Mastin Kipp: Hello and welcome to the Mastin Kipp podcast. I'm your host, Mastin Kipp and I am the creator of functional life coaching where we discover the root cause, emotional blocks that are holding you back from success and I'm also the creator of Trauma Hacking, helping you turning your nervous system into your ally and the bestselling author of the book, "Claim Your Power," and also "Trauma Survivor Advocate," and this podcast is from my heart to yours.

I'm gonna share with you all kinds of different things, different coaching experiences that I've had with people, different parts of my life, maybe an excerpt from a seminar, different interviews with friends and thought leaders, all about how to get unstuck, how to hack your nervous system, how to turn your nervous system into your ally and really get the edge so that you really live your dreams, live your purpose, and most importantly, pay it forward. So I hope you enjoy today's episode.

One favor I have for you is this. If you love this podcast, remember to subscribe to it and if you feel a call, please feel free to leave a review because reviews really matter, it helps us spread the word and helps other people really discover this podcast. So if this is valuable to you, please feel free to leave a review and subscribe to the podcast and if there's anything in this episode or any episode that really strikes you as an aha moment, shoot us an email to hello@mastinkipp.com, tell us which episode it was and about what time the breakthrough was in the episode so we can really know 'cause I'd love to hear from you what your aha moments are. I love hearing that [inaudible 00:01:27] hearing that too. So without any further ado, please enjoy this episode of the Mastin Kipp podcast.

All right Alex, welcome to the Mastin Kipp podcast. So happy to have you here, man.

Alex Banayan: Thank you so much for having me.

Mastin Kipp: Dude, this is I think I really exciting conversation that we're gonna have because the third door and the whole idea of how people become successful, I've been obsessed over a version of that conversation for a long time and as we were talking before, there's always that people talk about what we were saying before we started recording, one day there should be a podcast of just those conversations, right?

We were just talking about how this book came to be and it's been such a pleasure to kind of support you in the process of manifesting the book. So before we get into some of the more detailed and cooler things, 'cause there's so many amazing people and so many cool concepts from the book, I want to know one question, which is, for you, the interviewer and now someone who's going out and sharing this message, what has been your biggest personal takeaway and

transformation in your life as a result of being in proximity to all these successful people? Like what's the change in your life been?

Alex Banayan: The change in my life was unintended. So I, in a way, had started this journey, I was setting out to learn all these practical tools. I wanted to learn Bill Gates' negotiating secrets, I wanted to learn Tim Ferriss' cold email template. Like that's what I was really going for.

What ended up happening though over this seven year journey is I've learned that you can give someone all the best tools and knowledge in the world and their life can stiff feel stuck.

Mastin Kipp: Yeah.

Alex Banayan: You know this better than anyone.

Mastin Kipp: That's so true.

Alex Banayan: You can send someone to Harvard, you can give them all the books 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 what happened to me by accident over this seven year journey of talking to all these people and doing all this research is it radically changed what I believe is possible and I've never been the same.

Mastin Kipp: How so?

Alex Banayan: There's just story after story I can give. There's the more well known people in the book like Bill Gates and Lady Gaga, but there's also some people that have stayed away from the public spotlight who are just as powerful in my opinion.

One guy, his name is Chi Lu. He grew up in village outside of Shanghai, China, with no running water and no electricity. People were so poor that they had deformities from malnutrition and we think our education system's bad, but in his village, for everything 300 students there was one teacher.

Mastin Kipp: Wow, wow.

Alex Banayan: So clearly just an ... you know, no running water, no electricity, it's just wild and by the age of 27, you know his smart and went to school, worked as hard as he could and by age 27 was making the most money he's ever made, $7 a month.

Mastin Kipp: Wow.

Alex Banayan: Fast forward 20 years later and he's a president at Microsoft.

Mastin Kipp: Wow, yeah.

Alex Banayan: It is one of the most unbelievable stories you've never heard and there's stories like Chi, even stories of Quincy Jones, it's like these stories of

people who have not only overcome unbelievable obstacles, but they mindsets they used it sort of cuts all your excuses out from under you.

Mastin Kipp: Totally.

Alex Banayan: [inaudible 00:05:18] really say I don't have enough time, I don't know if I can work that much this week when you hear of Chi Lu just ... and what's amazing is it's one thing to watch an interview with someone on TV or read a magazine Q&A, but for me personally sitting in that room-

Mastin Kipp: Yeah.

Alex Banayan: ... like looking in his eyes and him just being so human and him saying, "Look, I was just like you when I was your age," really just ... you can't ... there's no other option other than to accept his truth.

Mastin Kipp: That's right.

Alex Banayan: That's actually one of the biggest reasons why we turned to this book. The original book was going to be a Q&A, you know, each chapter a different person. One chapter on so-and-so, another chapter on so-and-so, but I ... So it's been a seven year journey and about three years into it I got publishing deal and a year into the publishing deal my editor calls me into his office in New York. He's like a very gruff New Yorker. He's like, "Alex, what's the purpose of your book? Is it to inform people or is to change their [inaudible 00:06:29]. That's a very leading question. No, I hope it's to change their lives and he goes, "Well, the book you're writing isn't gonna do that." I'm like, "What are you talking about?" and this is literally exactly up your alley, he starts explaining to me Joseph Campbell and "Hero's Journey" and he goes on to explain to me that every piece of art that changes someone's life is pretty much the same story. You can look at "The Odyssey" you can look at "Harry Potter" you can look at "The Matrix" "Star Wars" it's all the same story.

He explains to me when there's a protagonist that the reader can relate to, when that protagonist goes on a journey and that protagonist learns and grows so does the reader and I'm sitting there, I'm like 19, 20 years old. I'm like, "Well, who should be our protagonist? Should it be Bill Gates, should it be Spielberg?" and he's like, "No, you idiot, it's you." It seems silly in hindsight but at the time I was so attached to the original vision of the book of it being Q&A and me not being part of it, it took like five or six months for me to fully come to terms with what he was saying.

Now, when I look back on it in retrospect, it's the most obvious decision because now the way the book is written, it's written as this narrative, almost like cinematically where the reader is sitting down with Bill Gates in his office drinking Diet Cokes or the reader is with Lady Gaga in the nightclub with her arm around her or him and that's where the possibility comes into play 'cause if I didn't do that it would have just been book of tools and [inaudible 00:08:07] and knowledge, but now it's a book of experience and growth and possibility.

Mastin Kipp: What I love about it is ... because as a coach the excuses defense mechanisms that I run into on a daily basis are rampant and I'm always very impressed with the human being's nervous system creativity of why they can't do something.

Alex Banayan: Right.

Mastin Kipp: Obviously it's always because they're trying to defend and be safe and unusually on an unconscious level, but when you start looking at the stories of successful people, obviously modeling is a really big deal, but also environment is a big deal too because when you're in a certain type of environment and it doesn't necessarily have to be where everything is given to you because lots of people have lots of stuff that's given to them and they don't make anything out of it. Is there a common motivator environment cue, threat, something that you've been able to identify or a set of common circumstances that aided in the success and achievement of certain people becoming this way or is it just random?

Like as far as the stories that you've heard and the structure ... you talking about Campbell, right? Like they all had a call to adventure, they all probably refused the all. They all, at some point, had to say, "Fine, I'll go do it," and then there was the test and the ordeals and stuff like that. Was there commonalities in the environment that was getting people off their butt and was it more than just like self-motivation? 'Cause I think a lot people think of sort of motivate myself more, but I think it's more than that. I'm just kind of wondering what you discovered in the nuance of the stories that you heard.

Alex Banayan: When I had started I pretty much had this assumption it has to be random, it has to be different and I had no intention of finding that one key. You know we've all seen those Ted Talks of the one key to success and I know I just roll my eyes, but what ended up happening and this about 70% into this journey, is I realized every single person, it doesn't matter if it was Spielberg in film or Maya Angelou in poetry, it didn't matter what their field was or where they grew up or how they grew up, they all ended up treating life and business and success the exact same way and the analogy that came to me ... you know, you have a background in music ... it was sort of like this common melody in every interview. I'm sure with your coaching you started hearing these common melodies in all of your clients, you know?

Mastin Kipp: Yeah.

Alex Banayan: The reason I use the word melody is it's not the lyrics, they're not saying the same things, but this similar energy to how they're saying it.

Mastin Kipp: And how would you describe it?

Alex Banayan: 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 like a nightclub, so there's always three ways in. 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.

Mastin Kipp: Right.

Alex Banayan: Then there's the second door, the VIP entrance, where the billionaires and celebrities go through and school and society have this way of making you feel like those are the only two ways in, you either wait your turn or you're born into it.

Mastin Kipp: Yep.

Alex Banayan: 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 it. 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.

Mastin Kipp: Totally. I love that. It's funny you say that because I remember ... talking about music, I was in the music business and when I was like, I don't know, 15, 14, around that age, I was really into hard rock and there was a concert that came to my town near Lawrence, Kansas and I go there super early. Like doors open at 10:00 AM, it didn't really start till 1:00. I got there at like 9:30 and I got in the side.

Alex Banayan: Wow.

Mastin Kipp: Very quickly I learned that the laminate, the all-access pass for getting all the way backstage is the exact same design as the T-shirt that they were selling at the event. So I bought a T-shirt, I went home, I scanned the T-shirt in, and I printed it out, I took a picture of the laminate, I print it out, I minimize it in Photo Shop, printed it out, both sides. I had a laminator and I laminated it and I made it look almost exactly the same as the one and I ended up walking into Steven Tyler's dressing room. I know exactly what you mean and that mindset ... after that moment actually, I wouldn't have the vocabulary at that time, I just thought there was always a crack in the system.

I love this concept of a third door because also growing up my parents always told me there's always three options to everything situation, so that's why I was sort of drawn to this topic of the third door. Obviously we have talked about this before, but let's talk a little bit about what that means because I feel like a lot of people live in that either or mindset that you're describing and there's sort of this yes and concept. I also found that a lot of times in my own life and with a lot of our clients and some of our mutual friends that have their own third door experiences, that those third door experiences are usually counterintuitive, they require risk and people think you're basically fucking crazy for doing whatever that is and/or needy, and/or insane.

I'm just kinda wondering, was there a common mindset? Was that true for the people that you saw as a whole and was there a common mindset about what to do in the face of people thinking you're not nuts or not believing in you or doubting you or stuff like that. 'Cause I think one of the biggest issues that people have, especially the concept of Campbellian terms, is breaking free from the tribe, breaking free from

the approval of others and like saying, "Fuck you. I'm gonna follow my own thing." So I'm just wondering if you saw any of that and if you could help clue us in on some of this stuff.

Alex Banayan: This is what I love because that's literally been ... I probably could have saved a lot more time on my journey if I came to you first because I spent a lot of years trying [inaudible 00:14:30] aspect of it 'cause what was the most ... once I had the third door analogy I started going into these interviews and I still had a handful of interviews left, so I would, whether it was Jessica Alba or Pitbull or Jane Goodall, I would ... 'cause I had the analogy, but I didn't know it'd be the [inaudible 00:14:48] of the book yet, so I was sort of testing it out. I would sit down with them in the interviews and I would tell them the analogy without any context and just see what would happen and they would like eyes light up, like Pitbull is like, "Dude, that's the story of my life."

Mastin Kipp: Wow.

Alex Banayan: And Quincy Jones was like, "Dude, that's in the pocket, that's the key." What I started realizing once I started getting that affirmation I would start then sharing it with my friends and what I've realized is that the hardest part of the third door is not what I expected. I had assumed the hardest part of someone achieving a dream would be running down the alley, finding the right door, okay, it's locked, let's find the window, okay that's locked, let's go through the kitchen. I assumed that's the hardest part, that logically makes sense.

What I realized, what you touched upon, is that once you're already running down the alley, just need and survival, if you have half a brain you'll figure out how to get in. The reason people don't achieve their dream has less to do with how hard it is to take the third door and more to do how hard it is to leave the line for the first one.

Mastin Kipp: Totally.

Alex Banayan: Because waiting in line at the first door, first of all, it's where you were born, it's where you went to school, it's where your friends are, it's probably where your parents are, you're on the sidewalk, it's well lit, there's nice clean concrete. It's pretty safe out there actually. Although you're not getting your dream, it's safe, it's well lit, there's a lot of people there, there's maybe like a police car outside making sure everyone's okay. The second you leave that line for the first door you're not with your friends anymore, you're [inaudible 00:16:39] you're muddy, you're bruised, there's a shady guy in the alley trying to take your money, you cut your hand in the glass of the window and you have no idea if you'll ever find this third door or if you'll just be wandering in this alley forever. There's no timeline

Mastin Kipp: Totally, I get it.

Alex Banayan: In the first door, at least the bounder's like, "Well, you're number 362 and that'll be another five years before you get your promotion."

Mastin Kipp: Right, yep.

Alex Banayan: Like there's some certainty.

Mastin Kipp: Yeah, totally and then exponential technology comes along and everybody gets laid off.

Alex Banayan: Right. You know what's funny? A lot of people would still rather that.

Mastin Kipp: Totally, yeah, 100%. No, I agree. It's interesting too because in the concept of building a business I've seen this trend where, especially in the consulting or coaching business, but also software, any real business, there's an unconscious belief or expectation I should say, where people think that the customers or clients they're gonna get are gonna somehow mirror their family of origin experiences and they actually don't try to put themselves out there 'cause they think it's only gonna be rejection, it's only gonna be playing it safe.

So it's very fascinating to see that it can be scary to actually try to take that third door because the technical term is the neuro-expectancy, the expectation of your nervous system is that it's just gonna be basically the same. So in that context, I know in my own life and I've seen this trend before and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Usually right before that third door opens, there's a dark night of the soul, right? There's like a-

Alex Banayan: A darkness.

Mastin Kipp: And you're like oh, death, finally, got give up now and the people in your life are like, "What are you doing? I told it was bad. Now look where you are. I was right." So was that a common trend and have you also heard stories of people who maybe aborted that process and didn't complete that process? I'm kinda curious because those are the decision moments that are so important.

Alex Banayan: The people who aborted the process aren't in my book.

Mastin Kipp: No, I mean just like in your life. Like if you've seen ... 'cause you can juxtapose, you have the data to be able to juxtapose, right?

Alex Banayan: Yeah.

Mastin Kipp: Obviously we're talking about people who went through the third door and crushed it, right?

Alex Banayan: Do you know what's interesting is that ... Like I'll give an example from my own journey. I went on this eight month quest trying to interview Warren Buffett. He's the greatest, most successful investor in financial history and I was just like, "If there's anyone who could give me the lesson I'm looking for it had to be Buffett." So I go on this eight month quest where at this point in the journey, I had dropped out of school and I was working full-time. You have to understand, I'm waking up at 6:00 AM, going to sleep at 11:00 PM and my only job is trying to contact Warren Buffett.

So after the first month of rejections it starts getting dark. Six months of rejections, it is getting really bad. I'm writing handwritten letters to him and he's actually handwriting responses back-

Mastin Kipp: Oh my god.

Alex Banayan: ... but I'm writing a two page letter and he's writing a two sentence response says, "Thank you, but no thank you," but still, I'm just like, "I'm gonna keep at it." I'm calling his assistant week after week after week. I got to the point where I'm flying out to Omaha hoping I can bump into him at a grocery store.

Mastin Kipp: Oh my god.

Alex Banayan: It is getting very ugly. You know there were points where I was rejected so many times and especially at this point early on in my journey, my identity was so wrapped into this book that a rejection, I had no clarity, no perspective. You know Paul Equale has this great line where he says, "You know in school if you get an F it might hurt but it's not the end of the world, but when you're pursuing your life's calling, each rejection feels like a rejection of you."

Mastin Kipp: Yep.

Alex Banayan: I was in that place times 100 and it got to the point where it felt like my insides where black and blue and I was coughing up blood.

Mastin Kipp: Wow, wow. I can relate.

Alex Banayan: Yeah, and I remember ... you know, I'm 20 years old, my family thinks that ... you know, they came to this country for me to get an education to become a doctor. So not only have I turned my back on their entire dreams and hopes, I'm not in the Motel 6 in Omaha, curled up on the ground crying because some random guy they've never heard of won't talk to me.

Mastin Kipp: Totally.

Alex Banayan: They think I've lost it and there were points where I was so rejected and in such a deep hole it felt like ... remember the movie "Castaway?"

Mastin Kipp: Oh yeah, totally.

Alex Banayan: So it felt like I was Tom Hanks on a desert island, no phone, like just completely desolate. What I've learned in these darkest of dark moments, when you are ready to quit ... 'cause to be honest, there's all these authors that are like, "I've never thought of quitting on my dream." Dude, I've thought about quitting 100 times.

Mastin Kipp: Oh my god, I think about it daily still sometimes, you know?

Alex Banayan: Right, so I've come super close.

Mastin Kipp: In fact, I actually give myself permission to quit for an hour at a time. I'm like, "I quit. No, I'm done." Like I walk away, you know?

Alex Banayan: Exactly. In those darkest, darkest moments when I'm ready to quit, I've learned two things have helped me the most. The first thing is, if you go back to the "Castaway" analogy, what's your Wilson? What's the volleyball that you talk to to keep you sane?

Mastin Kipp: Totally.

Alex Banayan: To me, I ended up always going back to the only thing I had left when my family wasn't able to help me and my friends were gone and on one could help [inaudible 00:22:51]. It was going back to the original reason why I had started in the first place.

Mastin Kipp: I love that, love it.

Alex Banayan: I had this idea in the beginning that if all these people came together, not for press, not to promote, but really just to share their best wisdom for the next generation, people can do so much more. That belief really, at the end of the day ... Look, when I would go back to it, it wasn't like I would go back to that thought and I would be 100% energized and I would be back in, but it would prevent me from completely letting go.

Mastin Kipp: Totally, yep.

Alex Banayan: I think that's all you actually need. You just need that one thread that let's you in the darkest of times hold on.

Mastin Kipp: Totally. I love that and would you say that your experience, which, by the way, thank you for sharing that because I think one of the things I love most about talking with you and most every conversation we had until now has never been recorded for a podcast, but there's a just a realness and I appreciate that 'cause I don't do small talk, I like the big talk and you're just so real about that. In your experience, would you say that was also a thread line in the common trends that you've seen 'cause I think a lot of people think, "Oh Alex, good for him. He's got a book published and talked to all this people who have mastered and has this career," or whatever and they discount the fact of like, hello, you're literally talking to someone who's giving you the exact advice that you need to hear to get to the next level and you're negating it because they've achieved the thing that you want to achieve, but you think it's not possible for you to achieve it so you're gonna negate the advice because they have what you don't have yet. It seems insane, right? Have you seen that?

Easy for Warren Buffett to say or easy for so-and-so to say, but have you seen that trend and what would you say to people who are maybe naysayers and think it's easier for Warren Buffett. You know, people always get mad, they're like, "Beyonce and I don't have the same time of the day. She has all these assistants." I'm like, "Well, she used to have all of them," you know?

Alex Banayan: Correct. You know that was definitely a problem in the beginning, especially when I was writing the book I was aware that that's a natural human tendency, to negate stories like that. That's why I spend so much time including these [inaudible 00:25:14] stories 'cause it's very easy to say, "Oh, easy for Quincy Jones to say. He was friends with Ray Charles when he was 16. I don't know anyone like that." You know that motherfucker was eating rats for dinner. I'm serious.

Mastin Kipp: Yeah?

Alex Banayan: When Quincy Jones was growing up he ate rats for dinner. He grew up as a kid seeing dead bodies every day. Like I know some people have serious trauma. I can't even imagine what it feels like to literally grow up surrounded by so many mobsters and gangsters.

Mastin Kipp: Absolutely.

Alex Banayan: Where you see corpses on the street every day and when he was a kid, he was I think eight years old and he took a wrong turn down the wrong street and a gang just got his hand, put a switchblade through his hand, nailed him to a fence and then took a frozen icepick 'cause it was the winter and stuck him to the back of his neck and he thought he was gonna die. Still to this day he has those scars.

I think there's tremendous value ... if you read "Forbes" magazine, they love to talk about this guy's net worth is this and she has this private jet and what is like running a multi-billion dollar company. I can't relate to those stories unless I know that they used to be just like me.

Mastin Kipp: Exactly.

Alex Banayan: Like with Warren Buffett, I didn't know ... you know, everyone talks him being the wealthiest investor in history. I had no idea nobody used to take his meetings when he was starting out, no one wanted to invest in his fund. Hearing stories of him getting rejected and the fact that people in Omaha wouldn't even let him into their office and finding out how he overcame that, all of a sudden turned him from Warren Buffett, the richest investor in history to ... it turned him into Grandpa Warren for me.

Mastin Kipp: Totally, 100%. I think that's so true. I think that I can tell you for sure ... you know, I've met a lot of successful people and work with them and coach them and stuff and no matter what you think the billboard is, there's always something happening behind the scenes and there's a tremendous amount of resilience it takes to get to a certain level and certainly maintain it for more than a hot second, right?

Alex Banayan: Right.

Mastin Kipp: There's so much resilience. I'm kind of curious about in your experience now of being in proximity to all these folks, how much does resilience, even when you get there, play into it, because I started thinking a lot about this. I used to be a music manager. The last couple years I've had two clients commit suicide, former clients. One was Chris Cornell for

Audioslave and Soundgarden and then Chester Bennington played at his funeral, who, they were good friends and one of our clients and then a few months later he committed suicide and he saw the impact that it had on Chris's family and stuff like that.

So there's this idea and it got me thinking like just 'cause you could be Lincoln Park and sell out millions of records and all the stadiums everywhere, the stigma that you're successful and you're happy is complete horseshit. So I was just kind of wondering if you've heard stories of people who once they got there, there's a level of resilience and still the trials are happening 'cause it's not like you get there and then it's like, "Aww," and all is well, right? There's still a lot of work to be done. I'm kind of wondering if you've seen any trends or any common patterns there too.

Alex Banayan: Yeah, going back to Quincy Jones, he's done a lot of work on himself and especially at a point where he was already really accomplished and I think it goes back to what you said, which is, just 'cause you've achieved a certain amount of career success, it doesn't mean your traumas are gonna be like, "Well, you hit that number you were looking for, Mastin, I'm just gonna pack up my bags now, now that you-

Mastin Kipp: Exactly.

Alex Banayan: I was only sticking around till you were on your hustle. Now that you've made it I'm gonna leave."

Mastin Kipp: Exactly.

Alex Banayan: If anything they might be like, "Oh, you think you're good, motherfucker. Watch me now."

Mastin Kipp: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Alex Banayan: "Now that your busy and you have a full schedule, now let me see the havoc I can play in your life."

Mastin Kipp: Exactly.

Alex Banayan: Quincy has this great, great ... you know, he has so many great lines. One of my favorite things he said, he's like, "There's a statute of limitations that's expired on your childhood trauma. Fix your shit and get on with your life."

Mastin Kipp: I love that.

Alex Banayan: He's like the biggest thing he teaches the musicians he mentors ... you know, he's mentored Michael Jackson, he mentored Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, he said, "The biggest thing I teach the people I mentor is to know yourself and to love yourself, know yourself and love yourself."

Mastin Kipp: [crosstalk 00:30:16]

Alex Banayan: That's very tight into the whole statute of limitation on your childhood trauma. To know yourself fully you have to know what made you you and many times you talk about, it's our pain from our childhoods that have been the most formidable to who we are and you can't know yourself today until you know who you were.

Mastin Kipp: That's right, but you can't liger in it either, right?

Alex Banayan: The whole point is to go there, understand it and only then when you understand it can you love it and when you love it, does it let its script go?

Mastin Kipp: That's right. For some reason I just heard you say that and Yoda's voice in my head 'cause if was very Yoda-esque, what you just said.

Alex Banayan: Is it because my grammar was off?

Mastin Kipp: No, no, no. No, nothing at all. It's actually Yoda saying it correctly, grammatically, but I think it's so true. Let me switch gears just a little bit because I've always been in awe of you from ... I can't remember when I first me you, maybe it was Maya.

Alex Banayan: I was 18.

Mastin Kipp: Was it Maya? But no, who introduced us? I think it was Maya Watson, I think.

Alex Banayan: Yeah, we met, I think for like 30 seconds at Summit once.

Mastin Kipp: Yep, through Maya though, I think.

Alex Banayan: Well Maya-

Mastin Kipp: 'Cause Maya was there.

Alex Banayan: Maya and Penny [Thouw 00:31:34]

Mastin Kipp: Yep ... but, was it Maya? I think it was [crosstalk 00:31:37]

Alex Banayan: Both made the connection, yeah.

Mastin Kipp: I remember it as a Maya connection, but it might be Penny too. I can't remember exactly, but what I do remember so clearly is ... you know, when I came into the music business, I came in LA at 19 and by 21 I was senior vice president of a record label. So I worked up pretty fast but I crashed really hard and it was really hard and it has continued to be hard for me to recover from that because I built so many relationships during that time, obviously hustling and do what you do, you know, got to climb up the ladder and stuff like that. It's been hard for me to build and maintain relationships similarly since because when I crashed no one came and was like, "Hey kid, let me help you out," right?

Alex Banayan: Yeah.

Mastin Kipp: So I've been learning over the years to trust and trust more and more, but I've been so impressed with your ability to build relationships and not only build relationships but quality relationships and from as far as I can tell and I have a pretty discerning eye at this stuff, maintain them and you've been able to obviously get yourself in lots of different rooms that people wish they could be in and your network of people ... like when I saw this book come out, there are people I didn't even know that you knew that were like, "Oh my god. That [inaudible 00:32:54]." So I'm wondering for you, if you have any advice or how do you build relationship and how do you maintain a relationship, how do you view relationships because I think a lot of people ... I never go out for transaction. I never like, "Oh yeah, you give me that, I'll give you this."

I'm really bad at transacting on my relationships, it's one of the reasons I probably have them, the ones that I do have, but do you have a way of thinking about how you build relationships, how you add value, how you maintain and culture and nurture relationships, because some people would just like, "Oh, you did that for me? Thanks, cool, peace out," forget about it or whatever. I've just been so impressed with how you've been able to build, nurture and create real authentic relationships and sustain those. I'm just curious if you have any thoughts or tips on that because I think so many people go into things either going for the take or they don't build things or they relational trauma and I think obviously dreams are fulfilled through relationship, obviously, 'cause you can't do it alone. So I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on that and tips on how you do that 'cause I'm so fascinated by it?

Alex Banayan: Thanks, man. I think you touched on it when you were talking about it because for me ... you know, there's a difference between a relationship, like someone that I count as a friend like you versus maybe a business contact, right? A business contact is transactional, you're doing business with someone. The difference between that and a relationship, to me, is that a relationship is ... and again I also think a lot of people are like, "Oh, if someone's a relationship, if someone's a true friendship, an authentic friendship, you shouldn't ask for anything." I actually don't subscribe to that.

I think there's an important caveat though where if you do ask for something and for whatever reason they can't do it and they're like, "Yo man, I wish I could, I just have a tight budget. I can't buy your book," or, "I'm having some family stuff, I can't have you on my podcast." You go, "Dude, I'm so sorry you're going through that. I completely understand. How can I help?" Not like you strategically say that, but if that's actually your genuine gut [inaudible 00:35:04]-

Mastin Kipp: Of course.

Alex Banayan: ... that's a friendship.

Mastin Kipp: That's right.

Alex Banayan: I think if you're not asking your friends for help then that's also not a friendship. You know if you're afraid to ask them for something you don't actually have a real relationship with them.

Mastin Kipp: That's true. I will say, and I will out myself here, I'm an only child and asking for help as a default is like, "No, no, I got it," especially because growing up my mom was mostly bedridden with back pain and out and on all kinds of opiates and stuff and the whole focus of the household was take care of mom, which is not negative or bad, it just was what it was. So I always felt like I had to take care of myself and it wasn't like a conscious choice, it was just something I decided, but I've learned that obviously I can't do it by myself, it takes teamwork to make dreamwork, I have a team, but I have noticed consistently that, especially with the givers, it's so hard for them to ask for help and to admit that they need it.

So is that kind of something 'cause it sounds like that's what you're saying is that you view it more as asking for help than some type of transaction essentially. Like, "Hey, I have this thing." Does that make sense?

Alex Banayan: Right, 100% and one of the things I've learned is that what you said is exactly right. It's not a transaction in the sense of, "I hooked you up, now it's time to hook me up."

Mastin Kipp: Totally, can't do it.

Alex Banayan: It's, "Yo, I love you and I know you love me. I'm in this time of need. Could you help me out and if not, dude, I still love you 100%. Our friendship is way bigger than this ask."

Mastin Kipp: Totally. I love that. I think I'm actually have an aha moment right there because I've been so hypervigilant and on guard to not have transaction, but I think even me, I'm literally having an aha moment as we speak at this moment, viewing that through the lens of asking for help is a really ... it's kinda scary actually to think about that, you know?

Alex Banayan: If you think your friendship is way bigger than this ask-

Mastin Kipp: Totally, that's amazing.

Alex Banayan: Truthfully, now this is the real real. Like in this book launch, hundreds of friends came and rallied. So 99% of my friends blew me away.

Mastin Kipp: Totally.

Alex Banayan: Yeah, there were a couple of people who literally didn't respond to my text and I was like, "That's weird," and then I'll send another text and still no response and I'm talking about only a couple people and that's just been like, all right, maybe they get hit up so ... I don't know.

Mastin Kipp: Yeah, totally.

Alex Banayan: This is the thing. You don't know what's going on in someone's life. For me, last year, my dad passed away, in just the past couple months my grandpop passed away, my grandma passed away and dude, it's taken me a couple days to get back to a homey on text or something, not

because I don't love them, but just because I'm sitting with my mom crying.

Mastin Kipp: Totally.

Alex Banayan: And going through my own pain has given me empathy for other people and I just now have an assumption of, "I have no idea what they're dealing with."

Mastin Kipp: Totally, 100% true. It's so true. I think that's awesome. I think it's so true and I can tell you it's true for me for sure because I am sometimes, especially because I go on these moments of teaching for two or three weeks, and actually with this interview, I was like, [inaudible 00:38:30] and had actually 15 days of back-to-back, 12 hours a day teaching and it's such an energetic output, but the first person I got back to when I came back to ... I call it the land of the living, it's like, "Dude we gotta get Alex," but I think I completely get that and I think what's interesting ... one of the questions I have too is that this idea, which I won't get into all the science, but the latest trauma research in science is showing us that mental wellness, mental health, like the mental health world message is self-regulate your emotional state, you have to take care of it yourself and if you can't self-regulate then we're gonna medicate you. However, the research shows that the markers for mental health are built into relationship and that you can't actually self-regulate without co-regulating with another person or another group of people, right?

Alex Banayan: Ooh, that's good.

Mastin Kipp: Yeah, it's so cool. It completely shatters the I gotta love myself and isolation trend essentially 'cause social media has isolated everybody into thinking that they have friends but they're just using their thumb to hit like or something. I'm curious about ... because the other thing is that you have built such an incredible network and you have acted on it. I love the idea of viewing it through the lens of asking for help, but how do you get out of isolation and build a network because I know I have sort of way that I'm reverse [inaudible 00:39:48] by process, but I have a really great network, but whenever I meet someone who's really good at creating not just like relationships that you transact on and where it's just like tit for tat and card for card, but people talk about you, man. Their eyes light up, their facial expression changes, they get joyful.

Alex Banayan: That's like the best compliment ever.

Mastin Kipp: No, it's true, man, and I'm sitting there and I'm like, "Wow, like it's consistent." It's not just like person likes you. You are universally loved. I'm curious like-

Alex Banayan: I'm gonna listen to this podcast every morning before I wake up.

Mastin Kipp: It's true. I've never met one person that, "Alex? I doing know about Alex." Everyone that I've met that knows you has been just so stoked on you and I'm just wondering like also how to view introducing building

relationships and adding value because I also feel like adding value is such an important thing to do and I always lead with the give. I very rarely lead with an ask in anything and I always am asking questions, "How can I serve? How can I serve? How can I serve? How can I serve? How can I serve?" to the point where the people closest to me sometimes like, "Mastin, knock it off." I'm just curious as far as building a network and getting out of isolation and really ... 'cause you can't do it alone.

Alex Banayan: This is good, yeah.

Mastin Kipp: What's your mindset on that?

Alex Banayan: I've actually never dissected it consciously but even just now while you were talking I sort of see it as this ... if I had to dissect it, which it feels sort of weird, but I think it might be helpful, it's almost like this three act play. 'Cause, dude, seven years ago the only person who I knew was like the barber down the street. It wasn't like I was born into this family with connections and I sort of rode that wave.

My grandma, even when we were kids, had this saying like, "What for you need friends when you have cousins?" That was our mantra growing up, like "What the [crosstalk 00:41:46] friends?"

Mastin Kipp: Totally. That's funny. That's Yoda grammar right there.

Alex Banayan: Yeah, well she talks like Yoda for sure, grammatically. I don't know if you want to talk about all three aspects-

Mastin Kipp: I'm curious. Yeah, I'm curious-

Alex Banayan: There's the zero one-

Mastin Kipp: ... because you did a great job building relationships for this book, man.

Alex Banayan: Thank you.

Mastin Kipp: I mean seriously, it's impressive.

Alex Banayan: This whole book is a testament to complete strangers' act of kindness.

Mastin Kipp: Totally, but ... but hold on. I gotta pause you on that for one second, call a little bit of BS because, yes, it is their act of kindness, but there's something about you that causes that in them. Like, dude, when we talked about your book and stuff like that, I was like, "Let me just ... here, let me help," 'cause I have that innate feeling around you. There's lots of people who've asked me for help and I'm like, "Oh, peace be with you," you know, "No way.:

Alex Banayan: There's a great quote from the founder of Ted, Richard Saul Wurman in the book and he says, "I live my life by two mantras. Number one, if you don't ask you don't get and number two, most things don't work out."

Mastin Kipp: Yep.

Alex Banayan: If you approach your relationships with that mindset, if you don't ask you don't get but also most things don't work out, it sort of sets your expectations pretty accurately.

Mastin Kipp: I like that.

Alex Banayan: We'll go back to those three phases. The first phases is the zero to one phase. Let's say your know no one, you're entering a new industry, how do you might people? Stage two is how do you cultivate those relationships and grown them and intertwine them because the more interconnected your friend groups are and your network are the stronger it is. Then the third is sort of the phase where you and I are, which is we've been friends for years and it's just natural and I can see [inaudible 00:43:36] for the next 50 years.

Mastin Kipp: Totally. What, not 60? What the fuck man?

Alex Banayan: Well, with the singularity [crosstalk 00:43:42]

Mastin Kipp: Yeah, exactly.

Alex Banayan: That's funny. At age 75 I'm [inaudible 00:43:48] friendships.

Mastin Kipp: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Alex Banayan: I don't know how you want to guide this.

Mastin Kipp: I'm just curious. I'm just curious about your mindset because it takes ... 'cause I'm an entrepreneur and I coach people and I get the real story of what's going on behind the scenes and I see things that are going on that people tell me shit that they don't tell their family, loved ones, all that stuff, but I'm also a peer in this network of people that range from entertainment to personal development, all the arts and some politics, so many different things, right? I'm obsessive about studying patterns. I love watching.

I'm very observant and I love watching patterns and I see some people that come up and then they kinda crash, some people come up and then kinda just linger a little bit, some people come up and then they go and then they stay up and they keep going and not just successful, but there's a certain genuine zest about someone and I've been just so impressed with your ability to build relationships because it'd be easy for you go, "Hey man, so hey, hook me up with this book, send it out. I know Warren, da-da-da," whatever, and phh, and just make it like that, but I've never ...

First of all you don't lead with that in our relationship at all. I have to remind myself, "Oh yeah, he did all this cool shit," 'cause I'm just so focused on how cool you are and I'm just curious about your mindset around the building of relationship because I think a lot of people ... like I've seen people that sometimes get around me and they get sometimes really nervous and they just start talking really fast and sometimes people are just themselves and you get like ... I'm getting better just because I always see the best in people, but I'm being more

discerning about like I'm feeling it coming, I feel you wanting something from me from across the room now and then there are other people who just make my defenses go down. I'm just curious if you've had any thoughts around specifically just relationship building 'cause I think that's the name of the game, right. Everyone has to have relationship and network and friends and support.

Alex Banayan: What I want to focus on is the zero to one part because I think that actually applies to everyone. It doesn't matter if you're just starting out in your career or if you're 50 years into your current career and you just want to take it to the next level. Everyone needs that zero to one.

Mastin Kipp: Yes.

Alex Banayan: So what I know is one of the people who I interviewed that gave me the best advice on this topic was Tim Ferriss, the author of "The 4-Hour Workweek."

Mastin Kipp: Of course.

Alex Banayan: Tim Ferriss started his career ... and now the context is pretty funny. The way I got the interview with Tim Ferriss 'cause I was 18 years old is I hid in a bathroom for 30 minutes as he was walking past and I jumped out the second ... I had my ear pressed against the stall, waiting for him to [crosstalk 00:46:38]. So it's a pretty funny story.

Mastin Kipp: Oh my god, that's hilarious.

Alex Banayan: I finally get this interview with Tim Ferriss and I find out he got his first job by emailing the CEO of a company that he wanted to work with 32 times.

Mastin Kipp: Wow.

Alex Banayan: Now talk about an intentional relationship that he cultivated. Then years later, when he wanted to become an author, Tim didn't know anyone in the publishing world, so he cold emailed best selling authors asking for advice and cultivated those relationships and ended up publishing "The 4-Hour Workweek."

So in many ways cold emailing has been the key of Tim's early success, how he broke through. So when I was interviewing him I sort of pressed him on this cold emailing and he gave me a template, his secret cold email template, which I've used over the years to meet mentors. It's directly the reason I got to meet you, it got me interviews for the book, it still, even with the book launch, has changed the entire book launch. My favorite thing about this cold email template is because it's in the book and now that the book is out, if you go to Amazon and see the reviews, like there's some people who are like, "The cold email template, whoa." Like it was the last thing they expected. Truthfully, even for me, I was like, "All right, sure this works for Tim. It's not gonna work for me," but, dude, it's worked for every ... it's shocking.

Mastin Kipp: That's amazing.

Alex Banayan: This is how it works. Ready?

Mastin Kipp: Yes.

Alex Banayan: So it goes like this and this is the thing. People think okay, I'm gonna tweak it make it my own. No. Follow this exactly, like baking, like a prescription medicine. Do not tweak it. So it goes like this. Let's say I'm sending an email to you. "Hi, Mastin," next paragraph, "I know your incredibly busy and you get a lot of emails, so this will only take 60 seconds to read," boom, next paragraph. This is where I put one to two sentences, at max, of who I am and what context you have that's relevant to the person. Let's say it's me now, I might say, "I'm an author," and that's something that's relevant to you or if let's say this is me 10 years ago, it's, "I've read "Daily Love" and "Claim your Power" five times, whatever is relevant to that person, but again, one to two sentences max. This is not your life story section.

Mastin Kipp: Right, yep.

Alex Banayan: Boom, next paragraph. Again, one to two sentences max of your highly specific question for that person. "Mastin, what's one book you recommend with someone with immense childhood trauma?" "Mastin, what's one podcast episode I should listen to to help me with building relationships?" Something that someone can answer immediately in a sentence.

Then the final paragraph is the clincher. You go, "I totally understand if you're too busy to respond."

Mastin Kipp: Oh sure, yep.

Alex Banayan: "Even a one or two line reply will completely make my day. All the best, Alex." We've gotten responses from Malcolm Gladwell, Sheryl Sandberg, all to this cold email template-

Mastin Kipp: That's amazing.

Alex Banayan: ... 'cause it's so refreshing.

Mastin Kipp: Right, yep, 100%.

Alex Banayan: It's so un ... you know so many emails are like, "Looking forward to your favorable response," after they've written a 10 paragraph ...

Mastin Kipp: Totally. That's so true.

Alex Banayan: I've been there. If I look up to you I want to pour my guts out and have that moment of connection.

Mastin Kipp: Of course.

Alex Banayan: But the question is do you want to pour your guts out and write a journal entry to the person or do you actually want to start building a relationship?

Mastin Kipp: Yep, 100%.

Alex Banayan: If you want to build a relationship, you have to have massive empathy and you have to understand that Mastin or Sheryl Sandberg or Malcolm Gladwell are incredibly busy and they only have time for a quick email that they can glance at.

Mastin Kipp: That's right. You know it's interesting you say that because one of mindsets has always been to always ask the question someone will say "yes" to, you know?

Alex Banayan: Yeah.

Mastin Kipp: So, "Will you write the forward for my book?" Way too much of an ask, right?

Alex Banayan: Huge.

Mastin Kipp: But something like, "What do you think about this title?"

Alex Banayan: Yes.

Mastin Kipp: Or something so micro, right, I think is always really good and the other thing is, it's funny you say this, I think I'm gonna change my recommendation now based on this context because I get people daily who send me emails that basically it's just like, "How can you give me everything I want, Mastin, and I'm not gonna recognize that you have limited time and that you have all these obligations and there's sort of like a ..." my favorite is, "Can we grab 15 minutes for coffee?" Or some shit, which is never fucking true, ever or "Hop on a quick call." These are the key words that I see, and I always reply ... I don't say anything, I just send a link to Amazon to "Give and Take" by Adam Grant.

Alex Banayan: That's great.

Mastin Kipp: That's all I do. I think now I'll probably put just through the Amazon link to "The Third Door," and to give [inaudible 00:52:08] by Adam Grant because that's the message is like ... the best way to ask for something. The thing is it's not that I don't like to help people. It's just that when there's an expectation, especially of you owe me something and/or not a recognition of how busy I am or whatever it might be, there is less of a desire to ... 'cause when people reach out with expectation it's definitely a huge turnoff. I think that's a really big deal.

So I know that we're wrapping up, but I have two last questions I want to get to.

Alex Banayan: Yeah.

Mastin Kipp: There's so much more we could talk about, but two last questions. What's the difference between how you got these interviews and stalking? Seriously, because I'm thinking like I'm gonna go listen in on Alex in the bathroom and I'm thinking like, "I'm gonna get a cease and desist order from a judge if I do that." So how do you do because I can

imagine people now trying to do that shit to you, so what's the line, because I also think there's a lot of people with ... especially with celebrities, the paparazzi and people like that that kinda get bothered by it. So how do you navigate persistence without annoyance, do you know what I mean?

Alex Banayan: Yeah, in the beginning when I would hear questions like that I would laugh, but now that I ... and I don't have that much context, but small stories of understanding how serious stalking is in some situations, like it's sort of terrifying. So I don't really joke about it anymore, but when I look at my early days of hiding in the bathroom with Tim Ferriss or chasing Larry King through a grocery store, there's a couple things.

First of all is I was 18 years old and dumb and young and I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, that's number one.

Mastin Kipp: Number one, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex Banayan: Number one, but also at the same time, that being the context. Also in hindsight, yeah the bathroom shit was weird, but it wasn't fucking ... it wasn't like Tim was in the other stall and I was just looking at him through the bathroom crack. No, he was outside of the bathroom. I was in the bathroom waiting for the perfect time to jump out when he was [crosstalk 00:54:12]

Mastin Kipp: Totally.

Alex Banayan: And he was at a public appearance where he was doing a speaking engagement, like a book signing or speaking engagement.

Mastin Kipp: Yep.

Alex Banayan: Like, dude, if you're doing a book signing and some young person is just sort of like waiting by the exit to come up to ask you a question-

Mastin Kipp: You're gonna talk to them.

Alex Banayan: ... you're like, "Good hustle."

Mastin Kipp: Yeah.

Alex Banayan: You're like, "Good hustle."

Mastin Kipp: Totally.

Alex Banayan: Like, "That was good," you know? If that person was waiting in front of your apartment building or in front of your hotel, you're like, "Yo, this is personal time now."

Mastin Kipp: Yep, totally. So what's your discernment because as I said I'm intimately impressed with the human being's nervous system to be very creative in ways I could never expect. So if someone wanted to be persistent, and they're hearing like, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna go do that now," would you have like a persistence disclaimer and/or guideline to say to someone?

Alex Banayan: Yes. I'll share it with a story because I explained that eight month quest to Buffett and finally after the eight month experience I got the interview with Bill Gates and Gates's office loved the interview so much that they're like, "We will help you however we can." I'm like, "Well, I know that you and Warren are pretty good friends. Do you think you guys could make an interview happen?" and they're like, "Absolutely."

So Bill Gates's office contacts Warren Buffett's office on my behalf.

Mastin Kipp: Oh my god.

Alex Banayan: And I am freaking out with happiness and I get a response back and I'll never know exactly what happened but I assume Buffett's office was essentially like, "Look, we know all about Alex and this is not happening."

Mastin Kipp: Oh my god.

Alex Banayan: I got an email from Bill Gates's chief of staff saying, "No more contact to Buffett's office. Thanks."

Mastin Kipp: Whoa.

Alex Banayan: What I learned from that is I had been so persistent that I had gotten myself blacklisted.

Mastin Kipp: Yep.

Alex Banayan: And every business book talks about the key of persistence, but none talk about the dangers of over persistence where you can bang on a door so many times that instead of breaking it down you get the police called on you. Over persistence is, I think, one of the greatest threats to talk about longterm relationships. Like me and Warren and Buffett do not have a longterm relationship, right, because of the danger of over persistence. I learned that over persistence can be so detrimental, that I had dug myself into such a deep hole that even Bill Gates couldn't pull me out.

Mastin Kipp: Right, that's huge, man, whoa.

Alex Banayan: Yeah, and I think that's one of the biggest things that I had to learn by failure. I didn't want to learn but because I learned it I never made that mistake again.

Mastin Kipp: So if you were to go back and advise your younger self, if you had to coach yourself and you say, "Okay, you know what? You're gonna get this but do it this way," right, if you have had a time machine, right? "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" like what would you say to yourself?

Alex Banayan: Oh wow, yeah, that's is absolutely ... if I had a time machine this book would have been easy as fuck.

Mastin Kipp: Well, of course, but in that specific case, what would you say to yourself?

Alex Banayan: Am I allowed to give myself spoilers of how the future is gonna play out?

Mastin Kipp: Sure yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex Banayan: Oh yeah. I would tell myself, first of all, I would still maybe write the opening letter to Buffett's office. That's fine to sort of open the communication, but then I would lay off after the first one. My problem is I didn't know I was gonna get the Bill Gates interview. I thought I needed Buffett and then after Buffett I would get Bill Gates, but if I could go myself and say, "Look, calm down. The Bill Gates interview will come to be and they'll love it so much they'll make that introduction." If I had played it cool and just trusted that it would work out, I would have been ... Look, if I just sent Buffett's office one letter or two letters, when Gates's office went to them, I wouldn't have been fucking blacklisted.

Mastin Kipp: Right, totally.

Alex Banayan: I think my problem was I was so desperate that my desperation clogged my intuition.

Mastin Kipp: Dude, that is like fucking ... that's not like quotable, tweetable, that's like a master lesson you just said right there.

Alex Banayan: I believe it 100%, desperation clogs intuition.

Mastin Kipp: That's is so huge, dude. That is ... talk about the bouncer at the third door, desperation.

Alex Banayan: Right. Desperation clogs intuition, 100%.

Mastin Kipp: Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, cool. So this ties into our last question 'cause that is fantastic. So when we were talking before we started hitting record, you talked about how everything talked ... you thought everyone would want to know about the tools and the this and the that that you learned, but you said that everyone wanted to understand about fear. I was wondering if you could talk just a little bit about the common question around fear of accepting into the third door and maybe what you've learned about the fear idea stopping people from moving forward.

Alex Banayan: One of the most surprising things that I learned on this seven year journey was that I had this assumption that all the people who I wanted to interview must have been fearless. I assumed Bill Gates had to be fearless to start Microsoft or Mark Zuckerberg had to fearless to start Facebook or else how else could they have achieved these things? I was facing a ton of problems because I was terrified in the beginning. Forget about the beginning, the whole way through I was terrified and I thought there was something wrong with me. Like why couldn't I achieve this state of fearlessness. It wasn't like I didn't try. I read the books, I did the journaling, like I just couldn't rid myself of this fear. Every step had it's new kind of fear.

Mastin Kipp: Yep.

Alex Banayan: One of the most surprising things from all these interviews and research was learning that every single person was actually terrified when they were starting, there's not an exception, they were all terrified. What I learned is it wasn't fearlessness that they achieved, it was courage.

Mastin Kipp: Love that.

Alex Banayan: The difference between fearlessness and courage is critically important but easy to miss.

Mastin Kipp: Absolutely. Yeah go ahead, please.

Alex Banayan: So fearlessness is jumping off of the cliff and not thinking about it.

Mastin Kipp: Yep.

Alex Banayan: That's idiotic.

Mastin Kipp: Yep.

Alex Banayan: Courage on the other hand is acknowledging how terrified you are. Analyzing the consequences of what might happen and then deciding that you still care so much about this that you're gonna just take one thoughtful step forward anyway.

Mastin Kipp: I love that. You know, it's funny, in some of our training I talk about how there's all these virtues that have been identified back in the day and I think the most important one is courage 'cause without courage the rest aren't possible and I think that is so well said and the idea that it's universal is, I think, a really important thing, a huge takeaway for everyone here because I think, especially people who are just getting started and also, even if you're not getting started, next level, like you said, new level, new devil, right? Like there's always a fear at whatever that next level is, it always feels terrifying.

It's such a huge thing to know that Maya Angelou, Lady Gaga ... it sounds like Buffett is still scared of you, but Gates, all that stuff, I think that's such a huge, huge, huge takeaway for people and I also, by the way, love how candid you are about your experience 'cause most of us kinda want to skirt that one under the rug. My feelings and my sense is there's gonna be some type of a restructuring of that dynamic at some point. I think you're not threatening. If Warren Buffett is listening right now, Alex is not a threat.

So final question for you is, what is your next third door? Like what's next for you? Have you had time to think about that. Obviously launching a book is all consuming, but is there something emerging for you that's next?

Alex Banayan: This is what I know. I know that I spent seven years on this and it's only been out for about a month or two so it's still very new.

Mastin Kipp: Well, I think today, as we're recording today or yesterday, it was the second month anniversary.

Alex Banayan: Second month anniversary.

Mastin Kipp: If I follow correctly, yes.

Alex Banayan: Yeah. So it's all very new and there's this story that I read. The weird part is I can't even remember where I read it, but I do know that I'll never forget this story because it had such a big impact on me.

During my research I came across this anecdote of a teacher that worked for Teach for America and she was teaching in Baltimore, this really tough part of town and this really rough school, she's teaching third grade. She was like, "These kids just need some inspiration today." So instead of the math lesson, she's like, "All right, today we're all gonna draw pictures of our biggest dream of what we want to be when we grow up." So she passed out paper and crayons and all the kids start coloring except for this one little boy in the back of the room and his face is pretty sad and blank and he's not coloring and halfway through though his eyes light up and he starts drawing.

So the kids are passing their papers and they leave and the teacher is going through them and she sees that the little boy drew a picture of a pizza delivery man and the mother wasn't surprised. The mother said that the only male figure in his life who's not in jail or on drugs is his uncle who delivers pizza.

Mastin Kipp: Wow.

Alex Banayan: What that story taught me is that young people will always reach for the highest branch they book is possible.

Mastin Kipp: Nice.

Alex Banayan: They will always reach for the highest branch they book is possible and it's not their fault. It's our responsibility, whether it's schools or families or media at large, to illuminate more branches.

Mastin Kipp: I love that.

Alex Banayan: That's the mission of this book moving forward-

Mastin Kipp: I love that, that's awesome.

Alex Banayan: ... finding ways to just keep illuminating more branches.

Mastin Kipp: That's awesome. Yeah, possibility ... I know that that word gets thrown around a lot but if someone can literally believe something is possible. It's not like a vision board that says "Possibility" on it and yaddi yadda with some yoga retreat somewhere, but if you literally have the nervous system response that that is possible, that's all you need really at the every end of the day because that's the shift that's really gonna make all the rest happen. So I think that's awesome.

Your work, this book is awesome. Obviously, they'll be links in show notes, but it's thirddoorbook.com. Get there, get a copy, get a copy for

your friends, family. This book is awesome, you guys, and when I make a book recommendation. I don't always do that on these podcasts, but when I do it's, "Get that goddamn book. Buy it. Buy the book." Unlike Gary Vaynerchuk, not only have I read, I will read this book again. So I want to also just give a little right jab to Gary on that 'cause I saw the clip he gave and I thought that was pretty funny, but goddam it, Gary, I thought that was pretty funny.

Dude, thank you so much and very grateful for your time and excited to see 'cause this book will have a life, I will tell you that. A year later I proclaim your power has come out, the sales are going up 'cause word of mouth and people are talking about it and stuff like that. So I don't think that the story of this book has really even begun yet.

So very, very excited to see where it goes, dude, and thank you for all your hard work and dedication and passion and honesty and vulnerability and truthfulness and just all the awesomeness you brought to this interview. I can't wait to see people's takeaways. It's gonna be really, really cool, dude. Thank you so much for being here.

Alex Banayan: Think you, man.