The Daily Gratitude Habit That Rebuilt David Meltzer’s Life

Welcome to the Legacy All Stars podcast. We feature inspirational stories from people who dedicate themselves to helping others. Here is your host, Alan Pavloski. All right, all right, all right. This is an exciting day. Welcome to the Legacy All Stars podcast where we speak to inspirational people who make a difference in the lives of others. I'm your host, Alan Pavloski and today I'm joined by someone I've known for many years in my time in the sports world. David Meltzer is a renowned entrepreneur, speaker, coach and current chairman of the Napoleon Hill Institute Global corporate division. He is also the former CEO of Lee Steinberg Sports and Entertainment. With decades of experience guiding athletes, executives and entrepreneurs, David blends business acumen with spiritual principles, teaching others how to live with intention, purpose and service. His mission of empowering over 1 billion people to be happy makes him a powerful voice for impact driven leadership. His new book, don't Do Business with Dicks is scheduled for release in February and is available for pre order at don't do businesswithdicks.com welcome to Legacy All Stars, my friend.

It is a pleasure and a privilege to be here and building a legacy within the backdrop of sports. A mission to empower others to live, live in abundance and be happy. Sports makes it so much easier and I appreciate everything you've done to build your legacy and community in the backdrop of sports.

Yeah. Thank you, David. It's good to see you. We go way back as we've talked about. For my audience who's newer to your work, how did your journey in sports, business and personal development take shape?

You know, it's really interesting because I ended up in my real first sports job running the most notable sports agency of all time, working with Lee Steinberg they made.

Which is where I met you, actually.

Yeah, yeah. Which was a blessing. And also being able to partner and be best friends with Warren Moon, which led to our 20 year company, Sports One Marketing, a global sports marketing company around the world representing the biggest entities in sports for charity. Which was a godsend for me as well. But the reason I got hired to run Lee Steinberg wasn't because I was a great lawyer or a great sports agent. When I took over for Jeff Morad, it was because I had a extensive background, not only a law degree, but in technology and venture capital. And Lee, in the early 2000s, saw the future of sports as a visionary with technology and venture capital and he could not have been more on point. And we took those lessons in technology and venture and built an extraordinary sports agency as well. As a sports marketing and now of course a media, all still revolving around venture and technology. And as far as personal development went, it was when I was running Lee Steinberg that I hit rock bottom. I had a God sized hole in me and I was trying to fill it with everything but God. And that came to fruition. And my wife, who threatened to leave me, told me I better take stock in who I was and what I wanted to become. And so I sought out the great leaders like Napoleon Hill, like BOB Proctor, like Dr. Wayne Dyer, Jack Canfield, Blaine Bartlett, and was blessed to be a real student, just like I was in sports and law. To be a real student and eventually actually become a part of the Transformational Leadership Council, to be in the movie beyond the Secret and the World's Greatest Motivators and think and Grow Rich legacy. Which led me to be now not just the chairman of the global corporate division, but now I am the chairman of the entire institute.

Congratulations on that. I wasn't even aware that the change.

Had taken, but it just happened a few weeks ago. So I appreciate that.

You're the man. I appreciate that. That's wonderful. You know, you've built your brand around simple yet profound principles. I've heard this from you many times. Gratitude, empathy, accountability, and effective communication.

Thank you.

Which of these do you feel is most misunderstood? Wow.

Nobody's ever asked me that question. And I love that question. I think the reason gratitude is most understood is because it's the simplest thing to do in the world and yet it has the most impact of any simple thing that you can do. Think about it, alan. It takes 0.1 seconds. It's free. And everybody on earth will tell you gratitude will change your life exponentially. Not just in a minimal way, but gratitude, the ability to find the light, the love and the lessons in this simple yet powerful thing. And so when I think of gratitude being misunderstood or although I'm not sure everybody fully understands empathy or accountability or effective communication, the reason I believe gratitude is so misunderstood is it's so simple. And that although I personally know the power of it, it went on a mission and said, I'm gonna say thank you before I go to bed at night. And when I wake up for 30 straight days, I'm gonna change my life in this manner. I'm gonna prove to people quantitatively. I'm gonna say, okay, it is January 1st, and on February 1st, I'm going to look at my sleep, my health, my family, my finances, my faith, and I'm going to see what marketable Improvement that this simple thing to do would have. You know, what I didn't expect, Alan? It took me nine months. Nine months until. Nine months until I could do it for 30 straight days. I always forgot.

Wow.

Even though it was my mission. And so I say the most misunderstood, most impactful thing we have in our lives is gratitude.

And.

And the more I can elevate the awareness and be annoying to people, mean being honest and repetitive about the power of gratitude, the better we're going to be.

Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. You talk a lot about frequency and energy. Can you break down how entrepreneurs and athletes can raise their frequency to perform at a higher level?

Absolutely. So let's just take into context that there's an infinite amount of energy. I'm 57 years old, about to turn 58 on January 11, and I have more energy. Current professional athletes travel with me, and by 4:00 clock, they're sleeping in my backseat of my car. And it's not because I'm in better shape, faster, stronger, trust me. Or younger. Right. These guys are amazing. But the difference is in the frequency. I have learned not to interfere with the infinite amount of energy available to me. So although they have more capability than I have, they're wasting or interfering with the energy that they have, which causes them to have more dis ease in their day and less ease, which leads to the idea of frequency, vibration or awareness to the dis ease. And what occurs is everything has a frequency or vibration, Earth slowest than plants, animals, humans, sound, then light, and then thought. And the thought that vibrates or has the highest frequency is called the truth. And so, by being aware of consciously my frequency, in other words, what am I doing to interfere with the infinite amount of energy, intelligence, intuition and inspiration I have? What am I doing to interfere with it? I need to elevate my awareness, my frequency and my vibration to make things easy to identify, the dis easy. And so for me, that's been a key component, a shift in a paradigm. But it all stems from, number one, understanding the infinite amount of energy, and then, number two, understanding what we're doing to interfere with it.

Yeah. I mean, having listened to and studied many of the same leaders you have in the past, I remember Wayne Dyer teaching about the word disease and dis ease and why it is spelled the way it is spelled. So I appreciate that you pronounced it in that way and that you're so adamant about making sure that people understand what dis ease is. That's wonderful.

Thank you. And Wayne Dyer is the reason That I got heavily involved with Natural Napoleon Hill because his works had such an influence on my life. And it only took years until people aren't aware of his works because nobody preserved it in a digital way on social media, on these platforms, and nobody's buying DVDs, books or CDs anymore. And marketing Wayne Dyer. So I needed to find a house that had a lifetime legacy like Napoleon Hill to put Bob Proctor, Dr. Wayne Dyer, and some of the other great people that have influenced us and helped us so much in our lives.

Alan, most definitely one of your missions is to empower over a billion people to be happy. Where did that mission begin for you personally?

You know, first I'll define happiness and why it began is relative to that. So happiness to me is teaching people to make a lot of money for the sake of helping other people and having fun. And the reason is I've never met anyone who makes a lot of money for the sake of helping other people and having a lot of fun than that isn't happy. And so I have always had the capability of doing these three things and teaching other people how to do these things. These are inherent things that I was born with. I wish I was born with as much physical talent as I was with these talents, but I wasn't. I'm a below average college football player. But more importantly, when I recovered financially from my bankruptcy, losing over $100 million, I was telling my wife I would do anything for her. And she said, you need to take care of yourself. That's what you need to do for me. Because if you don't take care of your, you won't be able to take care of everybody for the sake of all this money you want to make and have rebounded and made. And at the same time, my young daughter, who was 12 at the time, I have three, she came in crying. And I said, what's the matter? And she said one of her best friends had committed suicide at 12. At 12, I couldn't handle it. I was at my beach house, which we recently had purchased. My wife had this dream house in South Mission Beach, San Diego. We had bought it. In this financial recovery, I wanted to provide my wife her dreams with the success that we now in taking stock in my values because she saved my life. I went out on the beach and walked. And I at the time was not particularly religious. In fact, I used to make fun of people that say, God called me. You know, God spoke to me. God. And I'd say, ah, you know, you should really be more okay you have more control. I wasn't quite there yet. And of course, you know, my favorite quote is, you're either humble or you're about to be. Well, I was about to be humbled by the voice of God. And as I was soul searching that God sized hole that I was filling with all the things but God, God came through me and said, you were born son, with a capability of helping people. Your name was purposely given to you by your mother. David, beloved Meltzer servant, it is time for you to serve humanity and to teach them the things that you know how to do well, which is make a lot of money for the sake of others and have a lot of fun. And I was to change the world. And I'm a math guy. So I started figuring, well, how are you going to do this? You know, I'm going to look like a crazy person, an idiot. Here I was losing over 100 million making it back and now I'm telling people I'm going to change the world. I'm going to empower everyone to be happy. I started to do the math and I realized that if I could find a thousand people like Alan, who has his own platform and he knows these values, he said them, gratitude, empathy, accountability, effective communication. If I can enforce these and teach these and mentor and coach these into Alan, he'll be able to do it to his thousand to do it their thousand and a thousand times a thousands. A million and a million times a thousands. A billion and a billion people is a collective consciousness. And one particle of light overcomes a million particles of darkness. All of a sudden it became real that I could change the world because I know in my lifetime I can find a thousand allens and it's happening quickly and people are believing in me and people are doing it and I am gonna figure out how to change the world and figure out what I'm doing to interfere with it. And I want to thank you, Alan, for playing a great part as one of my 1000s by learning the values and the daily practices to empower others. To empower others to be happy.

Yeah. You've done a great job. I feel privileged to be a part of that group.

Thank you.

You've seen thousands of athletes and founders succeed and fail. What patterns separate those who sustain greatness from those who burn out?

Failure. They all fail. We all fail. And it's the relationship they have when there's no evidence or the evidence is contrary to we want to be or better of how we get feedback from that failure. Those who experience success have not only wisdom, the ability through humility to ask for help, to find people that sit in a situation that they want to be in and also help other people get to where they want to be. Always reaching up for help and always one hand behind them to pull the others up with them. But it also takes a thing that I didn't have earlier in my career, which is faith. You need faith in something bigger than you, that loves you, protects you, promotes you and perfects you more than your mom. Because most of the days we fail, we fail and there's no evidence that we're going to get to where we want to be or better or the evidence is contrary that we're going to get to where we want to be better. And they quit. They quit before they get there. And you know, you and I both know quitters don't win and winners don't quit. That's the guarantee. The only difference between a successful person and a failure is someone who quits. That's the only difference. The people that learn to enjoy the consistent every day, persistent, without quick pursuit of their potential, their truth will eventually get there. And things happen very slowly then all of a sudden. So you can't take the evidence that's presented to you today and make that the indicator whether you're going to be there or better. What you do is look at the behaviors you have, non negotiable, negotiable behaviors. And if your behaviors and the meaning you give those behaviors are aligned with where you want to be or better, that's what you need to do. Detaching yourself through wisdom and faith from any outcome that you could perceive to be good or bad. You don't know because the entire human experience is uncertain. It's divided by 24 hours, guaranteed to you of uncertainty. And if you take non negotiable behaviors, you take the uncertainty out of uncertainty and you learn how to prioritize uncertainty or circumstances aligned with your devotion. That's your divine direction. That is your discipline plus faith. See, discipline will get you to do things consistently. But if you don't have faith, you're going to quit and you're going to be burned out. But devotion is the superset of discipline. See, those who have discipline and faith are devoted. They have a desire that they must be what they can be and they're not going to quit. Those that are just disciplined, sooner or later get burned out and quit. They doubt, they have fear, they look for what they don't want, what they don't have, what other people want, whatsoever social media once, and they end up with exactly that and they end up quitting.

Yeah, you said the word alignment, which I really identify with, and frequency, which I also identify with. Those two go hand in hand, don't they?

Absolutely. And utilizing a AAA strategy, getting alignment, taking action, and preparing for adjustment is the way that we elevate our frequency, which elevates our awareness, which makes things easy because we can identify the dis easy. See, I categorize things activities each day into a simple category. One, is this aligned with where I want to be or better, this activity, this behavior, or is it interfering with it? And if it's interfering with it, I want to shorten the distance of resistance between the solution that already exists in pain and struggle and the resolution. So when you have a struggle of pain, the solution's already in it. It's just the lapse of time until you figure it out. That's why we call it a resolution. A resolution. And so my job is to teach you what are you doing to interfere with the resolution so that you can shorten the distance of resistance created by the doubt, fear and anger, frustration, the separateness that's caused by that lapse of time. Because the shorter the distance of resistance, the less likely you are to quit, the more devotional you'll be, with not only discipline, wisdom, but faith.

Wow. Thank you. Many of our listeners are trying to create long term legacy. You know this, I've talked to you about this. Financial, philanthropic, personal. What's one mindset shift that can help people build legacy with intention?

So we've never had a capability like today to build community. And if you're looking to build a legacy, whatever it is, wealth, health, financial, social, whatever legacy you want to leave, it is all about the community and building your own social silo so that the algorithm becomes you and that you are feeding and attracting everyone, regardless of any external circumstances or technologies. And so I encourage people to build a community at their essence, a community of people that have the same frequency, a neighborhood which is based off of that frequency, a frequency of people for me, in my community, I want a bunch of people that want to help each other and know people that will help each other. I want a community of people at a frequency that will buy from each other and sell for each other for life. So in my community, because of the aspect of my essence and my frequency and vibration, to build millions of people which I have, in a community of people like you, that want to help each other and know people that help each other, we all get to Make a lot of money, help a lot of people and have a lot of fun with all of the wealth, all the types of wealth, social wealth, family wealth, health wealth, financial wealth, all encompassed in a community of people simply that want to help each other and know people that help each other.

Beautiful. You know, you're open about the highs and lows of your own journey. What's something challenging you faced that ultimately became a strength?

Humility. You know, I thought it wasn't humble to ask for help. So it was such a weakness to think that I had to do it all by myself, that I had to be responsible for everybody else, that there wasn't something bigger than me that would help me, protect me, promote me. Instead, I felt punished all the time. And so for me, my greatest strength of humility was misunderstood. I thought it was being humble wasn't receiving, wasn't asking for more, wasn't asking for help. And that weakness that cost me everything that I had almost my life this close to my wife is my superpower. Today I walk in humility. I tell myself every day that I'm either humble or I'm about to be and that I am protected and promoted and loved and perfected by something so big, so powerful, omniscient, all knowing, and it loves me more than my mom. And that strength of humility is a power of fuel that I want to transcend me, through me to other people, so that they feel me when I'm on the stages. They feel me when I'm on the videos in TV shows and movies and podcasts. They feel it. They don't even know sometimes what I'm saying. It's so ethereal and complex sometimes. What is Dave Meltzer talking about? These Meltzerism. But they feel it and it inspires them to say, yes, I'm going to do my best. I'm going to learn lessons and have fun.

This is for my audience, because for someone listening who feels stuck professionally, financially, emotionally, what's the simplest daily practice you'd.

Recommend that they start with gratitude, for sure, and feel good about being stuck, by the way, because if I locked you in a room and you weren't trying to get out, you wouldn't feel stuck. The fact that you feel stuck means that you are in the learning zone, you're pushing the anxiety zone, you're getting out of the comfort zone. Being stuck is an indicator that you're almost there. It's not an indicator that you're in the wrong place or wrong place. It's promoting protecting you into a Better place, a better situation. You're putting force where it needs to be placed in order to learn where the ease is, where the key is. So you're trying the windows, you're trying the doors, and eventually you'll find the key and you'll be able to turn the lock and get right out into the next bigger room. And so encourage yourself that I'm stuck. That means I'm doing my best, I'm learning lessons. But be thankful. Don't feel punished, just sit there in gratitude. Thank you. I'm looking for the light, I'm looking for the love and I'm looking for the lesson. And that will bring the key to the door so I don't have to try to go over it, under it, through it, around it, lie to it, manipulate, cheat it, deny it, force it. There's a key. And gratitude will find that key for everyone.

Yeah, for sure. What are you excited about now? Projects, partnerships, areas of impact.

Napoleon Hill Institute. You know, to be able to be a part of the seminal thought leader of the world, to be able to be a part of Think and grow rich outwitting the devil, the laws of success. To teach people the power of intention. As Wayne Dyer later on learned from Bob Proctor, learned from Tony Robbins, learned from Dr. Joe Dispenza. You know, all the sharks, they're all think and grow. It's Ed Mylett. We get all the conversations. We all learn from Napoleon Hill. And if you haven't read Think and Grow Rich out winning the devil, laws of success. I love the audio books. You can read it or listen to it. Please. It'll change your life. Because if you change the way you look at things, which Napoleon Hill will do, the things you look at will change. And in fact, anyone that emails me from your community, I will sign my book, send it to them, pay for shipping, pay for everything, the book and shipping for free. Please email me david meltzer.com so we also can amplify the messages of Napoleon Hill.

That is a very generous offer. I'm sure a lot of my audience will take advantage of that. I've read it a thousand times, so I won't ask you to do that. But hopefully when we see each other at super bowl in a couple in a month or two here, get a chance to give each other a big hug.

For sure.

For anyone wanting to follow your teachings, where can they find you? And plug into your community, there's two.

Simple things to do. One is email me directly. I love getting direct emails. I answer them myself. David meltzer.com ask for help please. David meltzer.com or just put my name in any search chat GPT any search engine. David Meltzer M E L T Z E R like seltzer with an m. And you will find how to find me. And I am here. My name once again, David Meltzer. I am your beloved servant as my mom named me and gave me my purpose and my own process and the pursuit of my potential. Alan, I can't wait to see you at super bowl for the launch of Don't Do Business With Dicks. We'll be at the SiriusXM studio on Radio Row. Reach TV on Radio Row. We have the Players Impact be speaking out with Ray Lewis and Mike Tannenbaum and Marshall Falk. So if you want to join me, please email me so we can get together at super bowl as well.

Yeah, I'll be there. I was there last year at the Players Impact as well, so I saw you there, but I will definitely come and see you there for sure and at Radio Row. David, we've come to the end of the episode. I appreciate you so much, my friend. It's wonderful to see you again. Thank you very much. I know today's conversation will resonate with our listeners who are focused on building legacy through purpose, service and impact. I encourage our audience to learn from David's teachings. I'm Alan Pavlovsky signing off for Legacy All Stars.