The Glenn Beck Program - Ep 7 ｜ Alex Banayan ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast

00:00:00.000 The Blaze Radio Network, on demand.

00:00:08.240 So what is success?

00:00:11.540 How do you make it, especially in today's world?

00:00:16.120 Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.

00:00:20.520 That's the old saying.

00:00:22.660 And sometimes the opportunity reveals itself and it's intertwined with a good amount of luck.

00:00:28.740 Today, I want to introduce you to Alex Benayan.

00:00:33.720 This guy is truly remarkable.

00:00:36.880 He was actually following his parents' dream.

00:00:39.980 He was going to become a medical professional.

00:00:42.420 He was going to be a doctor.

00:00:43.880 But that's not the path he wanted for his life.

00:00:47.220 The day before his freshman year exams, he decided,

00:00:51.400 I'm not going to study for exams.

00:00:53.680 I'm going to go on The Price is Right.

00:00:55.560 He didn't tell his parents until he actually brought the sailboat home.

00:01:01.700 He had to sell that sailboat that he won and he used that money to set out and find out

00:01:06.800 what makes the world's most successful people so successful.

00:01:11.880 He interviewed people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Lady Gaga, Maya Angelou.

00:01:17.160 All these people that he met helped him formulate something he calls The Third Door.

00:01:23.900 Now, The Third Door is a national best-selling book which helped land Alex on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

00:01:32.660 Alex is going to walk us through the events that set him on his path,

00:01:35.780 his decision to leave college,

00:01:37.940 the courage it took to commit to something that had so many things going against him,

00:01:42.260 and what he learned about himself along the way,

00:01:46.460 and what we can learn from his journey.

00:01:50.420 Today's episode, Alex Benayan.

00:01:53.140 So, I'm trying to think about how to describe you.

00:02:14.260 And the best thing is probably a life hacker.

00:02:18.960 But I think there would be people in your story that might even consider

00:02:24.280 or have considered, i.e. Bill Gates, you a stalker.

00:02:30.840 Tell me, before we get into The Third Door,

00:02:34.720 tell me about your family.

00:02:42.420 The person who I am is because of who they are.

00:02:45.160 And the cool thing about growing up is you start uncovering things about your family you didn't really know.

00:02:51.340 You know, when I was a kid, I knew the basics.

00:02:53.120 You know, my family came from Iran as refugees 35 years ago because of the Iranian Revolution.

00:02:59.500 Wow.

00:03:00.220 We're Jewish, so if we stayed there, they would have died.

00:03:03.640 My, you know, my grandpa actually escaped.

00:03:07.280 This is another thing about my family.

00:03:09.460 It's like a tight-lipped culture.

00:03:11.240 It's like sort of like a don't ask.

00:03:13.300 And my whole childhood, I would see family photos where my grandpa would be missing for like two years.

00:03:19.820 And I'd always ask, where was grandpa in those years?

00:03:23.180 And they would always say, in Farsi,

00:03:24.980 which means he was at the university.

00:03:27.680 I found out when I was 20 years old that that was code word for a death camp.

00:03:33.840 Wow.

00:03:34.720 My whole life, they sort of had this fake story they would tell the kids.

00:03:39.520 And the story of my grandpa actually says who I am.

00:03:44.240 And I didn't learn until very recently.

00:03:46.000 My grandpa was born in Iran at a time when he had a father and a mother, of course, an older brother, four sisters, and then him.

00:03:58.200 At age three, the father passes away.

00:04:02.520 And in Iran at the time, women couldn't work. 1.00

00:04:05.380 So it was up to the older brother to provide for the family.

00:04:08.540 And then when my grandpa was five years old, his older brother passes away.

00:04:11.820 So now my grandpa is the only male left in his family.

00:04:17.580 So the grandma, you know, his mother, of course, was very wise.

00:04:20.680 And she said, go to school.

00:04:22.260 We'll figure it out.

00:04:23.100 And she's selling her wedding ring.

00:04:24.380 She's selling the couch to make ends meet. 1.00

00:04:27.200 You know, but there was a point where food wasn't on the table.

00:04:29.700 My grandpa's eight or nine years old.

00:04:31.600 And he realizes he has to do something.

00:04:33.740 So he starts going through the classifieds of the newspaper and sees the government is asking for bids for paint thinner.

00:04:40.300 He's like nine years old.

00:04:42.580 He's like, how hard could this be?

00:04:43.680 So he goes and gets an insertion order and just fills it out.

00:04:46.780 And he's nine.

00:04:47.600 So he grossly under bids because he doesn't know the price that you're supposed to bid.

00:04:52.040 So he turns it in and the government gives him a bid.

00:04:55.400 There's not an H.

00:04:56.480 There's not a slot on the form that says, how old are you?

00:04:58.320 So they just think he's an adult.

00:04:59.740 So they give him the bid.

00:05:01.540 My grandpa goes and finds a family friend who has paint thinner.

00:05:05.020 He buys it from him, gives it to the government, gets profit.

00:05:07.340 And he is like over the moon.

00:05:10.300 A few weeks later, he's in his geometry class.

00:05:13.120 I think he's maybe in, you know, fifth grade, sixth grade.

00:05:16.500 And the police show up to his class.

00:05:19.780 And they pull him out and they say, are you the one who gave us the paint thinner?

00:05:23.360 He said, yes.

00:05:24.440 And they said, the paint thinner you gave us is expired.

00:05:26.660 And if you don't give us good paint thinner in a week, we're going to have a problem.

00:05:30.840 And in Iran, by the way, Iran in like the 40s, we have a problem means.

00:05:36.140 You're gone.

00:05:36.840 You're gone.

00:05:38.100 You know, like nine-year-old kid.

00:05:39.060 So he goes.

00:05:39.760 They didn't say, are you the kid who gave me the, gave us the paint thinner?

00:05:43.600 You're a kid.

00:05:44.260 What are you doing?

00:05:44.960 No, there's no empathy back then.

00:05:47.540 There's no empathy now either.

00:05:48.920 So he's like, he goes back to the family friend he bought the paint thinner from.

00:05:52.880 Says, look, you gave me expired paint thinner.

00:05:54.440 And he goes, you should have known that.

00:05:56.720 Oh my gosh.

00:05:57.740 And won't help him out.

00:05:59.000 He ends up going.

00:05:59.880 And this is a Jewish kid running around in the Tehran bazaar.

00:06:04.240 And he ends up finding someone else, gets the paint thinner, gives it to the government and makes it home free.

00:06:08.540 But that sort of sets him off being an entrepreneur.

00:06:11.540 And by age 50, you know, he's just working and working and working.

00:06:15.080 By age 50, he actually becomes one of the wealthier Jews in Tehran, you know, in this big high rise in the middle of the town.

00:06:22.960 And right around then, the Islamic revolution happens. 0.89

00:06:27.160 And he's at the top floor of his office.

00:06:29.120 And one day, the Islamic guard breaks in through the glass of the ground floor, surrounds the building, goes up with guns and puts a bag over my grandpa's head and takes him to a death compound. 0.69

00:06:44.860 My mom and her siblings and my grandmother are able to escape to America while my grandpa's in this death compound.

00:06:50.920 And every day, he can remember hearing people's names being called over the speakerphone, hearing gunshots and them never returning back to the cell.

00:07:03.280 So he figured out exactly what he was doing there.

00:07:07.160 And sure enough, you know, my grandpa's very entrepreneurial.

00:07:10.580 He's trying to, like, bribe people.

00:07:11.840 He's trying to find a way to escape.

00:07:13.080 He can't escape.

00:07:14.340 And then finally, his name is called onto the speakerphone.

00:07:16.840 And, you know, they put a bag over his head and take him into the execution room.

00:07:22.580 And the bag comes off of his head, and he's outside of the prison.

00:07:26.220 One of the guards had taken the bribe.

00:07:28.880 Wow.

00:07:29.200 So now my grandpa escapes to America with asylum, comes back here, but he's back to where he was when he was five years old with nothing and a full family to support.

00:07:38.180 So he has to do it all over again.

00:07:41.080 And thankfully, he was able to make it.

00:07:43.420 And that's the promise of America in many ways.

00:07:45.520 But what's crazy is that I went and went on this whole journey, not knowing this was my grandpa's story.

00:07:52.020 When did you find this out?

00:07:53.460 This was maybe halfway through the journey when he realized, all right, he's like, he's like, come back.

00:08:01.900 And he didn't even tell my other cousins.

00:08:04.020 He sort of just saw, because my grandpa's mantra to us since we were kids was, you all are going to be doctors.

00:08:10.720 The girls can be lawyers. 1.00

00:08:11.840 But, you know, you're a boy, you're going to be a doctor.

00:08:15.040 And I learned the reason he would say that is because he said, you know, if something ever happens to you and you have to, you know, flee like we did, people can take your money.

00:08:26.200 They can take what you own, but they can't take what you know.

00:08:29.960 And if you're a doctor, you can save people.

00:08:32.280 And they can't take that away from you.

00:08:34.560 So my whole childhood was pre, I was like a three-year-old pre-med.

00:08:39.620 You know, I wore scrubs to school for Halloween.

00:08:42.380 I, you know, you think it's funny, but my mom, instead of putting my finger paintings on the refrigerator in kindergarten, would put skeleton charts.

00:08:50.020 Like that was my childhood growing up.

00:08:52.140 Wow.

00:08:52.380 And it wasn't until I got to college where I was the pre-med of pre-meds that I began to question what path I was on.

00:09:03.720 So you're on that path.

00:09:06.340 Your whole family has designed that path for you.

00:09:10.020 It's not even a path.

00:09:10.900 It's the only path.

00:09:12.020 It's the only path.

00:09:12.860 It's like, yeah, that's who you are.

00:09:14.520 Yeah.

00:09:14.700 What did it take to go to your family and go, um, yeah, I don't think I want to go to college.

00:09:24.420 You know, with my family, so I, you know, I got into college and, you know, my grandpa, my grandpa literally like took me to my first day of college.

00:09:32.740 And he's like, you know, this is the tight, tight, tight knit immigrant family.

00:09:36.940 And I remember it was maybe just the first few weeks.

00:09:41.960 It happened fast where I remember looking at this towering stack of biology books on my desk, feeling like they were sucking the life out of me.

00:09:50.860 And at first I assumed, you know, I'm just being lazy, but very quickly I began to wonder, maybe I'm not on my path.

00:10:00.320 Maybe I'm on a path somebody placed me on and I'm just rolling down, but I can't tell that to my parents.

00:10:05.460 So they're calling me saying, how are things going?

00:10:07.440 And I'm like, oh, it's great.

00:10:08.420 And, you know, I hang up and I'm having like a panic attack.

00:10:11.240 And for anyone who's gone through the, what do I want to do with my life crisis?

00:10:14.360 They know it's this all consuming existential question.

00:10:18.840 And for me, it was more than just what am I going to do?

00:10:23.400 It was really questioning my identity of who I am.

00:10:26.400 Because my whole life, my parents and my grandparents had reinforced that this isn't just a job.

00:10:31.460 This was, you know, their biggest dream was to come to my medical school graduation.

00:10:37.180 You're amazing because I don't know what it is, but you're willing to ask that deep question.

00:10:46.560 Most people are not.

00:10:49.200 And I think it's because they're afraid there's nothing really inside.

00:10:54.440 You know, I know my joy or I know my pain.

00:10:58.040 I know the role that's been created for me and I don't know what's in there.

00:11:04.520 And maybe this is as good as it gets and they're afraid.

00:11:09.000 Yeah.

00:11:09.860 What makes you willing at that age to go, yeah, that may not be me.

00:11:16.440 You know, what I've learned is that, and I can only see this in hindsight, the moments that, and first of all, thank you for saying that, the moments that have changed my life the most when I ask the questions that literally changed your entire direction have been the moments that I've been in the most pain.

00:11:35.220 Yep.

00:11:35.620 And by the way, it's not like I'm asking myself these questions every year.

00:11:40.020 Yeah.

00:11:40.700 It's a very rare thing.

00:11:42.500 I can maybe point to three or four different moments where I've asked myself a question that's changed the course of my life.

00:11:47.620 I call them pivot points.

00:11:49.040 Right.

00:11:49.420 They're just pivot points in your life and they're big.

00:11:51.560 And it's not when the sun is shining.

00:11:52.780 Yeah.

00:11:53.400 Because when the sun's shining, do what I'm doing, Glenn?

00:11:55.180 I'm like, hallelujah.

00:11:56.180 It's working.

00:11:57.280 I'm awesome.

00:11:58.200 That's right.

00:11:58.500 It's when you're, like, on the floor crying either literally or figuratively.

00:12:07.000 And what I've learned is that, you know, you don't, I think I've come to realize recently that even if people don't ask themselves these questions, they're still good people.

00:12:19.080 What I've realized is that you just have a choice.

00:12:22.160 You can either, you know, when God is inviting you with these crucible moments to make a decision, it's an invitation.

00:12:32.360 It's not a commandment.

00:12:33.280 That's my view of it.

00:12:36.040 And I just think life is a lot more interesting when you answer the invitation.

00:12:39.360 I do too.

00:12:40.880 I was afraid at 30 to answer those questions though.

00:12:46.760 I mean, it's scary.

00:12:49.140 It's scary.

00:12:49.840 Um, so tell me, you decide, okay, this is sucking the life out of me.

00:12:56.960 Tell me the moment you said, I can't do it to your parents.

00:13:02.940 So what happened is I, look, I'm the scaredest kid you would ever meet.

00:13:08.240 I had a nightlight until I was like 12.

00:13:09.940 Somehow or another, I don't believe that.

00:13:11.500 Okay.

00:13:11.700 I'll tell you.

00:13:12.180 I will call my best friends.

00:13:14.060 They hate going to theme parks with me because I'm the one who's always like dragging my feet on the way to a roller coaster.

00:13:19.840 But what's also interesting is that while I definitely feel fear the most out of all my friends.

00:13:26.680 I also am the one who sometimes makes the boldest decisions.

00:13:31.980 And I've learned recently that there's a big difference between fearlessness and courage.

00:13:37.300 Although they sound very similar, the difference is critical.

00:13:41.040 You know, fearlessness is jumping off of the cliff and not thinking about it. 1.00

00:13:44.800 You know, that's idiotic. 0.98

00:13:45.860 Courage, on the other hand, is acknowledging how terrified you are, analyzing the consequences, and then deciding you care so much about it, you're still going to take one thoughtful step forward anyway. 0.99

00:13:59.000 And while I am consumed with fear, even to this day, I still deal with fear a lot.

00:14:04.420 I actually had a friend, actually, this happened yesterday.

00:14:07.220 A friend of mine texted me.

00:14:08.300 She was like, she has this big career move, and she's really scared.

00:14:12.560 She's like, how do I deal with this?

00:14:14.540 How do I get over the fear?

00:14:15.780 I can't manage getting over it.

00:14:17.600 And I literally just looked at it, and I was like, don't get over it.

00:14:22.260 Accept it and do it anyway.

00:14:28.200 You're remarkable.

00:14:29.080 My son, nine, he's afraid to do his taekwondo in front of a crowd when he's little.

00:14:40.540 And he looked, when I was trying to find out how to tell him, he looked in my office, and I have all these heroes, and he thought he was going to get the lecture of, you know, be brave like them.

00:14:54.780 I don't think anyone, unless you're crazy, you know, maybe Jim Bowie.

00:15:02.260 I don't want to be friends with the fearless people.

00:15:04.000 Yeah, I don't want to be with those guys.

00:15:04.660 That gets you in a lot of trouble.

00:15:06.060 But the real heroes, if you read Abraham Lincoln, he was afraid.

00:15:11.800 You know, before Martin Luther King was killed, he went and asked for a gun permit.

00:15:18.260 I mean, he wanted to carry guns.

00:15:19.420 He was afraid.

00:15:20.820 It's just this, and what makes that?

00:15:24.400 What do you think that is inside that gives you that willingness to go, yeah, I'm terrified, but it's worth it.

00:15:38.360 I'm going to do it.

00:15:39.640 I can't stand here.

00:15:41.600 I think what happened to me in the beginning was that, and all this, especially when you're young and you're a teenager, it sort of happens unconsciously without thinking.

00:15:49.040 What happened to me is that, for example, with setting off on the journey to write the book, I had my fear, which I was very aware of.

00:15:59.140 That was obvious.

00:16:00.100 But what was surprising to me was how much I cared about the outcome.

00:16:09.100 You know, the mission of this book from the very beginning was that I believed if all 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.

00:16:23.660 And I was going through the crisis, so I knew how much I needed it.

00:16:27.200 My best friends were going through this crisis.

00:16:29.000 I knew how much they needed it.

00:16:30.340 So to me, I had my fear, but I also, for the first time in my life, wanted something so badly.

00:16:38.980 What was it you wanted?

00:16:40.960 I wanted, I'll tell you what I wanted at the time consciously.

00:16:45.400 At the time, I thought I wanted practical advice.

00:16:47.880 I thought I wanted tools and wisdom.

00:16:51.160 In hindsight, I can see what I really wanted was relief.

00:16:55.280 I wanted, I wanted possibility.

00:16:58.440 I, I've learned that you can give someone all the best tools and knowledge in the world and their life can still feel stuck.

00:17:05.140 But if you change what someone believes is possible, they'll never be the same.

00:17:08.740 And what this journey gave me the past seven years was it blew, like completely demolished my idea of what I thought was possible and created a whole new world for me.

00:17:19.760 I've met so many people that are millionaires that are broke.

00:17:24.500 And they have everything they need to make it big, except one thing.

00:17:33.720 And many times it's just the faith that they're enough to make it happen.

00:17:40.600 Is, is there a, um, is there a difference in people?

00:17:49.280 Because I also know people who, they don't want any of that.

00:17:53.720 They just, they would, they're happy going in and just punching in and clocking out and living life, you know, the way life is happening.

00:18:01.680 Is there a difference in people?

00:18:03.580 I've realized there's a difference between fulfillment and happiness.

00:18:07.680 I used to, and pleasure.

00:18:09.720 Those are sort of the three words that I've realized that people tend to cluster into one thing called happiness, but they're actually different.

00:18:17.100 And, you know, pleasure, very fleeting.

00:18:19.540 You're sort of just pulling the lever, you know, going to nightclubs, whatever.

00:18:23.720 Happiness has this nice, warm feeling to it, but it also, after a while, can seem to be a bit fleeting.

00:18:30.720 But fulfillment is that thing that when you fill up the glass, it really stays in there.

00:18:37.580 Like, you know, things that have made you fulfill that no one else knows.

00:18:41.540 You know, when I'm sure someone has stopped you on the street and started crying, saying that's something that you said.

00:18:47.100 That you, and by the way, this is a stranger, that it changed their life forever.

00:18:51.700 And that's fulfillment.

00:18:52.820 And what I've come to realize is that what makes me, me, is going after those moments of fulfillment.

00:19:05.160 And those are the things that take seven years.

00:19:07.340 Those are like the long journeys.

00:19:10.260 And, you know, there's different people in this world, but I actually think all people want that fulfillment.

00:19:15.820 And they just sometimes don't know that's what they want.

00:19:29.940 Are you going to tell me what you said to your mom and dad or not?

00:19:34.400 I actually know exactly how I did it, too.

00:19:36.920 We keep going off on these sidetracks.

00:19:38.640 It's so funny.

00:19:39.360 It's, like, so dramatic in hindsight how I did it.

00:19:41.940 I wrote, oh, man, I remember so vividly.

00:19:45.140 I don't really talk about this moment much.

00:19:47.560 I, oh, man, this is crazy.

00:19:50.260 I had, you know, I had all these books on my desk because I was going through this life crisis.

00:19:54.000 I had all these business books.

00:19:55.860 And there was a book called Success Principles by Jack Canfield, who did Chicken Soup for the Soul.

00:20:00.020 And I, like, opened it up.

00:20:02.580 And this is when I was still lying to my parents, saying I was going to be a pre-med, but I knew I was sort of backing away.

00:20:07.920 And the dedication said of this book, it said, to all the brave men and women who decide to break out of expectation and pursue the life they were meant to live.

00:20:21.200 Wow.

00:20:21.840 And this is the thing, though.

00:20:22.860 When you're 18 years old and you read that, I'm like, I thought there was, like, this secret society of successful people that meet, like, once a year in Superman's ice cave.

00:20:33.600 I'm like, all right, guys.

00:20:34.740 Right. 0.96

00:20:34.920 You know, it's, what are we going to tell those suckers this year? 0.93

00:20:37.500 Right.

00:20:37.920 Let's tell them, you know, Oprah's like, follow your dreams.

00:20:40.660 And, like, Michael Jordan's like, yeah, tell them hard work helps.

00:20:43.540 Like, you know, there's this, like, Illuminati.

00:20:45.800 And I literally, when I was 18, I thought, like, that's sort of the thing you tell people.

00:20:52.060 But another part of me was like, what if that's actually the truth?

00:20:55.500 And it was literally five minutes later that I was like, wow, this is, I've never told anyone this.

00:21:03.440 In my head, I'm 18.

00:21:04.820 And I told myself, the only way I'll know is if I try for myself.

00:21:09.560 And I opened up my computer and I wrote a letter to my parents and I started the letter with that quote from the book.

00:21:16.280 And I said, I'm doing an experiment to see if this is true.

00:21:19.520 And I went and told them, and I remember crying as I'm writing it.

00:21:24.900 And I sent it, expecting, like, my phone to blow up with my mom's calls and texts.

00:21:31.100 Silence.

00:21:32.960 With a Jewish mother, you made her angry when she calls you back yelling. 1.00

00:21:37.360 But you made her, you know, apoplectic when she won't talk. 0.90

00:21:42.440 And she didn't talk for three days.

00:21:45.400 And I remember going back home because I was going to college about an hour away from home.

00:21:49.920 And I go back home and she was still crying.

00:21:54.260 And it was like World War III in my house.

00:21:56.080 I, as a dad, if my son wrote that to me, that would be the greatest thing.

00:22:01.940 Because you've been through it.

00:22:03.400 Right.

00:22:03.520 But if I have your family and your family history, oh, my gosh, you're betraying generations and you are setting yourself up to be, you know, in trouble.

00:22:19.600 Right.

00:22:20.260 And my mom, I didn't know at the time, I was like, why is she acting this way?

00:22:25.000 I didn't understand how much she had sacrificed for me to be in college at this point.

00:22:28.960 But I had no idea that she had taken a second mortgage on the house to help pay for my college.

00:22:36.240 I had no idea that, you know, there would be notices on our front door from the gas company saying, you know, it's been your sixth notice.

00:22:45.800 We're going to cut it off.

00:22:47.400 And my mom would sort of just take them in.

00:22:50.940 And look, we didn't grow up poor by any means.

00:22:53.620 But my mom, like a lot of families in America, lived above our means and wouldn't tell the kids. 1.00

00:22:58.340 So there was two, there was two financial lives.

00:23:01.300 Me and my sisters thought, you know, we're pretty, pretty good, pretty good and normal.

00:23:05.340 My mom and dad are just swimming in credit card debt.

00:23:07.680 Yeah.

00:23:08.400 And by the way, God bless them because it's given me the opportunities that I have today.

00:23:15.600 My mom had a simple premise, which is if she sacrifices everything to give me an education, I won't have to suffer the way she suffered. 0.85

00:23:23.120 And in that moment, I was pretty much turning my back on everything she had sacrificed.

00:23:27.080 I want to come back to your mom after we go through your journey.

00:23:35.460 So how long between World War III and The Price is Right, how long between that time?

00:23:47.260 Ooh, it was very, this is all happening like very close to each other, which when you're living it, every day feels like forever.

00:23:56.580 But in hindsight, this was all happening within months.

00:23:59.080 So tell me what got you to The Price is Right and why?

00:24:02.780 So when I had pretty much decided, you know, that I wanted to go on this journey, I, the only reason I did it is because I assumed there had to be a book with the answers.

00:24:14.000 I remember going into the library, you know, ripping through business books and biographies.

00:24:17.500 And I even remember which books I was going through, you know, Outliers and The 4-Hour Workweek and all these biographies.

00:24:23.580 And I felt empty-handed.

00:24:26.800 There wasn't a single book that gave me exactly what I needed, which was I didn't know what I wanted to with my life.

00:24:32.740 So I wanted people from all industries.

00:24:34.260 And I was this nobody kid, so I wanted to know not how Bill Gates leads Microsoft.

00:24:40.000 I wanted to know when he's 19 years old, how is he selling software out of his dorm room?

00:24:44.400 When Steven Spielberg is an unknown movie director, how does he get his first contract?

00:24:49.440 These are the things they don't teach you in school.

00:24:51.800 So me being this naive kid, I thought, well, if no one's written the book I'm dreaming of reading, why not write it myself?

00:24:58.240 So that was really the start of it.

00:25:01.020 But I had a problem.

00:25:02.820 You know, I thought the easy part would be calling Bill Gates and getting the answers.

00:25:06.040 You know, he's helping kids all over the world.

00:25:07.780 Why won't he help me?

00:25:08.680 I thought he's like my generation Santa Claus.

00:25:10.740 That I assumed would be the easy part.

00:25:13.200 The hard part, I figured, was getting the money to fund the journey.

00:25:16.840 I was buried in student loan debt.

00:25:18.900 I was all out of bar mitzvah cash.

00:25:20.340 So there had to be a way to make some quick money.

00:25:22.880 So two nights before final exams, I'm in the library doing what everyone's doing in the library right before finals.

00:25:29.560 I'm on Facebook.

00:25:30.440 And I see someone offering, you know, free tickets to The Price is Right.

00:25:35.920 And my first thought was, what if I go on the show and win some money?

00:25:43.380 That's crazy.

00:25:44.820 That's crazy.

00:25:45.860 Everybody thinks that, but nobody thinks that and does that.

00:25:50.780 Like, I've got to make money.

00:25:53.000 So tomorrow I'll go to The Price is Right and win the showcase.

00:25:58.240 Well, this was the thing.

00:25:59.280 I, in that moment, had the same thought. 1.00

00:26:00.720 I'm like, this is idiotic. 0.99

00:26:02.400 You know, I had finals in two days. 0.99

00:26:04.500 I'd never seen a full episode of the show before.

00:26:06.740 I'd seen bits and pieces.

00:26:07.740 I'd never seen a full episode of the people who go to that and watch the show.

00:26:10.960 For decades.

00:26:11.720 Right.

00:26:12.000 They've been watching it.

00:26:12.780 Right. 0.66

00:26:12.880 So I tell myself it's a dumb idea and to not think about it, but I don't know if you've 0.90

00:26:17.560 ever had one of these moments where an idea just keeps clawing itself back into your mind.

00:26:22.420 So to prove to myself it was a bad idea, I remember being in the corner of the library.

00:26:26.940 I actually had a table very similar to this, a round wooden table.

00:26:29.360 And I opened up my spiral notebook and wrote best and worst case scenarios to prove to 0.95

00:26:34.240 myself it's a dumb idea. 0.98

00:26:35.500 Great. 0.97

00:26:35.940 You know, worst case scenarios, fail finals, get kicked out of pre-med, lose financial aid,

00:26:40.780 mom stops talking to me, mom kills me.

00:26:42.980 You know, there's 20 cons.

00:26:45.080 The only pro was maybe, maybe get enough money to fund this dream.

00:26:55.040 And it felt, I can remember very vividly, it felt as if somebody had tied a rope around

00:26:59.360 my gut and was slowly pulling in a direction.

00:27:03.520 So that night I decided to do the logical thing and pull an all-nighter to study.

00:27:07.740 But I didn't study for finals.

00:27:08.900 They said how to hack the prices right.

00:27:10.980 And I went on the show the next day and did this ridiculous strategy and ended up winning

00:27:14.720 the whole showcase showdown, winning a sailboat, selling the sailboat.

00:27:18.000 And that's how I funded the book.

00:27:19.500 It's unbelievable.

00:27:22.480 Unbelievable.

00:27:23.420 Thank you.

00:27:24.160 That's why I said you're a life hacker.

00:27:26.520 Um, because you have these ideas and you don't, you don't dismiss the crazy and it's the crazy

00:27:38.440 that is either crazy or genius.

00:27:42.400 You know what I've learned through all the interviews and through the prices right story

00:27:48.340 in particular, the moments that change people's life the most, and you and I actually talked

00:27:55.040 about this.

00:27:55.420 The moments that change people's life the most is when there's 20 good reasons not to do

00:28:00.420 it.

00:28:00.680 Yeah.

00:28:00.860 You know, there's logical reasons, financial reasons, all your friends and family are saying

00:28:05.620 brilliant people say don't do it.

00:28:07.680 Yeah.

00:28:07.960 And when you're staring at that pro and cons list and there's 20 reasons not to do it,

00:28:13.860 yet something within you still is just whispering and it's the faintest of whispers telling you

00:28:21.200 to move forward anyway.

00:28:22.900 It's when you listen to that whisper that your life changes forever.

00:28:25.820 So when you, have you had that happen and, and it just was a massive failure?

00:28:34.420 I thought it was one of those moments, but it wasn't.

00:28:37.440 I was, I was acting out of fear or acting out of desperation.

00:28:42.060 So I just, so I don't even count those.

00:28:44.180 Yeah. 0.87

00:28:44.760 But yeah, of course I've done dumb things. 0.96

00:28:46.940 I, my whole life is a series of dumb things that don't work out. 0.67

00:28:50.260 It's the times when I actually do something out of, you know, belief and faith and possibility

00:28:56.860 where my heart's in it that it works out.

00:28:59.760 This, and you may not have experienced this.

00:29:02.760 And if you haven't prepare.

00:29:04.460 Okay.

00:29:05.180 Um, because I have spent the last 20 years of my life doing that.

00:29:12.720 I, I read something years ago in the nineties called The Celestine Prophecy.

00:29:17.980 Okay.

00:29:18.420 And it had, it's just this cheesy, you know, um, new age kind of book.

00:29:23.240 And it just had one line in it that was, don't dismiss coincidence.

00:29:29.660 Ah, I love that.

00:29:30.940 Yeah.

00:29:31.120 Yeah.

00:29:31.700 And, uh, and so I thought, all right, you know what?

00:29:35.420 I'm going to take every coincidence and I'm going to run with it.

00:29:39.360 Um, if it, if I'm thinking about something and I meet somebody, I'm going to run with

00:29:42.720 it.

00:29:42.920 Right.

00:29:43.680 And people think this is really bizarre and it will, it's weird because sometimes people

00:29:51.720 will come into your life and they're supposed to be with you for a long time.

00:29:54.740 They're supposed to be with you for three days.

00:29:56.620 They're supposed to be with you for 10 minutes.

00:29:58.580 You'd never know.

00:29:59.660 But it's like, I don't know why we met, but we should explore and learn as much as we

00:30:04.940 can.

00:30:05.560 You know what I mean?

00:30:06.200 Um, but then when you, when you have an idea, for instance, Hey, let's start a network.

00:30:14.080 Right.

00:30:15.760 Whew.

00:30:17.200 Uh, and you, I mean, I'll be real frank with you.

00:30:20.420 You spend your entire life almost to zero and you are standing there going, wait, I know,

00:30:29.900 I know, I think there are two points in people's lives where they quit too early or too late.

00:30:45.560 You know what I mean?

00:30:46.260 A hundred percent.

00:30:46.800 Something happens and they're like, you know what?

00:30:48.920 I was wrong.

00:30:49.640 I'm going to let, and you quit.

00:30:51.020 Or you refuse to see, no, there was a jumping off path right here.

00:31:00.640 You were just blind to it.

00:31:01.820 Right.

00:31:03.080 Do you think if, how can I phrase this?

00:31:09.060 How do you know the difference between one of those feelings and, and one of those feelings

00:31:20.840 that don't do it?

00:31:23.100 Right.

00:31:24.060 Do you, is there a difference or is it?

00:31:28.220 I mean, cause I got to, I got to almost zero and I was like, oh my God, I'll tell you about

00:31:37.480 a million dollar control room.

00:31:39.580 Okay.

00:31:40.320 Million dollars.

00:31:41.320 I didn't even know there was a such thing as a million dollar control room.

00:31:43.540 It's crazy.

00:31:44.420 It's crazy.

00:31:45.640 And I had just paid it off.

00:31:49.100 Oh wow.

00:31:49.740 And I paid it off the day I was like, I'm out.

00:31:53.300 I'm out.

00:31:53.640 Wow.

00:31:54.480 And I remember I turned the lights off in that room and I said, well, and I closed the

00:31:59.240 door and locked it up.

00:32:00.120 And I thought, cause we're going to just do, you know, podcast and things like that.

00:32:04.940 That's not needed anymore.

00:32:06.840 And I'm like, why?

00:32:09.460 Cause it was needed at the beginning of the journey.

00:32:11.660 I closed the door two days later.

00:32:14.660 Now, if I would have gotten, if I would have given up and been angry and spiteful, I wouldn't

00:32:20.840 have taken a phone call that said, you're the only one that you have a linear control

00:32:31.180 room for live broadcast back and back.

00:32:33.740 And I went, yeah, you're the only one that has it in this particular yada, yada, yada.

00:32:40.760 It's going to be something that we launch in 2019.

00:32:44.720 That's awesome.

00:32:45.300 And so it's, you have to, I don't know.

00:32:48.740 That's like a movie moment.

00:32:49.700 Do you know what I'm talking about?

00:32:50.520 There's a great line I heard that said, coincidence is God's way of winking at you.

00:32:55.400 And I love that.

00:32:56.920 Yeah.

00:32:57.500 And that was almost like, right when you were turning off that light, you got that phone

00:33:01.220 call.

00:33:01.500 And I think, I just like, because I think people, they do something and then they panic and they

00:33:11.420 don't give it enough time or they don't look for the other thing.

00:33:15.700 That's not what I bought that control room for.

00:33:18.560 Right.

00:33:19.200 But I get that call and I immediately looked at my wife and I said, you're not going to

00:33:25.840 believe this.

00:33:26.660 And I'm convinced I could be wrong.

00:33:28.620 I'm convinced that's why they bought that control room.

00:33:31.360 I was just ahead of the game.

00:33:32.740 Right.

00:33:33.320 You know?

00:33:34.280 So, so speak to somebody who has followed their, their gut and it hasn't worked out.

00:33:44.560 What I've learned is that, you know, the biggest mistakes I've made on this journey, like for

00:33:50.200 example, I spent eight months hounding Warren Buffett.

00:33:54.820 I was like, look, if there's anyone who's going to do an interview with me, it has to be

00:33:58.580 Warren Buffett.

00:33:59.240 By the way, I believe this may lead into the, why I called him a stalker moment.

00:34:04.740 Go ahead.

00:34:05.300 Yes.

00:34:05.640 This is actually a very fair, very fair case.

00:34:08.560 Yeah.

00:34:09.000 You know, with Warren Buffett, I thought, you know, if anyone would do an interview, it

00:34:14.020 had to be him.

00:34:14.620 He always talks about how much he loves college students and how much he loves helping young

00:34:18.260 people.

00:34:18.700 So I was like, look, Bill Gates might be a hard interview to get, but Buffett, that has to

00:34:23.080 be easy.

00:34:23.520 So I, this is like thoughts of a 19 year old.

00:34:26.500 So I like put on the top of my list.

00:34:28.360 I'm like, you know, Warren Buffett and I end up, this is after I've left college.

00:34:32.120 I'm spending, I'm waking up at 6 a.m.

00:34:34.360 My only job is researching Warren Buffett.

00:34:39.440 I have 16 books stacked up on my desk.

00:34:41.880 I'm going through all of his biographies, these big 800 page biographies.

00:34:45.960 And after two months, I finally feel like I know, you know, I have a good grip on it.

00:34:51.500 And I write a two page letter by hand, like pouring my heart out, asking for this interview.

00:34:57.780 And he actually writes, handwrites a response back.

00:35:02.480 And I'm like, oh my God, this is crazy, you know?

00:35:06.120 And sure enough, I read what it said.

00:35:08.440 You know, I sent two pages.

00:35:09.640 He sent two sentences back, but he essentially wrote, thank you, but no thank you.

00:35:13.900 But I'm thinking, look, if he's handwriting a response back to me, I'm at like the 99 yard

00:35:18.960 line.

00:35:19.760 So I just have to keep at it.

00:35:21.300 He's old school.

00:35:22.420 Right?

00:35:22.720 Every business book says persistence is the key to success.

00:35:25.480 So I thought, if that's the key, I'm just going to keep turning the key until it opens

00:35:28.460 the door.

00:35:29.180 So I post, you know, persistence quotes all around my office and I'm waking up literally

00:35:34.560 now at 4 a.m.

00:35:35.820 I was a maniac.

00:35:36.780 I would put, you know, eye of the tiger in my earbuds and I would be sprinting.

00:35:41.420 I'm not kidding.

00:35:41.860 I would be sprinting down the sidewalk.

00:35:43.340 Imagine Buffett would be at the end.

00:35:44.700 Like I'm just all Buffett and, you know, month two, month three, month four.

00:35:48.740 And it feels like every rejection, you know, Paula Coelho, the author of Alchemist has a

00:35:53.600 great quote.

00:35:54.080 He says, when you get an F in school, it hurts.

00:35:57.620 When you get rejected with your life's calling, it's debilitating.

00:36:02.120 And I'm just getting no after no, after no, after no.

00:36:06.920 By month four, month five, month six, it feels like I'm going to cough up blood.

00:36:13.240 And I had never been more desperate in my life.

00:36:17.620 I had left school and told my family to trust me.

00:36:20.440 And now I'm pretty much spending my entire time, 24 hours a day, writing letters to a

00:36:24.680 guy in Omaha.

00:36:25.300 And my family is like, you left being a doctor for this.

00:36:30.700 And I actually made one of the biggest mistakes in my life.

00:36:35.180 I met a guy who told me to send Buffett a shoe with a note saying, I'm just trying to get

00:36:39.360 my foot in the door.

00:36:40.160 And the guy's like, look, I worked for Warren Buffett.

00:36:41.840 Don't worry.

00:36:42.320 Trust me.

00:36:42.840 I just was making all these mistakes.

00:36:44.720 And it wasn't until much later when I finally got the interview with Bill Gates, that Gates's

00:36:49.600 office loved it so much.

00:36:50.840 They're like, can we help?

00:36:52.100 And I was like, uh, yeah, that'd be awesome.

00:36:55.400 Um, do you think you can introduce me to Warren Buffett?

00:36:57.440 And they're like, easy.

00:37:00.400 Gates's office calls Buffett's office to set up the interview.

00:37:03.640 And I'll never know exactly what happened, but essentially Buffett's office was like,

00:37:09.420 look, we know all about Alex.

00:37:11.400 This is not happening.

00:37:12.480 And I got an email back from Gates's chief of staff saying, no more contact to Warren's

00:37:17.780 office.

00:37:18.240 Thanks.

00:37:19.440 Wow.

00:37:20.380 And I realized not only is the answer, no, I had gotten myself blacklisted and every

00:37:27.500 business book talks about persistence, but none talk about the dangers of over persistence

00:37:31.340 where you're, you know, you're not just banging on the door a few times.

00:37:36.960 You're banging on it so many times they're calling the police on you.

00:37:39.720 And what I've learned is that my problem was that desperation clogs intuition.

00:37:48.640 Desperation clogs intuition.

00:37:50.280 Explain that.

00:37:50.700 And that really goes back to your core question of when people are pursuing their life calling

00:37:54.960 and it's not working out, you know, how do they make that call?

00:37:58.940 You sort of have to step back, which I wasn't at the time asking yourself, is my desperation,

00:38:04.880 my fear of failure, does it have its hands around my neck?

00:38:08.520 Is it cutting off circulation?

00:38:10.340 One of the benefits you have in the story you shared, in my opinion, is that while you

00:38:15.760 were down to the wire, you're at a stage in your life where you believe in yourself so

00:38:22.280 much that while you were getting to drastic times, you were never desperate.

00:38:28.860 You knew you had enough faith in yourself, enough faith in God, enough faith in the people

00:38:34.440 you work with that you would figure it out.

00:38:38.300 Kind of.

00:38:39.300 I will tell you that I, um, I have been rich and I have been poor.

00:38:49.340 The happiness doesn't change.

00:38:51.020 Right.

00:38:51.380 So you're not afraid of it.

00:38:52.420 Not afraid of it.

00:38:53.160 I can be poor and I know I will be happy and whole.

00:38:56.720 Doesn't change.

00:38:57.440 Only thing that changes private air travel, that changes your life.

00:39:02.320 Other than that, rich and poor doesn't make a difference.

00:39:05.840 It really doesn't.

00:39:07.340 And, and I also know because I have been rich and then poor and then rich and then poor,

00:39:13.520 that you can do it again.

00:39:17.180 It's, it's, it's a, it's, it's a mindset, you know?

00:39:22.240 It's just truly a mindset.

00:39:24.160 A hundred percent.

00:39:24.920 What do you say to, um, people your age that are being taught that you can't make it, you

00:39:36.060 can't do it, you're not capable, people are standing in your way.

00:39:41.400 It's.

00:39:42.220 Well, first of all, make a list of the people saying that and write the do not talk to these

00:39:46.320 people list.

00:39:46.980 Cause what I'll tell you, it sounds like I'm joking, but what I'll tell you is that

00:39:50.100 one of the biggest things that you can do to hurt a child, to hurt a teenager who's just

00:39:56.900 starting out is to infect them with pessimism.

00:40:01.240 Now, now any parents listening to this will be like, look, but you have to be realistic

00:40:05.960 with your kid.

00:40:06.720 You can't tell them they're going to be an astronaut.

00:40:10.620 I'll, I'll, I'll tell you an anecdote that I heard recently.

00:40:12.720 Anyway, I was, I didn't even remember where I read this, but it was a teacher who's teaching

00:40:18.900 for teach for America.

00:40:20.800 And she was assigned to a school in Baltimore, you know, really rough part of town, a really

00:40:25.060 tough neighborhood.

00:40:26.800 And I think she's teaching maybe third or fourth grade.

00:40:29.860 And she's like, look, these kids need some inspiration.

00:40:31.940 So she's like, guys today, instead of our math lesson, I'm going to pass out sheets of

00:40:35.240 paper and crayons.

00:40:36.080 And we're all going to draw pictures of our biggest dreams in life.

00:40:39.620 You know what you want to be when you grow up.

00:40:41.000 And, you know, she's like, dream whatever you want to dream.

00:40:43.980 And all the kids are coloring, except this one boy sitting in the back of the class won't

00:40:48.840 pick up a crayon.

00:40:50.720 And his face is very stoic.

00:40:53.620 And the teacher's watching him.

00:40:55.200 And after about 20 minutes, his eyes light up and he starts coloring.

00:40:58.380 And, you know, the kids turn in the papers and they go home and the teacher's reviewing

00:41:01.800 them.

00:41:02.800 And she sees that that young boy drew a picture of a pizza delivery man.

00:41:09.240 Oh my God.

00:41:10.060 And the teacher was very concerned.

00:41:11.460 So she called the mother that night of the boy and the mother wasn't surprised.

00:41:17.140 She said that the only male figure in his life who's not in jail or on drugs is his uncle

00:41:24.380 who delivers pizza.

00:41:25.220 And what I took from that story is that young people will always reach for the highest branch

00:41:33.520 they think is possible.

00:41:35.400 They'll always reach for the highest branch they think is possible.

00:41:38.500 So it's our job, whether it's families or schools or the media at large, to illuminate more branches.

00:41:45.200 It's not the kid's fault.

00:41:46.800 They will always reach for the highest branch they think is possible.

00:41:49.880 I know you are a fan of Bill Gates.

00:42:11.860 But Bill Gates is in many ways responsible for Common Core and the sorting that he, and

00:42:24.180 look, if you have this point of view that I want to grade your aptitude early on to see

00:42:31.000 what you're good at, we'll fast track you into there.

00:42:33.800 That's fine.

00:42:34.440 But I do believe that there, I don't know what I would have been fast-tracked into.

00:42:39.900 Certainly not this.

00:42:41.120 You know what I mean?

00:42:42.340 What would you have been fast-tracked?

00:42:43.720 Do they have empathy tests and communication tests?

00:42:45.920 Correct.

00:42:46.100 I mean, what do they have?

00:42:47.640 You probably would have been a doctor today.

00:42:50.440 Right.

00:42:55.100 These schools and the way we're measuring everything, it is putting a heavy box around people.

00:43:05.400 And I talk to parents all the time that say, I don't know what to do.

00:43:11.920 I've got to send my kid to college.

00:43:13.440 No, you don't.

00:43:14.460 No, you don't.

00:43:15.240 They don't have to.

00:43:16.360 Some, you want to be a doctor, you've got to go to college.

00:43:19.540 You know, you want to be a comedian, go get a great creative writer, you know, and take

00:43:25.880 some acting classes and go.

00:43:29.260 Right.

00:43:29.460 Give it a shot.

00:43:30.300 There are things that you need, but you don't need the four years of college.

00:43:34.640 Right.

00:43:36.120 What do you suggest?

00:43:37.320 First, I think this is the theme of our whole conversation, which is stop and actually ask

00:43:43.820 yourself the hard questions.

00:43:46.320 I think whether you're the 18 year old deciding if you're going to go to college or if you're

00:43:50.720 the parent deciding what you're going to tell your child, life is, it just feels easier

00:43:56.660 when you follow, you know, the check the boxes routine, which is, you know, go to high school,

00:44:00.800 go to college, get a job.

00:44:02.180 But that's not how the world works anymore.

00:44:04.160 You just said, you know, if you're being a comedian, that's a big waste of $250,000.

00:44:08.980 Right.

00:44:09.540 Right.

00:44:09.920 Huge waste.

00:44:10.600 You're not going to be able to survive as a comedian because you have to pay student debts

00:44:13.500 and you just literally killed your career without even starting.

00:44:16.520 However, my son wants to be a comedian and he was learning about diagramming sentences

00:44:24.380 and he said, I'm never going to use this.

00:44:27.100 I said, really?

00:44:28.100 No, you're really going to use this.

00:44:28.940 I took him backstage to meet Jim Gaffigan and Gaffigan said, no, no, no, no, you need

00:44:34.640 to learn this.

00:44:35.480 And I didn't set Jim up.

00:44:36.780 I said, hey, as a comedian, would you ever use diagramming sentence?

00:44:39.880 Do you need that kind of stuff?

00:44:40.900 Maybe it's because he's got so many kids, but he immediately went, oh, yes, absolutely.

00:44:46.900 There are things that you do need for each skill, but you don't necessarily, you can get

00:44:53.880 it at the Barnes and Noble or Amazon or YouTube.

00:44:57.440 Right.

00:44:57.880 This is the whole thing.

00:44:59.120 What's shifting in our society right now is that you have all these course lectures on

00:45:04.080 YouTube, you know, Harvard and Yale and Stanford are putting their best professors out for

00:45:09.500 free.

00:45:10.900 At MIT, every single course is online free.

00:45:16.580 How many people just, I'm curious, do you know, have watched any of those lectures?

00:45:23.060 I probably know.

00:45:25.100 And you have very smart friends.

00:45:26.960 Yeah, I probably know two.

00:45:28.280 Right.

00:45:28.620 And you have the smartest friends.

00:45:29.740 I have, you know, super ambitious friends.

00:45:32.180 Zero.

00:45:32.400 So what it tells me though, is I don't think it will be zero forever.

00:45:37.580 I think it's going to shift over the next 10 years.

00:45:39.620 Yes.

00:45:39.780 But I think right now we're still stuck in a, you know, I need the diploma to prove that

00:45:45.040 I learned something.

00:45:45.860 It's not, you know, the value of college is on the wrong syllable.

00:45:49.800 Instead of it being on what I learned, it's here's proof that I learned.

00:45:55.760 But I don't think you, I think you learn in college what to think, not how to think.

00:46:08.920 Right.

00:46:09.400 If you're lucky, you get one professor.

00:46:12.020 One professor.

00:46:12.800 And that's all you need.

00:46:14.620 How to think.

00:46:15.960 How to challenge basic premises.

00:46:19.120 How to find the answer on your own.

00:46:21.720 Right.

00:46:22.420 We're cookie cutter.

00:46:24.020 Right.

00:46:24.520 Exactly.

00:46:25.120 And nobody wants, that is, I mean, with the future of AI and the future of just unemployment

00:46:31.700 by 2030, it is going to be all about the uniqueness of you.

00:46:37.880 You, there's no room for cookie cutter people. 0.88

00:46:40.740 Right.

00:46:41.800 And what's going to happen is that the people who have the mindset of, I'll figure it out

00:46:46.740 on my own.

00:46:47.860 I'll make it work.

00:46:49.040 We'll be the ones who will survive.

00:46:50.560 You know, a great way to think about it, you know, and like you said, in 2030, that might

00:46:55.920 be hard for people to understand.

00:46:57.280 A great little micro case study is the music industry.

00:47:02.460 You know, Napster came in and literally, there's not many industries that can talk about over

00:47:07.860 night flipping.

00:47:09.080 Yeah.

00:47:09.560 Napster came in and just with overnight changed the entire music industry.

00:47:13.600 And what happened was people could start getting the essential product, the song for free.

00:47:19.360 And those, you know, the musicians who thrived during that time were the ones with that entrepreneurial

00:47:24.840 mindset.

00:47:26.220 You know, one of the interviews I did in the book was with Pitbull and he said, growing

00:47:30.700 up a drug dealer was the greatest education you could have gotten for what Napster would

00:47:35.260 do to the music industry.

00:47:37.280 And it's great.

00:47:38.760 It's very funny.

00:47:39.280 Cause before the interview, you know, the PR person was like, Pitbull's PR was like, don't

00:47:44.060 talk about drugs.

00:47:44.780 And I was like, okay, I promise I won't.

00:47:46.320 Yeah.

00:47:46.480 He brings it up.

00:47:47.000 But, but I asked about what he needed to learn and he's like, oh, you want to know what I

00:47:51.840 need to learn?

00:47:52.440 And then he just started laying it all out for me.

00:47:55.200 And it's going to be true for 2030 for the whole population.

00:47:59.760 If you have a job right now where you're literally pulling a lever, moving a steering wheel, something

00:48:07.920 a robot can do.

00:48:09.200 I hate saying this cause I feel like I'm the messenger of bad news, but you're in this position

00:48:13.160 every day telling people, warning people, sounding the alarm.

00:48:16.780 I will tell you, I just had this experience.

00:48:19.960 I have been warning my, my family.

00:48:23.680 Right.

00:48:24.520 Radio and television are thing of the past.

00:48:27.000 And radio and television people say it'll go on forever.

00:48:31.180 I've, uh, eight, uh, seven or eight years ago said, I think it has 10 to 15 years.

00:48:38.740 I think it's got about another five left in it before it dramatically is impact.

00:48:44.640 Where are all the new talent coming five years ago?

00:48:46.740 Where's the new talent coming from?

00:48:47.960 There's not, there's no farm team.

00:48:49.500 Yes, there is podcasts.

00:48:51.420 Right.

00:48:51.700 It's over.

00:48:52.800 It's over.

00:48:53.520 And the biggest lesson that you have to learn and people, my age, people, especially people

00:49:01.320 yours by 2030, we will have 20 years of technological change every day.

00:49:11.380 Right.

00:49:11.780 So you cannot, you have to be a Jack of all trades.

00:49:15.580 You have to be somebody who is adaptable that can change.

00:49:18.920 That's why institutional cookie cutters are so dangerous because you'll, you're not prepared

00:49:25.960 to be flexible.

00:49:28.400 I agree a hundred percent.

00:49:29.640 And I think one of the problems people have that I used to have is that you see this coming

00:49:35.660 change and you argue it.

00:49:38.440 Yeah.

00:49:39.340 You say, well, that's not how it's going to be.

00:49:41.480 That's not how it should be.

00:49:42.460 People love to hold on to shoulds.

00:49:44.320 What you're saying is, look, I'm not saying if it's good or bad, I'm saying it's happening.

00:49:49.760 You don't have to, what do you want to do about it?

00:49:51.360 What are you, what are you going to do about it?

00:49:52.820 Right.

00:49:53.280 And that's the whole premise.

00:49:55.020 What are you going to do about it?

00:49:56.660 And the whole point of the third door mindset is that I believe that, you know, the analogy

00:50:02.580 is that life and business is success.

00:50:05.580 It's sort of like a nightclub.

00:50:06.680 There's three ways in there's the first door, the main entrance where the line curves around

00:50:11.400 the block where 99% of people wait around hoping to get in.

00:50:15.380 And you know, that line's only going to get longer.

00:50:17.860 There's the second door, the VIP entrance where the billionaires and celebrities go through.

00:50:22.400 But when no one talks about and what school doesn't teach you is that there's always,

00:50:27.120 always the third door.

00:50:28.700 And it's the entrance where you jump out of line, run down the alley, bang on the door

00:50:31.800 a hundred times, crack open the window, go through the kitchen.

00:50:34.040 There's always a way in.

00:50:35.480 And it doesn't matter if that's how Gates sold his first piece of software or how Lady God

00:50:38.860 got her first record deal.

00:50:40.140 They all took the third door.

00:50:42.260 So that's not only, you know, the title of the book and the message, that's really the

00:50:46.140 energy I'm trying to inject into the next generation.

00:50:48.920 Because when you're talking about 2030, I'm like, if they can just understand the concept

00:50:54.760 that you can take control of your life, but you have to stop waiting in line.

00:51:00.040 The world, for the first time in centuries, is being completely redesigned.

00:51:11.820 Right.

00:51:12.420 You are either going to stand and watch and then work on somebody else's design, or you're

00:51:19.420 going to design it yourself.

00:51:21.220 Right.

00:51:21.480 I mean, the possibilities are endless, endless.

00:51:27.240 Tell me about Lady Gaga's third door.

00:51:29.500 Oh man, she's great.

00:51:31.340 She, what most people don't know about her is when she was starting out, she wasn't a 1.00

00:51:38.480 surefire hit.

00:51:40.900 She couldn't even get her own manager. 0.99

00:51:42.380 So she would, you know, call up, you know, local nightclubs in the Lower East Side of 0.80

00:51:46.660 New York and change her voice. 1.00

00:51:48.520 Like, hello, this is, uh, this is Joan, Lady Gaga's manager.

00:51:52.940 And, uh, Lady Gaga only does Friday at 10 PM, you know, and she would do her own negotiations 0.99

00:51:57.940 pretending to be her own manager.

00:51:59.460 And then after that, she would go work as a waitress, you know, making money to make ends 1.00

00:52:03.960 meet.

00:52:04.160 And she would take the money she would make as a waitress, go to the local print shop,

00:52:09.800 make these big posters of herself and put them up right in front of the nightclub she 1.00

00:52:14.720 wanted to perform at.

00:52:15.760 So when the nightclub managers would have to walk to work every day, they would just pass

00:52:19.180 by these posters and be like, who the hell is this Lady Gaga and why is she so famous?

00:52:24.240 You know, she is, this is David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust.

00:52:27.880 Right.

00:52:28.120 But this is from the dawn of time.

00:52:30.440 Yeah.

00:52:31.060 This has been going on.

00:52:32.500 Right.

00:52:32.640 The only thing that's changed is that for the past 20 and 30 years, society has been

00:52:36.760 telling us, wait in line, wait your turn, wait in line, wait your turn.

00:52:40.560 And I sort of went and did these interviews and realized that's a recipe for disaster.

00:52:57.440 Can I go back to your mom?

00:52:59.060 Please.

00:52:59.500 Yeah.

00:52:59.620 Look, there's nothing I like to talk about more than my mom.

00:53:02.840 We can do that for like three hours.

00:53:06.680 When, if, when and if, did your mom say, wow, good choice.

00:53:16.760 It's hard to say and put into words how much I love my mom.

00:53:30.360 And the hardest part of this journey by far, there's not even a close second was having

00:53:36.820 nothing to choose between pursuing my dream and my mom being in tears.

00:53:45.460 There's not even, you know, as hard as the Buffett stuff was, as hard as the gate, nothing

00:53:50.240 even comes close to the emotional pain of, because at the time I didn't know that my mom would

00:53:56.680 come around, it wasn't, you know, oh man, it was such a good feeling.

00:54:06.580 On the day the book came out, my mom flew to New York with me for the book launch day.

00:54:12.360 And this is a few months ago.

00:54:13.780 And through a friend we got, you know, the NASDAQ tower in Times Square, they turned the

00:54:22.180 NASDAQ tower into the third door tower.

00:54:24.160 They put the cover of the book.

00:54:25.340 Oh my gosh.

00:54:26.020 And my, I remember standing in Times Square, this is the morning of the book launch and

00:54:31.400 my mom's on the other side of the street and we're going to go meet.

00:54:34.840 And I didn't know they had just turned on the billboard in Times Square and I see my mom

00:54:40.440 and I see her face because my back is to the tower.

00:54:43.820 I see my mom, my mom's looking up at the NASDAQ tower in Times Square.

00:54:47.060 I have the photo.

00:54:48.180 I wish I could show it to her now.

00:54:49.120 Oh my gosh.

00:54:49.540 Her face.

00:54:50.720 I had never seen that before.

00:54:53.300 And looking at my mom's face in that moment was a million times more fulfilling than looking

00:55:01.080 at that tower because I knew that for my mom, it wasn't about the tower.

00:55:07.600 It was about the symbol, which is he's going to be all right.

00:55:11.900 Talk to the mom or dad and tell them it's going to be okay.

00:55:35.040 You know, any parent right now who's losing sleep over their kid's future, the first thing

00:55:46.200 I would say is, you know, thank you that you love your kid that much because what I've

00:55:52.760 seen just with different friends is you're lucky if you have a parent who cares about

00:55:57.120 you that much.

00:56:02.120 Now, if you're worried about your kid, I think the thing parents forget is that they used

00:56:12.400 to be just like that too when they were, you know, 19 and 20 and 21.

00:56:16.600 I think what happens is that you get into your 40s, you get into your 50s and you see your

00:56:22.780 teenage kids without a sense of direction and you almost have amnesia about how you used

00:56:27.200 to be as a kid and you're like, how come they don't have a 401k?

00:56:31.380 They're going to die on the streets.

00:56:33.100 You know, look, it's very natural when you have a kid, you know, I don't have one, but

00:56:37.540 just from friends who I've talked to, a part of your brain literally becomes consumed of

00:56:43.000 that kid will die and suffer and that's, it's biological.

00:56:47.980 So any parent who's nervous and worried, that's a natural biological reaction.

00:56:53.980 Your kid is smart.

00:56:55.620 If you're a parent, first of all, who's smart enough to be listening to something like this,

00:56:59.720 who's smart enough to be staying up at night worrying about it, your kid's going to do

00:57:03.840 better than you think.

00:57:05.360 And the biggest thing that a parent can do for a kid is to stay calm and say, I trust you.

00:57:13.380 You know, the biggest, biggest detriment to me on this journey, my parents gave me everything.

00:57:21.260 The one thing I wish I could have had though, was them saying, we know you'll figure it out.

00:57:27.060 Oh my God.

00:57:27.680 Just saying that literally it's all I had wanted.

00:57:31.560 And thankfully they're at that point now, but I went through a lot of unnecessary pain,

00:57:40.000 losing sleep, making bad decisions because I was worried I was disappointing my parents.

00:57:49.500 You're listening to this and you're, you're 18, 17, 16, 25.

00:57:57.940 Yeah.

00:57:59.000 50.

00:57:59.440 And you want to, you just want to break out.

00:58:07.120 You want to do something different.

00:58:09.240 Talk to them.

00:58:12.600 I think your question was very on point because I don't believe it's an age.

00:58:16.500 I believe it's a stage.

00:58:19.020 You know, you just met Cal Fussman very recently.

00:58:21.940 Cal is 62 years old.

00:58:24.740 Five years ago, had a completely different career.

00:58:27.240 I couldn't be more proud of him.

00:58:28.480 Cal has done a transformation that you normally see happen when someone's 20 or 21 years old.

00:58:33.340 In case you don't know, Cal, Cal Fussman is one of the greatest interviewers of all time.

00:58:39.120 And bestselling author, writer at Esquire magazine.

00:58:42.060 Yeah.

00:58:42.280 I mean, he's just amazing.

00:58:44.060 He's talked to everybody.

00:58:45.920 Right.

00:58:46.740 And, you know, so whether it's Cal at 60 years old or it's someone who's 18, who's just trying

00:58:51.800 to make that first move, the biggest thing I would tell them is that the biggest place people fail

00:59:00.880 when it comes to making a big life transition or going after a dream.

00:59:04.600 It's not that, you know, running down the alley and banging on the door and finding the third

00:59:10.560 door is the hard part.

00:59:11.340 I think everyone thinks executing on the dream is the hard part.

00:59:14.600 What I've learned every single time without fail from studying all these different people

00:59:19.480 is that the part people mess up is that they're standing in line for the first door and they're

00:59:26.160 so consumed by fear and what ifs that they never actually leave it.

00:59:31.060 Yeah.

00:59:31.880 Because this is what happens.

00:59:33.020 You're standing in that line for the first door.

00:59:34.900 It's well lit.

00:59:36.780 You're on the pavement.

00:59:37.960 It's safe.

00:59:38.980 All your friends are there.

00:59:41.020 All your family expects you to be there.

00:59:43.880 And what happens is I've realized that people don't even know how much they're trapped by the

00:59:49.120 comfort of certainty.

00:59:52.160 People are trapped by the comfort of certainty.

00:59:54.420 And no one achieves a dream in the comfort of certainty.

01:00:01.080 Can I go back to the story with you and Buffett?

01:00:07.160 Because I think this is important, at least a lesson I have learned on the other side,

01:00:12.160 being not Buffett, but being somebody that, I don't believe in coincidence.

01:00:19.720 But so many people see their third door as a person.

01:00:29.600 I have to have access to this person.

01:00:33.460 You were focused on, I have to have access to Warren Buffett.

01:00:38.100 And that caused problems.

01:00:39.420 Your calling is your calling.

01:00:44.240 What your dream is, your dream.

01:00:46.560 And it can't rely on convincing someone else that it's the greatest.

01:00:51.460 One person.

01:00:51.880 One person.

01:00:52.980 I mean, you know, you might say, the toothbrush, it's really a great idea.

01:00:58.300 You will have to convince people.

01:00:59.960 But it's not one person.

01:01:03.660 Right.

01:01:04.200 And I think, you know, talking from personal experience, the moments I've messed up the

01:01:09.440 most is when I become transfixed again on one person.

01:01:14.240 Or even let's say.

01:01:15.020 Or one thing.

01:01:15.820 Right.

01:01:16.240 Or let, yeah, let's say you want to sell a book to a publisher.

01:01:18.480 You get transfixed on one publisher.

01:01:21.000 Or even publishing it that way.

01:01:23.800 Correct.

01:01:24.240 A great thing a friend has taught me is that you can be committed to your dream and not

01:01:32.780 attached to the methods of achieving that dream.

01:01:36.100 You can be committed to the dream, but not attached to the methods.

01:01:40.620 And my problem with Buffett is I was 100% focused on the method, which is I need to get to Buffett.

01:01:47.080 And that's the thing about the change that is coming now.

01:01:50.700 The method doesn't matter.

01:01:52.220 Right.

01:01:52.500 The medium doesn't matter.

01:01:53.780 It doesn't matter.

01:01:54.720 It's all being blown up anyways.

01:01:55.780 It's all being blown up.

01:01:56.640 Right.

01:01:57.960 Are you familiar with my philosophy of I am?

01:02:02.360 Tell me about it.

01:02:03.720 So.

01:02:04.880 This is the way your dad taught you?

01:02:06.440 Yeah.

01:02:06.900 When, you know, Moses says, who shall I say sent me?

01:02:10.340 Right.

01:02:10.860 I am that I am.

01:02:12.780 Which my father used to tell me all the time.

01:02:15.480 And it puts a different spin on thou shalt not take the Lord that God's name in vain.

01:02:20.640 If his name is I am.

01:02:21.920 Because it, he doesn't, I can't imagine a God who is like, hey, hey, hey, a little careful with the name there.

01:02:31.100 You know what I mean?

01:02:32.080 He's warning us for a reason.

01:02:34.360 And it's not just reverence, I think.

01:02:38.280 It's because his name, you're Jewish, has power. 0.95

01:02:41.780 Right.

01:02:42.200 Okay.

01:02:43.940 I am.

01:02:45.320 You follow that.

01:02:46.840 And if you don't fill that in, somebody in your life will fill it in.

01:02:51.960 Okay.

01:02:52.760 And a lot of people never get.

01:02:54.620 Oh, that's good.

01:02:55.020 Yeah.

01:02:55.360 People don't get past the childhood that somebody has filled that in.

01:03:01.620 I was the stinky other younger brother.

01:03:03.620 You know, I am blank. 0.99

01:03:10.480 You.

01:03:12.040 What do you fill it in with?

01:03:16.440 I'll tell you the first thing that came to mind, but it surprises even me.

01:03:20.760 I was on an airplane a few days ago.

01:03:23.220 It's weird to be telling you this, like before I've told like my sisters, I've been on the

01:03:29.200 road the past weeks.

01:03:29.980 I haven't like seen my family.

01:03:31.140 I haven't told this to my mom.

01:03:34.120 But I was on an airplane a few days ago and I just started sobbing, like sobbing, sobbing.

01:03:46.140 And the reason was I was reflecting back on the past two years.

01:03:57.600 My dad died a year and a half ago, just a couple months ago.

01:04:04.700 The day after the book came out, my grandpa passed away.

01:04:08.380 Two weeks after that, my grandma, his wife gets a stroke.

01:04:12.020 Then she dies two weeks later.

01:04:16.140 And our family in many ways has really come apart.

01:04:22.760 And I was reflect on this airplane.

01:04:27.400 I was reflecting back on all of the miracles that happened the past two years.

01:04:35.700 And specific, not like miracles in general, like my best friends who carried my dad's casket.

01:04:41.720 And the second cousin who's become like our lifeline in our family.

01:04:49.360 And that to me is God.

01:04:52.280 And on this airplane for the first time in my life, and I grew up, you know, with a religious

01:04:57.480 background, but this was the first time in my life I ever had the thought that God loves

01:05:01.860 me.

01:05:02.080 And I was just sobbing.

01:05:09.060 And when he said, I am.

01:05:12.980 The first thing that came to mind, my mind was loved by God.

01:05:17.760 Oh, this is, this is weird.

01:05:20.180 Cause this, this is the thing that you have to understand about me.

01:05:21.960 I was the kid who went to, you know, temple because that's what our parents told us to

01:05:26.680 do.

01:05:27.660 And, and I think a lot of young people have this relationship with religion where it's

01:05:33.180 given to you.

01:05:37.540 And I think one of the coolest things of the past couple of years for me has been

01:05:42.800 choosing to move toward it as opposed to it being, you know, forced down my throat.

01:05:51.960 And I think when you choose to move toward it, it takes on a whole different meaning.

01:05:58.140 My son was afraid just recently.

01:06:04.660 We were talking about church and God and things like that.

01:06:08.500 And he said, you know, I don't like going to church and I just don't like this.

01:06:14.340 I don't like that.

01:06:14.920 And I said, tell me what's really happening.

01:06:17.860 And he, I could tell he hesitated, but he trusts me enough, thank God, that he said, I don't

01:06:27.420 know if I believe in God.

01:06:29.640 And I said, good, good for you.

01:06:34.380 Is the nine-year-old?

01:06:35.120 Yes.

01:06:35.960 Good.

01:06:36.120 No, he's now 14.

01:06:37.600 And I said, good for you.

01:06:39.840 Good for you.

01:06:40.420 That's good.

01:06:41.200 Because God doesn't just come.

01:06:44.280 You have to go to him.

01:06:45.680 You have to find him.

01:06:49.160 It's strange how we have, how we don't, we don't appreciate the fact that it's an individual

01:07:00.180 journey.

01:07:00.660 You, you come to a time where you find him.

01:07:10.720 And I think, and I know you've had similar experiences, a death of a parent forces you

01:07:19.380 to ask those questions.

01:07:21.160 We live in a world of safe spaces.

01:07:28.680 I think that's the most dangerous thing we can have.

01:07:34.540 Tell me more.

01:07:38.060 I've, I've, I've never learned anything new when I was happy and whole and, and perfectly

01:07:44.480 comfortable.

01:07:46.000 Why would I do anything different?

01:07:47.860 Why would I learn anything new?

01:07:49.160 I'm uncomfortable.

01:07:51.140 You know, there's cognitive dissonance is that uncomfortable feeling that you believe

01:07:57.160 something, but your actions are, you know, going against that.

01:08:02.560 Cognitive ease is, is something, and, and advertising knows this.

01:08:10.940 Right.

01:08:11.280 The first time you hear something, you have cognitive dissonance.

01:08:14.640 Right.

01:08:15.160 You don't really hear it.

01:08:16.060 Yeah.

01:08:16.860 Cognitive ease is after you've seen it over and over and over again.

01:08:20.440 And then all of a sudden you're like, oh yeah, Coke.

01:08:23.040 Okay.

01:08:23.220 First time you see Coke, you know, if you're coming from someplace else, you don't know what

01:08:26.840 that is.

01:08:27.680 Okay.

01:08:29.140 Cognitive ease doesn't give you any growth.

01:08:32.580 Doesn't, it's the dissidence.

01:08:35.400 It's the, I don't know.

01:08:37.500 I don't know.

01:08:38.780 Either my actions are wrong or this philosophy is wrong or I misunderstand it.

01:08:44.040 It's always the taking things apart.

01:08:46.440 It's the failure that makes you great.

01:08:50.880 Yeah.

01:08:51.580 If you choose.

01:08:52.440 Right.

01:08:52.780 I was literally going to cut you off and say, if you choose, because something, one of the

01:08:57.280 best lessons I learned from Quincy Jones in the interview was he said, you know, 90%

01:09:02.160 of people hate their failures.

01:09:06.480 They're ashamed of it.

01:09:08.220 They don't want to talk about it.

01:09:10.000 Embrace them.

01:09:10.420 And if you, yeah.

01:09:11.140 And if you bring it up, they'll hate you for it.

01:09:13.560 Yeah.

01:09:14.360 What he said is if you treat your failures, treat your mistakes as friends and you embrace

01:09:20.160 them and you cherish your mistakes, only then can you grow and only then can you succeed.

01:09:28.740 You have to cherish your mistakes.

01:09:31.260 It's funny.

01:09:32.100 Teddy Roosevelt said, and I'm going to butcher it, but it was Teddy Roosevelt or Kipling.

01:09:37.840 I'm not, I think it was Kipling in his, in his poem, if, if you can treat those two

01:09:45.880 imposters just the same, right?

01:09:48.440 You know, your success and your failures, they just are, they just are.

01:09:52.560 Don't get big head and don't get so down.

01:09:55.420 They're both.

01:09:56.800 Well, this is the thing.

01:09:57.740 They're the same thing.

01:09:59.080 Success and failure are the result of the same thing.

01:10:02.220 Trying, you know, they're different sides of the same coin.

01:10:05.460 And I think everybody makes this mistake and I definitely made this mistake when I was

01:10:09.680 starting out.

01:10:10.300 I thought success and failure were opposites and it took me seven years to realize the opposite

01:10:15.860 of success is not failure.

01:10:18.040 The opposite of success is not trying.

01:10:21.320 Good for you.

01:10:22.940 How old are you now?

01:10:24.140 I just turned 26.

01:10:25.700 What are you going to do with your life?

01:10:28.480 Now you sound like my mom.

01:10:29.800 Where are you going to be?

01:10:30.680 Where are you, where do you see yourself at my age?

01:10:34.980 Oh, wow.

01:10:38.520 Do you know what's, there's been a lot of very cool, I call them like inadvertent lessons.

01:10:46.800 What's happened.

01:10:47.680 So when I was researching the book, I had to go through these massive, like, you know,

01:10:51.040 600, 800 page biographies on all these different people.

01:10:53.920 And I was looking for specific, you know, lessons, but what ended up happening, I got

01:10:59.420 all these inadvertent lessons.

01:11:00.900 Like I can pretty much, I want to do a whole like series on parenting.

01:11:05.000 Cause I learned all these parenting lessons from studying all these biographies.

01:11:07.580 A whole nother thing is I just was able to see that, you know, big career, you know,

01:11:13.160 from a 30,000 foot perspective, the career journeys of, you know, dozens and dozens and

01:11:19.000 dozens of people.

01:11:19.760 And if there's one thing that I picked up inadvertently is that none of them knew where

01:11:25.600 they would be 20 years from now, but they knew what they liked.

01:11:30.660 They knew what kind of challenges they enjoy and they knew what kind of difference they

01:11:35.760 want to make.

01:11:36.200 And they know what kind of life they want to live.

01:11:38.860 And I have decided I'm not going to put that expectation of what am I going to do 20 years

01:11:43.700 from now?

01:11:44.400 Look, I'm not a bohemian.

01:11:46.500 I know what I want a year from now, from five years from now, 10 years.

01:11:49.460 I definitely have a goal, but I'm not so attached to it that, you know, someone calls about my

01:11:56.220 control room and I'm not listening.

01:12:06.200 Let me end it back with your grandpa.

01:12:16.080 We're living in a time where Americans who are Americans for generations, I think are so

01:12:27.040 bored with ease that we don't see how good we have it.

01:12:39.200 Do you think you would be who you are if your grandfather and your family hadn't have come

01:12:48.740 from someplace where it was life and death and then came here?

01:12:56.600 0% like not even there's not even a 1% chance.

01:13:00.600 I would have been completely different.

01:13:03.360 There's something about growing up.

01:13:06.720 You know, we are human beings and we function off of narrative.

01:13:10.960 I grew up with the narrative of do not throw away this opportunity.

01:13:18.160 America is a place where if you study hard, if you work hard, you can make something happen.

01:13:24.700 Now, with my grandfather, there was an extra element, which was we were this close to it.

01:13:35.460 Death.

01:13:36.020 Forget about being poor.

01:13:37.520 Yeah.

01:13:38.220 From just you not even being alive.

01:13:39.920 And it's given me, I think, actually a very healthy gravity in the sense that I know, you know, between my grandpa's story and between seeing my dad pass a year and a half ago.

01:13:55.920 You know, I'm not going to waste this.

01:14:03.140 You know, I understand for the first time, you know, when I was a kid, I didn't understand how blessed I was to be born here, to have parents that cared so much that they would sacrifice so much for me.

01:14:18.040 And one of the best things that I've learned about humility comes from Maya Angelou, where she said, you know, modesty is saying, oh, you know, little old me, like I'm not that special.

01:14:31.240 Maya Angelou says, if you meet a modest person, run the other way.

01:14:33.620 But humility is when you know deep down that everything you have in your life came from the people who came before you, who paid their way.

01:14:45.400 And I know that my dad and my mom and my grandparents, my great-grandparents paid my way.

01:14:50.600 And it's my job to pay the way for the people in my family who aren't even born yet.

01:14:54.700 Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.

01:15:24.700 Thank you.

The Glenn Beck Program - October 20, 2018

Ep 7 ｜ Alex Banayan ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript