Life-Changing Books Episode 6. Alex Banayan: Author of The Third Door

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to episode number 6 of our brand new podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, I interview some of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In this episode, I have the pleasure to interview one of my favorite authors, author and speaker Alex Banayan. He has been named to Forbes 30 Under 30 list and Business Insider's Most Powerful People Under 30. Our conversation touches on his book, The Third Door, some lessons he learned throughout the writing and publishing process, as well as how to break outside of society's box. Now I've read The Third Door 3 times, or I should say I've listened to The Third Door 3 times, and I found a ton of value in it. It's probably the best sales book that you've never heard of. And so without further ado, Please enjoy my conversation with Alex Banayan. Well, Alex, thank you so much for joining us today. And for anybody in the Book Thinkers family who doesn't know who you are, can you talk a little bit about who is Alex Banayan and also what is the third door? Because that's one of the best metaphors I've ever seen to open up a book.

I appreciate it, man. Yeah, the metaphor took, you know, many years to put together. The author, as you said, of the book The Third Door. And for the past 10 years, I've been obsessively studying success. So I've spent thousands of hours researching, going through hundreds of biographies, and most importantly, sitting down one-on-one and asking questions to the people I was dying to get answers from. So for business, I spoke to Bill Gates. For music, Lady Gaga. Science, Jane Goodall. Poetry, Maya Angelou. Steve Wozniak, Quincy Jones, Larry King. It's been this, you know, really fun and humbling journey. And, you know, after spending all this time researching the world's most successful people, I realized on the surface, you know, they might seem, you know, completely different. You know, Warren Buffett and Lady Gaga don't have much in common, but at their core, they all treat life and business and success the exact same way. And the analogy that came to me Is that sort of like getting into a nightclub. There's always 3 ways in. So there's the first door, the main entrance, where the line curves around the block, where 99% of people wait around hoping to get in. 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 have this way of making us feel like those are the only 2 ways in. You either wait your turn or you're born into it. What I learned, and you know what, you know very well, is that there's always, always the third door. That's the entrance 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. It doesn't matter if that's how Bill Gates sold his first piece of software or how Spielberg became the youngest director in Hollywood history. They all took the third door.

Wow. I've listened to your book 3 times, so I've listened to you say that a few times.

I'm not going to talk. I'm not going to talk for the next 30 minutes. I just want to hear your takeaway. If you've heard it 3 times, and was it on audio?

It was, yeah.

Oh man, so you're probably very tired of my voice by this point.

Well, it was spaced out. The book came out in 2018.

2 years ago.

So it's been— my listens have been spaced out over time, but somebody had recommended—

Yeah, what's been the differences in the listens?

Well, the first time I went through it was sort of like watching a movie. I think I listened to you explain the book and I had a fun time going along with you. And like in my life, I, I'm a sales professional. So I was listening kind of with that ear. But now that Book Thinkers has grown a lot, I'm listening with the ear of, okay, how can I land more people for my podcast?

Got it.

And so this most recent time around in preparation for our conversation, I was— I spent a lot of time on the Tim Ferriss interview and on the Larry King type stuff. And so I've learned a lot. And I love hearing that analogy because— and I've told it to countless people, by the way, including in book reviews on Book Thinkers and in a lot of different places. But—

I appreciate that.

Yeah, I've had a lot of fun with it. And so when you were— a big question that I have is when you were originally writing the book, You had a very specific target audience. It was for young people learning from the world's best mentors, and it could help them figure out the early things in life. And I'm sure— and this is my question— I'm sure that over time, when the book came out and the audience kind of came to light, that it was different from your initial vision. So I'd love to hear, like, were you surprised by the success of the book? And who is your target audience when people ask you that question now?

You know, when I started, you know, I started this journey when I was 18 years old. So when I first set off, very much the target audience was my peers. And as the journey unfolded, you know, after 7 years of chasing down Bill Gates and, you know, doing all this research and these interviews, I realized The Third Door is not about an age in life. It's really about a stage in life. It's about anyone who's setting out to start something new. It doesn't matter if you're 60 years old and wanting to change industries, if you're 50 years old and you want to change strategies of your existing company, if you're 30 years old and want to start a new artistic project, if you're 21 and graduating college. It doesn't— again, it's not about an age, it's about a stage. And what's been amazing is that I've seen people from all around the world of all ages talk about how the book was speaking directly to this moment in their life. And it made me realize that this— when I was 18, it wasn't that I was writing for my age. It was I was writing for my stage, which was setting off on a new journey in life. And anytime you set off on a new journey, you're gonna face a certain amount of obstacles. Whether it's rejection, failures, you know, people not taking your calls, people not taking you seriously. You know, there's just a million stumbling blocks. And the journey of The Third Door and the research I did was figuring out how the world's greatest achievers who have really been pioneers in their fields were able to break through early on.

Yeah, that's great. And you also went through a transformation that I've noticed as a listener and as a follower of yours, where that 18-year-old version of yourself idolized very specific people. And then over time, you're introduced to a wider variety of people and sort of forced into interviewing people that maybe you weren't as interested in at the beginning. And it seems like you've started to resonate with some of the people later in the book, as opposed to some of the initial goals, like the—

Yeah, I think it's a great observation.

Warren Buffett's—

yeah, you know, I still admire Bill Gates tremendously, probably, you know, more than I can, you even explain. But first of all, my reasons for admiring him are completely different. When I was first starting out, when I was 18, I was like, he's the richest person on earth. No, to me, it's so much more admirable what he's doing with his foundation work, the way he's put all this attention and focus into helping the people who are struggling most right now. And yeah, when I first started out, I very much had a very Westernized, you know, economic view. And again, I didn't even know that that was my definition of success. Again, it doesn't matter what your age is. Some people are 60 years old, some people are 16 years old and don't even realize their definition of achievement and success. They never came up with that. It just was implicitly programmed in them by family, by society, by Forbes magazine, you know, whatever. So on my journey, you know, when you're studying success, eventually it starts hitting you over and over again on the head. What is my definition and what is resonating with me? And, you know, sometimes you think, you know, I was doing a speaking engagement earlier this year and, you know, this man came up to me and the group was a group where, you know, to be in attendance you had to your company had to be doing, you know, X million dollars in sales, in like the tens or hundreds. And this man came up to me and, you know, after the event, he's like, I don't know, maybe in his like late 40s, comes up to me. And at the end of the, you know, keynote, he's like waiting in line and just like sort of like waiting in the back. And I could tell, you know, he was a bit uneasy. He comes up to me, he's like, hey, can I, you know, pull you aside to ask you a question? I was like, yeah, of course. And he goes, look, I don't really know how to say this, but I just sold my company for like $30 million. And I'm like, congratulations. But then I looked in his eyes and there was this deep sadness. And I was like, what's going on? And he goes, I've never felt more empty. And I think what a big shift that we're starting to see, I'm sure you're seeing it with your community of book thinkers, definitely that I've been seeing with readers of The Third Door is that many times we set out for goals that were never our goals. They were almost like inherited goals or inherited paths. And sometimes, for me, I went and interviewed Bill Gates, and as amazing as it was, my interview with Quincy Jones made my soul light up, and I never could have expected that. My interview with Maya Angelou has stayed in my heart in ways that I couldn't have anticipated. And that's the beauty of going on a journey of self-discovery. You learn the things you wanted to learn, and then you learn a whole lot of stuff you didn't expect.

Well, you put that in a great way. And I've had a similar journey in my life. I started out with very specific financial mentors and idols. And as I started to explore the world of personal development, I'm only 5 years into it. And so you've been in it longer than I have. And Already I've seen massive shifts. And in the last couple of years, I've done a lot of world travel. I know that that's something that you got into towards the end of the book and kind of rounded out your outro by talking about traveling with friends and writing from different areas of the world. And so, yeah, the more we educate and the more we continue to learn about ourselves, I think the late teens, early 20s is a great place to understand more about the world.

Yeah, it's just like, you know, it's just easy for You don't go on Instagram and just see people with like, you know, fancy cars and private jets and stuff and just, you know, assume that that's gonna make you happier because you're miserable in your current situation. You don't have a private jet, so this guy on Instagram has a private jet, he says how happy he is. You know, there's— and then you work your entire life to get to that point, and then you realize you're still as miserable as you were in the beginning. Realize, uh, that was someone else's path. I don't know, maybe, maybe for that guy on Instagram, that does make him really happy. I don't fucking know, but I know it's not for everyone. Um, and that's the whole point of going on a journey of self-discovery, is figuring out what actually makes you come alive.

Well, we both, we both share an early mentor in this specific lane of conversation in Tim Ferriss. And so I know that he was a big early mentor of yours when you read The 4-Hour Workweek. And I know that he paid— he played a big part in Elliot's life as well, as well as mine. And so when I read that book, I learned that reality is negotiable. We don't have to fit in that 9-to-5 narrative where you can only vacation once or twice a year. And it taught me the remote lifestyle and all of that kind of fun stuff. And so one question I have for you is, when you think back to reading The 4-Hour Workweek, and your conversations with Tim outside of too much persistence can be a bad thing? What are some of your biggest takeaways from his work and maybe some of your conversations with him?

I definitely resonate with what you just said. When I first read The 4-Hour Workweek, I was 18 years old. I was a freshman in college and it really spoke to me that here was You know, just sort of felt like you know here's this person that is creating their own rules. And again, I'm not actually saying that Tim's rules are the right rules, but he's not follow. He's not following the rules that in college in college they told me were the only rules. The only get an internship, get a job, or be an associate. Da da da da da da da da. Like this, you know, Tim's just like fuck. I'm gonna do my own way. And I think what's actually very powerful about the four work week that a lot of people miss, but you know clearly you understand. Is that— and again, it's very easy to just read it on the surface that this is the way to do it. And no, I think your point is very valid, which is the whole thesis of that book is, you know, make your own life, choose your own rules, choose your own lifestyle. You know, Tim had a double-edged sword. He chose a very catchy title, and he talks about this very openly. He chose a title that was very attention-grabbing, but isn't literal. Tim doesn't work 4 hours a week. Tim works a lot, but to him it's work that he loves, so it doesn't feel like work. That's essentially the whole thesis of the book, which is, you know, liberate yourself. And it's just very easy to, you know, focus on the, you know, the literal, the literal things like that.

You know, the literal title has caused a lot of miscommunication in my life because I love The 4-Hour Workweek. And I've communicated my love of The 4-Hour Workweek to friends and family and bosses.

You work, you know, tens of hours a day.

I do.

But you just love it. You know, Michael Jordan was, you know, in the gym all hours of the day. But, you know, he probably felt like he was working less than— you know, I'll tell you the difference between— and I can't remember who I heard say this, but, you know, you could work a 20-hour day and be just completely fired up because you've never been so close to your goal. You've never felt so fulfilled. You've never been so close to achieving your mission. Or you can work like 6 hours and have your soul sucked out of your body.

Yeah. When you're passionate—

It's not just the hours. Now again, I'm not saying to do 20-hour days every day. It's like not healthy. But there's definitely been nights where I've done 20-hour days.

Yeah, I feel the same way. Because when your passion and your purpose are aligned with your actions, then It doesn't feel like work. And I'm a true testament to that. And I know you were too. You had a lot of ups and downs throughout the book, but right now you're speaking and you're traveling the world and you're having fun and you're having interesting conversations and your network has been elevated. And so I'm sure it feels a lot more refreshing than the pressure from a professor to do well on an exam or something like that. Yeah.

And, you know, there's just an element of fulfillment that comes from doing something that not only is your dream but also is a contribution to others. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, that's how I think of it more. You know, a lot of people talk about like service and stuff like that. I don't know, I was watching the show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and they were, you know, Jerry Seinfeld's television show, and they're talking about how, you know, it's not really about service. Like service feels like this very like sacrificial word. You know, but a contribution feels, you know, resonates. And when I heard that, it really resonated. Contribution is like something that you love doing that helps others. And that to me is like, that to me is writing, that to me is speaking. It's something that I love, that's fun, that fills me up. And also just by the grace of God, seems to help a lot of other people too.

And so early in your book, when you were starting to discover some of this stuff, you had a lot of pressure from your family because of promises that you had made sort of to stick with college. And so I know a lot of people deal with that problem. What specific advice do you have for somebody who's looking to break outside of the box that society has created for us and live their own life, yet their peer group, friends, family, mentors don't necessarily agree with them?

You know, Tony, I had a really powerful conversation with my mom about this yesterday, and, you know, she's come a long way. I couldn't be, you know, happier and more proud of her. I'll quote my mom, and, you know, you know from reading The Third Door how much my mom was just like World War III level anger. Me, you know, setting off on this journey. You know, they had come from Iran and sacrificed everything to give me this education, and now here comes Alex, you know, sort of throwing caution to the wind and, you know, setting off to be, you know, write this book. And I'll tell you what my mom said yesterday. So it's been maybe— started The Third Door in like 2010. Yeah, it's been probably— this is like her 10-year transformation. It went from what you read in The Third Door to last night, her saying, this is a direct quote, if you spend your whole life trying to please your parents, you'll never live the life you were destined to. Like talk about it, you know, full circle, right? And she's right. She's right. And I think a lot of times when, whether it's family or friends are telling you Not to do something. If they're going ballistic and then you talk to mentors and people in the field and they say, no, that sounds like a pretty safe, reasonable plan, but the people close to you are going nuts, dude, that's their fear, man. That's their fear. Not to downplay it. Fear is a big thing, but that's their Now look, if you're talking to your family and you're talking to experts in the field and you're talking to advisors and you're talking to mentors and they're all like, that's not a good plan, maybe it's not a good plan. But we all know situations where you have a dream, you've done the research, you've done the work, you have your business partners lined up, you have your investors lined up, you have your mentors saying, yeah, this is a good plan, it's going to be hard but it's possible, and then your parents, your best friend just go Fucking ape shit telling you you're throwing your life away. That's their fucking fear. People who love you will sometimes mask their fear in love, saying, oh, it's because I'm saying this because I care. I'm saying this because no one's telling you the truth. No, people mask shit all the time.

And what happened with you that I thought was really interesting and also very different from my personal journey so far into kind of elevating with an audience and the people in my network is that you found Elliot really early on, very intentionally. You had very—

Well, depends what you call early on. It was 2 years in. I'll tell you, for those 2 years where I didn't know him, it felt very lonely. Yeah, dude, when you're in the thick of it, that's like telling someone who's like, uh, single, oh, in 2 years you'll meet the love of your life. That's a very lonely 2 years. I guess in the big picture it is early.

Yeah, in terms of the whole, in terms of the whole whole kind of book when you're looking at it from that. But you're totally right, 2 years is a very long time. And you were blessed to get Elliot, you know, to catch his ear, to go up, meet him in person. And he gave you— one of the things that I love is he gave you those 5 rules.

Right on.

And one of them had to do with the difference between being a friend and being a fan. And so I've taken that to heart and I've leveraged, I think, that way of thinking In order to have some really interesting conversations and to bring people into my circle. And so could you tell everybody a little bit about what that rule looks like and why it was important to you?

Well, I'll tell you what he said in that moment, because in that scene of the book, we're at the TED conference where we were meeting, you know, sitting next to us was Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, at the table. To our right was the CEO of Google. To, you know, our left was the CEO of YouTube, you know, the founder of YouTube. You know, sitting behind us was the founder of LinkedIn. So he essentially was trying to tell this 19-year-old he had just met, don't be an idiot. You know, that was like the practical reason he shared that. But the deeper reason and the deeper advice there is, if you want to be someone's peer, act like they're a peer. Now, as I say that, I just like in my mind see like hundreds of young Alexes like taking that advice the wrong way, like thinking like, oh great, let me email Tim Ferriss, be like, yo Timmy, what's up, man? And you're just like a fucking idiot.

Yeah.

You know, that's not the point. What essentially he's saying is like treat them as human beings, you know, with respect and with kindness the way you would treat, you know, your coworker, your boss in the office, you know, with respect, looking in their eyes, you know, shaking their hand, you know, when they're talking, you're not texting. But also on the other side, you're not taking— you know, you would never take selfies with your coworker or with your boss or ask them to record a video for your mom, like, but you would talk to them and you ask them questions and you have respect for them and Yeah, I think it's, it's very, very powerful advice. And yeah, if you go up to someone, even if it's just someone in your office, and you start stammering and saying, oh, Jennifer, I'm a, you know, huge fan of the work marketing campaign you've been doing, and I'm new to the company, and I just want to say how much I admire you. And, you know, she might be like, wow, thank you so much. But also she's like, you know, who's the dweeb? You know, you want to have some respect. Like, you And you can still— again, another— I'll say again, because the book's been out for 2 years and I've seen how— it's the beauty of writing books. You see how people take it the right way, how people take it the wrong way. Another way people take it the wrong way is they take it too far. I have people who in their heart are just— and it's so just— they loved The Third Door, you know, changed their life. You know, they made all their friends read it and it's like the greatest thing for me to hear. But they like totally— they were— and again, I don't know, they were just trying to take the advice and I saw it totally resonate, but they like played it so cool. You can take it— you can play it so cool that it starts becoming inauthentic.

Sure.

Like, oh, you wrote a book? You find out a couple months later that, you know, they have it on— you're just like, the fuck? What the fuck was that? You can give— again, you can give someone a compliment. I just cold— literally cold-called someone who I'm a big fan of yesterday. I was like, hey, I just wanted to say, you know, before we dive— because I wanted to, you know, interview him. I was like, before we dive into what I want to talk about, I just want to say how much your work has impacted me and my family, and I just want to first just start off with gratitude and say how much I admire your work and your story. And he's like, thank you so much. That means a lot. And then we dove in. There's an authentic way. Being a fan is an energy. You can still be a peer and say, you can have peer energy and say, when you meet Tim Ferriss, Tim, I just want to say how much your work has made an impact on my life and the ripple effects reach farther than you know. He might say, thank you so much. What are you working on? Boom. You know, anyway, that's my rant on that one sentence in the book.

It's an important one.

And it's, you know, I've just seen people— it's just crazy that one sentence has been taken a lot of different ways by readers the past 2 years.

Well, I'm happy I asked about it because I wouldn't have thought that it could be misinterpreted that way, but I totally understand how it has been.

Yeah.

And so it's—

You know, look at the— you know, I feel like you and I are peers and you're, you know, you've been so complimentary of The Third Door, but in a way that's You know, I respect what you're doing and the work that you do. I know you respect the work that I do. It would feel inauthentic if you were like, oh, you wrote a book, man? Like, what is it about? You know, no, you were totally authentic, totally real, but came with respect and treated me like a human being, which I am, obviously. And then the feeling is mutual. Anyways, there we go.

No, I appreciate that. And I think that as like a personal lesson for me, As I continue to grow this podcast and have interesting conversations with people, as the audience continues to grow and my fan base continues to grow, I've noticed that there are a lot of blue check marks in my DMs and there are a lot of blue check marks on Instagram in my comments and things like that. And it's humbling to see that. And I can tell very clearly who is a fan and who is a friend to me on Instagram. And you've got to ignore some people who take it over the top. And so it's a really important lesson for everybody listening.

At the same time though, You know, I couldn't be more grateful. Of course, you know, I wrote the book to help, you know, our generation and anyone who has anything to kind of say, all I really feel is gratitude.

Yeah. Well, I have one or two more final questions for you. Are there, when you look back at the book, because it is something that exists, you put it out in the world and you can't really change it very much. Are there any stories or interactions that you had throughout that journey that you wish you plugged in? Or do you think it's all there?

Um, there's a lot— look, there, there's a lot on the cutting board when you're a writer. Actually, I'll take that back. When you're writing a good book— and I can say this, I don't care if it sounds not humble, it's just my truth— when you write a good book, and I think Third Door's a It is a good book. There's a lot you leave on the cutting board. If an author says, no, every piece of my research is in there, that's a fucking shitty-ass book. Because if I wanted to go read 1,000 Wikipedia pages, like, I could. The point of the book, you know, you know, again, Ryan Holiday doesn't just copy-paste all of like Marcus Aurelius's text and put it in and call it a book. No, he synthesizes it, takes the best things, what's relevant to our society today, what's not. You know, that's the point of a good book. Um, so look, even the, you know, the Bill Gates interview, it's an hour. You know, I— every single one of these interviews, you know, Bill Gates, you know, Quincy Jones, the Quincy Jones actor, I spent 3 hours with Quincy Jones. Talk about a challenge of taking 3 hours of content And putting it into 10 pages that changes the mindset of a stranger. It's possible, but that's a fucking hard Rubik's Cube, you know?

Yeah.

And that's how every chapter felt. I remember writing The Third Door and just being so envious of fiction writers. They can just invent something that happened, like, oh, and then Harry walked in to the library and found a magical wand that solved his problem. Like, fuck, like, I wish I could just be like, and then Quincy told me the secret to life. No, I had to like actually take what he said but do it in a way that in 10 pages, because it's one chapter, is interesting and informative. So what you have to do is only include the information that leads to the final It's sort of, again, think of a Rubik's Cube. You know, you know what the end has to look like. All the colors have to be on the same side. So you're sort of working backwards. I knew what, at the end of the Quincy Jones chapter, what do I want the reader to feel? So then you go through the audio transcription and you only take the quotes and the lessons that lead to that destination. Yeah, but Quincy said a bunch of crazy shit that was awesome. Like, Yeah, there's definitely a point in my life where I might want to do like a coffee table book of just like all of these like epic quotes or— Yeah, and you know, in future projects, you know, they'll be coming out in the next couple years, there will be things that take— you know, there's been even just crazy stories. Like there's one story where me and my best friend Corwin chased Steven Spielberg's yacht in the south of France and almost died. It just didn't fit into the book, not because of space, because it just didn't fit into the, into the narrative. But yeah, I'll be telling that story at other times.

Good. I like to hear that. And so I know we've got to wrap up now. For those in the audience that want to find out more about you or that want to read The Third Door, where's the best place to go? How can they get in touch or find out more about you?

So, you know, the book is available everywhere you like to get books. So whether that's Amazon or Audible or Barnes Noble or, you know, an indie bookstore, you know, wherever you like to buy books, it's there. Kindle, you know, it's available in over 15 languages around the world. And if you, you know, heard this and want to say hi, I'm just @alexspine on Instagram. And I just want to thank you, man, for, you know, I've seen you share the message of The Third Door over the past 2 years so passionately, and it means more to me than I can ever say.

Appreciate it. It's a great book. Well, thank you for coming on the show today, and I look forward to talking to you soon.

Cool. Thanks, man.

If you've made it this far, thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Alex. I really do believe that we're the average of the 5 people that we spend the most time with. And so if there's somebody in your network that you could help elevate by sharing this episode, please do. It only takes 60 seconds and it could change their life and maybe yours. And so before I go, I want to remind everyone that Book Thinkers is both an online community and an educational technology company that enables readers to achieve more and to live better. That's our mission. And so for more information on that mission, our mobile application, our shop, or our social pages, please check out www.bookthinkers.com. As always, remember that real learning requires education like reading The Third Door, but it also requires behavior change, and that's what we're really here for. With that, I'm signing off. And I hope that you found real value in this episode of Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books.