 Welcome back to The Art of Charm. We are live in studio here today with Alex Benayan. Welcome man, thank you very much for having me. Thank you for coming and thank you for writing a fantastic book. We're gonna dive into that today and do a little talking. And I think a lot of our listeners have either gone through this moment that really was the genesis of your book or are currently in that moment looking for answers and not finding him in a traditional college setting, wanting more out of life. So I'd love to hear the backstory behind the genesis of this book because obviously you're in school where most people go to get an education and to feel like you're not quite getting the education that you want. You need to talk to some different people and get different outlooks and setting the bar as high as Bill Gates, for example. College students most often don't get too much time with Bill Gates. So what was the genesis for the book for you? So I was going through a life crisis. You know spending every day lying on my dorm room bed staring up at the ceiling. You know I was 18 years old, a freshman in college and to understand why I was going through this life crisis you have to understand I'm the son of Jewish immigrants which pretty much means I came out of the womb, my mom cradle me in her arms and then she stamped MD on my ass and sent me on my way. And you know you think it's funny but in third grade I wore scrubs to school for Halloween and thought I was cool. I was that kid growing up. I went to pre-med summer camp in high school, I studied for the SATs, applied to college and by the time I got to college I'm the pre-med of pre-meds and very quickly I remember lying on my dorm room bed just looking at this towering stack of biology books feeling like they were a mentor sucking the life out of me. And at first I assumed I'm just being lazy but very quickly I began to wonder maybe I'm not on my path. Maybe I'm on a path somebody's placed me on and I'm just rolling down. So now not only do I not know what I wanna do with my life you know I'm going through this what I wanna do with my life crisis and on top of that the questions naturally evolve into how did all the people who I looked up to how did they do it? You know how did 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 when he was rejected from film school? You know these are things they don't teach you in class. So you know I just very simply assumed there had to be a book with the answer so I remember going to the library and I'm just ripping through biographies and business books and self-help books and very quickly after a couple months I realized I'm left empty handed because there wasn't a single book that had people from all industries talking about when they were just starting out when they couldn't get anyone to take their calls and no one would take their meetings. How did they find a way to break through and launch their careers? And what I was focused on was not really about an age in someone's life but really a stage. When you're starting something new it doesn't matter if you're 20 or 80. When no one wants to give you the light of day and you're just facing rejection after rejection or after rejection how do you find a way to break through? So very naively I was like well if no one's written the book I'm dreaming of reading. Why not write it myself? And I thought it'd be super simple I would just call up Bill Gates interview him interview everybody else. Really simple. Yeah I thought it'd be done in a few months. You know I had no interview experience I thought you know Bill Gates is he's retired from Microsoft he's just waiting to help college kids. Yeah philanthropy you know he's got nothing to do with this time. Yeah I wasn't asking him for money I just wanted some advice I thought it'd be super simple. That I thought would be the easy part. The hard part I figured was getting the money to fund the journey. You know I was buried in student loan debt I was all out of bar mitzvah cash. You know 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's doing in the library right before finals. I'm on Facebook. And I see someone posting free tickets to the prices right. And game show was filming you know like five or 10 miles away from my college campus. And my first thought was what if I go on the show and win some money to fund this book. You know not my brightest moment but. Especially during finals. Right you know yeah I had a problem. Finals were in two days. Plus you know I'd never seen a full episode of the show before. I've of course seen the prices right when I was homesick in fourth grade. But like I would watch clips of it and I'd never seen a full episode. So I told myself it was a dumb idea to not think about it. And you know I remember sitting in the corner of the library in this like round wooden table. And I don't know if you guys have had one of these moments where an idea just keeps clawing itself back into your life. Oh yeah. And you know you tell yourself it's preposterous but the idea just keeps coming back. So to prove myself it was a bad idea. I remember opening my spiral notebook and making you know the best and worst case scenarios. Fail finals. Get kicked out of that. Lose financial aid. Mom stops talking to me. No mom kills me. You know there's 20 cons. And the only pro was maybe, maybe wouldn't have money to fund this dream. And it felt as if somebody had tied a rope around my gut and was slowly pulling in a direction. So that night I decided to do the logical thing and pull an all nighter to study. But I didn't study for finals. I said I had to hack the prices right. And I go on the show the next day and execute this ridiculous strategy and I ended up winning the whole showcase show down winning a sailboat, selling the sailboat and that's how I funded the book. That's how I knew I was going to be reading a very fun book. Your attitude in going in there of looking for the craziest clothes and how to stick out and how to go about this and willing to play the role of the book the role of the fool of the silly guy, the loud guy in order to make this happen. It's like okay well here's this guy, here's this dream, here's how we can finance this and I'm willing to do what it's going to take to at least get this off. And so from there it's like oh this guy is willing to do anything. So this is gonna be a lot of fun. The adventures that he's about to go on are gonna take him everywhere. And of course we were talking about that earlier about when you put yourself some goals ahead of yourself and you're open to the idea of saying yes to achieving those you're welcoming yourself into adventure. Right, absolutely. And the fun part about all of this obviously going on the price is right, amazing story is you learned how to tell that story in a more engaging way. And this one's theme is compelling conversations. We talk a lot about how storytelling and narratives connect us and you got some advice from a friend to work on that exact story that you just told us. How impactful was that practicing the story to make you more compelling in meeting all these people? I don't have words to explain how impactful it was. And one of the best things I got from someone, so the friend you're talking about is Elliot Bizno. And Elliot ended up taking me to this meeting he was at where it was like a vice president at Goldman Sachs and I'm like 19, what the fuck am I doing here? And Elliot's like, I like some of the price right story. And I'm sort of like fumbling my way through it and I eventually got a hang of it. And at the end of the story the, and you know the whole story is like this 20 minute story. And the Goldman Sachs VP was like, he's like this big, you know, New York guy like whispers in my ear. He's like, that fucking story tells me more about you than any fucking resume. Absolutely. Got it kid. And I'm like, oh shit, that's wild. I, at that point, especially when I just met Elliot, I wasn't telling anyone about the prices, right? Because I thought it was this like, according to my mom, this stupid mistake I made. Right, to outsiders that can appear that way. And what's woven into the story, and you do a great job of the book. So listeners, check out the book, grab a copy of the book, we're gonna dig in a little bit more. But what's woven into the story is all of these moments where you kind of think you're gonna succeed and then you don't, but you push through. So the producer, you knew you had to win over. You didn't win over. So you push through. And then you're called up there and you're like, I don't actually know how to play the game. You push through. So that's that exact message that's being sent through the story. The underlying narrative is, I'm gonna keep trying. I'm gonna find that third door to get in. Cause there's always, always a way. And what is the third door? Explain that to our audience. Cause it's such an amazing concept. Johnny and I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Well, you guys have been living it. What's funny to me is that when I had started this journey seven years ago, I had zero intention to find that one key to success. You know, all those TED talks talk about that one key and I just roll my eyes. But what ended up happening about 70% into this journey was I started, I don't know if you guys are like big music fans, but I love music and I started realizing all these interviews have a common melody to them. They weren't saying the same thing, but they have the same energy. And the analogy that came to me cause I was 21 at the time is that every single one of these people treat life and business and success the exact same way. And they treat it like getting into a nightclub. So there's always three ways in. There's the first door, the main entrance where the line curves around the block. You know, that's where 99% of people wait around hoping to get in. And then there's the second door, the VIP entrance where the billionaires and celebrities go through. And for some reason, school has this way of making us feel like those are the only two ways in. You either wait your turn or you're born into it. But what I've learned is that there's always, always the third door. And it's the entrance where you jump out of line, run down the alley, bang on the door a hundred times, crack open the window, go through the kitchen, there's always a way in. And it doesn't matter if that's how Bill Gates sold his first piece of software or how Lady Gaga got her first record deal, they all took the third door. And is there something deep down in us that highlights that in our narrative? It's so pronounced in almost everyone you interview that they have this adversity, they have this know that they push through. And because of that, they were able to come out the other side successful. You know, what I've learned about the third door is no one takes it because they want to take it. It's not like, oh, you know, my life is so comfortable. All right, the game show with three doors are like, what do you want? Door number one, door number two, or door number three? No one wants the door where you're gonna be covered in mud and covered in bruises and there's a shady guy in the alley who's gonna take your money. No one wants that. So I don't think it's this like romantic thing that makes life beautiful. I think it's a thing of necessity. Anybody who has a dream worth pursuing, who has a dream that's big enough that it's scary to pursue, you can't achieve it waiting in line with everybody else. And unless you're born into it and you take the second door because your dad or mom is so-and-so, you have no choice but to run down that alley, bang on the door under times and make it happen yourself. So it's always these stories of necessity where they, for me, in the beginning of my journey, I emailed pressatgatesfoundation.com, didn't fucking work to my surprise. I didn't want to take the third door, I had to. And I think that's this overarching story that I'm sure you guys have come across in all your interviews where it sounds like someone's like, well, I'm just gonna overcome my social anxiety because I have nothing to do today. It's because they wanted to achieve a dream and the only way they could do that was by learning these skills the hard way. Well, the other thing about it is, there's that fear of looking silly. And if you're going to find another way in, it may be through the window that's a little bit too small. It may be through the alley of giving the scary guys some bucks to walk you around to another way in. And then you may have to look a bit silly to do what you need to do to make it in. But I think what all of us have found is that once you're in, you're in. And no one really cares what you did to get it. In fact- Actually, they like you more. They like you, they like you more. And they know what you're made of having to go through that and know what you're capable of. And I think that's why there is a kinship between all of us who have been able to do things in that manner. Yeah, it's like graduating from the same university. It's like third door university. You're like, oh, bro, you took the side door I got you forever. Yeah, absolutely, I love it. And it involves social skills. It involves connecting with the right people, being able to talk and represent yourself in a way that's compelling enough to even have the door open. And sometimes it means physically forcing your way in. Being relentless, being that person who most would label annoying and say, what the heck are you doing? Why are you emailing this person 30 times? So would you say in the beginning that you were anxious socially and that you were introverted and really this was a daunting task or did you always feel you were kind of extroverted and had the gift of gab? You know, I love that question because it probably gets to the truth better than anything else. I think one of the biggest misconceptions of the third door is that it's like this. It's the extroverts door. Something I didn't go, you know, I touched on in the book, but I wish, you know, I could have gone even deeper in hindsight was how deep, you know, my insecurities went and how deep my social anxiety went and how deep my introversion went. Because what most people don't know about me is I'm like the scared, like the scariest kid you'll ever meet. Like when I was 12, I still had a night light, level scared, you know? And, you know, there's this thing I call the flinch. And the first time I remember feeling the flinch, you know, I'm so scared I have a fucking name for my fear, like that's my level, right? And I remember when I was in the first time I really felt it, I was in third grade. And I remember I was, you know, going into the cafeteria, elementary school lunchtime, you know, I walk in there. There's all those long rows, you know, those old wooden benches. So you walk in, there's long wooden tables and I sit down and, you know, there's my friend Ben and my friend Harrison Ben has the granola bars and the soda and Harrison has the, you know, peanut butter and jelly santa to the crust cut off. And then there's me with this like big Tupperware of Persian rice with like green stew. And not just like green, it's like poo green, you know? And, you know, the red kidney beans on top and you, and lamb and you open it up. Oh yeah. And I remember, I think something must have, it might have been a hot day because when I opened the lid, the smell just exploded in the cafeteria and all the kids turned around and started laughing at me and, you know, asking if I had to rot in eggs for lunch and when you're in third grade. That's, that's the end of the world. It's the end of the world. And I remember, you know, my face, just all the heat rising and I remember, you know, putting my lunch away and leaving the cafeteria and from that day on, I waited until after school to eat my lunch alone. And in the beginning, that flinch just started out as my fear of being seen as different. But as I grew older, it grew with me. It grew into my fear of rejection, my fear of being, you know, being a failure, my fear of really looking like a fool. And as you're growing up, that becomes part of your identity, becomes this all, it's not like a small fear that talks to you every now and then. It's like on your shoulder whispering a new ear 24 seven. And for me, that plus my insecurities of, you know, when I was younger, I was about like 50 pounds heavier. And, you know, in elementary school, people used to call me like fatty benign. That was like my nickname, which hurt a lot. And, you know, not having my first kiss until I was like in college, like all these things just started adding to the story. I wasn't conscious of the time of just me not being enough, me not being lovable, me not being likable. And that plus having an, you know, an immigrant family where, you know, you're not allowed to go to parties, you're not allowed to go to sleepovers, my grandma's mantra for us as kids was, what for you need friends when you have cousins? You know? We're like, grandma, please, can we go to the person's birthday party? She's like, what for? What for? Right, we have a big family. She's like, you have cousins, you don't need friends. And, you know, that just, when you're a kid, that's just all you have is just, you either have a social life or you have no life. And for us growing up, we just didn't have that. So it wasn't until I started this journey for the book that I realized that all these stories and all these insecurities, like you guys mentioned, were standing in my way. And I would never be able to achieve a dream unless I confronted them. Well, that's what I find in all of our interviews and everyone that I've read about and everyone I've talked to who has put their dreams into reality, they have a great working relationship with the worst parts about them and their worst fear. And that's good, a great working relationship. Absolutely, where they, maybe they name it. Like Jesse Itzler names his bully, like his internal fears, Billy the bully, or you named it the flinch. Like when you have this working relationship, whether when you're facing it all the time, when you know it's, that's what's in your way, you're going to know it better than most people. Most people, when they feel that, they run the other direction. They do anything they avoided. They pretend it doesn't even exist. Right, turn the lights out, it's gone. That was me for the first, you know, 18, 19 years of my life. Even yesterday, after I got picked up from the office, I was heading home and the Uber driver had asked me what I was doing, I talked to him about the podcast and we're in the self-development space and it's like, oh, self-development, that's really nice. Yeah, cause some people really need that. I was like, no, everybody needs that. Everyone should be developing themselves into the best person they can be and reach out for these dreams. And it's mind blowing, but I really appreciate you being able to name it and each step in a book, it was there. It was following you. Yeah, and do you know what's one of the best things that I read and I didn't read this until recently. There's a book called When Things Fall Apart by the Buddhist monk Pema Chodran and she's talking about, you know, fear. And she's like, you know, I became this Buddhist monk and I was shocked that I still had so much fear within me. So she goes and talks to this Zen master and she's like, how do you deal with fear? What's your relationship with your fear? And the Zen master goes, I agree with it. I agree with my fear. And when I read that, literally, it just fucking blew my mind cause that's been the opposite of my entire life. I have fear in front of me and it's just this battle of me like, please get out of my way. You know, it's been this struggle, this internal war. And when I heard that line of I agree with it, it sort of was this like jiu jitsu move that like released this internal war. And I realized if I agree with my fear, it doesn't necessarily go away but it stops being this battle and it sort of evaporates and steps to the side. And agreeing with your fear, agreeing with your insecurities are your first step in having that, like you say, working relationship with it. And I think everyone has these people they look up to and they view them as fearless, courageous. They have it all figured out. And it's so amazing. Obviously having spoke with all of these people, having social anxiety, going into it, being fearful of being rejected, you face a lot of rejection in this book. And I think it's so easy to be like, well, that was easy for Elon Musk. That was easy for Bill Gates. They got it figured out, but this fear is holding me back. So walk through the flinch when you actually set up your first interview because that was the start of this journey. You identified who you wanted to talk to and you and your friends had a collaborative list going. And the first one obviously is the biggest flinch because it's happening. I told everyone I'm doing it. I saved up all my money. I won the prices right. I better perform and make it happen. So now you have two opposing forces. You have fear of, oh, how am I actually gonna pull this off? But then you have the fear of disappointing everyone who's now signed up for this journey with you. Yeah. Well, you know, the first big person that I got in front of was Steven Spielberg. And by the, I use the word get in front of very loosely. I think it was like through the bushes, from behind, jumped out. So like you said, so the way the list came to be, the list for this book was, you know, once I won the prices right and I had the money, I was like, all right, well, who am I gonna interview? And I asked all my best friends to come over one night because I don't really believe in those, you know, Forbes 100 algorithms. I don't think you can quantify success like that. So I had a problem. Who are gonna be the successful people who I reach out to? So I asked my buddies to come over and I'm like, guys, if we can make our dream university, who would be our professors? And that made it really simple. You know, Bill Gates would teach business. You know, Lady Gaga would teach music. Larry King would teach broadcasting. Jane Goodall science. Maya Angelou poetry. Tim Ferriss entrepreneurship. You know, Mark Zuckerberg tech. And you know, that became this list that became the treasure map for the journey. And I wrote it down on this little no card and put it in my wallet. And you know, that's a great little, it's a tiny thing that actually leads to big dividends. Whatever your dream is, if you're just starting out, write it on the little no card and keep it in your wallet where the driver's license is. So every time you look at your wallet, you're like facing what your dream is. And anytime you're at a party and someone asks you about your dream, you're like, oh, you wanna see what whatever it is, whether it's the one sentence, a mischievous statement of it. Or for me, it was the list of all the people I wanted to interview. Right. And you know, the first month of work on the book, I had that list in my wallet and I was telling someone about it. And I show her the list and she goes, Spielberg. And she's like, I shouldn't be telling you this, but he's gonna be at a fundraising event over at the USC campus. And I think I know just the way to get you in. And she told me she could sort of sneak me in as like a caterer if I wore a suit and tie. So she's like, look, it's in a month. And if I were you, I would do your research. And I did just that. I watched all his movies. I read his 800 page biography. And I finally get there. And sure enough, Spielberg, in the beginning of the party was like 20 feet away from me. But he's talking to like George Lucas and Jeffrey Katzenberg and Jack Black and the flinches in full effect. And finally, when it was my time to like try to make my move, I was completely frozen. Mouth wired shut, feet turned to stone. And I lost my chance. And I go to the bathroom and I told myself, and again, this goes back to what you had mentioned. If I don't push through this, my entire journey will be over before it started. And I go back to the party and I just, you know, Spielberg's in one set of the room. I'm the other Spielberg's on one side. I go to the other and this is like really awkward dance. And finally I see him walking towards the exit. And again, my fear of failing was now even more powerful than my fear of getting rejected. So I just start sprinting through the party. And I'm dodging waiters, I'm going around to old ladies. And I finally go up to him and I'm like, Mr. Spielberg, and he turns around. And I remember like his eyebrow shooting up and he puts his arms in the air and I like coil back. And he gives me this big hug. And he's like, I've been on a college campus all day and you're the first student I've met. And I'm like, can I ask you a question? He's like, absolutely. Just if you just walk with me, which by the way I've learned is a great little thing that always works. If you just walk with someone to their car, what are they gonna say? They're not gonna say no. So I'm walking with him to his car and he asked me what I'm working on. And I just, I didn't have a pitch. I just started pouring my heart out to him. Telling him about this dream. And finally I'm like, Mr. Spielberg, would you do an interview for the book? And I see like his jaw clench, you know? And he looks at me and he's like, you know, I don't do interviews unless it's to promote a movie or for my foundation. And then he looked up. And I remember like him squinting even though the sun wasn't bright and almost as if he was debating something in his mind. And he comes back and looks at me and he goes, you know what? I'm gonna give you a maybe. Go out and do this. Go get all your other interviews and come back to me. And I was like, wow, like thank you so much. And he gave me a hug and he walks away. And he goes to his car. And then before I can leave, he turns back around, walks back toward me and goes, I really meant that. I believe you can do this. I don't know what it is, but I believe you can make this possible. And from there, he gave me one of the most important things anyone can give you, which is that possibility. Yeah, chance. Yeah. And what's so interesting to me about that is you have this idea, you sit down with your friends and now it's happening. And the first crucial moment, you're like, I don't have a pitch, I just gotta go with it. I just gotta go with my gut. And I think a lot of times we had Orin Clawfon last month talking about pitching. I think a lot of times we feel like there's a magic phrase or a magic key that we just need to say the right words and it's gonna happen. And we lose out on that heartfelt, genuine moment where you know what, I'm just gonna be me and this is my chance and it resonated. And he gave you the maybe. So you ran home and told everyone, I got a maybe from Steven Spielberg. This book is happening. So I think the biggest person in the book for you, if I'm not mistaken, was Bill Gates. We know now that press at Bill Gates Foundation doesn't get you in. That email's probably defunct. To my surprise. You jammed that inbox completely full. So how do you go from a solid maybe to Steven Spielberg to, all right, I'm actually in front of my dream interview, my dream opportunity. Yeah. Well, it was this two year adventure to get to Bill Gates. And probably one of the most important social skills or pitching skills that I learned came from that experience. So the first year of that two year quest to Gates was just trying to get in contact with his office. Because what I learned is that the press at Gates Foundation doesn't work and something I actually learned from researching Spielberg is the key really in getting a yes comes from having that inside man, someone inside an organization who believes in you enough that they're willing to put their reputation on the line for you to break through. Right. And it does not, no matter how talented you are, it does not work unless you have that inside man or inside woman who's willing to vouch for you. So I was like, all right, I need to get in contact with Gates' chief of staff. Because there's Bill, there's Melinda, and then there's the chief of staff who sort of make the decisions. So it took me an entire year to finally get a five-minute phone call with Bill Gates' chief of staff. And what I mean a year, I mean like full-time working for a year, and I get that phone call and he's like picks up the phone and he's like, so you want to interview Bill, huh? He's like right to the point. He's like not wasting any time. I'm like, yeah, it's my biggest dream. He's like, all right, you know, I've heard enough, I've heard all about Bill Gates, I've heard enough, I've heard all about you and you know, I love what you're doing. I love that you're trying to help your generation. And I'm feeling like I'm 95% there. And he's like, but you're about 5% there. He's like, look, Bill doesn't do interviews with student newspapers. Like go get a publishing deal from Penguin or Random House. Go get some more momentum with other interviewees and call me back and he hangs up. So I end up going on this eight month quest of trying to get a publishing deal, which to my surprise, Random House doesn't normally do business books with 19 year olds. Don't have any interviews lined up. Solid maybes. I'm like, guys, I got a ton of maybes. So I have, funny enough, that actually was a part of my pitch. So it took eight months, but I finally get the publishing deal. I go back to Gates's office, no response. Email again, no response. I'm like, fuck, I guess I need more momentum. So I go get other interviews. I hit up Gates office, still no response. So now it's been about another year has passed and I've been working full time. So it's now almost two years. And I got this incredible piece of advice from Larry King in one of my interviews with him, where he said, you know, the problem of young kids these days is they look at how much technology has changed over the past 50 years. And they assume human beings have changed as well. And he's like, they haven't. Technology has changed where human beings are the exact same. Someone only knows who you are and will only give you a yes when they can look you in your eyes and have that human connection. And it made me realize I had spent two years trying to track down Gates as chief of staff and it was over email, over phone. He still didn't know who I was. And I knew that he goes to the TED conference every year. And I knew that TED was in Long Beach, not too far from where I lived. So I emailed a couple of people on Microsoft who were helping me out and I was like, guys, I know you guys have put your reputation on the line already and this hasn't worked out. Gates is chief of staff will be there. If you can get me just five minutes in person, I swear this is my final ask. And you know they were very reluctant and I was like, guys, if he still says no after this, I swear I'll never ask again. And I sort of put my whole dream on the line. I was all chips in. I was like, guys, this is my final bullet. And they're like, all right, this is the final one. So they start emailing Gates as chief of staff over and over and over again, no response. They start getting other executives at Microsoft, emailing him no response until finally the night before the TED conference. And I'll never forget this. At 7, 27 p.m., I get an email from the chief of staff saying, yes, Alex, I'll be there. And yes, I'd be happy to meet you. And he tells me to meet him at 10.15 at the lobby espresso bar. So I'm there at 9.30 in the morning. I'm the first one there. There's the biggest meeting of my life. Two years took this meeting to happen. And I'm sitting there and it's 10.15 and the barista was like, sir, are you ready to order? And I'm like, sure, but I just need a few more minutes. My friend's almost here. And it's like 10.30 and the barista's like, are you ready to order? And I'm like, I think he's running late a few more minutes. It's now 10.45. And he's still not there. And I just remember feeling, I can't even describe the feeling of just knowing that I couldn't believe this is how this journey would end. With literally just being stood up at a lobby espresso bar. And I try to compose myself and I found the assistance phone number for the chief of staff. And I gave her a call and her name is Wendy. And I took some deep breaths and I'm like, hey, Wendy, it's Alex. And I'm super grateful that this meeting even got scheduled. You know, I don't want to seem ungrateful. I just, I want to make sure he's okay because he never showed up. She's like, what are you talking about? He called me and said, you never showed up. I'm like, what? Well, turns out there are two lobby espresso bars, one at the hotel and one in the convention centers. I was at the wrong one. And I just started crying on the phone to Wendy. As much as I tried to hold it together to start crying. And I'm telling her my entire dream and how this all came to be. She's like, Alex, Alex, Alex, give me a few minutes. Let me see what I can do. Sure enough, a few minutes later, I got an email from Wendy saying the chief of staff has agreed to let me ride with him to the airport that afternoon in his limo. So my five minute meeting was now a 45 minute meeting. And a captive audience, right? He's not going to jump out of his limo. He could sit at the coffee bar and be like, all right, I'm done with my espresso. I'm out, but 45 minutes captive audience and you want him over. Yeah. And yeah, I don't know if you want to go into the whole thing of how he finally said yes, but I ended up. Well, I want to save some of the book. Yeah, it is a great read. John and I were laughing, you know, we've had a lot of books shipped to us and they're pretty dull at times. This was full of adventure, misadventure, a lot of rejection, which we're going to talk about how you toughened up dealing with that. But I want to delve a little deeper into a point because you talk about the inside man and that story has multiple layers of inside men and women trying to help you out. And I think a lot of times when we're trying to get to that. Yes, we're trying to get to that pitch. We're always like, I just have this one gatekeeper. I could just get through that one person. But in actuality, it's building relationships with all of these people led to them saying, you know what? I wouldn't do this for just anyone, but I'm going to do it for you, Alex. Even though before that you were a college kid in your dorm. Yeah. And I think it's so easy when we have dreams to make excuses and say, I don't know the right people. I wasn't born with wealth. I don't have status. So it's not for me. And pushing through finding an inside man to lead to the next inside man to the next inside woman who's like, all right, hop in the limo. Take some persistence. And did you always have that in you from your youth or you were just always persistent to maybe even the level of annoying some people? You know, one of the biggest lessons I learned about persistence was, you know, I on the one hand knew I'd read these business books and they all said, you know, persistence is the key to success. What I didn't know was about the dangers of over persistence because, you know, it's obvious, you know, keep pounding on the door until it breaks. But with the Warren Buffett, I ended up spending eight months pounding on his door, calling his office week after week after week. By month one, it was a lot. By month six, you know, you really start bugging people. By month eight, they're just restraining order. Right. But I was just like persistent. You know, I had one of the things that amazed me about that is the volume of emails had to been such so large because it's not like like myself, right? It's I don't they're getting so they're getting such a volume. Yeah. So for you to have been so persistent that your emails are sticking out as a nuisance of everything else that they're doing. A lot of people want to talk to Warren. A lot of people are being persistent, but you talk about a lesson from Tim Ferriss, actually, that it's not just persistence. It it takes a little nuance for the persistence key to unlock the lock. So obviously persistent with Warren Buffett, let's finish the story there and then we'll unpack what we mean by the nuance of persistence. So the ending of the Buffett story is essentially I end up getting the interview with Bill Gates eventually. It goes so well with Gates that his office was like, hey, how can we help? And I'm like, well, I know Bill and Warren are best friends. Do you think you can, you know, put in a good word and they're like, easy, we got this. So yeah, I'm 20 years old and I have Bill Gates as office contacting Warren Buffett's office on my behalf. I'm like, what the fuck is happening here? And sure enough, they contact Buffett's office. I'll never know exactly what happened, but I assume Buffett's office essentially was like, we know all about Alex. This is not happening. And I got an email from Bill Gates office saying no more contact to Warren's office. Period. Thanks. And what I learned from that is that I had been so persistent. I got myself blacklisted and no business book talks about that. No one says that you can bang on a door so many times that instead of breaking it down, they're going to call the police on you. And I had been so over persistent. I had dug myself into such a deep hole. Because that is the best friend couldn't pull you out. So Tim was a big get for you in the beginning. A big person you looked up to. And I just love your Tim Ferrara story too. You guys. You guys getting it. Yeah. And much of our story with the podcast, a lot of people think that the interviews just lined up the stars align, but it was persistence. And we were very persistent tracking Tim at an event. Cornering him during the snack hour trying to get him to come on the show when it was still in its infancy and He's obviously a guy who gets pitched to a lot. Yeah, and he also does a lot of pitching So he was helpful enough and his feedback to you of like, hey Persistence isn't all you need here It needs to be framed in the right way to be compelling enough to the other person And I think a lot of times and I know Johnny and I can relate to this with our inboxes too Not on the level of Tim's but a lot of times people will just hit you up and expect your time expect your energy Expect something from you with no understanding of okay, AJ probably values this time Let me make it worth his while. Let me show him why this could help both of us It's mutually beneficial instead of just taking and the book itself actually has a Fantastic example of how to pitch over email to be compelling another reason you guys should go check it out And Tim's lesson tweak that pitch for you so good and opened so many other third doors for you because of it And what was that tweak? So Tim taught me his cold email template and it has worked better again, I cannot I Cannot over hype how well it's worked It's helped me get interviews for the book and helped me get my dream mentors and this is Tim Ferriss's cold email template Works like this AJ. Let's have emailing you. Okay. It's like hi AJ I know you're incredibly busy and you get a lot of emails So this will only take 60 seconds to read boom next paragraph And this is where you put one to two sentences max of who you are and what context is relevant to that person And again, this is not your life story. It's one to two sentences max boom next paragraph One to two sentences of your very specific question for the person something they can answer right away What is the best book you recommend for an up-and-coming podcaster something you can just Floss off and then the final paragraph is the clincher You go. I totally understand if you're too busy to reply Even a one or two line response will completely make my day all the best And it's just so because it's so the opposite of everything you guys get and Everyone wants more of your time then they they're vague. They want coffee. They want lunch They want to hop on the phone and you have no context for why and I think That is where the bulk of those pitches die on the vine Yeah, because it's easy to get lost in the shuffle But when you hit the trigger of it's gonna be a short email so keep reading Yeah, and this is exactly who I am and why I'm emailing you and this is a quick Easy way for you to respond that doesn't involve meeting up with me Coordining with an assistant calendars all that other stuff that people asked for not only get the response, but get the conversation Started that's the biggest thing the third door needs a crack for you to get through. Yes And most people don't realize that there was a Story that I think is left out of the book at least it intrigued me and I don't remember you finishing it which was That You found out later that Tim's advice was for you about your persistence on him And I don't think it was put in the book When that was brought up to you so you finally knew that he was talking about you and your emails That is correct So when did that take place that took place? Okay, so remember the chapter where I'm in summit in Utah Yeah, so Tim so happened to be there at the same weekend and in one of those nights we ended up having dinner and You know, it's not a one-on-one dinner of these long picnic tables and I ended up sharing the Price is Right story and Someone at the dinner table asked Tim How I met him he sort of rolled his eyes And he's like He's like well do you want it from my perspective or Alex's perspective and I was like please your perspective I've always wondered and he ended up telling me that You know, I had sent him 32 emails and I thought it was my persistence that led to the success What Tim told me at dinner years later? Was that had nothing to do with it if anything this 32 Made him because we had one mutual friend in common that someone I wasn't even close with but someone who knew him And Tim goes to the guys name is Charles and he's like dude. What the fuck is wrong with this kid, you know Like what is this kid normal and Charles was like look and this is all happening behind my back Charles does look He's young and he's fresh and he's rough around the corners but I think his heart's in the right place and That's what actually led Tim to saying yes So again, I thought it was persistence, but in the end again, it was the inside man Right and being genuine enough to inspire that inside man to help. Yeah, right Having an inside man that doesn't believe in you that happens to know someone else is not gonna actually get you there They actually have to put themselves out a little bit way point. So your story I think what really resonates through the whole book is the genuine curiosity of trying to solve this problem Not just for yourself but for a generation of youth who are struggling with that question of I'm down this path Everyone told me this is the path to success Why do I hate this path that I'm on and all these other things are interesting and inspiring to me but if I choose that I'm gonna disappoint everyone else who's been cheering me on and With all of that we've all felt that and all these successful people that you had an opportunity to interview Felt that of something else is calling me It's not a traditional path when you look at almost everyone in the book their path to stardom Did not go through a traditional get your four-year degree get your graduate degree start working hard And then everything falls into place and that's why I think a lot of us really struggle with this because we are taught from a young age That hard work Persistence pay off. It's a meritocracy if you demonstrate the results. You'll get ahead That doesn't open any doors. Everyone is working hard. Everyone is persisted Right, everyone is getting educated now. We have more access to information than ever before It's the genuine human connection that unlocks those doors. I agree a hundred percent so Again struggling with social anxiety now you're in a room with Bill Gates right we're talking flinch on another level and You talk a lot about doing all the prep to make sure the conversation is compelling is There's something in particular that you like to hone in on when you're interviewing these people weaving in their story to have that Compelling conversation because I'm assuming you don't just want to talk to them once I'm assuming It's the foot in the door so that bill can maybe mentor me and open up new doors And that doesn't happen if you're a dud if you're boring if you're not compelling Well, the funniest thing you know talk about social anxiety, so I'm in this office It's been two years in the making I get in there and I'm You know, this is imagine there's You know a girl that you're interested in if you're a girl a guy or into whatever that you've just been two years Dreaming of meeting that first moment is The most awkward moment on earth It never goes like you Go as well and I remember I'm like standing in the hallway outside Bill Gates office and there's like gold light coming up from the bottom of the doorways and The door swings open and they're like Alex Bill is ready for you and he's like right in front of me. I guess he was like Waiting for me to say something and I'm like looking at him waiting for him to say something and it felt like an hour It was probably like 10 seconds Staring at him like assuming that he has to be the first one to say something and after a while he's like Hey, come on in And I think he understood very quickly what was happening here But you know one of my biggest lessons that I learned So in the Gates interview, you know, I learned a ton about his negotiating secrets his sales secrets But talk about you know social skills something that I learned that I wasn't expecting I actually had to learn on the fly You know, I started the interview and I never interviewed someone like Bill Gates because there's no one like Bill Gates and with him I didn't understand how much his brain is wired for information processing And what I mean by that if you know if I asked you AJ had an art of charm start you would you know, tell me the story You know, if you ask Bill Gates how his first company got started He goes into encyclopedia mode at a hundred miles an hour just shooting out information and data and facts For me when the interview started that way I was like thrown back in my chair sure in a panic because I knew I had enough Experience interviewing by that point to know that if he just gives me all of his biography info info I could find, you know online or in books There's no meat to this conversation, right and he was talking so quickly. I had no in So what ended up happening about five or ten minutes into the interview is I just like on my feet was like How am I gonna redirect this? You know, I try to ask him another question He just kept going on that information gear and I realized I needed to go to him laughing Because I had this hunch that if he is laughing he won't be able to do the information bit a hundred miles an hour So I went I'd never tried this before and I was an experiment, but I had no choice And I I knew I had done enough research on him that I knew that there's one story that he can't tell without laughing So almost as this like distraction, I end up saying like hey Bill, you know Tell me about that IBM meeting and you know 85 in Boca Raton and he just on key starts Cracking up telling me this story and from there the whole energy of the interview started to change It's so funny that we talked about laughter because with Oren Klauff on the pitch anything This idea of you know, everyone is expecting one thing and Bill Gates is he says he doesn't do interviews He's forced to do interviews He has a pattern to every single interview. He's told his story countless times to his autobiographer he has his story dialed in and To be able to get someone to laugh and break that pattern, right? Gets it to the human side of okay. Now. I don't have to go through the robotic thing I tell everyone now I can let loose a little bit takes pressure off the person you're pitching. Are there any other? Pieces of information you learn throughout all of the interviewing that you did I know Larry King gave you some great lessons. You'd mentioned Yeah, Larry King, you know the best the two people have sort of mentored me in the art of the interview were Larry King and Cal Fussman and Larry King he gave me a great piece of interview advice and he's like Good, you know, the problem, you know, he has that voice. You know the problem you kids have and He goes on to explain to me that the problem new interviews have interviewers half is that they look up To the other interviewers they admire whether it's Larry King or Oprah Winfrey or Barbara Walters and they try to emulate those styles Modeling, you know, it's very natural to do and Larry King said that's the biggest mistake you can make and the reason why is because So Oprah Winfrey has you know, this big enthusiasm when she asked her interviews and it's very emotional Larry King has, you know, those simple questions that everybody's dying to ask and Barbara Walters has those very strategic questions What Larry told me is he said if you're trying to copy those styles, you're missing the whole point The reason we have those styles is because that's what makes us most comfortable in our seats And when we're comfortable in our seats, that's when our guests is comfortable in their seat and that's what makes for the best interview And that really helped reframe my whole understanding of that And on top of that a mentor of mine who I met through Larry One of Larry's close friends is Cal Fussman who writes for Esquire magazine and Cal helped me understand that All right, so if you have someone being comfortable And if you're comfortable Sort of like where do you go from there? And something Cal taught me is if you can ask a question That the person Doesn't know the answer to not like, you know, what's the what's the, you know, the Square root of 500 million, you know, but in the sense of like, you know, Johnny, what is One of the most memorable moments From an early Christmas and you're like, huh, I really thought it, you know Something that you have to actually go back into your mind and you're curious about something that you want to know the answer to That is what really opens it up because if you start with the head Then like I did with Bill Gates, you just get an informational answer But if you start with the heart And then go to the head, that's when you open the soul And I think again going to the theme of the month compelling conversations Comfort allows for vulnerability. Yeah, and whenever you're in an interview situation It is tricky being vulnerable. You do feel put on the spot. You're getting peppered with questions You're you're getting asked things that a lot of times you've answered before So to be able to switch gears and find that one heartfelt moment that allows them to go, okay Now I can even be more real with my answers. Now I can trust this interview Interviewer a little bit more that allows for normal fun conversation happen Which is what all great interviews are exactly when we're watching Larry king or Barbara walters We're watching because it's a great conversation. It's not I'm gonna throw a question at you Right, I'm gonna wait for you to pontificate. You're feeling the engagement between both sides Now There obviously were some people on your list that maybe weren't as big of a get for you But your friends recommended as professors of this fictional university, right? Was there anyone that you had spoke to whether they made it in the book or not Where you were hoping to get more out of and more Story out of but they were also kind of struggling with social anxiety because I think that You know, it's again going back to this idea that everyone in the book seems so wildly successful But sometimes they're just uncomfortable and they're just as nervous to be interviewed by someone like you I think that a lot of people You know, I think there's this huge misconception that successful people are extroverts You know even myself You know, if you look at the definition of an introvert versus an extrovert, right an introvert You know gains energy from being alone and an extrovert gains energy from being with others I would actually go as far to say and I haven't like scientifically looked at this but just My god says out of the people I interviewed I would say the majority are introverts But they're introverts who have learned how to have good social interactions And I don't think you can change whether you're an introvert or an extrovert but you can change Those social interactions, you know, it's funny. You should say that because one of the things that I always lead with when it's comes to our classes is that I and for a majority of the guys who come would consider themselves Introverts and what I always start off by saying is we are not here to turn you into an extrovert But what we do want to do is put some tools in your hands That allow you to be rewarded in an extroverted rewarded world And When I put it into that way, they they they start to feel really good. Okay. I don't have to do anything to change myself I'm just there's some skills some tools that I can use and I can make my way through this Exactly Look, I'm introverted because after this I'm going to go home and nap You know, because I need to recharge But being here I still can look at you in the eyes and really enjoy this moment and this is exactly what you were talking about Now Obviously the follow-up is key. We talked about the third door getting in there getting the interview You want to have a compelling conversation? But you also want to foster some relationships with these amazing people Right What have you learned about following up and you even mentioned you now have some mentors in your life That you could give our audience to help them transition from oh, I had this one on one moment to wow This person's actually invested in my success I actually got great advice from bill gates about this which I wasn't expecting and one thing that he said was Look once you crack open that mentorship, you know, we talked about the cold email and you sort of crack open that line of communication What do you do from there? And bill said one of the things that he would do when he was young Starting microsoft trying to get executives to mentor him He would you know try you know first thing he would do is he would ask them for like the five books They recommend on a certain topic and then he would just go like Ham on those five bucks, you know read them and come in the key is going back to the person who gave you that advice Telling them you read all five and thanking them And especially if you read them quickly in like a week or so they're like Oh You're welcome like, you know, they're and you're not asking for anything You're just going back and showing gratitude And I think that's a huge underrated thing and bill talked about that feedback loop Because what happens is if you know, you give me five pieces of advice or five books to read and I come back to you really quickly and I'm like And both, you know, I read both books twice and they changed my life I cannot thank you enough or you write a handwritten letter and you're not asking for anything You're just giving gratitude all of a sudden what happens is that person starts creating a mental model of who you are saying, okay Johnny reads five books twice in two weeks And he's grateful and he is respectful of my time and all of a sudden that feedback loop starts happening And then, you know a week later you can email the person saying Hey, I'm facing this problem with my boss Do you have any advice on how to handle a situation like that? And maybe this time instead of sending you one sentence, they'll send you a paragraph response And then you use that you go it works. You go back to them saying, you know, you just made my relation with my boss 10 times better Again, I can't thank you enough In this mental model starts happening Where you slowly start climbing that ladder and you know the book influence one of the most famous Books out there talks about, you know that yes louder Yeah Where you start off with a small piece of advice that takes a sentence And then you get that piece of advice that takes a paragraph to respond to and then you're like, hey I'll be in the neighborhood would love to stop by for 10 minutes at your office And you know, you're not going straight to hey, you want to go on a family vacation together Right, and I think the feedback loop is key because When you ask someone for advice and you don't take it they feel burned They're like, why am I wasting my time on this person? And I know again to a much lesser degree We get asked for mentorship and it's like well, what are your keys to business success? And it's like well, what business are you in? What's your product? Like there's no specificity There's this generalization. Just give me everything you know And then they don't end up using it or maybe it's just oh, thank you But being able to take what someone else is giving you as their biggest piece of advice assimilate it showcase gratitude shows This is a man of action. This is a woman who's grateful for the opportunity This is someone who respects my time Now you're checking all those boxes of a quality mentee, right? And I've found time and time again from the people that have mentored us No one just wants to be successful There's always a little piece in the back of your mind. That's like I got lucky, right? And when you can lift other people up And show them to success Then you feel an extra level of I crack the code And I think all successful people are looking for that. They're looking to pass on that legacy They're looking to have that opportunity to mentor other people But a lot of us don't command it from the right angle. We ask too much We make strong demands. We're not thankful for the opportunity and we don't follow through And it's so amazing that bill was able to recognize that in his Opportunities to be mentored throughout his life because I think a lot of us Look up to people like that and don't realize that everyone's had a mentor Everyone has had someone else showing them the third door making the introduction helping them along the way 100% So let's switch gears a little bit. I think Obviously the book is full of amazing success stories, but also rejection And as a 19 year old college student, that's what you would expect when you're hitting up the world's most successful people That's what you would expect. That's not what I expected So How did you toughen up from that rejection? I didn't I didn't toughen up. I got Rejected so many times and you know, we talked about that whole Buffett experience where After eight months It felt like I was Black and blue and coughing up blood Because my rejections You know, Paulo Coelho has a screen quote that says, you know when you're in school and you get an f sure it stings But you're sort of get over it. But when you're out there Pursuing your life's calling and you get rejected It's as if you your being is being rejected right and my identity was so intertwined with this book And the rejections were so painful like debilitating And what ended up happening Was I would get rejected so many times That you know, true everyone's, you know, you you talked to the entrepreneurs and I was like, I never wanted to give up Yo, fuck that. I wanted to give up a lot of times, you know And I've learned two things. I've helped the most when I'm facing tremendous amounts of rejection The first thing When and I'm talking about like when you're in the blizzard of rejection and you're in a dark hole and there's no light The first thing I've learned is you guys remember the movie castaway. Yes, really So remember, you know, tom hanks is on this island He's all alone and he starts going insane. So he starts talking to the volleyball wilson What I've learned when I'm in my, you know castaway moments when I'm all alone and just pound it with rejections My version of the wilson wally volleyball Is the core belief of why I started this in the first place And I had this belief in the very beginning That if all these people come together Not for press not to promote anything But really just to share their best wisdom with the next generation people can do so much more and When I go back to that belief, it's not like all of a sudden I'm if you fueled with energy I think that's this big misconception. It's not that I was like, oh, I'm back in the game No, it was just that thread That helped me From letting go all together So that's the first thing and I think the second thing when you're facing rejection is I think the most underrated Which is Take a fucking break You know, I think, you know, you turn on youtube you turn on facebook and you can see all these people yelling at you Like hustle 24 seven never take a break. I'm like, fuck that man. Have some ice cream You know And I think that's a huge disservice to people telling them to plow through the pain of rejection Because I think what's going to happen then is something even worse than taking a break Which is burnout and giving up And if it means, you know, taking a three hour break to go ride your bike and turn off your phone Or taking a weekend off means that you're going to keep at it. That's more important than anything else Yeah, taking an opportunity to work through and process some of the emotional stink from all of that and fear Of rejection was a big driving force in your life Would you say it still is a big driving force in your life after all of this or do you now look back on it and go? Well, I haven't been rejected by bill gates and You know something that I've learned about insecurities is and I mentioned that book when things fall apart by pen the children something she says in that book is that The day you give up On ridding yourself of insecurity is the day you start becoming free and I love that because you know, I have a ton of insecurities and Over the years I've been like, all right. How am I going to rid myself of them? When I read that in her book, which is you know, when you give up on the notion that you're going to rid yourself of them You become free and I think she's exactly right For me When I decided You know, I'm not going to try to Free myself of these insecurities and instead I'm just going to acknowledge that they exist A crazy thing started happening, which is the insecurities started getting a little bit quieter now. They didn't go away But the second I almost allowed them a seat at the table And I was like sure you guys can come sit down. I know your insecurities I know you're not logic. I know your insecurities, but you could still come You're a part of me you're allowed to sit at the table all of a sudden they start acting up It's sort of like a little kid like a toddler on an airplane You know who's like throwing a temper tantrum the more the parent fights the toddler the bigger the tantrum gets And then the parent goes, do you know what? I think you're right. I think you can keep yelling The kid's like, oh you want me to yell and they sort of calm down, right? Insecurities are the same way the second you give them permission They sort of quiet down a bit and I think a lot of us have this perfection is a mindset of like I have to be rid of insecurity. I have to be secure and confident because everyone that I look up to Appears like they don't have insecurities and I know Johnny and I have droned on about this Our audience is probably exhausted by the complaining about social media But it is so easy to get caught up In everyone's secure version of themselves that they post on instagram. They post on twitter Everyone has insecurities. It's a part of human condition So if you dedicate your life to ridding yourself of them, you're not going to win that battle. Good luck You're not going to win that battle. You're just going to be miserable your whole life Well, that's how I see self development as an it's an opportunity to learn tools to To deal with insecurity because they're not getting rid of them And so you better learn how to as you mentioned have a conversation with it as it's sitting at the dinner table with you Because there is going to be a conversation and I think there's going to be a need to pitch an idea of how I can Deal with you and get just get you out of the way for the moment so I could right deal with that what I need to do Exactly and I love the the phrase be friending your insecurities Be friending your fear because just that construct that frame changes everything Yeah, if you're unwilling to have a conversation with it, it can lead you down even darker places You're running from them unwilling to communicate with them. Then they are going to take over your life The last thing we want to talk about and I know I went through it personally Dealing with family and friends telling you what in the hell are you doing trying to write this book? You had a clear path to success medicine Laid out for you. You got in the pre-med program. We helped you get there Now you want to write a book and interview a bunch of people And you definitely felt it from your family You definitely felt it from some friends and just some overall outsiders and then you're also getting rejected It's not just clicking So we're their mental constructs that you built up that allowed you to have those conversations to fight through that When everyone else is saying you can't do it. Just give up For me the reason it was so hard in the beginning Was it wasn't just like, you know, I was pre-med just for fun The context is important So my family is from Iran and they fled Iran about 30 years ago 35 years ago as refugees Because we're Jewish if they would have stayed there they would have died during the Iranian revolution And they came to America with a very simple idea of we sacrifice everything for our kids to get an education They'll have a better life than we have And You know, even with my mom and dad, you know, they had two mortgages on the house like they were just doing whatever they could To help us get that opportunity through education So the very idea of turning my back on pre-med turning my back on college Wasn't just about switching my major or pursuing a dream It was a lot deeper It was turning my back on decades of sacrifice my parents and grandparents have made for me So it was no easy task and It's the internal tension is so hard to even put into words when you have a dream And the problem with the dream is it's never logical You can't like write down on a sheet of paper why you want it all you know is it's all you can think about But what you can write down paper are all the reasons it's a bad idea Or all the reasons that you're turning your back on your family And what I've learned Is that that's the hardest part of the third door What people think the hardest people think the hardest part is you know running down the alley and finding that door No, that's the easy part because once you're in the alley and you're you know, you're in your survival instincts You'll figure it out. Right. That's the easy part. The hard part Is ditching the line for the first door The line of comfort and security uncertainty That everyone else is waiting their turn everybody else because you know you grew up there your family's there Your friends are there. That's what people expect of you That's what your teachers expect. That's your boss expects It's well lit the the road is paved and they're like you want to leave this where all of us are First of all, who do you think you are? Right? There's a there's a Tinge of you think you're smarter than us. You think you're better than us, right? I'm your mom I know how this works. You're a kid, you know, so that was oh my god But That you know, that's the hard part And one of the biggest things that I guess we can end on is one of the most surprising lessons From this entire journey has to do with just that I learned that you know when I started I had this assumption that all these people who I looked up to must be fearless You know bill gates Elon Musk. They had to be fearless But what I've learned is that they all were tremendously scared in the beginning Across the board no exceptions So it wasn't fearlessness that they achieved It was courage And the difference between the two is critically important, but very easy to miss So fearlessness is you know jumping off of the cliff and not thinking about it, right? That's idiotic Courage on the other hand is acknowledging your fears Analyzing the consequences and then deciding you still care so much about it. You're going to take one thoughtful step forward. Anyway Tomorrow's your 26th birthday Accomplished a lot through your first 25 years Do you have big goals for your 26? You know what's so funny is that The first thing that came to my mind Is actually the same intention I had last year and normally that doesn't happen. Normally every year I have a different intention but there's this word and I I keep coming back to a pema chodron That she talks about it's called matri and what matri means is it's loving kindness to oneself or unconditional friendship with oneself and that's Gonna I think continue to be my focus for the next year because what I've learned is that When life gets really hard, you know last year my my father passed away and last month my grandfather and grandmother passed away and what I've learned is that trying to power through those experiences is unbearably painful but if you give yourself some slack some kindness some space to just be a mess sometimes That's where the healing starts. So that's my intention for the next year Well, sorry for your loss. I know thank you man having lost my dad and grandparents in succession how lost you can feel at times and We all have goals in mind Of accomplishing things to make them proud obviously your family story and your upbringing is Driven large part of that and when you run out of time you can feel like You made some mistakes and finding a place of self love Is a way to not only initiate the the healing process with what's going on But to grow out the other side And see that there's more to it than all of the doubt and insecurity that you've been facing Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, man. Where can our guests Find your book find you on social and celebrate your 26th birthday. I would love that Um, the book is available, you know, every word books are sold. So amazon audible Barnes and noble local bookstores kindle iBooks and If you end up buying the book from art of charm by listening to this Definitely, let me know on social and my handles for instagram and twitter and facebook are the same. It's at alex benign Thank you so much brother. Thank you guys. Thank you a ton