A 22-year-old former flight attendant from Pleasant Grove, Utah, became the sole survivor of reality television game show “Survivor: China” Sunday night.

Todd Herzog, of Pleasant Grove, Utah, had one thing on his mind when he joined the contestants on the CBS reality television series: win at all costs!

The young man watched every season of “Survivor” from the age of 14 and made good use of the various tricks he saw dozens of former contestants use, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Herzog, the first Utahn to win the $1 million prize, previously worked as a Southwest Airlines flight attendant and restaurant waiter stopped at nothing to win the contest.

“I knew that the second I got out there [to China] that no matter what it took, I would do everything I possibly could to be sitting right here,” he said in the one-hour live Q & A segment from Los Angeles.

He confessed he was still getting used to the idea of his strategies having paid off. “I can't believe it worked.”

Herzog also tried to win the best of all worlds: on one hand, sacrifice anything and anyone within the game in order to win, on the other, try to make people understand it was just a competition and maintain relationships.

Faced with the final opportunity to convince the jury that he deserved to walk away from the show victorious and rich, he said during the last episode: “I know that I played a game where I had to lie and I had to backstab and I had to hurt people that I cared about.

“The main thing I can ask tonight is that you are able to see the difference between my strategic game and the relations I actually built with you.”

The jury, consisting of the last seven contestants that left the game, was convinced by his arguments. The other two finalists, Amanda Kimmel, of Los Angeles, and Courtney Yates, of New York City, received two votes and one vote, respectively. The other four went to Herzog.

The 22-year-old openly gay Mormon, told OK! Magazine how he would enjoy his hard-earned cash. “I’m going to go to Disneyland, buy a car, get a Merry Christmas for my family, invest and go back to school.”