Alex Banayan | #1 International Bestselling Author, Keynote Speaker | Speaker Reel

Alex Banayan. Welcome to the stage, Alex Banayan. For the past seven years, I’ve been obsessively studying success. I have no idea how all the people who I looked up to, how they did it. How did Bill Gates sell his first piece of software out of his dorm room when nobody knew his name? How did Spielberg become the youngest director in Hollywood history without a single hit under his belt? He explained to me that most people hate their failures, they hate their mistakes, and they treat them as their enemy. It’s only when you treat your failures as your best friends, as your greatest gifts, can you learn from them, and only then can you grow. Although interviewing Bill Gates was unbelievable, it was my mistakes on my way to get to him that changed me most. I had spent my entire life assuming that the opposite of success is failure. But it was in that moment I realized success and failure not only are not opposites, they’re actually the result of the same thing, trying. So the opposite of success isn’t failure. The opposite of success is not trying. There’s always going to be moments in your business where you’re filled with tremendous fear. Fear is a natural part of the entrepreneurial journey. It’s a natural part of any business endeavor. And we have this preconceived notion that fear means that there’s something wrong with what you’re doing. Not only is it natural, it’s an essential part because only when you acknowledge your fear can you then decide to take one step forward anyways. If I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s that you can give someone all the best tools and knowledge in the world and their life can still feel stuck. But if you change what someone believes is possible, they’ll never be the same.