Warren Buffett at the shareholder meeting. I think that this is, you definitely
went through the chimney. Let's put it that way. You went through the chimney. I appreciate that.
Alex, where can everyone buy your book, find you, pimp yourself out?
I appreciate that. And that means a lot because I know you've been through the
chimney more times than you can count. So it means a lot coming from you. She lives in the fucking
chimney. Well, I don't like to be bored. I have to be stimulated. So the chimney is interesting.
I'm the same way. I'm the same way. So I appreciate that a lot. And yeah, if you like hardcover books,
which I like, the books are everywhere. You like to buy books, Barnes and Noble, Amazon.
If you like Kindle, it's there. It's also on Audible and I read the book myself. So that was really fun.
And if you ended up getting the book from this podcast, let me know on Instagram or Twitter.
It's at Alex Benaiah. Can we give away a copy that's signed?
I have 100%. Okay. If you are a business owner,
tell us your business on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic and make sure
you're following Alex on Instagram and we'll get one of you guys a copy of his book that's signed.
Alex, thank you so much for coming on. I can't wait for you to come on in five years and tell
us which game show you hacked or what you're doing now. Thanks for doing this, man. Thank you.
Thanks, Alex.