083: How To Meet The Most Influential People in the World with Alex Banayan

Namaste. It's Sahara Rose. And welcome back to the Highest Self podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you your soul's highest evolvement. I had the most amazing time talking to the Third Door author, Alex Banane. He. He sent me his book. I had no idea what to expect, and I read the whole thing on one plane ride. That's how much I loved it and that's how excited I am to share it with you guys. So Alex basically was a freshman at USC whose Persian parents wanted him to become a doctor. And he was kind of torn because he didn't want to set off for this path that wasn't for him. But at the same time, he wanted to make his parents happy, of course. And he ended up, and I'll let him tell it during this interview, finding a new way. And this book and this interview is about his journey of basically going through the third door, of getting to know, you know, the most powerful people from Bill Gates to Larry King and Lady Gaga and Jessica Alba and all of.

These people who he basically haggled his way.

I mean, he's stopped them on streets like all of these crazy things and fostered incredible relationships with them. And this book and his story just really shows you that persistence is everything. And in the conversation, I also ask him about if he believes that there could be a fourth door and if that fourth door is the law of attraction. And maybe he didn't even have to go do all of this if he just manifested it, which is an interesting conversation. So I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. And first, a note from our sponsor.

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Well, welcome to the Highest Self podcast. It's so great to have you thank.

You so, so, so much.

I'm so excited because I feel like I'm talking to my soul brother. Guys. Oh, my God, you're in for a treat. So the first question I want to ask you is, what makes you your highest self?

I've been thinking about this a lot the past week just because right now, you know, after the seven year journey of the book, it's all finally coming together. But I'm realizing the moments that actually make me happiest this past week aren't what I've been spending my time with, which is spending time with my mom and my sisters, spending time with my best friends, you know, like, meditating every morning and every afternoon, spending time in nature. So something that's really important to me is not only, you know, going on my mission and, you know, making this dream come true, but doing it in a way that makes me very happy. So I literally was on the phone with one of my best friends this morning saying that I want to be more cognizant with how I spend my time this next month to make sure that I'm not only going after my dream, but doing it in a way that makes me happy. So that's a pretty timely question that you just asked.

Absolutely. And it's funny because it's like we spend all this time, like, writing these books and doing this work, and then we're like, the moments that really light us up are the ones that are away from that. And it's just a reminder that we're all humans at the end of the day. And, like, we, you know, spending time with family and in nature, I think is what makes everyone feel their highest selves.

Yeah, I'm going on this trip with my best friends in a couple months to Alaska, where we're, you know, camping in this remote wilderness, you know, no cell reception, catching, like, salmon with her bare hands. Beautiful. I. It's the thing I'm most excited about for the summer.

Dope. Well, your story is amazing. You are someone who really practices alignment into action, which is something I talked about in the podcast. Alignment is being aligned with what you want, and then action is actually going for it. So can you share a little bit about your journey for us? Maybe share the Price is Right story if you haven't shared it 20 times today already?

Well, the alignment piece was the hardest for me because, you know, I've always been a kid of action. I would run around and I'd get in trouble in school for, you know, being that.

Are you a pitta? Do you Know your dosha.

I don't. Can you help me find it?

I'll figure it out in this conversation.

Great. But the alignment was tricky because, you know, to take you back seven years. I was 18 years old, a freshman in college. And I was spending every day lying on my dorm room bed staring up at the ceiling. And to understand why I was going through it, you have to understand, and you know this very well, I was the son of, you know, Persian immigrants, which means I came out of the womb. My mom cradled me in her arms and then she stamped MD on my ass and sent me on my way.

We have a word for this called doodle tallow.

And you know, you think it's funny, but I wore scrubs to school for Halloween in third grade. Like I was that kid.

Wow.

So by the time I got to college, I was the pre med of pre meds. But very quickly, I remember lying on this bed and staring at this stack of biology books, feeling like they were dementors sucking the life out of me. And at first I wondered, you know, maybe I'm just being lazy. But then I began to wonder, maybe I'm not on my path, maybe I'm on a path somebody placed me on and I'm just rolling down. So now not only do I not know what I want to do with my life, I have no idea how all these people who I looked up to, how they did it. How did Bill Gates sell his first piece of software out of his dorm room when nobody knew his name? How did Spielberg become the youngest director in Hollywood history, you know, when he was rejected from film school? These are the things they don't normally teach you in class. So I very naively just went to the library and started ripping through business books and self help books and biographies. But eventually I was left empty handed. And that's when my naive 18 year old thinking kicked in. And I thought, well, if no one's going to write the book I'm dreaming of reading, why not write it myself? You know, I thought it'd be super simple. I would just, you know, call up Bill Gates, interview him, interview everyone else. I'd be done in a few months. That, I assumed was the easy part. The hard part, I figured was getting money to fund this journey. You know, I was buried in tuition payments. I was all out of bar mitzvah cash. So there had to be a way to make some quick money. So two nights before final exams, my freshman year of college, I'm in the library doing what everyone does in the library. Right before finals, I'm on facebook and I see someone post free tickets to the price is right as their status. And, you know, the game show was filming a few miles away from my college campus. And the first thought that came to my mind was, what if I go on the show and win some money to fund this dream? You know, not my brightest moment. But, you know, I had a bigger problem. You know, not only did I have finals in two days, I had never seen a full episode of the show before. You know, I'd seen clips when I was home sick from school in fourth grade.

I. I didn't even really know what the show was. I had heard about it until I read it in your book. Because I would not have known how to be a contestant on it either.

Right. It's. It's funny because it's the longest running game show in u. S. History.

Oh, wow.

Yet at the same time, like, some people are fanatical and watched it every day for 40 years. And, you know, people like us maybe have heard of it and seen clips and bits.

Right. Because it's like daytime television.

Right. Like, I would only watch when I was homesick.

Yeah. I would watch Jerry Springer.

Right. It was on at the same time.

Yeah.

So, you know, I'm in the library and I'm telling myself it's a stupid idea. Like, don't think about it. You know, focus on studying. But you know those ideas that keep clawing themselves back into your mind and you can't stop thinking about it. So to prove to myself it was a bad idea, I remember making this pro and cons list. I was sitting in this corner table in the library. It was this round wooden table. And I took out my spiral notebook and I wrote best and worst case scenarios. You know, worst case scenarios, fail finals, get kicked out of pre med or lose financial aid. Mom stops talking to me. Mom hates me. Look out on TV. You know, there were 20 cons, and the only pro was maybe, maybe win enough money to fund this dream. And it felt as if someone 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 studied how to hack the price is right. And I go on the show the next day and do this ridiculous strategy and end up winning the whole showcase showdown. Winning a sailboat, selling the sailboat. And that's how I funded the book.

And he explains the process of how in the third door in the book, which is hilarious.

Yeah. And it's funny you talk about alignment in action, because the whole. This whole journey started with me being out of alignment and trying to find that alignment.

Yes. And you found it in the action, which I think a lot of people, they feel stuck, which we were just talking about. I was talking about a family member who feels stuck because he feels like he needs to know what to do to take the action. And sometimes it's in the action that you figure out what you need to do.

That's so true. That's so, so, so true.

Yes. So then you did it and you interviewed. Can you tell us some of the people you ended up interviewing on your journey?

So it turned out to be this, you know, multi year journey. And it took two years to get to Bill Gates. It took three years to get to Lady Gaga. And the whole way this list came about of who to interview was right after I won the Price Is Right, I finally had enough money to fund the journey. And I was like, all right, well, who are the, you know, quote unquote, most successful people? Because, you know, there's the Forbes list and stuff like that. But I don't really believe in these algorithms that determine success. So I had a problem. So I called my best friends, my boys, who I grew up with, and I told them to come over one night. And this is in summer vacation after freshman year of college. And I tell them, guys, if we can make our dream university, who would be our professors? And, you know, that made things a lot easier. You know, my friend Kevin goes, all right, you know, Mark Zuckerberg will teach us tech, you know, and then someone said, Jane Goodall, science, Maya Angelou, poetry, Steve Wozniak, computer science, you know, Bill Gates business, pit bull for Latin American history. And, you know, we just created this, you know, Spielberg for film, Larry King for broadcasting. And the list just grew. And that night, I wrote all those names down on a little note card. And that really became, in some ways, the treasure map for this seven year journey.

I love it. So you had this. And then in the book, you talk about really how you made it happen. And for people listening, it was not like he sent an email and they were like, sure, I'll. You can come over and I'll interview. The book is the Journey. And probably, I'm assuming what you expected was you would interview people and with that information you would write. Were you even planning on writing a book before, or was it just for your own sake?

The whole reason I knew, you know, I didn't know much when I was starting, but I had at least some insight that Bill Gates doesn't normally do interviews for like an 18 year old's blog, you know, So I knew, like.

I'm going to pretend I'm 19.

So I knew there had to be, you know, some vessel. And the great thing about books is that the more. Although there are tons and tons of books out there, the more noisy the digital world gets with blogs and stuff like that, the more value there is in a 300 page, highly edited book.

Totally.

So my thinking was it's not about a book, but the book is really a great starting place to put this wisdom, to make it accessible to people. So the book, in many ways, to me, is just the first canvas that this message will be painted on.

Totally. And what you said about writing a book is so true because I see so many people who spend so many years blogging. I was a blogger as well, and it's like, then I realized, wow, with all these blog posts, I could have 50 books. So why don't I just put my focus in, like, writing something that can, like, stay on a bookshelf and has a longer shelf life? Because, you know, we don't really read Facebook posts from a few months ago or even a few days ago. And you may have put so much love and thought into that. Facebook or Instagram posts. So I think having the book as your vehicle to approaching these people is such a great idea. Even with my podcast, I feel like, oh, this is like a cool way for me to just like, hang out with people that I'd want to hang out with. But then we're also bringing the message out to, you know, more people.

Yeah, the. In the very beginning, the whole premise of this book was that I had this, you know, very naive belief, but I, you know, I still believe it to this day that if all of these people came together not for press, not to promote anything, but really just to share their best wisdom with the next generation, young people can do so much more. And it's really that belief that, at the end of the day, is what inspired all of these, you know, remarkable people to come together behind this one mission. And I'm very grateful that they did.

So you exhibited a lot of persistence to make this happen. So can you share a story about, you know, the persistence that you showed just to show audience members, like, really the lengths that you went through just so they can fully understand what you're talking about?

Oh, my God, there are so many. So here's one story of, you know, persistence and over persistence in the same story. So with Warren Buffett, you know, the most successful person in finance in human history, I, you know, made it my mission to interview him for the book. And I went on this eight month quest to try to track him down. And for eight months I wrote letter after letter after letter, handwritten, sent it to his office, sent it to his house, and he would actually respond with handwritten responses back every now and then. But, you know, I would write a two page letter and he would write a two sentence response saying thank you, but no thank you. And the crazy thing is, you know, not only was I writing these letters every single week, I was calling his assistant, his office, over and over and over and over again, and still that didn't work. And I ended up, you know, meeting Buffett's kids and grandkids and business associates and business partners and just nothing worked. And for eight months, you know, it's very different to have a full time job and on the side for a few months, you're sending an email every now and then. This was, this was the full time job.

All day you're just drafting emails to Warren Buffet.

You know, if you're waking up at 6am and you're going to sleep at, let's say, you know, 10 or 11, and all day all you're doing is trying to reach out to Warren Buffett. After like month one, you start feeling pretty shitty about yourself after a month of rejection. By month three, you feel like you're coughing up blood. By month five, you start to question what the fuck you're even doing with your life, you know, and it was just, it felt like, you know, this analogy keeps coming back to me as if, like waking up day after day after day just to get rejected. Felt like I was waking up extra early and laying on this road just so a truck could run me over reverse and run me over some more. And you know, I just, I just kept at it and kept at it to the point where finally Warren Buffett's assistant and I were on the phone and she goes, look, Alex, I know Warren and I know he's not going to change his mind. So how about as my guest, you come to the shareholders meeting and I'm like, oh my God, thank you so much. Like, do you think I can bring some friends? She goes, absolutely. I'll send you six tickets. I'm like, wow, that's incredible. And her name is Debbie. I go, debbie, isn't it true that people at the shareholders meeting get to ask Mr. Buffett questions during the Q and A portion of the event. And she's like, alex, Alex, Alex, I know what you're trying to do, and it's not possible. There's 30,000 people there and only 30 get to ask questions. So your odds are one in a thousand. And it's a lottery system, completely random. So I wouldn't get your hopes up. What she doesn't know is I'm the king of hopes up. So me and my, you know, best friends, five of my best friends, we go to Omaha, we get to Buffett's shareholders meeting at 4 o' clock in the morning, run around, talk to everyone we can, and we find a loophole in Buffett's lottery system. And although the odds were one in a thousand, out of the six of us, four got winning lottery tickets. And that's how we asked our questions to Warren Buffett in front of 30,000 people. It's really, again, this story of persistence over and over again until you eventually find a way to make it happen. But there's also a flip side to the story. There's a part two to that story. You know, although I got to ask, you know, some of my top questions to Warren Buffett, it didn't go the way I had hoped. And I still, a part of me wanted to do an official, formal sit down interview with him in his office. So, you know, months later, when I finally got an interview with Bill Gates, you know, after this two year journey, I finally got this interview with Bill Gates, Gates office, after the interview, loved it so much. They offered to help. And you know, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are best friends. So he said, come, you think you can help me, you know, get an interview with Warren Buffett? And they said, absolutely. They reached out to Buffett's office and I'll never know exactly what happened, but it sounds like they essentially, Buffett's office responded saying, we know all about Alex. This is not happening. And the fact that I essentially got myself blacklisted from Warren Buffett's office taught me that there is a such thing as over persistence. You know, no business book ever talks about it. You know, no self help quote, talks about the dangers of over persistence, of how you can bank on a door so many times that eventually they'll call the police on you. And the lesson I learned is that I had dug myself into such a deep hole that even Bill Gates couldn't pull me out. So to me, persistence is such a key. But I was able to learn that there's A huge difference between banging on a door a hundred times and having people hate you and banging on a door a few times. Okay, that didn't work. All right, let's go try the window. Okay, that doesn't work. Let's go try, you know, making friends with a bouncer. There was a smart way. Then there's a way that gets you blacklisted.

Right.

And it's really important to keep those two in mind.

Yes. And I think with your persistence, it was so focused on just one person that it's like, you know, now imagine now that you maybe have people want to interview you and stuff, and they kept on emailing, you would be like, oh, my God, you're freaking crazy, because now you're on the other side. So I think, like, persistence, if it's just with that one person, then there can be over persistence. But maybe if you're just looking for an overall message and you're willing to go to a thousand different people, then that persistence could help you.

I agree. 100.

So now that you've kind of done these interviews, do you feel like you really got the messages that you needed from those people, or it was just kind of a reaffirmation of what you deeply knew inside of yourself?

You know, when I set off on this journey, no part of me was looking for this, like, one key to success, because I don't really believe in. You know, we've all seen those TED talks or their business folks where it says the one key. I always roll my eyes when I would see things like that. What ended up happening, though, is as I went on this journey over the past seven years, about 70% through the interviews, I realized that all of the people I was talking to, it didn't matter if it was Maya Angelou who grew up in Stamps, Arkansas, or Bill Gates who grew up in a to a wealthy family in Seattle. They all treated life the exact same way. And the analogy that came to me is that it's sort of like getting into a nightclub. There's always three ways in. There's the first door where 99% of people wait in line, hoping to get in. You know, it's the main entrance where the line curves around the block.

I'm like, how are they wearing dresses? It's so cold. What are you doing?

Exactly.

That line.

Exactly. And then there's the second door, the VIP entrance where the billionaires and the celebrities slip through. And somehow school and society have this way of making us feel like those are the only two ways in. You're either born into it or you wait your turn like everybody else. But what I've learned is that there's always, always the third door. And it's a door 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 Gates sold his first piece of software or how Lady Gaga got her first record deal. They all took the third door. And the powerful thing about that is, if you think about it, it's not a prescription of what to do. It's more a mindset of how to think. And the powerful thing about this third door analogy is that the second you hear it, you can't really forget it. Once you know it exists, all of a sudden the way you see the problems and the challenge in your life start to shift. And, you know, the biggest thing about this book is I had set out in the beginning when I was 18, to get all this incredible, you know, hacks and tactics and tools from all these successful people. And, you know, thankfully the book does include all of that. You know, Tim Ferriss teaches you cold email advice. Bill Gates teaches you negotiating advice. But that's not what makes this book so powerful. What I've learned is that you can teach or give someone all the best tools and tactics in the world and their life can still feel stuck. But if you change what someone believes is possible, they'll never be the same. And it's that, you know, essence of possibility that's really at the center of this book. Because I've learned when you change what someone believes is possible, you change what becomes possible. And that's the most powerful thing you can do.

So I totally agree. And I've been such a third door person. I was sharing with you my Deepak story, which was total freaking third door. But what I want to ask you is, do you think that there could be a fourth door? Have you ever thought about what a fourth door could look like?

I have a feeling that you have a theory and I want to hear your theory.

So as I'm reading this, I'm thinking, well, there could be a fourth door. And that's sort of the law of attraction and the manifestation and you just vibrating at that level that these people naturally are showing up for you. Have you ever experienced that? Now, going through all of this work.

It'S funny because there have been moments on the journey, many moments on the journey where it's, you know, coincidental miracles to the point of, like, it's baffling. And there's also been journeys of coincidental failures that have been baffling.

Right.

And so there's been both. And, you know, there's, you know, all these stories in the book of, you know, chasing Larry King through a grocery store and all these crazy things that are just these, you know, really crazy miracles that ended up working out. But also, some moments that are not in the book are, you know, in my opinion, just as crazy. I was, you know, one person who I really wanted to learn from was Jay Z. I really admire him as an artist and a businessman. And I remember I was finally able to connect with someone who knew someone who worked with Jay Z. So I. They brought me to their office, and I'm sitting in Jay Z's conference room. It's like 5pm on like, a Tuesday night in New York. And, you know, I'm telling them all about the book, and we're having this amazing conversation. Conversation. We're talking for, like, an hour and a half. We're, you know, it's going really well. The guy loves it. He, like, wants to help. And, you know, we're like, having this great time. I'm like, do you mind if I go to the restroom for a second? He's like, yeah, it's absolutely. It's down the hall to the left. So I go down to the restroom. A few minutes later, I come back to the conference room, and the guy's like, dude, you're such an idiot. I'm like, why? And he goes. 30 seconds after he left, Jay walked right in, like, poked his head in, hung out for a minute, and then left.

Oh, no.

And, you know, there's all these. So it's something that.

So who is your con? The amazing conversation with.

It was with Jay Z's, like, head of, like, fashion.

Okay. I thought it was with him. I was like, whoa, you talked to him for an hour and a half?

No, no, no. It was one of. One of the people who worked for him.

Got it. Oh, okay.

So Jay Z, literally, he came when.

You were in the bathroom.

I'm there for an hour and a half. And the only minute that Jay Z walked into the conference room was.

So maybe your conversation was not meant to be at that time.

It's one of these things that in hindsight, it's always clear. And there's this great Warren Buffett quote that says, you know, life is always clearer through the rear view mirror, but that's not how you have to drive. So I Feel like, you know, now that the book is finally done, there'll be some more clarity into how it all came to be.

Yes. And also you have shifted. You know, you've been writing this book for seven years now. Who you are, you're obviously a more confident person and you probably don't feel this need to chase people anymore because you feel very secure in who you are. And just having that energy is naturally going to make, you know, influential or change makers come to you because they're not seeing you as like the 18 year old, you know, seeking an answer. You have your own inner answer. So I think just like, for a lot of times, I feel like we're so seeking validation from other people and if you just become that person that you would want to get validation from, those people naturally just gravitate to you.

That's so profound. Yeah, absolutely.

Yes. And I think an interesting, and it's an eternal question that everyone has is like, when to push and when it's not meant to be.

Oh my God, that's the hardest question, right?

I was just in a situation this week that there's this big influential doctor and I met him a few weeks ago in New York and I told him about my upcoming book and he was like, oh, I love it. I emailed him, will you write a quote? He's like, yeah, I'd love to. I was like, perfect. I'm so excited. Followed up with him a few days later. I was like, we're going to print soon. He doesn't respond. Follow up with him a few days later. So I followed up with him three times and I was like, okay, is it not meant to be? So I'm like asking my friends and like, my shaman friend is like, no, it's not meant to be. And then my other friend is like, no, just send another email. And I was like, what do I do? So I was like, okay, I'm just gonna send this one last email with, you know, the intention of the universe. If it's meant to be, he'll respond to this email. If it's not. Point taken. And I sent that one last email. He, he responded like a minute later. So it was like, if I had not done that one push, it wouldn't have happened because I would. Oh, well, you know, the universe didn't want it. So it's like so hard to know because we live in this like, physical 3D world where law of attraction does not totally just happen either.

Yeah, I, yeah, I've been there and yeah, it's really Tricky.

And I loved your story with Tim Ferriss also and how you were persisting, persisting. And then finally he gave you the interview. And can you tell us a little bit about that?

So Tim Ferriss, the author of the Four Hour Workweek, became a, you know, a big hero of mine when I was, you know, 18 years old because I was going through this, what I want to do with my life crisis. And this book really helped, you know, illuminate a lot of things for me. So I became adamant that I really need to learn from this guy. So, you know, I met someone who knew him, who knew somebody who knew, you know. I got my interview request passed along to Tim Ferriss, but I never heard back. So as I was trying to think of my plan B, I was like, oh my God, this is it. Because I was looking at my email inbox and I saw a newsletter saying that there's this event in San Francisco or Tim Ferriss will be the keynote speaker. So I was like, if I just go to San Francisco to this keynote event and talk to Tim Ferriss there, he'll give me the interview. Sounded perfect. So I fly to San Francisco, you know, I use my prices, right? Money, I get there and instantly, the second I walk into this conference, like, my gut drops. I see hundreds and hundreds of people with the four hour work week clutched under their arm. And I realized, like, I'm definitely not the only person who's here to talk to Tim Ferriss. So I go and take a seat, you know, right in the first row on the right side of the stage where the, you know, the stairs are onto the stage and the lights dim. Tim Ferriss walks up from the left side of the stage. So now I'm on the complete opposite side of the auditorium and I'm thinking, fuck, I, you know, I came all the way here and I'm gonna blow it. So I end up, you know, standing up and sort of sneaking out of my chair. And I see next to the left side of the stage, there's this VIP bathroom literally feet away from the entrance of the stage. And I just run into that bathroom and I end up crouching by a toilet with my ear pressed against the wall listening to Tim Ferriss speech through the bathroom wall so I could time my exit. And finally, like 30 minutes later, after crouching in the bathroom, I hear the applause. So I jump out of the bathroom and there Tim Ferriss is, standing right in front of me. And you know, we end up talking for a couple minutes and he said, you know, this Sounds amazing. Like yeah, I'll definitely like reach back out to you. This sounds great. And you know, as luck would have it, like your story, he, he never responded. But I just, it didn't make sense to me. He said it sounded great. So I just sent his assistant an email. No response. So I sent another email and another and another. And over the course of, you know, pretty long period of time, I sent about 32 emails to Tim Ferriss assistant. And you know, I said it all. I was like, this is perfect for him, he'll love. You know, I tried every angle I could and 32 emails with no response at all. You know, his, his assistant was very kind, she would respond every now and then, but no response from Tim at all. After 32 emails, I finally get a response saying Tim will do the interview tomorrow. And I was like, what? But you know, I was like, you know, I'm not going to question, not.

Like we're calling the police.

Right. So I was like, oh my God, thank you so much. And I do this interview with Tim Ferriss and about halfway through the interview his voice starts shifting almost as if he's trying to like hint at something. And he's pretty much telling me about how, you know, over persistence in emailing someone over and over and over again does not make someone happy. And he gives me this great advice on how to, you know, cold email people the right way. But I was too thick headed at the time to understand that he was actually trying to help me from myself, save me from myself. So you know, the sad part is I didn't learn my lesson with Tim Ferriss which is why I repeated that mistake with Warren Buffett. But the Ferris story is a great example of again, persistence and the dangers of over persistence.

Yeah, you're like, okay, I hate when people over email me. Tim, I totally agree with you on that one. Know what that's like. But yeah, I mean now you probably experience it too. And I'm sure once this book comes out, but people are gonna email you 32 times. You're gonna, they're gonna be like, Alex, you told us to. So you're not gonna have any excuse.

Oh my God, you have to say.

Yes to every interview.

The whole book is about the dangers of emailing someone 32 times.

Right, right. Yeah, I think it's like you got, you know, you sent that many emails and you got the interview and. Which was really kind of him and also is because of that other connection you had with the Chinese software guy, Chilu.

The.

Yeah, so it's like, he gave it to you, but he was also like, you're being annoying.

Right.

So it's really important for people to read between the lines. And, you know, and you show this very well in the book, that sometimes you meet someone in person, especially an influential person, and they're like, like Steven Spielsberg, he was like, yeah, I'd love to be a part of it. And you, like, never hear from them again. And it's like, you have to just keep in mind they have a lot going on. And, like, if they, you know, said yes to every single person that would interview them, you know, they wouldn't have time to do that thing that makes them so special. And, you know, people, a lot of people listening to this, they want to be writers, influencers and stuff. And you see that as you kind of like, move up, you get a lot of requests for people who want to do little things. And it's hard to know which to say yes to and which to say no to. Because if you end up saying yes to everything, then you're just being interviewed and you're not. Not creating. But you might do that one interview that ends up in an amazing book and changes someone's life. So that's why it's like, you just have to really, like, sense, like, if that person's intentions are good.

Yeah, you pretty much hit it on the head with that.

Yeah. Cool. So for people who they want to connect with, you know, people who are doing inspiring things, they feel like they don't know anyone. Maybe they live in, like, a part of the country where they don't. They're not like, meeting them face to face. What advice do you have for them?

So I'll actually take something from what Tim Ferriss told me in the interview with him. Tim Ferriss launched his career very much by using cold emails. He cold emailed the CEO of a startup he wanted to work for. When he wanted to become an author, he cold emailed bestselling authors to ask for advice. So the beautiful thing about cold emails is you don't have to live in a major city or have any connections. The whole point is that anyone, anywhere can do it. So this is what Tim Ferriss taught me. It's what I call the Tim Ferriss cold email template. And it goes like this. Dear so and so, I know you get a lot of emails, so this will only take 60 seconds to read. The next paragraph is where you put, you know, one to two sentences max, about who you are and why that context is relevant to the person. The next paragraph, again, one to two sentences max, about your very specific question for the person. And it should be something they can answer right off the bat. You know, what's the number one book that you recommend for an aspiring entrepreneur? What's the best advice you have about, you know, how to do xyz? Something that they don't have to rack their mind for an answer. And then the final paragraph is the clincher. You go, I totally understand if you're too busy to respond. Even a one or two line reply will completely make my day. All the best, Tim. And what's amazing about this cold email template is not only did it help me, you know, reach out to mentors and interviewees, I've shared this with early readers and it's worked wonders. You know, people have reached out to Sheryl Sandberg and got her responses and, you know, it's just been remarkable.

Now everyone's gonna get this email.

It works so well.

No, but guys, this is such a freaking game changer. Like literally buy his book. So you can just have this template and use it because it's such. I, since I read it, I was like, to my system, like, stop sending all emails. We must change the wording because it's, it's so, it's so spot on. And I get the life story emails, which are like novels about. And then this happened. That happened. And I'd appreciate any words of advice. And I'm like, oh my. Look, I don't even know where to begin.

Right? And the hard part is you do.

Want to help, right?

It's just they're making it so hard to help.

And then you know that you wouldn't be able to adequately give them the answer that this set long of a response deserves without spending writing a novel back. And then it's going to be this back and forth thing and it's like, like then you'd have to hop on the phone with them. And I used to do that all the time. And it was like, okay, this is like too much energy that I'm taking on, but if someone sent me that email, this is my question, I would be like, of course I'll just respond right now on my phone. What do you need? Yes.

Yeah.

So, and then also the time thing is really good too. And I was just talking to this other guest, Lori, Harder, about have the amount of time that it takes. Like this email will take 60 seconds to read. Or I'd love to interview you for 20 minutes. Minutes. And just so they know this isn't going to be a three hour long fiasco. And she also recommended in her templates to let them off the hook. I don't know what you think about that, but to do something like. And if it doesn't work, that's totally fine. But I know some people are like, don't allow that possibility. So what's your.

I, I disagree because what Tim Ferriss taught me is that it's not even about letting them off the hook as much as, you know, acknowledging the truth. That if they're too busy, it's totally understandable. It shows that you have some awareness of how much is on their plate. And people appreciate that.

Totally.

It just makes you more likable.

Exactly.

And this is the truth. If they're too busy to respond, don't hound them. You actually have to walk the walk.

So now, going back on it, would you have not have sent this many emails to people? Would you have totally changed up the game with the awareness that you have today?

Yeah. The tricky thing about this whole journey is that, yeah, if I had to redo it, knowing everything, I would have, it would be a lot easier because I.

Right.

It's like playing a video game once.

You'Ve, you know, figured out, duh, the mushroom.

Right, Exactly. But again, if I didn't, you know, send Tim Ferriss the 32 emails, he never would have given me the cold email template. So it's.

Yeah, exactly.

It's definitely.

And you know, your book is about the journey. That's really what it's about. It's not about what they said. It's about the journey. It's about you and the persistence and the lessons that you learned. And I felt like I was like rooting you a lot. I was like, I read the whole book on one plane ride, guys. So it's not like one of those books you're gonna have on your nightstand forever, but once you start, you're not going to be able to stop in the middle because you're like, wait, what happens next?

Lady Gaga.

What? And it's. And it's really about you. And it has nothing to do with them. And they are just little pawns in your story of how bad do you want it? But throughout it, I was like, alex, you're a genius. You don't need their quotes or whatever, you know, that's what I was screaming to the whole time. I'm like, fuck it, you don't need that.

You're amazing. Thank you.

Yeah. So. Thank you so much. So where can people connect with you and Find your book.

So you know the book is out everywhere on June 5, so you know, everywhere books are sold.

Congratulations.

Thank you. So Amazon bookstores, Kindle, Audible, if people want to help, you know, get the book on the New York Times list, hardcover books definitely help the most. And if you do get it, if you go to the book website thirddoorbook.com there are like bonuses for people which are really fun. So it's T H I r d thirddoorbook.com and if you, you, you know, heard about the book through this podcast episode, let me know on social and it's just@alexpennian.com so a L E x B a N a Y a n.

And we can do a giveaway of the book on my Instagram too.

I would love that.

Totally. So we'll do that and I'll have all of your links on the show notes also I would love, love, thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge, your wisdom, your strength. It really inspires all of us, us to just like go out there and stop making excuses and chase our dreams and, and all the bumps in the road are the lessons.

Anyways, this is so fun. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Are you so inspired after that interview? I swear you need to get the book the third door. It is so good. I literally am obsessed. Such a good story really just makes you want to motivate yourself to get off your seat and just get shit done.

So check it out and if you loved this episode and you'd like a little gift for review, I would love to send you the first half of my unreleased book. It's called Eat right for your mind body type. It is not available for sale anywhere. Never will because now it is Eat right for your mind body type 12 week guided program infusing Ayurveda with modern nutritional science. So as a free gift for reviewing this episode in the itunes store, you just head over to itunes on your phone, on your computer, click write a review, write a nice review, take a screenshot of it and email it over to me before you hit hit submit. My email is Sahara S A H A R aatfeelfresh.com and I will send you back the first half of my unreleased book, Eat right for your mind body type. I hope you loved this episode and I'll see you on the next one. Namaste.

Jam.