Alex Banayan, #1 International Bestseller | Uncovering the Secrets of Successful Careers

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You're going to love gain grow retain go check it out wherever you get your Podcast remember gain grow retain on the HubSpot podcast network today My guest is Alex Bannon. He is the youngest best-selling business author in American history He wrote the book the third door which chronicles his seven-year quest to uncover the definitive mindset of Exponential growth and success the book is a number one international bestseller It's been translated into more than a dozen languages and has been acclaimed by the New York Post as a joy to read over the course of his unprecedented journey his research has led him to interview the most innovative leaders of the past half-century including Bill Gates Lady Gaga Larry King Maya Angelus Eve Wozniak Jane Goodall Jessica Alba Quincy Jones and more He's been named de Forbes 30 under 30 lists and business insiders most powerful people under 30 He is his generations leading expert in high performance and personal development He's been featured in fortunes CNBC business week the Washington Post MSNBC Fox News and NBC News He is a renowned keynote speaker. He has presented the third door framework the framework that he's built over the course of his Seven-year journey that he speaks about in his book to corporate leadership teams around the world including Apple Google Nike IBM Snapchat Salesforce Delta Mastercard and Disney. So what did we speak about? Well, of course we spoke about the third door framework, but we spoke about his story We spoke about how he hacked not just one, but multiple game shows to Win prizes and how he adopted the lens that he looked at a game show through to understand that there is more than One way to succeed in life and the framework the playbook to succeed in life Ultimately comes from this third door mentality and mindset We spoke about the third door. What is the third door and how can it help you get what you want out of your life? We spoke about some stories of highly successful individuals some of the people that he interviewed That used the third door not the front door not the back door, but the third door to get to what where they're at right now We spoke about How he has changed his lens and perspective on life and how you can do that for your own life We spoke about luck redefining luck generating your own luck We spoke about hacking situations in your life to get what you want and then lastly We spoke about a funny story that occurred when he was trying to get Warren Buffett to interview for his book and Ultimately, although he's been successful even if you adopt the third door mentality You can't get everything you want in life and some lessons that he learned out of trying to get Warren Buffett to interview for his book. So he is a very smart guy a lot of great mindset and Perspective lessons coming out of this podcast stuff that can be applied to your personal your professional life your business If you're an entrepreneur This is a great way to look at life differently and a lot of tangible business takeaways you can get from Alex and his third door methodology. So let's jump right into it. This is Alex Bannon He is the best selling author of the third door The whole journey of the third door started about 10 years ago So I was 18 years old a freshman in college and I was spending every day lying on my dorm room bed staring up at the ceiling And it's got I don't know if you've been through that, you know, what do I want to do with my life crisis, but I was going through it and it was hitting me really hard And the reason I was going through it, you know to give some context is I'm the son of Persian Jewish immigrants Which pretty much means I came out of the womb my mom cradle me in our arms and pretty much stamped MD on my behind Send me on my way You know, you know, I think that's funny, but in third grade I wore scrubs to school for Halloween thought I was cool You know, that was my childhood growing up And I had damn good food. So that's good Yeah, yeah, Persian food was good except when you take like a big tub of Persian stew with lamb and kidney beans And you open it up on a hot day in the cafeteria and it makes the whole cafeteria smell. That's a whole Whole other situation to unpack, but you know, I checked all the boxes growing up And I took all the biology classes, you know study hard for SATs. I even went to pre-med summer camp So by the time I get to college, I'm the pre-med of pre-meds And very quickly, you know, 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 eventually they end to wonder maybe I'm not on my path Maybe I'm going to path somebody's placed me on and I'm just rolling down So now that 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 to build eight selfs first piece of software out of this dorm room when nobody knew his name How did Spielberg become the youngest director of Hollywood history without a single hit under his belt? Yeah, this is where they don't teach you in school So I just assumed there had to be a book with the answers So I'm you know going to the library and just ripping through you know business books and biographies and self-help books assuming you know there had to be a book Not on a particular age, but really a stage in life You know when you have a big dream you have a big goal, but no one's taking your calls no one's taking your meetings How do you find a way to break through? Essentially when you're starting anything you how do you find a way to make it happen? And eventually I was left empty handed So that's when my naive 18 year old thinking kicked in and I thought well No one's reading the book I'm dreaming of reading Why not write it myself and I thought it'd be super simple I thought you know, I'll just call Bill Gates interview him and everybody else and I'll be done in a few months That I assumed would be the easy part The the hard part I figured was getting money to fund this journey You know, I was buried in suit alone dead. I was all out of our minutes of a cash So they're had to go away to make some quick money So two nights before final exams, you know, I'm sitting 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 Three tickets to the prices right I know you you know you're from Canada, so but I'm sure you know the game show the price is right You know the longest running game show in American history. You know it. I definitely know it and You know come on down. You know every you know very you know iconic And I was going to school in Los Angeles not too far from where the show filled and the tickets were for the next day and my first thought was What if I go on the show And when some money To fund this book You know not my brightest moment Plus I had a problem, you know, I've never seen a full episode of the show before You know, I have of course in bits and pieces, you know, throughout my childhood You know when you're homesick from school in fourth grade. There's nothing else to watch on TV I've seen bits and pieces. I've never seen a full episode. So I told myself This is a dumb idea, you know, you have finals in two days is a bad idea But I don't know if you've ever had those experiences where no matter how preposterous an idea for some reason it keeps clawing itself back into your mind So almost approved myself. This is a bad idea. I remember So I'm sitting at this round wooden table in the corner of the library And I take out my spiral notebook and I write best in worst case scenarios, you know to prove to myself This is a bad idea just so I could stop procrastinating and go back to stunning So I write best in worst case scenario You know worst case scenarios Fail finals That kicked in a pre-med loose financial aid Mom stops talking to me. No mom kills me. You know, there's like 20 cons And the only pro was Maybe Maybe When enough money to fund this stream And it's almost as if somebody had tied a rope around my gut and was slowly pulling me 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 a hack the price is right and I go on the show the next day and do this ridiculous strategy and I ended up winning the whole showcase showdown Winning a sailboat selling that sailboat and that's how I funded the book and that's how the whole journey got started So I know that I've listened to a couple interviews prep for this I know that's not the first that's not the only time you've done this So before I go into the third door with the game shows. Yeah, how do you hack a game show? It's totally irrelevant to 99% of people listening to this, but I just want to know At a high level. Where do you even go? Where do you start to go to hack a game show? I'll tell you the single most if I had to like if someone and then it does happen and every now and then where someone's like I'm going on the game show What's your advice? It's a weird thing for people to stop you and ask you And just for people listening what your referencing is I ended up doing a second game show too with the same strategy and Walked away the brand new car on that one So If there's a single thing you need to know about a game show and it actually applies to business just like it doesn't like Gameshows work because they have this illusion of spontaneity and randomness and that's what makes it exciting and makes it feel like a Casina But you know the reality isn't you think about it and everybody knows this It's a television show where they have a producer and they need to have certain types of characters They need to make it interesting. So while it looks random. There is a system to it And again, the analogy is the same thing when you're applying for a job or you're trying to do business development. There's always you know It's a human design structure. So there's going to be human beings. That's always going to be the hack And I did I found that in my research. There's a casting producer Who interviews everyone in the audience before the show goes on and I don't care how well prepared you are for Being on the show like I don't care how good you will be at the job if you don't get past the person in HR Who's the just an entry level reader outer You're you're done. You're dead on arrival So the single most important thing there's lots of important things but the single most important thing that's make a break Is you have to really nail the casting producer And then just as importantly I know with the price right and with many other shows There's also assisted casting producers who are sort of undercover and planted amongst the group Because they're smart. They know that people can like turn on charisma for 10 seconds But they want like personalities So you sort of need to be on the whole like three hours they make you wait before the show begins They purposely just like put you in a holding room for three hours with a group of people to see like It's like a social experiment Who's the most entertaining person for these three hours not the 10 seconds we're interviewing them So if you change your mindset to it's a three hour interview as opposed to a 10 second interview Then you have the light up over everyone else Amazing, so you got that them twice. Um, okay, so anyways, this is what by the way I actually I know this is completely out of topic Interviews I think about that all the time too like when people go in for a job interview Like the job interview begins when you pull into the parking lot 100% 100% yeah, I know it's good to buy stories I know stories where the hiring manager at the end of the day is exhausted and just like goes to the friend desk receptionist I was like, oh what a day and they're like, oh, do you see anyone good? And the hiring is like, ah, there's a couple people I like and they're like, oh You know the young woman in the red sweater. She was really sweet and really thoughtful That should go so far and again, I'm not saying big kind just as a steak but be aware like you're You're interaction to people matter. Yeah Yeah, that's good advice that that is that is very transferable Advice very much so I think that's smart. That's very smart I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode feedback loop Now if you're a product person entrepreneur startup guy like me You have at some point in your career try to take a product to market You've tried to come up with a new idea and it's fell flat It's ultimately failed 85 to 90% of all new products of all new startup ideas fail Why is this basically it is really hard really expensive and really time-consuming to validate product market fit with your potential consumers or customers Old-style market research is way too slow to complicated to time-consuming for dynamic fast moving teams I want to build great stuff But what if you could test out your idea your product with your target consumers Whenever you want before you invest in the money time energy effort that it takes to actually develop a product Well, that's what startups all the way through to fortune 500 are using feedback loop for you get quality feedback From your target customers early and often feedback loop is the test before you invest product research platform It has built-in expert templates for concept testing user discovery Prioritizing features on your roadmap and much more you can create your own tests in minutes and get quality insights from your target consumers and hours They set up a special link for everybody who's a success story podcast listener to test it out to try it go to go dot feedback loop dot com slash success. You get three free tests That's go dot feedback loop dot com slash success. You can try it out for free. You get three free tests So if you want your next product idea or feature to be a hit test before you invest build based on data Not opinion and launch with confidence with feedback loop check it out right now Okay, so you funded your dream Yeah, that's how it started you funded your dream. Okay, so you got the boat you sold the boat I sold the boat. I thought I was a billionaires. I was you know college student. I sold the boat for $17,000 and thought I was like, you know as rich as you know Mark Zuckerberg And I remember like taking all my friends out to lunch to tripotle, you know free guacamole for everybody You know really bawling out really really spending that money Uh And essentially once I had the money in my mind it was like all right now let me go get these interviews and to my surprise Bill Gates doesn't normally do interviews with ram 18 year olds in college So uh, it ended up taking two years to finally track down interview of Bill Gates took three years to track down Lady Gaga and when I had started the journey When I had started the journey There was no part of me looking for that, you know, one key to success We've all seen those business folks or TED talks and normally I just roll my eyes But what ended up happening over seven years of interviews Is I began to realize that every single one of these people Treated life and business and success the exact same way And the analogy that came to me is that It's almost like getting into a nightclub There's always three ways in So there's the first door the main entrance or the line curves around the block Where 99% of people wait around hoping to get it, you know, we've all seen that line people standing on the cold hoping to bounce a bunch of names That's the first door And then there's a second door The VIP entrance where the billionaires and celebrities go through And for some reason school and society had this way of making us feel like those are only two ways in You know, you're born into it or you wait your turn and everybody else But what I've learned and what I'm sure you've seen in your own careers that there's always always The third door where you jump out of line run down the alley bang on the door 100 times crack open the window Go through the kitchen. There's always a way in And it doesn't matter if that's a bill gates all this first piece of software how lady Gaga got her first record deal They all took the third door Now I completely agree there is always a third door and anybody who's a chief success Has with with or without knowing it Done the third door technique, but the issue with that is that the third door seems to always be This this series of trials and errors and figuring it out and failing and not knowing what you're doing and something Oh, yeah, but like so how do you how do you know your cognitive mud your knees straight up you almost stop mugs behind the dumpster or you know You thought you were about to fall into a pothole, but it turned out it was just a ditch like yeah, you know, it is It's not a pain apart. It's a mess It's a mess, but I'll tell you standing out on the sidewalk where it's well lit clean And comfortable You can be there your whole life A lot of people so I'm not saying you should take the third door I'm just saying anyone who's actually trying to achieve a dream of goal become the person they know they can be Sometimes you got to run down that alley Tell a story of of anyone and and walk me through with their third door experience was light to put some context around it something really Out there that ended up with that could have been Bill Gates lady is anyone anyone just so people can get an idea of How they got I'll tell you one. I'll tell you one of my favorites and it actually goes back to what we were just talking about a few minutes ago Um With regards to the child interviews and whatnot This is the story of how Steven Spielberg became the youngest director in Hollywood history The youngest major studio director So you know Spielberg since he's a kid always wanted to be a director So you know when he was a teenager and he was finishing high school of course he applied to film school and naturally He got rejected But you know no worries. He's a persistent guy. He applied a second time Got rejected again Now that's where most people sort of back up and say maybe I just find a different career Spielberg instead decided to take his education into his own hands And one day he goes to universal studios theme park in Los Angeles and I'm sure many people know But for those who don't this theme park in Los Angeles Has a ride that takes you it's called the you know the tram ride it takes you on a little tram bus on the back lot of the universal studios film studio And it shows you the sound stages where they make all the movies So on day when Spielberg was about 19 He goes on this tram ride and it's driving around the studio a lot And when the bus stops for a moment he jumps up the bus hides behind the corner and the bus keeps going And Spielberg ends up just wandering around the lot by himself And about an hour later He bumps into this older gentleman Who sees this sort of pimply face 19 year old and says what are you doing here And Spielberg's you know admitted the truth he said look I'm a kid. I know I'm not supposed to be here But I always wanted to be a director. I jumped off the tram like you know So sorry and the guy ends up talking to this young kid and sees his passion and at the end of this hour long top Says how would you like to come back onto the lot from the next few days Spielberg goes that would be great So this man Introduced himself his name is Chuck Silvers and he's the head of the universal television Library the archives So he writes Spielberg a three-day pass and Spielberg goes back the first day in a second day the third day But on the fourth day he like comes dressed in a suit carrying his father's briefcase and walks right up to the security entrance Waves his hand in the air and goes hey Scotty and the guard waves back Spielberg walks right And now he's doing this day after day after day He's getting kicked out by security. He's sneaking into sound stages going into editing booths ask the actors and directors out to lunch And he's essentially creating his own film school from scratch And over time The older gentleman Chuck Silvers becomes a mentor to Spielberg After you know about a few months of this Chuck Silvers Six Spielberg down and says listen kid I need to give you some hard advice And he essentially gives him the advice that there has to be a time in your life where you stop schmoozing And you create something of value and in order to show people what you can do So he told Spielberg don't come back onto the line Until you have a short film of quality that you're proud of to show me Spielberg took that hard advice to heart And he ended up spending months filming and editing a short film called ambulance It's about 22 minutes long and when I was finally ready he goes back to Chuck Silvers to show him the film And it was so good that when it was done a single tear came down Chuck Silvers' face And Chuck Silvers reaches for the phone Immediately and calls the vice president of universal television his name is Sid Scheinberg And Chuck Silvers goes said I have something you gotta see And the vice president's like look there's a lot of things people tell me I have to see Chuck Silvers says no if you don't watch this tonight Someone else will And the vice president thinks says you think it's that damn important And Chuck Silvers goes it's that damn important Sure enough the vice president watches that night And 19 year old Spielberg gets a call the next morning saying he needs to be in the vice president's office Immediately Spielberg you know runs out of class rushes over and his car shows up to the office On the desk is a contract making the youngest director in all your history I love that's a good story that's a really good that's a good damn example of Not even thinking outside the box just pretending the box doesn't even exist When it comes to architecting your own career in your own life Yeah, and you know wow there's first of all the story isn't we just have to acknowledge stories impossible without tremendous talent No, he was a bad director you know if he's a bad director if he's bad at his art form It doesn't work But it makes you wonder I'm pretty confident he wasn't the only person with talent in the whole city of Los Angeles Uh, you know, you look at singers There's a reason some make it even though there's lots of people with voices that sort of blow you away You hear them you look at Spielberg's all the time and they're like how how are they not famous all time yeah Yeah, and it makes you look at that Spielberg story and say like what And you know once you like can enter the game paying paying the price of talent And skill and hard work What makes the difference and when I look at the story Yes, he had the courage to jump off that bus Yes, he had the honesty to tell the truth when he met Chuck Silver's you know all yes He had you know all these different things But to me it was his ability to make that relationship with Chuck Silver's that inside man Because without Chuck Silver Spielberg never would have had the three-day pass Never would have gotten that good advice that he needed to hear They also never would have had someone put the reputation on the line to get into the vice president's office And every single third door store I don't care if it was Warren Buffett's early career in finance You know whatever story you look at You know Jane Goodall with science every single one of these stories There was always an inside person an inside man an inside woman someone who was within the world you want to break into Who believed in you enough That they were willing to put the reputation on the line to help you get in And you can have all the ingredients, but it doesn't work without that inside person Every single time I just want to take a second to thank the sponsor of today's episode athletic greens now I'm super happy that I partnered with athletic greens because I literally Use them every single day now. 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That's a special URL. They put together just for success story podcast listeners Again, that is athletic greens.com slash success to take ownership of your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance So is that is that the takeaway is it to find the mentor? Is that the first step in the third door Playbook? I wouldn't say it was a first step because if you actually look at you know the Spielberg story You know this guy's making home movies for years. Yeah, he's studying his favorite films You know if you sort of just showed up to you know Chuck Silver's office and said oh I just decided last week I really want to get into Like Scott if someone comes up to you, it says oh you I said this morning. I want a podcast. Do you have any advice? You'd be like uh Sure, but you wouldn't really be like well this this young woman this young man is my protege right? No, you know You wouldn't you wouldn't you don't know right but if you right but if you're walking around town and you At a grocery store bump into some of those like Scott I have been dreaming of being a podcaster for years I've actually listened every episode of your show like I hope I'm not fan-blowing right now But I'm trying to let you know that episode you had on this person really that follow question You asked blew me away and I've been reading every book on podcasting if you have any recommendations of how to How to break in you'd be like Yeah, you want to just you know lock it in my car and yeah, here's my email if you have any more questions You know you might not take them under your wing immediately, but you'd be like yeah, here's my email address You seem like you got a good head on your shoulders So the inside man is critical, but it's a piece to the larger puzzle so if somebody wants to um Think this all comes down to thinking differently. I think a lot is has to do with thinking differently as to what's possible and what is not possible so What would be your advice for somebody to get themselves in the right mindset So that they start approaching life with this mentality that they can do things Outside the norm. I guess I'm trying to get somebody on the right the what I'm trying to pull out of you is How do I get somebody listening to this show to start looking at life differently What I've learned after 10 years of studying success Is that you can give someone all the best tools and knowledge in the world And their life can still feel stuck But if you change what someone believes is possible, they'll never be the same And you see it all the time you can go to Harvard where they have all the resources and all the information And there are kids who've come out of there who Still have no idea what to do and want to just sit on a couch And then you can go to some places where there's no resources and you see in someone's eyes They're willing to do whatever it takes And they believe it's possible and they actually make it possible Uh, of course, it's easier if you have the willingness to hire at Harvard But what I I am saying though is you can have the tools In the resources and it still doesn't work But as soon as you change where you believe is possible and again, it doesn't make it easy It doesn't make it automatic and it doesn't make it guaranteed But when you can change where you believe is possible nothing is the same Another another oh go ahead sorry finish finish your point seven other I want to touch on that but go ahead. I didn't cut you off Yeah, well, I would just see the biggest thing about you know How you change what someone believes is possible. It's really about what you What you're surrounded with And yes, there's like, you know the cliche, you know, you're the average of the five people you're spending most time with Yes, of course I guarantee you you take any anyone And you take them and surround them with like five motivated successful Kind people it just rubs off on them eventually it might take a week might take a year you're gonna change Um, but it's also the things you can sue I remember when I was 19 starting off on my journey in the third door, you know I wasn't hanging out with Bill Gates But I was reading, you know before work week. I was you know listening to talks by Gary Vaynerchuk You know, I was just I was reading math and glad well and I was just sort of Changing my world and again, I wasn't doing it on purpose, but in hindsight I was seeing that my world was changing because I was changing what I was bringing in And people listen to this podcast. I'm sure are ready on that path if they're ready to listen to your show And hopefully that's that's the goal Yeah, fingers crossed. That's what they're taking away from it One story that I heard you speak about as well, which I thought was interesting was redefining the word luck It was a story of Keelu So I want to bring that up because I'm just trying to just get rid of any sort of like Oh, what happened to Steven Spielberg was just by chance. This is none of this is by chance I feel like this is all architected in a way. So And I'll go off and say something completely opposite that actually gets to the same place. Okay It's all by chance. That's true And everyone and actually gets to the point where I think you're trying to get out with a Chilu story Everyone has chance at some point in their lives The question is does your chance manifest into an opportunity or does it pass you by? Right because we're all it's actually I I don't know if this is true at all I don't know if this is true at all, but I heard someone once say The difference between chess and backgammon You know chess is sort of this like western European game of strategy and war Backgammon has a little bit more symbolism to it. It's from the Middle East and The main key is backgammon you roll a dice. So it doesn't add to the best player in the world and amateur can just get lucky hands in Yeah, and in theory with enough brains and lucky hands can win Uh, and I do think that there's that degree in the business world. You know, I look at Bill Gates The reason he had the biggest company on earth is his skill Of computing of strategy of was really good to have in 1980 In the personal computer revolution at the same time. I feel very confident If Bill Gates grew up in Yeah, right now if he was like a teenager right now That motherfucker would be making the greatest AI Company would he find a way to apply or he would be like the biggest crypto Just if you look at the the intellectual power and the strategy and the personality type Warren Buffett has a quote that said if Bill Gates Droped you know never went into personal computers. He would have the biggest hot dog stand empire in America Because there are certain minds and by the way for better for worse. Yeah, you know for better for worse He just has the proclivity to it Um, and there are personality types that just having All right, so go into the luck The luck story with Chilu This is actually one of my favorite stories because it Sort of gets to the heart of what's possible So I met a man one of the people I interviewed his name was Chilu And Chilu grew up in a rural village I Hours outside of Shanghai China where there was no running water and no electricity Yeah, people were so Impoverished in that village that they walked some walked around with deformities from malnutrition You know, we complained about our education system in America and that village they had 300 students for every one teacher So Had a time He was really smart or really hard on his dream was actually to become a shipbuilder But he was too skinny and had bad eyesight so he had to sort of like go to plan B and try to go into academics So he said he's like, you know computer science and you know, he works really hard he gets in the college and by the age of 27 He is making the most money he's ever made in his life He's making eight dollars a month I they just run himself Fast forward 20 years later. He's a president at Microsoft And how this story is possible goes back To before he was famous or successful So when I was sitting down or Chilu He essentially explained to me that when he was in college he had a realization Everyone wants to, you know, make it out of poverty everybody in His university that he had made it into wants to go to America to study and get a Yeah, a big corporate American job like he wasn't rare in his desires And he realized he's essentially just like everybody else in the sense that everyone has 24 hours in a day Everyone is sort of shooting for the same target and he realized Something that he could change about himself is that everyone else just like him slept you whatever eight hours a night Whatever whatever the normal rate is seven eight nine hours a night And he started realizing and started studying different people in history who had learned how to essentially hack their sleep And go from eight hours. So he started experimenting reading about sleep hacks and started going from eight hours Seven hours six five four three two one Zero and sort of saw how his body reacted and he was able to realize at one hour of sleep two hours sleep three hours Sleep he's essentially was going insane But before I was asleep he was able to engineer it in a way where he was able to stay fully alert And he essentially calculated that by going from eight hours to four hours And using that time to work he was essentially adding an extra two months On to his calendar year. So he had a 14 month Work year as opposed to 12 month work year Um And he essentially just spends all that extra time in the library doing extra research papers doing extra studying not knowing how it would pay off But sort of just hoping that this was his His shot Sure enough You know, you can't you can it's like farming you can control the how you water the plants How you tend to soil, but you can't really control the weather And sure enough one day It's raining and it's a Saturday and normally on Saturdays was the one day a week He would write his bicycle back to the village to visit his parents because it was raining he couldn't write his bicycle So he was sort of just like stuck in his dorm room Again, just studying more and doing more research papers Just because it was raining that's the only reason he was there And he hears a knock on his door and he opens the door and it's one of his friends from his department and says hey We actually have this visiting professor from Carnegie Mellon giving a guest lecture But because it's raining no one's on campus and the seats are completely empty and the speeches about the start Can you come we just like need some people to sit there. So it's not rude And Chilu goes yeah, you know, I'm happy to Goes sits down listen to this lecture on computer science and at the end You know the question and so portion Chilu raises and asks and like really you know very thoughtful question At the end of the session the professor the Carnegie Mellon professor goes up to this you know young You know 27 year old Chilu says wow those questions were really insightful Have you ever done any research on this topic And The truth was Chilu had actually ridden three research papers on the topic And the professor goes can I see them and she was like yep be right back in sprints up to his dorm Grab the papers runs back down hands them to the professor's looking through them And on the spot says have you ever thought about coming to study in America And Chilu tells them it's his biggest dream, but There's a problem in order to even take the entrance exams to see if you qualify to apply to an American University It was I think like 60 dollars He's making eight dollars a month seven dollars To eat one dollar would go back to his parents in the village And the professor goes I'm covering your entrance exam And your application fees So Chilu takes enter exam files the application And a few months later gets a letter in the mail saying congratulations You're given a full ride to Carnegie now and get your PhD And that's where his journey in his career set off And from there he goes to IBM and from there he goes to Yahoo where he goes To build Yahoo search Yahoo shopping eventually become a vice president at Yahoo and charge of all search engine optimization and then Microsoft Poach us in to become the head of the big search engine and cloud computing on my present Now why is that so question When I brought this up it was in the context of of redefining What luck is why is that redefining luck because there's still a big component of luck in that story Yeah, I remember I when I was sitting with Chilu I looked at him and I said On the one hand If the weather was sunny on that Saturday Yeah, you wouldn't it's fair to say you may not be sitting here as the president of Microsoft and he laughed and he goes You know, there's a point to that It's possible who knows you know, it's impossible to know but yeah, he sort of was like I get your point That's funny. And then at the same time there was nothing lucky about the fact that Chilu was the only person in that room with that Cardinal professor who had done three research papers on the topic And had them up in his dorm room ready to go And I asked Chilu I was like look, I'm sort of torn. Are you the luckiest person on the earth or are you the Just the hardest working person on earth and Chilu says look I do believe in luck Look, but I don't think luck operates Yeah, he said you know, I don't think luck operates the way everybody assumes it does He said the way I see luck is that luck is like a bus You know if you're standing at the bus stop and you just so happen to miss that bus eventually another bus is going to come around But the only way you can get on to that bus is by paying your fare in the form of preparation So if you're never prepared it doesn't matter how many times the bus comes around You'll never be able to get on Just want to take a second to thank the sponsor of today's episode get abstract now if you're trying to figure out Where to get information from where to learn where to read there's so much stuff out there It's like information overload what get abstract does is it finds rates and summarizes top business books Articles and video talks into 10 minute abstracts to help people make better decisions in business and their private lives I know you don't have hours to kill, but you still want to learn you still want to upskill This is where get abstract really helps over 22,000 text and audio summaries in areas such as leadership finance innovation health and science and many more If you want to get to the meat of various text articles books videos go sign up for get abstract you can get a free month for all success story podcasts listeners By visiting getab.li slash success. That is getab g-e-t-a-b.li slash success You apply the third door in your own life You've done it multiple times the one other Case study I best best thing I think of the way to call it I guess case study or or practical application is when You asked Warren Buffett a question so I also think that's I think that just you know we talk about the president of of Microsoft we speak about Bill Gates And then we can also speak about Alex who you live this and you You you've internalized it and this is how you get what you want in life. So Not to say you're not as impressive as Bill Gates or Chilu. I would agree with that statement Hi, I definitely don't think so but I appreciate the cut But even even that last that last because I think the the chance of you asking Warren Buffett a question is like one in a thousand at one of these shareholder meetings or something Even more astronomical I don't know the odds but yeah, yeah, I was about one in a thousand So how do you hack even small little everyday situations to get to get what you want Got I hope people don't walk away from this me like wow Alex is really good at Game shows. I think that's all they're gonna take back. I guess that isn't take away though It was a lot of there's a lot of practical like I hope that they can extrapolate some of the things that you've just taught To okay. Yeah, maybe he did do it in a game show But there's a lot of things that I could replicate from this And that's essentially what the story of the third door is yeah the way the book is written Yes, it starts with the price his right story and you know chapter one and two But essentially the way I think about it as a writer is You know a great musical Starts with that overture that opening song and it actually plays throughout the whole musical in different ways I remember when I was writing the third door I would sit down for editor and it started dawning on me I didn't have the idea in the beginning. It sort of came to me as it was happening. I was like oh The price is right energy And I didn't know this I wasn't self-aware. I was you know this teenager going on this journey There's only when I was writing that I was able to step back and look at this seven-year journey and see that oh my goodness The energy of the price is right is the same energy of How I got the Warren Buffett situation how he got the Bill Gates interview How about the Spielberg disaster of how I went to the South of France to try to interview them They're like all of these stories actually all had the same energy and essentially back to summarize Third door philosophy and a single sentence is that At the end of the day There's always a way You know matter what obstacle stand in front of you at the end of the day. There's always a way I love that But how did you get I still need to know that you didn't answer the question The Warren Buffett story The Warren Buffett story for anyone who is a Warren Buffett fan You know, you know most people know him as the most successful investor in financial history Uh, and what the super you know fans know is that he has this thing called the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting You know his company is Berkshire Hathaway He has an annual meeting where 30,000 people lie out to Omaha, Nebraska sit in a big stadium and essentially Here updates from Berkshire Hathaway and there's a Q&A portion Where people in the audience get to ask Warren Buffett questions Um, I had a microphone And I had spent at this point about six or eight months trying to get it in a Ruth Warren Buffett writing him handwritten letters He actually would handwrite his responses back to me, but the answer is always no So after about eight months of this his assistant Debbie, you know, I'll call her everyone's day One Wednesday she just you know after six months she just was like listen Alex Look you're a nice kid, but I just got to tell you I know Warren and I know the answer is no So how about Just as my guest you come to our annual shareholders meeting and I'll send you some tickets I was like oh my god, that's You know, it's really kind of you and she's like yeah, you can even bring some of your friends I said can I bring like five friends? Yeah, I'll send you six tickets. I was like wow. Thank you And then she goes Yeah, just come out and enjoy this shareholder. I said well Debbie, though isn't it true And at the shareholders meeting people in the audience can ask questions to Warren Buffett You know during the Q&A portion she goes Alex Alex So Look, I know what you're thinking it just it's not possible There's 30,000 people there only about 30 you get to ask questions your odds are one and a thousand. I wouldn't get your hopes What Debbie doesn't know about me is I am the king of hopes up So I end up going to five, you know, childhood best friends we filed to Omaha, Nebraska You know, we're staying at the motel six all six of us in one room and we go to Warren Buffett's shareholders meeting And we end up sort of without a plan, but we just had this philosophy of just like the prices right there must be a way And sure enough we find out a loophole in Warren Buffett's lottery system And out of the six of us we entered this lottery system And even though our odds were one of a thousand out of the six of us four-go winning lottery tickets And that's how we asked our questions to Warren Buffett in front of 30,000 people You're good. You're good at this. You're very good at this. I appreciate it It also was a train it was a disaster was a train crash In many ways. What did you what did you ask them? So there's a thing about Warren Buffett. He is a he's a very clever foe So he is a clever man. So I thought I was really clever like hacking a shareholders meeting and asking him the question He caught on very quickly to what was happening To the point where by the time my fourth friend went up to the microphone with my like questions that were like Extremely researched and premeditated, you know, I had them printed out on cards in a hand in my mouth my friends The time my fourth friend went up to the microphone Warren Buffett just looks at my friend and says You know, I think this is a good point to end the meeting. Thank you everyone and just shuts off the microphone That's uh, so you know, I've never I've never sat down with a guy at this point. I I'll never know if he If that was just the craziest coincidence of all time um But he was catching on to the point where even when I was asking him some of my other questions um He was very dodgy with the answers and one of the most important lessons I learned from this experience is by complete random Different path. I ended up getting the interview with Bill Gates through a different way And right around that same time about a few months later and when I did the interview with Bill Gates The interview went so well that Bill Gates's chief of staff said look Alex That was phenomenal. We love what you're doing. We love the mission. We love that you're trying to help, you know The next generation of entrepreneurs. So How can we help you? And I was like oh god, I have a lot of ways to help me Um, so I like show them my list of people I wanted to interview And sure enough, you know, they look at Warren thought they go oh Bill and Warren are best friends That's easy when I'll just put in that call tomorrow I'm like coach my god, this is amazing I'll never know exactly what happened, but I get an email from Bill Gates chief of staff about a week later and The email says dear Alex, please no more contact to Warren's office. Thank you really And in that moment Adana me not only was the answer still no I had gotten myself blacklisted And every business book talked about the value of persistence But I'd never seen a business book ever tell you about the dangers of over persistence Where you can knock on the door so many times The person on the other side locks the door and calls the police And I had always assumed persistence is about knocking on a door a hundred times It wasn't until that moment that I realized that persistence is actually about knocking on a hundred different doors And I had to learn in the hard way that it's possible to be so over persistent It's possible to dig yourself into such a deep hole that even Bill Gates can't pull you out It's another good lesson. Yeah, that's that's very interesting So that's so even when his even when his chief and staff reached out it was At this point though, it was like you'd already reached out a lot. So I'm assuming yeah, this after eight months of pounding them I'm happy Mr. Horses meeting I had really That's funny Well live and learn I mean you got a lot of pretty damn good interviews. So I'd say I'd say you did all right All right, so what do you what do you want to You know after after creating the third door the concept book What's what do you want your legacy to be what do you want to impart on the world and I ask this because You said yourself if somebody doesn't want to believe there's a workaround or doesn't want to Maybe step outside that line for the club you can't help them So what do you want to impart on the world knowing that It's going to take a person to have some self-awareness to take that first step out of line anyways You know, there's a there's a story that I really love that I think about a lot And it's a story I read during my research about a teacher who's teaching With the program Teach for America and she was signed to a school and fall tomorrow You know really rough school really rough part of town And she's assigned to maybe third or fourth grade But she realizes these kids Need some inspiration So she says all right today we're all going to drop pictures of our biggest dream in life You know what we want to be when we grow up so as you pass up the papers and the crayons and all the kids start coloring Except one boy sitting in the back of the class Know his face is stoic You won't touch a crayon But about five minutes later his eyes his eyes light up he starts coloring And The teacher at the end of the day is born for the papers and sees that this young boy read it You know To a picture of a pizza delivering air The teacher is very concerned So the teacher called the mother that night and explained what had happened and the mother said that she wasn't surprised The mother explained that the only male figure in his life This boy's life who was an in jail or on drugs as his uncle delivers pizza And what I learned From that story is that young people will always reach for the highest branch they believe is possible They will always reach for the highest branch they believe is possible So it's our jobs Whether it's schools families or the business community at large To illuminate more branches That's really my mission moving forward I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot Now the new year might have you thinking ahead to what you want out of your career So when you think about your success story, what do you actually picture? Is it retiring early with a beautiful view of the skyline? Is it leaving a legacy with your name on it? Or maybe it's helping influence and change some of the world's most pressing issues Whatever it is writing your success story starts by working smart Because when you work smart your success story writes itself A HubSpot CRM platform helps your marketing campaigns work harder and smarter With intuitive visual workflows and bot builders you can create scalable automated campaigns across email Social media web and chat so your customers hear your messages loud and clear Are you tired of your content not adapting to mobile making it difficult for your customers to absorb your message A HubSpot CRM platform Optimizes your content for multiple devices so that you can reach your customers wherever they are Which is just smart learn more about how you can transform your customer experience with a HubSpot CRM at HubSpot.com I love that. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's an amazing at the beautiful story You're a very good you're a very good storyteller I'm not I'm not blowing smoke. You're a very good storyteller. Your analogies are strong. So thank you Okay, I want to wrap this up with a few rapid fire questions to pull us some insights from you Before that though most importantly, where do people connect with you? What are the places people should go check out? Social website anything you want to draw. Yeah, you know if If you like audio books, you know the third door is on you audible and iTunes if you like physical books, you know Obviously Amazon Barnes Noble e-books, you know wherever you like books It's there And if you ended up listening to this and reading the book because of it Let me know, you know, Instagram is at Alex Panayan as Twitter same thing And we'd love to just say thank you and you're everything Amazing. Okay, biggest challenge you've overcome in your personal professional life. What was that? How'd you overcome it? biggest challenge I Probably when my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer In personal life. Yeah, that was that was definitely one of the hardest How did you not let that affect you even though it did know that it affected even though it did But how did it affect me? How did I how did I manage it? Yeah With therapy And with the book called when things fall apart by Pemetrojourn There was that was a single resource outside of a therapist in a friends and family That I that I can point to There's been many people that have had an impact on your life But if you had to pick one who was it and what did they teach you? Who outside of family or including family open ended YouTube Well, including family. It's you know my mother isn't easy is the either mother wife father, you know Oh, it's a well when you when you do outside of family or outside relatives Then you start going to like business mentors and whatnot and in friends Um Do you have one in particular what I do oh go ahead. All right Well, you know, definitely with my mother um You know, she's actually changed what I believe is possible When my dad passed away Sing the way my mom um Not only Like state of float but actually completely Had a rebirth in some ways And allowed herself to be you know one of the things that says in that book when things fall apart is By allowing yourself to be completely Distructed do you find the parts yourself that are indestructible Uh, yeah, I know my mom went through that and I went through that and um Seeing her grow and heal and transform uh in her fifties Um She's just the you know biggest light in my life You now touched on this already but I'll ask anyways um a book or podcast you'd recommend people Go check out it could be what you just mentioned or there could be others as well Uh, one of my favorite books of the past couple of years is a book called Einstein in the rabbi And the subtitle is called searching for the soul Uh, the title is a bit like uh misleading but the subtitle really gets to what the book is about Which is really it's about exploring what the soul is and nurturing your connection with your soul and Being able to listen to it and I loved that book Um if you could tell your 20 year old self one thing what would it be You're gonna be fine Relax Enjoy it you're gonna be it's gonna work out great The 20 year old self would say you're wrong Ha ha ha I need to be terrified in order for this to work uh it always works out I'm by the way someone by the way people say that to me today and I go Little do you know Um, and then last question what does success mean to you At this point in my life It's doing things in a way that I'm proud of Helping people in a way It feels like it's unique to my Destiny and path of life And the love and the relationships that I'm able to have along the whole journey You