Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - How Finding a Mentor Changed Everything | Alex Banayan - Forbes 30 Under 30

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Lessons - How Finding a Mentor Changed Everything | Alex Banayan - Forbes 30 Under 30 · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, explore how unconventional thinking transforms ambition into achievement
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  through Steven Spielberg's rise as Hollywood's youngest director,
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  discover how persistence and creativity open doors others cannot,
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  understand why mentorship and real connection often defines success,
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  and uncover how shifting beliefs about possibility turn potential into lasting impact.
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  Tell a story of of anyone and and walk me through with their third door experience was like to
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  put some context around it. Something really out there that ended up with that could have been
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  Bill Gates, lady, with anyone, anyone, just so people can get an idea of
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  how they got. I'll tell you one I'll tell you one of my favorites and it actually goes back to
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  what we were just talking about a few minutes ago with regards to the job interviews and whatnot.
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  This is the story of how Steven Spielberg became the youngest director in Hollywood history.
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  The youngest major studio director. So Spielberg since he's a kid always wanted to be a director.
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  So when he was a teenager and he was finishing high school, of course, he applied to film school
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  and naturally he got rejected. But you know, no worries. He's a persistent guy. He applied a second time.
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  Got rejected again. Now that's where most people would sort of back up and say maybe I should find
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  a different career. Spielberg instead decided to take his education into his own hands.
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  And one day he goes to Universal Studios Theme Park in Los Angeles and I'm sure many people know
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  but for those who don't, this theme park in Los Angeles has a ride that takes you. It's called
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  the, you know, the tram ride. It takes you on a little tram bus on the back lot of the Universal Studios
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  film studio and it shows you the sound stages where they make all the movies.
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  So on day when Spielberg was about 19, he goes on this tram ride and it's driving around the studio
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  a lot and when the bus stops for a moment, he jumps off the bus hides behind the corner and the bus keeps going.
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  And Spielberg ends up just wandering around the lot by himself.
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  And about an hour later, he bumps into this older gentleman who sees this sort of pimply face 19
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  year old and says, what are you doing here? And Spielberg's, you know, admitted the truth. He said,
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  look, I'm a kid. I know I'm not supposed to be here but I always wanted to be a director. I jumped
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  off the tram. I, you know, I'm so sorry and the guy ends up talking to this young kid and sees his
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  passion and at the end of this hour long talk says, how would you like to come back onto the lot
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  for the next few days? Spielberg goes, that would be great. So this man introduces himself his name
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  is Chuck Silvers and he's the head of the Universal Television Library, the archives. So he writes
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  Spielberg three day pass and Spielberg goes back the first day and the second day the third day
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  but on the fourth day, he comes dressed in a suit carrying his father's briefcase and walks right
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  up to the security entrance, waves his hand in the air and goes, hey Scotty and the guard waves back
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  Spielberg walks right at it. And now he's doing this day after day after day. He's getting kicked
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  out by security. He's sneaking into sound stages, going into editing booths, asking the actors and
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  directors out to lunch and he's essentially creating his own film school from scratch.
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  And over time, the older gentleman Chuck Silvers becomes a mentor to Spielberg.
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  After, you know, about a few months of this, Chuck Silvers sits Spielberg down and says, listen,
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  can I need to give you some hard advice? And he essentially gives him the advice that there has to
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  be a time in your life where you stop schmoozing and you create something of value and in order to show
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  people what you can do. So he told Spielberg, don't come back onto the line until you have a short film
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  of quality that you're proud of to show me. Spielberg took that hard advice to heart and he ended
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  up spending months filming and editing a short film called Amblin. It's about 22 minutes long
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  and when it's finally ready, he goes back to Chuck Silvers showing the film and it was so good
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  that when it was done, a single tear came down Chuck Silvers' face. And Chuck Silvers reaches for
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  the phone immediately and calls the vice president of Universal Television, his name is Sid Scheinberg.
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  And Chuck Silvers goes, said, I have something you gotta see. And the vice president's like, look,
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  there's a lot of things people tell me I have to see. Chuck Silvers says, no, if you don't watch this
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  tonight, someone else will. And the vice president thinks says, you think it's that damn important?
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  Chuck Silvers goes, it's that damn important. Sure enough, the vice president watches that night.
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  A 19 year old Spielberg gets a call the next morning saying he needs to be in the vice president's
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  office immediately. Spielberg, you know, runs out of class, rushes over in his car, shows it to
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  the office, on the desk is a contract making the youngest director in all the history.
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  A lot, that's a good story. That's a really good, that's a good damn example of not even thinking
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  outside the box, just pretending the box doesn't even exist when it comes to architecting your own
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  career and your own life. Yeah. And you know, wow, there's, first of all, the story isn't, we just
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  have to acknowledge stories and possible without tremendous talent. No, if he's a bad director,
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  you know, if he's a bad director, if he's bad at his art form, this doesn't work. But it makes you
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  wonder, I'm pretty confident he wasn't the only person with talent in the whole city of Los Angeles.
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  You know, you look at singers, there's a reason some make it even though there's a lot of people with
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  voices that sort of blow you away. You hear them. You look at Spielberg's all the time. And they're like,
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  how are they not famous? All the time. Yeah. Yeah. And it makes you look at that Spielberg story and
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  say like, what it, you know, once you like can enter the game, paying the price of talent
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  and skill and hard work, what makes the difference? And when I look at the story,
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  yes, he had the courage to jump off that bus. Yes, he had the honesty to tell the truth when he met
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  Chuck Silver's, you know, all, yes, he had, you know, all these different things. But to me,
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  it was his ability to make that relationship with Chuck Silver's at Insight Man. Because without
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  Chuck Silver, Spielberg never would have had the three-day pass. Never would have gotten the good
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  advice that he needed to hear. He also never would have had someone put the reputation on the line
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  to get into the vice president's office. And every single third door store, I don't care if it was
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  Warren Buffett's early career in finance. You know, whatever story you look at,
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  you know, Jane Goodall with science, every single one of these stories. There was always an
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  inside person, an inside man, an inside woman, someone who was within the world you want to break
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  into who believed in you enough that they were willing to put the reputation on the line to help
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  you get in. And you can have all the ingredients, but it doesn't work without that inside person
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  every single time. So is that, is that the takeaway? Is it to find the mentor? Is that the first step
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  in the third door playbook? I wouldn't say it was the first step because if you actually look at,
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  you know, the Spielberg story, you know, this guy's making home movies for years. He's studying
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  his favorite films. You know, if you sort of just showed up to, you know, Chuck Silver's office
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  and said, Oh, I just decided last week, I really want to get into like, Scott, if someone comes up
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  to you and says, Oh, I said, this one, I want to podcast. Do you have any advice? You'd be like,
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  uh, sure, but you wouldn't really be like, well, this, this young woman, this young man is my
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  protégé, right? No, no, you wouldn't. You wouldn't. You don't know. Right. But if you're walking
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  around town and you had a grocery store bump into someone who's like, Scott, I have been dreaming
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  of being a podcaster for years. I've actually listened every episode of your show, like, I hope I'm
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  not fan-blowing right now, but I'm trying to let you know that episode you had on this person
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  really that follow a question. Yes, blew me away. And I've been reading every book on podcasting.
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  Do you have any recommendations of how to, how to break in? You'd be like, yeah, you want to just
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  log between my car and yeah, here's my email if you have any more questions. You know, you might not
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  take them under your wing immediately, but you'd be like, yeah, here's your email address. You
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  seem like you got a good head on your shoulders. So the inside man is critical, but it's a piece
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  to the larger puzzle. So if somebody wants to think, this all comes down to thinking differently.
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  I think a lot has to do with thinking differently as to what's possible and what is not possible.
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  So what would be your advice for somebody to get themselves in the right mindset so that they
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  start approaching life with this mentality that they can do things outside the norm? I guess I'm
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  trying to get somebody on the right. What I'm trying to pull out of you is how do I get somebody
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  listening to this show to start looking at life differently? What I've learned after 10 years of
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  studying success is that you can give someone all the best tools and knowledge in the world
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  and their life can still feel stuck, but if you change what someone believes is possible,
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  they'll never be the same. And you see it all the time, you can go to Harvard where they have all
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  the resources and all the information and there are kids who've come out of there who still have no
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  idea what to do and want to just sit on a couch. And then you can go to some places where there's
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  no resources and you see in someone's eyes they're willing to do whatever it takes and they believe
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  it's possible and they actually make it possible. Of course it's easier if you have the willingness
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  at Harvard, but what I am saying though is you can have the tools and the resources and it still
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  doesn't work. But as soon as you change where you believe is possible and again it doesn't make it
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  easy and it doesn't make it automatic and it doesn't make it guaranteed. But when you can change
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  where you believe is possible, nothing is the same. Another, oh go ahead, sorry, I finished
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  finish your point seven. I want to touch on that, but go ahead I mean to cut you off. Yeah well I
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  would just see the biggest thing about you know how you change what someone believes is possible.
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  It's really about what you what you're surrounded with. And yes there's like you know the cliche,
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  you know you're the average of the five people you spend your most time with. Yes of course.
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  I guarantee you you take any anyone and you take them and surround them with like five motivated,
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  successful kind people it just rubs off on them eventually. It might take a week, it might take a
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  year you're going to change. But it's also the things you consume. I remember when I was 19 starting
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  off on my journey to the third door you know I wasn't hanging out with Bill Gates, but I was
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  reading you know before work week. I was you know listening to Talks by Gary Vaynerchuk.
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  You know I was just I was reading about the Godwell and I was just sort of changing my world and
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  again I wasn't doing it on purpose, but in hindsight I was seeing that my world was changing
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  because I was changing what I was bringing in. And people listen to this podcast I'm sure
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  are ready on that path if they're really listening to your show.