How Warren Buffett And Steven Spielberg Used Strategic Relationships To Launch Their Careers

For the past seven years, Alex Banayan has been studying success obsessively. He has spent thousands of hours poring over hundreds of biographies and sitting down one-on-one with the people from whom he was eager to learn. Banayan interviewed Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, Steve Wozniak, Maya Angelou, Larry King, Jessica Alba, and many more.

He began this journey as a college student, with no access to his heroes. So, he did what no one would suggest and chased Larry King through a grocery store, hacked Warren Buffett’s shareholders meeting, and crouched in a bathroom to get to Tim Ferriss.

In Banayan’s new book: The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World’s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers, he illuminates the power of relationships to achieve your career goals.

The Third Door by Alex Banayan Book / Photograph by Zach Allia

Here are two of the best relationship lessons he learned during his celebrity interviews:

1. Find Your Inside (Wo)man.

Steven Spielberg got his start when he was about nineteen years old. According to Banayan’s recounting of Spielberg, he boarded…