Compassionate Capitalism With David Meltzer

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your Conscious Pivot.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markell, and I was just remarking to a buddy who you guys are going to get to meet in just a second, that I'm in a pretty cheeky mood today, so almost anything could come out of my mouth. And I'm just as curious about that as you might be. You might not be curious at all, but I certainly am. So in any event, as always, I want to start in the most important place for me personally. And I don't want to, I don't want to beat other people up with my personal beliefs, but it is so consistently the case that gratitude, when I return to gratitude, no matter what's going on, if I'm having a ripping good day, and we all know what that feels like, I use gratitude to settle me down. So the, that exuberance is a wonderful thing to feel that great energy that the wind is at your back, it's sunny day, things are going well, everybody.

Loves you, you get along with your spouse, you're getting along with your kids.

You know, you can do. And there's a tendency in those feel, in those times, at least for me anyway, to get a little cocky or just to sort of be a little, a little tuned out, to be a little less sensitive, to be a little less humble. And so in those moments when I take some deep conscious breaths, I feel grateful for that awareness so that I can settle back in and get back to a place of center, to a place of being level. We were actually making a joke about it right before we hit the record button, you know, checking our levels, right, Checking our audio levels and all that kind of thing. And it's so important in life that, that we feel level that for me, I'll just say I love the feeling of feeling level. Sometimes you might say that's balance or harmony, the yin and the yang, the dao, the middle way. Really, really important. And so obviously gratitude is one of these tools. You could call it something magical or even miraculous. So when we're feeling great, it's useful for me and when I'm not feeling great and when the wind is in my I can do no right. And every conversation I have seems to be tougher than it needs to be. Obviously gratitude is also hugely important to get me back to a place of center and levelness. So with that, I feel wonderful about the person I'm going to introduce you to. You get to spend some time with today. You guys are going to love this guy. He is doing amazing things in the world. He is just a real person. So as is great in his impact, he is that great in his steadiness, his down to earthness and if that's a word, we just made it up. It's good. You're going to love this guy. So I'm going to read a little bit from his bio and then we'll get right into it as we always do, everybody. So David Meltzer is our guest on today's show and he is an entrepreneur and author, a humanitarian and current CEO of Sports1Marketing, a global marketing agency whose projects include the super bowl, the Masters, Pro Football hall of Fame and near and dear to our hearts here, the Unstoppable Foundation. David has been recognized as a top keynote speaker by Forbes and Entrepreneur and Variety magazine Sports Humanitarian of the year recipient in 2016. He is a two time number one best selling author of Connected to Goodness and Compassionate Capitalism. More recently he's been the executive producer, judge and host of Entrepreneur Media's original show and the number one digital business show with over 20 million views, Elevator Pitch. He's the host of top five business podcasts on itunes, the Playbook with entrepreneur and chairman of the Unstoppable Foundation. David is using his 50th birthday to support this effort by hosting 50 parties. I love this 50 parties around the world with the global goal of raising more than a million dollars for education centers in Kenya. So you can donate today by texting 5450 to 555888. And I don't typically, you know, on this podcast on this show do too much promotion but this is an amazing foundation and our foundation which is peace feels like supports the Unstoppable Foundation. And last year we were able to contribute enough money to build a school in Kenya which was really a blessing for my wife and for myself. So that was really wonderful. So without further ado, David, welcome, welcome, welcome to the the show today.

Oh thank you. It's like coming home. You're one of those people that every time I'm with I feel like I'M at home. It's like a younger brother for the first time I met you. Just karma wise, energy wise. Talk about being level. I'm like, oh, that's my kind of guy. I think we were brothers in a past life. So thanks for having me on way cool, buddy.

I am, I'm excited. I mean, look, reading this bio, this is, this is just, this is a life's work, right. All by itself and probably pretty exhausting on the best of days. What's not in this bio that you would love people to know about you?

You know, I think number one, the family size is not in there. I grew up with six kids and a single mom and my mom's my hero, so I still have mommy issues. So I forget choked up. I just have to tell you, she turned 75 last weekend and I just, it was such an unbelievable event for me to remind me how lucky I am and grateful I am to have not only such an extraordinary mother, but the siblings I have and the support and family that I've been given to help other people. And it started with my mom who's selfless. So that's not in the bio. And it's most important to me on a business side. I did have a career in technology before all the other stuff and I was quite successful as CEO of Samsung's first phone division. Ended up losing everything. And that's another significant thing in my bio. They don't promote all the time, but it's the best thing that ever happened to me is going dead broke.

Oh my goodness. All right, we're going to get. Now we're going to have to dig into that a little bit. And you said this as part of that answer the last question, but I'll follow it up by asking you how important is gratitude to you? I already know, but I want our.

Folks to really get this.

Yeah, not important at all.

Right? Yeah. It's everything to me. It's gratitude makes my past unbelievable, my present better and my future brighter. It is perspective and it makes every setback a setup. It makes every person brighter. It finds the light. I have studied physics, quantum physics and metaphysics. Not alone, but with some of the greatest minds on earth right in the tlc and I have had discussions about it and the only truth and biggest help that I can give myself and others is simply if you can say thank you before you go to bed and if you can think or say thank you when you wake up in 30 days and you can do it for 30 straight days, it will change your Life more than any other thing that you can possibly. That's how powerful gratitude is.

Amazing. You mentioned we know each other. We met originally at tlc, and that was. That was one of those meetings. Like, you go, yeah, I've noticed.

TLC is the Transformational Leadership Council. It was created by Jack Canfield. That's the group that made the movie the Secret decade and a half ago and has been a blessing to be nominated, invited into my mentors and my heroes that I watched on that movie when I was going through my quantum moment of my life.

Yeah. And for us as well, we actually were really fortunate. This past January, we were in Hawaii in Oahu for that meeting, and we brought Chelsea, so our oldest daughter got to experience tlc. We hadn't shared it with the kids before, so.

Yeah, beautiful.

Amazing. One of the things, so few months back, we had Ken Honda on the show. And you know Ken from tlc, and he was sharing with me. So Ken is from Japan. And we were talking about money, money, happiness and money harmony and all that. And he said to me that one of the big influences in his life early on in his career was this Japanese billionaire guy that's sort of the Japanese Warren Buffet. And he said that this gentleman says thank you a thousand times a day. Of course, he doesn't say thank you. He says, oregato.

Oregato.

Oregato, Oregato. A thousand times. And I remember asking Ken, I said, I know the way some folks think. They go, well, you know what? He's a billionaire, for crying out loud. Of course he says origato times a day.

Got there, though. That's how he got there.

And I said to my goal, is it. Is it that he says thank you because he's a billionaire or he's a billionaire because he says thank you a.

Thousand times a day?

Now, I'll leave it to the folks watching or listening to this to make.

Up your own minds on that.

I know. I know what I feel about it.

Me, too. I'm with you, brother.

Yeah. Well, David, why don't we dig into any area of that. That history? Because people, they love the pivot stories. We all. I mean, I think. And it's interesting, too, Not. Not to. I don't know this for a fact, and we haven't actually surveyed our audience, so it's reminding me this would be a good idea. But I think part of the reason we do. People are so curious about other people's pivots is that, you know, our own. Our own pivots, which you Know, that word pivot has a connotation of something went wrong, something went bust, right? And you know, one of the most famous pivots that I sometimes share with people that people don't know is that YouTube was originally a video dating site. There's this thousands of these kinds of stories. But they're such a prolific company, though they were a video dating site. And so they. They obviously pivoted their model and gave up the dating piece, but kept the video. And now we know how successful they are. So I look at pivoting as this. It's a word that means change, It's a word that means evolution, It's a word that means innovation. And yet still people think pivoting means a mistake. And they give it that sort of a negative spin on what it means to err and to err big, you know, where the business goes bust or whatever it is. Maybe they were in real estate and they lost their real estate empire in 28, 2008. You know, a lot of people like that, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, but the idea here is that these pivots, they're so pivotal in our lives, for our forward progress, right? And hearing other people's, the way they dug themselves out of the hole, out of the ditch, or found that inspiration or that new, you know, the way that they could frame the event in a way that empowered them to move forward. This is what really helps folks, so to know that you're not alone, to know that you're not the only one who. So, yeah, David, share, share any part of that pivot story. Start anywhere you want.

Yeah, I'm actually going to start young and quickly go to it. But when I grew up, I had five siblings that were extraordinary. I always called them parent wet dreams. They loved to study. Highly academic and intellectual. They all ended up in the Ivy Leagues with full scholarships. Harvard, Penn, Columbia. I had one personal goal as a little boy. My dad left when I was very young. He left when I was five years old. And I grew up really happy. Two bedroom apartment, five boys, one girl and a single mom who's a teacher. And we didn't have much right. Sometimes we didn't have food. But the only time there was any, I think, appearance or awareness of unhappiness in my home was when I catch my mom crying because the car broke down or the dishwasher didn't work or she couldn't afford me to go to camp. And she was worried about how she was going to pay for college with all these bright children, and, you know, and I took on this energy that, man, all I want to do is be rich, but not for myself. It wasn't like I needed a big house. I didn't have those dreams at all. I wanted to buy my mom a house, and I wanted to buy my mom a car. Literally. That's how simple it was from the time I was five years old. And, you know, I went through my pivots of I wanted to be a professional football player, and I went to college on a scholarship to play football. And Christian Okoye ran me over, and I said, I better be a doctor. Then I went to visit my brother in residency and met him in a hospital and said, I hate hospitals. And he said, dude, you got to be more interested than interesting. You got to. I'm like, what do you mean, hospital? I want to be a sports doctor or a pediatrician. He goes, no, you're an idiot. So I went to law school, right? Like every other nice Jewish boy, I go to law school. I'm going to be an oil and gas litigator. I go to Tulane. Best maritime law school, civil and common law, right? And bam. I'm gonna be rich. Because when I graduate law school from Tulane, I studied really hard, top of my class. I had two job offers. One to be an oil and gas litigator, guaranteed to be rich. The other was to sell legal research online. There's a brand new thing in DOS called Westlaw. I went to my mom, my hero, my mentor, and I said, mom, what should I do? Should I be this oil and gas litigator, or should I sell the Internet? And she looked at me without blinking and said, dave, you need to be a real lawyer. Because this Internet thing, this Internet thing is a fad. Now, the reason I tell this story to that point is because it was the first time in my life I realized one thing. Just because somebody loves you. And I promise you probably get this, Adam, nobody loves me still today as much as my mom. 75 years old, right? 75 years old. And I will. She'll lie in front of a bus for me. I get choked up just saying it again. But at that point, I decided that just because someone loves you doesn't mean they give you good advice. And what happens is, if we take the advice from people who love us but don't know what the heck they're talking about, we end up resenting them. And if I didn't take that Internet job, I would have resented my mom because I don't like Being a lawyer, she made me take the bar. She thought the Internet was a fad. I took the bar. I passed the bar. But within nine months, Adam, I was a millionaire. Westlaw was big. We ended up selling to Thompson Reuters three years later for 3.4 billion in 1995.

Amazing.

Billion dollars was a lot of money. I was the youngest executive at Thompson Reuters.

My first year out of law school was. I was newly minted in 1995.

There you go.

And I remember when Westlaw went. I remember when the guys were saying to me, you got to get Westlaw.

You know, researching. I call it legal crack. So it was a great monopoly. But I did. I built an economic career. I paid off my law loans, bought my mom a house, a car, and I started an economic career, branded myself. I took the ESQ off my business card, branded myself a technology guy. Built my career in the Silicon Valley till I was CEO of Samsung's first phone division, multimillionaire, in my early 30s. And married my childhood dream girl. I don't say sweetheart, because we didn't date until I made a lot of money. But I asked her to go steady with me at sixth grade camp and she said no. So I threw an A at her. So it took years to redeem myself, but I ended up at that time. That's where the pivot happened. I was flying to India and I had 150 developers in a place in Calcutta, and I had to add on to my own software company. I'd left Samsung and they kicked me out because we got so big and I was unqualified for the position anymore. But I would say, if you're going to get fired, get paid a lot of money. When they ask you to leave, that's the best way.

A good exit is a good soft landing from, from. From a boot in the. In the rear end, right?

Yeah. So my pivot happened. I'm flying out there, multimillionaire. And I had been surrounding myself with the wrong people and the wrong ideas. I had the huge home in Rancho Santa Fe, a Ferrari, a Porsche, live in nanny, three young daughters in this gorgeous, beautiful wife. And this doctor was flying next to me and she looked at me and she said, are you okay? And it hit me like my arrogant asshole self rolled my eyes back, going, yeah, of course I'm okay. Do you know who I am? Like, literally, that's in my idiotic mind. So I said, yeah, I'm okay. And she said, wow. She goes, because you're so full of light, but you're blocking it. Now I really rolled my eyes at her. I'm like, oh, no. This will be a long flight, right? I'm like, what do you mean? I'm blocking my light. She goes, do you meditate? I'm like, no, I don't meditate. I don't have time to meditate. Meditation would be nothing but a waste of time for me. Basically, I have everything I've ever dreamed of because I can do one thing. I can outwork you. And meditation's in the way of that. I can outwork you. And I've been successful outworking people my whole life. They've been smarter than me, stronger than me, faster than me. They've studied better than me, but nobody. I'm a mule. You can't outwork me. And she's like, oh. She goes, it's too bad, because I could teach you through meditation, to vibrate faster. And I swear, I'm looking at her like, okay, what does that have to do with anything? And then this is where the shocker came in. She said, do you know that you can only be aware of that which vibrates equal to or less than you, meaning the earth vibrates the slowest. Animals, plants, humans, sound, light, thought. And then she said, and do you know what vibrates the fastest? I said, no. She said, the truth. When she said the truth, it went through me like a lightning bolt. And she caught my attention. She said. I go, what does that have to do with meditation? I can teach you through theta healing, quantum healing, and theta meditation to increase not only the vibration of your cells, but the vibration of your mind and even your soul. And awareness would be the greatest gift I could give you because it tells you whether to go left or right, whether to buy or sell, whether you're with the right people or not. All the things. Awareness is the most powerful thing. And then she said, would you like to come to a workshop? And I still, to this day, don't know why. I said yes. And I got off that plane, called my wife. She actually Googled a woman, because she thought at that stage in my life, the arrogant asshole I was. She wanted to see if this woman was a doctor, what she looked like, what the Dave Meltzer scam was. Because there was no way my wife meditated spiritual. There was no way I was staying in India.

That's not my husband.

Quantum healing workshop on theta meditation. Well, for four days, I spent in India and raised my awareness, learned about meditation, started practicing it. Now, here's the hard part. I came home, and I still was surrounded with What I was doing the wrong people, the wrong ideas, the wrong values. And I went on a slippery slope for two years while I was doing the right things. And at the same time, my wife approached me and basically said, look, I'm not happy you're surrounding yourself with morons. I know you're going to the wrong places and doing the wrong things and you're not paying attention. And I'm like, literally, it hit me, like, how could you not be happy? I've given you all of this. So through this transformation, this pivot, I end up. I had over $100 million in real estate. I owned a golf course, a ski mountain, 33 homes alone in San Diego, alone around the country, many more. And I made one really stupid mistake. I thought and always believed that if I had equity in properties, that I always could borrow against it. So I ended up, because I was a moron, because I was putting the wrong causes and energy out there and surrounding myself with the wrong people. I got into lawsuits. I had my ego in the way I wanted to prove myself right. Went through all my liquidity thinking I had all this equity. Not only was my equity shrinking right, 2007, but the banks basically said, sorry, you can't borrow against your equity. We'd rather take your property. And I ended up losing everything. I spent one day in bed, depressed. That was it. My wife stayed with me, but I was already on the road. I sat there in bed. I was so low that one day I literally got down to the point that just said, you know what? If I can look up, I can get up. That's all I had. That's literally all I had because I lost everything. And I was so afraid of. I wasn't afraid I wasn't going to make it back. I was afraid of facing my wife and my mom. I literally couldn't look at them in shame. That was what really kept me in bed that day, was how was I going to sit in front of my mom and tell her that I could have given her half of all my wealth at one point and she never would have had to work again? And I had been dumb, arrogant, and stupid. And so this pivot to me. I got out of bed that next day and I said, you know what? My direct thought is only towards being of service. How was it? 25, I was 25 years old. Millionaire in nine months. I didn't know anybody. I had law loans. I didn't know anything about business, and I became a millionaire. How was it now that I was 38 years old, that I wasn't going to be able to make it all back faster. So now what I did is I said, I'm going to direct all my energy to being of service, creating a void for the universe to fill. And that doesn't mean sitting around high on my mom's couch, you know, walking the streets of Calcutta, giving everything away. But I was going to provide value in everything I did. I wasn't going to take it. I was going to trust that if I provided value to you, Adam, to everyone I met, that they were going to give me what I wanted to manifest. And that was the pivot in my life. And I made more money faster and have continued to help more people. And my motto of my business is, make more money, help more people, and have more fun. Right. And it's a very simple philosophy that creates abundance. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me was losing everything and giving me a fresh start.

It's remarkable, as I'm listening to you, that it only that you one day, that the one day in bed was what it took for you. Because, I mean, I think a lot of people listening to this probably would, as I am going, man, that would knock somebody out for years, like, forget days. And it could have. And easily. So. Right. But that that day was, look, things. Things can change in a second, so why not in a day which has more than one second in it?

Yeah. I say that, you know, all it takes is a touch of favor. Right. And it's your perspective, that gratitude that brings the favor on you. And I have seen miracles happen. People, oh, I met this guy and this is what happened. Right. I know the universe brings. And we have to be open for it. And the only way to open up for the touches of favor is to be of service and create that void, let the in.

I'm going to ask you this question. I don't know how you're going to answer this, and I don't typically go down this road, but I am curious and I want to know how much is spiritual practice? How much is prayer even a part of. Part of what it is that helped you to turn that around? Because, you know, we dance around or. And I don't want to say we. I'll say I sometimes dance around this topic or at least, you know, sort of navigate the edges of it in a diplomatic way, because we don't want to offend people or feel like somehow this is a, you know, this is like a cult or something, you know, religious things or things that people think Are religious, kind of wiggy, right? But you and I both, I think, know quite well that that spiritual path, practice and being on a path is a big part of how it is. We wake up every day and create from there. So I'm asking you.

Yeah, so. And I'll use the word God, even though you don't. I wrote a book called Connected to Goodness. So you believe in what you want. But first, I wake up every day, 4am And I ask God to put 10 people in front of me. I can help. That's my first prayer every day. May God put 10 people in front of me. I can help because that when you shift your paradigm of value and understand by being of service, it all comes if you have true faith in the universe, true faith in this spirituality, that there is a math, map, mathematics of the universe. And it's not giving to get right? Because that's not giving. That. That's trading. When you give with the expectation of getting, that's trading. I give unconditionally and I pray for it. Then I meditate for 20 minutes, and it goes back to what we started the show with was the reason I meditate for 20 minutes is I find my center. And what I've learned is that once I know my center, at the beginning of the day, anytime I go off center, I don't react, I go back to center. So the analogy that I was taught was, you know those martial art experts that are surrounded by 12 guys and it seems as if, how are they counteracting all of the 12 attacks all at once? And that martial art guy will tell you, I don't react. What I do better than anyone is I go back to center quicker than anyone. And that's how I'm able to keep balance and defend all the incoming things. The analogy I use is the reason I meditate in the morning. It's really good for the audience to hear this, is imagine a car on top of the hill in San Francisco in the morning. That car, you can hold it up with one finger. I can hold the car at the top of the hill with one finger. The minute I let the car start rolling, the more momentum it has, the more energy it takes to stop the car. In fact, most people go the whole day and they don't get the car back to center where you can just have one finger on it. And then they wonder when they come home and to their four kids and their beautiful wives and the rest of the family, why they feel run over, right? Why they can't stop the car and that's the momentum of the universe. So for me, meditation for those 20 minutes and having these spiritual thoughts, you know, I'm just embodiment having a spiritual journey. And I believe that the human body works in a really miraculous way, that there's 10,000 new inputs you get a day. You have a cellular structure that has a memory. And so I have to control in a positive direction the 10,000 new thoughts I have every day, so that they change the 40,000 subconscious thoughts that create neural pathways in my mind. And if I can change the 40,000 with the positive energy, I actually can change my DNA. And not only does my DNA carry energy that attracts at the highest vibration, the highest awareness, but it comes from generations past. So I can break the effective habits of my dad, who was a compulsive gambler, right? Any diseases that may carry through my genetics, and better than that is my DNA will carry to who? The next generations. And my energy will attract exactly what I want without me thinking about it. I will tell you this. The reason I'm a multimillionaire again is because I carry an energy of abundance, of giving and being of service. I can go across the street, sit on that bus stop, and I'll do more business than anyone in my office that's now almost 100 people, right? I know that I will attract it to me. Someone will stop, ask me a question I will be able to ask or attract exactly what I want. And I'll get to their dog's neighbor, husband's owner, dog walker, so and so, who's the CEO of a company. And I'll do a bigger deal than anyone in my office sitting on a bench. I know that. I know that because I practice spirituality, a pragmatic spirituality. I. I love David Corbin, who we both know.

Yes, right.

Gave me a great line. He said, dave Meltzer, I've never met anyone that can trust the universe as well as you, but still tie up his camels, right? It's like, Dave, you live in this high vibration, spiritual, crazy, theoretical world, but you're really good at living at the pragmatic level of making a lot of money, helping a lot of people and having fun. You're not stuck on, you know, so many people that are spiritual that he meets. It's like, God, they're so far in their own way. For someone that's so connected. I live that life, trust the universe. Tie up your Camels.

Yeah.

Tie up your Camels. Camels, yeah. Lock up your Ferrari, you know, whatever you want to do, right? Because the universe. Lock up your Ferrari. No, that's perfect.

Yeah, we'll, we'll get to. Actually, we had a, we had David on our show some time ago. You know, I asked David to come back, but. And I just saw him a couple of weeks back in Florida. What a good man. Good man. I want to come back to, back to center, I think for a lot of people. And I think it's really, really is important when you're talking about something that's pragmatic in the spiritual realm. And this, this, I think returning to center quickly is how I would define resilience. There's a study that we've made some reference to. It's a Harvard Business Review study where they. And I'll send you the link to this, David, Actually, just thinking now, you're going to freaking love this because it is a. They looked at the highest performing athletes in the world, professional and Olympic athletes, to see what the top performers, the gold medalists had in common. And what was the distinction between those folks and the people who were finishing second or third place? And what they found was it was their ability to recover. So they looked at the top tennis players, for example, and the ones that were the best in the world. In between points, forget in between games. I mean, you talk about 30 seconds, 40 seconds in between a point could get their heart rate almost back to resting. Their recovery time was quicker. And they looked across the board at all these athletes and said it's the same exact thing. And then they looked at why it was, you know, what were the things they were doing, what were their rituals that helped them to recover more quickly. And they studied their mental, emotional, physical, of course, and even spiritual rituals for recovery. And we've given a name. So in pivot, we talk about that being resilience, this bounce back ability. And you are, I mean, dude, you're like that ball when we were a kid, remember? The Super Ball. I don't know if kids even today know what a fricking superball is, right? But I mean, nothing bounced back quicker and more like with greater energy than that super ball, that magic ball, that miracle ball, if you will. And so I think that's a really big deal to put, put names to things so people can understand what we're talking about here. Because this is, this is about bounce back. This is about resilience. This is about then. And when we talk about going further on the bounce than then, where you were before, it has a lot to do with the energy that you can, that you're bringing to it, right? You're not going to sit on that park bench across the street from your office and go, woe is me. I can't believe I'm sitting out here waiting for the bus. You're like going, I can't wait to meet somebody today that I can help. There's somebody whose life is going to change and there's somebody who's going to introduce me to somebody who's going to help me to change that many more lives. And that is your, that's your full on expectation for every interaction you have, right?

Absolutely. I've actually devised a strategic plan of meeting people in person on the phone, email and social media, dividing it by two aspects. Every person that I touch in those formats, what am I going to ask, what am I going to attract and what am I going to give? How can I be of service? And if you do all three of those things and maximize. It's so funny. I do a lot of business coaching, right. And people think I'm a miracle worker because I get them on this program of just try for two weeks every day to do one ask in the tract of phone, email, in person and social media, just one each. Well, little do they know that in one week, seven days, because I believe in consistency. It's 28 asks in attracts and in two weeks it's 56. And all of a sudden they're wondering why there's accelerated successes and expansion in their lives when it's just a numbers game. Right? You've created the energy to 56.

No kidding, right? I mean, so this is so interesting, right? Sometimes I'll ask people, you know, how often do you hear the word no? And people don't want to hear the word no. And they, it's because it means something to them. So I will flat out, and I don't typically do this when I work with people over zoom, although sometimes I do. It's more often in person, hold somebody's hand, look them in the eye and ask them what does no mean to you? Yeah, because it's rejection, right? It means a lot of people. Yeah. It's them hearing their father say no, it's them hearing their mother say no. It's their, it's the rejection of somebody loved or a number of other things. But it means unworthiness, it means lack of, you know, energy, esteem, it's not deserved, et cetera. So it has this, all this charge to it, all this energy that relates back to childhood. And yet as you and I both know, it's a numbers Game. And it goes numbers game. Life is a numbers game.

But it goes both ways, too. I want to point this out, Adam. Sorry. Is that people don't not only want to hear no, but they don't listen to no either.

Right.

This is very important. Me. No, I'm serious. Like, I coach the Morgan Stanley guys, and I'm like, he's telling me, well, this lady I've been working with for two years, and first, you know, her dog ate her homework. Next, she was sick and he went on. I said, bro, I have a rule. I don't trust what people say. I trust the universe. So if someone gives me an excuse of any kind, and I don't care if it's a serious excuse, like, sorry, I got into a car accident and I'm not gonna be able to make your appointment, but they give me three excuses at any time during this period, I'm done. And then what I do is I say, look, unfortunately, I've been working with you, but I'm going to have to move on to a different opportunity. I only wish you the best of luck. And 50% of the people that I walk away with close right there. I take it away and it closes. I take away the resistance. The other, were never going to do business with me anyway. And all I've done is saved a shitload of time. Because, one, I'm not afraid to get the no. But two, I recognize a no for what it is.

Yes. Right. I'll take a quick. A quick no. I mean, this is. We're getting into some fun things here with people in business. I'll take a quick no. Slow, slow. Agonizing, maybe. No. Right. You know what that one's like. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

This is not. This is not the equivalent of good foreplay. This is the worst. This is. This is foreplay that leads no place. Yeah.

It's the biggest blue balls of your life.

It's the biggest, like, waste of time and energy mostly. So I think it's. It's. This is. This is really important that we. We have something practical as part of our.

The.

The path for our personal growth, which to me is what a spiritual path is when you are committed to personal. To your own personal growth. It's a spiritual path. You know, call it what you want, but it's the regeneration of your soul.

It's.

When I gave up practicing law, it wasn't because I hadn't figured out the game of law. I had figured out the game better than most. I mean, guys work at a firm to Make a million bucks and have to deal with everything in a firm. I didn't have to deal with a firm. I wrote my own ticket, right? But it was causing utter. I mean, it was causing harm to the. To my heart and my soul. And ultimately pain. Pain won out. I mean, I didn't. I don't look at that and go, I had any intelligence about it, I would have kept doing it forever and ever if I had left it to my head to decide. My head told me, hey, buddy, you know, wife, four kids, two dogs, cat. You know, like we. You know, everything. You go, you're. You're an idiot. You're a fool to give this up. But. But here's the thing, too. And I was watching this documentary on Netflix. I don't know if you saw the Ram Dass documentary, but I recommend it.

Beautiful.

Beautiful. And. And he says this. And he, you know, obviously, some years ago, had a stroke, so you can still understand him. And his mind is still fertile and working. And he said, make friends with change. And I will never forget that. I have determined that this is a mantra for me. It's so important in the work that we're doing and the body of work that we want to be known for. And it's so simple, right? When you can turn something into, you know, here's a very spiritual guy who many people even would call a guru, and he simplifies it to something that is so magnificent, right? Jack Campbell, make friends with change.

Yeah. Jack Campbell said, be a baby with change. I said, jack, what does that mean? He says, the only person that loves change is a baby. Right?

They change.

Just be a baby about change. When it comes, just be relieved that. Oh, thank goodness. A new diaper, fresh start. Exactly. So be a baby about change. I love that when you told me. But it is. I've actually shifted my perspective. It's very difficult. But if you get to a point where when things are challenging or changing, that you can say, thank you. Like, before the actual unraveling or the setup comes, like, just. I'm hurrying. I'm late for my son's basketball practice. I got all this on my mind. And that red light comes. The old Dave Meltzer is like bomb, right? And I'm there, the energy. And now I sit there and go, thing. Thank you. Because this just is the way it's supposed to be. Whatever this change that's happening, and sure enough, every other light after that turns green for me or whatever is supposed to happen. And that perspective of when things get really challenging, I Get so excited now and go, oh, my gosh, something really good is happening. Something good. Something bigger and better. Because the universe is making me stronger, and it's getting me ready for something bigger and better. Yeah.

Wow. I want to tie up a couple of. I know there's an open loop. I want to close that loop. And then we're going to ask you one final question as well. But you use the word setup, and so many people are upset on a regular basis. I've spent my life. I mean, the reason why I used to wake up when I was a lawyer and put my feet on the floor and feel dread was because. And I just only recently had this real awareness of it. I knew I was. I would always describe it as I was unfulfilled and had plenty of money and all that. But success without fulfillment feels like failure. And that's how it feels. Right. So there's no amount of money that makes that better for those of you that I'm in. Right. But now I also realize that I was angry so often that what I was really dreading when I. When I was waking up in the dark and getting out before the kids were up and Randy was up was that I was set up for another angry day. I was going to be upset that day. And also set up. And the setup is what you're talking about to set up for something to change. There's a setup, there's a messenger, there's a message being delivered to you. And in that moment when you want to lean on the horn, or as we used to do, you know, like getting into the Holland Tunnel, give somebody the. Yeah, the old three fingers, number one.

Right.

So what. What a great opportunity. And to be aware, as you said earlier, when you're vibrating at a level of awareness, you see it, you feel it, you can, and then you're being guided by it. So the book that we're.

We're.

We're right now percolating and will be out soon is is this. This move from being guard, being guarded, living a guarded life, to being a guided. To being. Living a guided life.

And that.

That is all about what you're talking about. Because for people to. To look at any two people and say, well, what's the difference between them? This. Well, this guy's a billionaire and this guy's struggling and has nothing, and there's no difference. There. There is absolutely no difference. And don't tell me about iq. Don't tell me about. This one went to Harvard. This one had nothing to do with it's. Nothing to do with that, right, David?

Yeah, it's three worlds. Some people live in the world of not enough, some people world and just enough. And those billionaires. And where I live is a world of more than enough. And when you truly live in a world of more than enough, all of that comes to you. If that's what you want. If that's what you want for your more than enough. Lots of money. Yeah, there's more than enough of it.

So to close this one other loop. Thank you for that. I really, I want to sit with that. That was beautiful the way you just tied that up. Yeah. Enough.

Live in a world of more than enough.

The article, this Harvard Business Review article about resilience then took a look at those athletes and compared them to people in the business space. And what they found was that folks like us are working more, more than ever. And most people listening to this are probably can feel, you know, even just listening to a podcast, you might be feeling the stress of, well, I should be doing something else or I could be doing something else that might be more productive. And we all know why we listen to these things, because to get one nugget, to get one thing that we can apply could create, you know, so much that we can't even predict. And, and most people are not making time for themselves, for their own self care. So the resilience we're talking about, the bouncing back that athletes do, that the best athletes do is because they have rituals for recovery, they have rituals for resilience. So I'm going to ask you, is the final question, David, what are some of the rituals or one ritual even that you apply that helps you to be in that zone?

For me, there's two rituals. Just quickly. Number one, I believe in the enjoyment of the consistent every day, persistent without quit, positive pursuit of my potential, in the ritual that comes into play is I always have three priorities. So I give them a minimum amount of minutes a day. And let me give you some examples. One of them, you saw me at TLC, I've lost 40 pounds, gained 11 pounds of muscle, right? Because I made my health for a minimum of an hour a day a priority. My health a minimum. And I leave work even with my kids, I tell them, hey, I can't go do that with you because I have made a commitment to be healthy. So I'm going to be here a long time. I'm going to be productive for you, this is for you, but I'm not going to be with you. And I'm leaving Work because me, not where I'm at, healthy, we all are going to lose money. Right. And, and then I've taken all the way to a little level where I had issues with my mom because I felt like she was reacting to the fact she wasn't feeling like I loved her or appreciated her. So she would ask for things and say things to me for me to prove my love and appreciation. So I said I'm going to give her a minimum of a minute a day and only thing. The objective is to make sure she knows every day, mom, I love you and I appreciate sometimes she's complaining to me and I'm watching the clock and, and it gets to a minute I'm like mom, other line. I just wanted to call and tell you I love you so much and I appreciate you. And most importantly, I'm so happy and I know as a dad that if my son or daughter called me and just told me how happy they were that that would be the best gift of appreciation. Right. Because that's all you want. Right. So I do that every day. My relationship with my mother has changed. Extraordinary. So that ritual of the consistent, persistent, positive pursuit of my potential and have three of them every time and then once they get in your subconscious, you go get a new one. Right. And there's other stuff during the day. The other thing is I, you know, not to plug our dear friend, but I know it's significantly changed my life is I trace calligraphies at home. I have a six foot calligraphy calligraphy from Master and Dr. Shah that I trace for my family and to clear my karma and to download from a higher source. And I also trace calligraphies at the office. I have a six foot calligraphy. So we have a global sports marketing agency, world renowned. Warren Moon's my partner. I ran the most notable sports agency in the world and it's so fun to see Jim Brown's jersey, Troy Aikman jersey, Steve Young and then a six foot calligraphy and everybody going what's that? But those are the two rituals that I do personally that I think have significant, significant change or pivot to my life. Yeah.

And, and that resonates with me. We've got, I don't know, I haven't measured it, but I think it's six feet.

I just bought the frame so I know the frame is, I know I'm not six feet. It's taller than me.

Hanging on the wall right on the other side of this wall actually.

So yeah, from, From Master and Dr.

Shine we got to do a book.

Together, which was really cool. Solo from Adam.

Really cool. Yeah, yeah. Good stuff, buddy. So thank you so much for being on the show and any final thoughts before I.

Before I wrap up with our folks? You know, I always give this final thought is be kind to your future self. It's a great awareness, but be kind to your future self and everything will turn out okay.

Yeah, I am writing that down. That's a beautiful one. Talk about a tweetable there. Be kind to your future self. Beautiful. David, I want to say thank you for your time, for you being here today and sharing these pearls, beautiful things. I want to thank everybody who's tuned in. So all of you that are listening and those of you watching on YouTube as well, thank you so much for sharing your energy with us and for giving us your time. And hopefully this been really valuable. And if it has, we always love to get your feedback. So either going to AdamMarkel.com podcast and then leaving your review or your comments is great. You can make an email, you know, leave an itunes review as well. We're gonna have a sweepstakes with our itunes review, folks, as well. Really soon I'm gonna announce that obviously our Facebook group is here for you as well to support you. This community is growing leaps and bounds. This Pivot community. Start my Pivot community on Facebook. You can get there by going to pivotfb.com real simple shortcut to get to that spot. And as always, I want to leave you with something I think is really important, and that is a prayer. And for me, gratitude is a prayer. So when I think of gratitude, that's exactly how I think of it. And the prayer I have is that tomorrow that you. All that, David, you and your family and everybody watching, listening, all of us, that we get to wake up tomorrow. Because of course, there's no guarantee of that. I mean, we're awake now.

Think about it.

What are the odds, what were the odds that we would wake up today when so many people didn't? And tomorrow is no different. When we take that first breath, when we realize as we're waking, as our bodies are waking up, our minds are waking up, that we're taking that first conscious breath. There are. People will be taking their last breath, and there are babies being born in that very moment taking their first breath of life. So it is a spiritual moment. It's a holy, sacred moment. And it's certainly something where in that moment, there's something to be grateful for. So regardless, it could be you're waking up tomorrow to some challenge. It could be that, you know, it's the day you've got to move out of a house that you wanted to stay in. It could be the day that you're going to sign divorce papers. I mean, it could be almost anything. It could be a really incredible day, a joyful day, you know, blessed day. You don't know even what will unfold for the most part in that day. But we know one thing. You can start it off the right foot, as my grandmother would say, and with the first thoughts that you plant in the garden of your mind, let them be gratitude. Let them be a prayer for gratitude. And so, three parts to this waking ritual. You wake up first, and I hope everybody's going to agree, yes, I'll do that tomorrow. And secondly, that you find something to be grateful for. I hope you'll say yes to that. Third, lastly, that you say these words, if you're willing, from the bed or when your feet hit the floor. I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. I hope and look forward to seeing all of you very, very soon. So just say thank you again and ciao for now, everybody.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own Pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcasts for more tips, strategies and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com.