Empowering Billions with VALUE and GRATITUDE with David Meltzer [Bullpen Sessions Episode 35]

Well, I am very honored to do this interview today. I'm actually humbled that this man agreed to be on the podcast interview today because really, he needs no introduction. David Meltzer, thank you again for taking the time to be here again. This for me, as somebody who quite frankly is early on in his podcast career, podcasting career, it is an honor to have you on. So welcome aboard.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Andy. I'm looking forward to it and whatever I can do to be of service, you know, that's why I'm here.

Awesome. Well, I just want to start by saying you've been an inspiration to me. I saw you, met you about a year ago. You were on stage, we shared the stage in San Diego. And just your whole message, your whole story of where you've been, what you've lost and what you've regained in that process. And that's really where I want to go with this conversation today. So many people know you today as the co founder of Sports1 Marketing with your partner, Warren Moon. You're the author of four best selling books, We've got Game Time, Decision Making, Connected to Goodness, which I've got my copy here. Compassionate Capitalism and Be Unstoppable.

Take us back to David Meltzer. Maybe 20 years ago.

You quickly found yourself amassing wealth early on in your business career, but I would say that you went at it with a different approach than you do today. So if you don't mind, maybe dive into that a little bit for us.

Yeah, I think, understanding. Twenty years ago, I was 32 years old, CEO of the world's first smartphone company, a Windows CE device, a multimillionaire living in Rancho Santa Fe. I always say that I was living in a world of just enough. I was a multimillionaire, but I came from a world of not enough. I was born with six kids, a single mom who worked two jobs and packed my dinner in a paper bag and filled turnstiles at the convenience store to fill greeting cards up. And I just wanted to be rich, buy my mom a house and a car, which I was rich nine months out of law school and I bought my mom a house and a car. And what that did was reinforce what I believed to be true, which was money buys happiness and money buys love. And everything I did from going to the Silicon Valley, Valley, work. My company exited for 3.4 billion in 1995. And all the things that I had, what happened was I evolved from not enough into just enough where I could buy whatever I wanted. Unfortunately, I was buying a Lot of things I didn't need, I was buying to impress people I didn't even like. I called it the world of just enough. There was just enough for me. Even the benevolent, philanthropic, humanitarian side of me was I was a negotiator and I was a trader. Meaning I would donate lots of money to people to get recognition, to get acknowledgement, to be well known more than my siblings. I'd give down payments to houses, to my siblings so that they would be indebted to me or respect me more. Everything was a negotiation or a trade, all revolving around my relationship with money. And it was interesting because you talked about losing and gaining, and you know how I lost, and I ended up losing everything, but I gained everything before I lost everything monetarily. And when I say that, it really started about 22 years ago, when I was 30 years old, I married my dream girl. And it was my dream girl. I was not her dream guy.

I say that because in the fourth grade, I would just. She was the first girl when I moved from Akron, Ohio, to San Diego. She skateboarded by my house, and I immediately had this tingling feeling. I was like, whoa, who's this? And at sixth grade camp, I actually had my best friend ask her to go steady with me. And in front of everyone, she said, no, tell him to ask me himself. And so I threw an egg at her. A week later in the neighborhood, I actually hit her in the back of the head. And so she kind of stayed away from me for a long time. But at 30, I married that girl. And once again, in my mind, that reinforced money buys love and happiness, right? I was even able to attract, or at least money would be one of the attractions to have her marry me. But at 30 years old, I got a present from my dad. And it was the first. When you talk about gaining and losing, it was the first time. My dad had left when I was five years old. And when he left, he was my hero because he had money. He had beautiful wife, new wife that was closer to my age than his. He drove a convertible Cadillac. He raced horses, trained them on them, raced them, and harnessed horses. But at 10 years old, my dad forgot my birthday. And that's where we separated emotionally. He went from hero to zero because not only did he forget my birthday, but he lied about it. He said, I didn't forget your birthday. He goes, I don't believe in birthdays. Meanwhile, he's celebrating his own birthday, his wife's birthday, my sibling's birthday. And I was crushed. At 10 years old at 30. I'm now living in Rancho Santa Fe. I'm running this big phone division. I have multi millions of dollars, many properties and investments. And I get a birthday present for the first time in 20 years from my father. A big box came and I was so excited because it said my dad's name on the box. I open it and it's a sport coat. And I put it on and I start to cry. And my wife said, what's the matter? I said, oh my God, it fits perfectly. That means he cared enough to ask somebody, you know, what my sizes were, you know. And she said, whoa. And I opened it up to see what brand it was or if it was the especially made for David Meltzer's birthday tag inside. And he had torn out all the lining, he had torn out all the pockets. I got so upset, I was enraged with ego. I called my dad. I'm like, dad. He goes, did you get my present? I was like, I got your present. There's no present. You're punishing me. Why are you punishing me? He said, I'm not punishing you. He goes, I got you that jacket. He goes, I got that jacket for you to be buried in. I'm like, what? He goes, yeah. He goes, I want you to hang it in your closet and remind you every day that you're just like me. I'm like, dad, I'm nothing like you. You're a liar, a cheater, a manipulator, a back end seller. I'm nothing like you. He said, david, he goes, it is a reminder that you can't be buried with anything when you're gone. I don't want you to be the richest man in the cemetery. I don't want you to be like me. I want you to learn from me. Money doesn't buy love and happiness. I want that to be a reminder every day, this is the best gift I've ever given. And I said, f you and hung up. I was so upset, I wasn't ready to hear what he was telling. But I always tell people that was truly the first gift that I had gotten. When you talk about gain, because I talk about planting seeds under trees you'll never sit under. My dad planted a big seed that day. It was a big seed. It was at the back of my mind, why was I so upset about that, right? And I was 30 years old, multimillionaire, not ready to hear it. In 2006, many years later, my best friend, the guy who asked my wife to go steady, now at this time I'm running Lee Steinberg Sports and the Notable Sports Agency. They made the movie Jerry Maguire about our firm. Pretty big. And I am now really rolling, right? I own a golf course, a ski mountain. I have properties all over, stocks, all types of different things. Still married to my wife, but now I have three daughters under the age of seven. And I go golfing with my best friend Rob, who asked my wife to go study at sixth grade camp. And I asked him. I'm like, dude, you should come to the Masters with me. I get to go to the Masters with the. We get to go in the back with the cabins. Curtis Strange is back there, you know, Shannon Sharpe's with us, all these great players, and Warren will be with us. And we go to the Net jets party. And he looks at me and he goes, I ain't going. I said, what? Why don't you ever hang out with me? He goes, because I don't like who you hang out with, and I don't like what you guys do. And I looked at him, I said, man, come on. I'm not doing what those guys are doing. Just come with me. And he looked me straight in the eyes, right through the soul, man. I still get choked up because Big Robbie looked at me and goes, man. He goes, dave. He goes, you can lie to me, but don't lie to yourself. He goes, I'm worried about you, man. I said, oh, come on, Robin. I played the round all in my own head. And I got in the car and I just started crying, right, because he watered that seed that my dad planted years ago. And two weeks later, my life was going to change. It's when I got the greatest gift of all. I came home, I went to the Grammy Awards. I lied to my wife. We had, as I said, three daughters. She wanted me to stay home. I'd been partying too much, she said. So I lied to her and said, I had a business meeting. I changed clothes in the car, went to the Grammy Awards, partied my butt off a little. John the Rapper came home completely wasted at 5:30 in the morning. And there was my wife waiting for me. And I walked up and I clearly remember her looking at me so mad. And she looked at me and she said, I'm not happy. Think I'm gonna leave. I'm like, what? I'm gonna take your children. I'm gonna leave. I'm not happy at all. You need to take stock in who you are and what you want to become, because I can't live this way anymore. And I gotta tell you, I got pissed. I laid into her. I was like, what are you talking about? Look around you. Who do you think you're talking to? You never work. Are you kidding me? I was, you're. You're offensive to me. I resent you. Can you. I was like, there's a nanny right over there. You've never even worked. I was just going off. I go to bed, steamy, hot, wake up in the morning, and I was even madder. I just remember thinking to myself, all right, I'm going to show her. Since money buys love and happiness, I'm going to take her love and happiness. I'm going to take everything that I have bought. All the houses, the motorhome, the boats, everything. I'm going to get the best lawyer I can find and I'm going to show her and she'll be grateful for me. And, man, that's where my life changed. Because I looked over so pissed and I still remember that jacket. I still. I can't even tell the story. You've probably heard it 10 times. I get choked up. I looked in my closet. I'm like, oh, man, I'm just like my dad. Every single thing I hated my father for. I was a liar, I was a cheater, I was a manipulator, a back end seller, an overseller. I had lost all my values and that jacket saved my life. My father, my wife, my best friend. Rob saved my life. Because at that time, that's where I got the greatest gift that we're talking about. Because I took stock in my own values, my gratitude that gave me perspective, made everything. I was always a kid. I found the light, the love and the lessons and everything I was.

There's only one person I ever met, there's more of an optimist than me, that had as little as I had. And that was my grandfather. I called him Papa. I always called him the poptimist. He called me the toptimist. He was the top of the toptimist. And I had lost that. I'd lost the ability to find the light, the love and the lessons and everything. I'd stopped growing and accelerating. I'd lost the desire that I must be what I can be. The thing that, with no talent at all, led me to be an average Division 3 football player in college, right? That took a lot of desire.

Result, which makes it even more of a desire to do what I did. And then forgiveness, you know, I'd lost all my forgiveness. And then accountability. I was living in blame, shame and Justification all the time. I never looked at what did I do to attract this to myself or what am I supposed to learn from it? I wasn't inspired anymore. I was motivated. I separate motivation, conversion and inspiration. I was motivated. I could get up, get back up, get started, get back started. I could fire people up, but I could never convert that into inspiration. I had corroded and interfered with this great source of light, this love and lessons that I had always been born with, this quantum nature of a genetic gene of happiness. And so I put forth and set on a course to empower people, including myself, with gratitude, forgiveness, accountability, and inspiration, and set forth.

A mission. Initially was, you know, my mission was always to make a lot of money so I could give the money to receive more money. Now it was a mission. I was going to receive everything, an abundant world of everything through me. And I moved from the world of not enough to a world of just enough. Now I was going to live in the world of more than enough. I was going to show people that it's okay to receive as long as it came through you with appreciation, meaning you add your value to it with gratitude and give it away. So I've given my life away. My mission is to empower over a billion people to be happy. Like you said, I'm not afraid to make money. But my purpose of making money has nothing to do with buying things. I need to impress, don't need that, impress people that I don't like. It's all about, how can I empower others and change other people's lives and give my life away? And I've been doing that for 14 years. The irony of the story is most people will say, dave, tell that story how you lost everything, got everything. Well, the irony is I'm one of the few people you will ever meet who bottomed out two years before they lost everything. And when I say I lost everything, I lost over $100 million of assets, went bankrupt, literally, living in a rented house, rented furniture, one car from everything. And I never was more happy in my life.

There's a story in there I want you to share. Before I go there, I want to ask you a quick question, because what stuck with me when you were talking about the story of your dad and getting the present is you saying, your dad, I'm nothing like you. The David we know now, 2020 version of David Meltzer. If you had a chance right now to sit side by side with 2006 David Meltzer, what would you say?

Oh, man, same thing I'd Say today, you got to be radically humble, man. You gotta ask for help. You can't do this by yourself. Yeah, right. You can't do this by yourself, man. You're suffering. You gotta ask for help. I know you help a lot of people. I know you're all about providing value, and I was. And about helping. But, man, you've gotta ask for help. You are blocking the flow. You've got to be radically humble. You have to tell people. I don't know what I don't know. You're not Midas. Everything that you touch doesn't turn. You are in the wrong direction. And. And I would have written all over his computer, his clothes, his nightstand. Radical humility as a reminder.

That's awesome.

Got to ask for help.

That's awesome. So you talk about now you're making your comeback, and there's a story I want you to share because I've heard you say it a couple times, and it's absolutely inspiring. When you hit rock bottom and you started working your way back out, you did something with your first paycheck that you got that it was a moment in time when your wife finally looked at you. And I want you to share this because I think it's such an inspiring story. If you mind go into that a little bit.

Yeah. So it was a rough time of learning, you know, like, I believe pain is an indicator, right? Pain is an indicator. You have lessons learned, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and financial. And I had the triple crown or the grand slam of it all. They all came together and I did. And so, you know, my wife and my mom especially, and my friend Rob, those three nice people, they were always the ones who only that told me the truth. Everyone else was afraid to tell me the truth because if they told me the truth, maybe I wouldn't buy them things or I wouldn't take them on the private. Right. That's just the truth. And everybody was sucking up to me, and they told me throughout all the years, you're lost, you're lost. You don't get it. And I, especially my mom and my wife, I'm like, I don't get it. I make more in one day than you make in a year. Who do you think? Like, literally, this is the shit that went through my ego mind. So anyway, so now I'm living a life of radical humility. I'm on what I call the enjoyment of the consistent, persistent pursuit of my potential whole. I'm going to receive so I can give. And I get my first paycheck. Lee doesn't fire me, which I thought he would, because meanwhile, you're supposed to, like, teach the athletes not to lose all their money. And I'm the CEO of the most notable sports agency. Lost all my money. And then, worse, I lost my mom's house, right? I had to go tell her that I lost her house because I forgot to take it out of my name. But anyway, so now I'm living, literally in a rented house, rented furniture. I have one car. I had more cars than. I couldn't tell you which cars were all mine. That's how many cars. Idiot cars I had, right? This is the kind of thing that I live. And so I. I bring the check home, and I looked at my wife and I said, hey, I got an idea. And she said, what? I said, I'm so blessed. Like, most people that lose everything, don't have a source of income. I still have a good job. I still have relationships. I'm way ahead of the game compared to most people, as much as people are like, oh, my God, he lost everything. Look, I had a law degree. I worked around the biggest names in everything. I knew how to make money. I. I made a million dollars nine months out of law school knowing nothing in debt. How was I not going to make millions back? That was not a concern. And I want to set that up because people wonder why I did this. I took my check and I said, hey, I'd like to write from this check. I'd like to give it. My wife and I went to high school together. I told you. Elementary, junior high, and high school. Well, I said, I'd like to write a check to our high school to give a kid a scholarship to college. Because I could have never gone to college but for scholarship money, my siblings who went to the Ivy Leagues could have never went without scholarship. Can I do this? And she looked at it, looked at me, and she started to cry. So what's the matter? Don't be afraid. One thing in my life I've never had. I got a quantum nature to make money. Don't worry, it'll be fine. She goes, no, you finally get it. I was like, yeah, I get it. I said, I finally trust the universe. And she goes, you have faith? Oh, my gosh. She goes, you have faith? I go, yeah, I have faith. She said, then double it. And I looked at her, I'm not lying. And I said, don't have that much faith. I don't trust the universe that much. And I think that's, you know, as funny as it is and it breaks up that unbelievable moment. I think that's a really critical part of the story that a lot of people may miss. Because I still live in a blend of the pragmatic world and the faith world. I literally extract time sometimes to analyze the situation and say, if time was infinity, would I make this decision the way I'm making it? And a lot of times I don't make a fully fit. Still today I have a blend, right? I still worry about my kids going to college or weddings or graduate schools or savings and all these. I don't walk the streets like Mother Teresa, giving away everything I have in Calcutta. I don't live in a Buddhist monastery praying all day. I am a bad, a capitalist. But I have a mission. I have a mission. I'm going to receive as much as I can, including money. But I will give it away. I have no problem giving it away. But I believe that if we're more realistic about the blend of pragmatic world and the faithful world, that we can, yeah, we can give scholarships, but maybe not double it. Here's the irony of my life, true story. Every time I'm able to live in the light, meaning every time I'm able to make a fully faithful decision.

It'S.

Just a matter of time until it's the best decision of my life. Whenever I blend it, it takes away. And even though I know that in my conscious mind, every time I make the faithful decision, I still don't have the patience, awareness to allow myself to make faithful decisions all the time. Because I'm too impatient, I'm too insecure. I still have ego based emotions that create fear, void, shortages, obstacles, resistance. Even though I know and I've touched it, man, I've touched the light. I have made fully faithful decisions. And yes, it maybe took a year, three years, four years or some 10 years, every time I do it, the results are astronomical. But I still don't have faith. Because faith takes two things. One, you need to allow and believe that you're growing and accelerating in the increments that you can't perceive. And two, you have to have patience, true patience. And you know, I fight it every day like everybody else, but I try and I do. I coach so many people on this and I try myself to coach myself and practice it. But if we can really move in that sphere, that spectrum of faith and pragmatic blend I'm promising you, all of us can live in the world of more than enough.

Well, and I live by, I live my life right now by three Words, consistency, persistency and patience. And you just have to show up every day and have that patience with yourself that good things will happen if you just keep doing the right things. We have a few minutes left, David, because I know you're extremely busy, I want to finish with this. There is another story if you don't mind sharing, because I am going to wrap it into a two part question. You had an interesting flight to India that literally changed your life. And because one thing I think, if I know about you, you're a big believer in both manifestation and gratitude. And I think for a lot of people right now, especially you and I are talking on June 23, 2020, people are in a bad place, right? We just had what, 12, 13 years of complete economic boom. And for a lot of people now they are in a different place. Tell us about that flight and then how people can use manifestation and gratitude to help them today.

Absolutely. So I was flying, you know, in my ego based consciousness. I was working, you know, right. Right before I was working with Lee, because I used this to, I think, meet Lee. But I was in a. In a world of my own, right? Like, and I'm flying in this little doctor sitting next to me and she's wonderful. And she looks at me and she says, are you okay? And in my mind I'm like, am I okay? Do you know who the f I am? Of course I'm okay. I'm freaking rich. Of course I'm okay. This is what went through online. I'm fine. She goes, oh. She goes, you know, you're so full of light. And I'm like, well, thank you. She said, but you're blocking it. And I'm looking at her going, all right. And like, we're going to India from la. I'm like, this is a long flight. And so I'm looking at her, okay. And she goes, do you meditate? Now? I wish I had a phone recorder at this time because I will try to tell you exactly what I said, but I swear it's something like this. I said, do I meditate? I don't have time to meditate. Why would I meditate? Only broke, poor. Only broke, poor, high people who sit on their mom's couch meditate. I don't have time to meditate. I grew up with nothing. I'm a multimillionaire. What the hell would I meditate for? I would be wasting my time. I could make money with that time. And she said, oh, that's too bad. I could teach you to vibrate faster. I'M like, what the hell is she talking about? I was like, okay. And she goes, well, you believe in frequency and vibration, don't you? I said, yes, I believe in it. What's there to believe in? She said, no, no. Everything vibrates. The earth vibrates the slowest. Then plants, then animals, then human, then sound, then light, and then thought. She said, in fact, Dave, do you know what vibrates the fastest? And I mocked her. I'm like, no. And she said, the truth. Truth vibrates the fastest. Right? Exactly. Drop the mother mic. And I'm like, whoa. And she said, and you can only be aware of that which vibrates equal to or less than you. I want to teach you to meditate, to raise your vibration so you can be aware of more truths. Does that sound like something you'd like to learn? And I said, I don't have time. And she said, oh, that's too bad. She said, I could teach you when to buy or sell. I said, oh, that's worth my time. She suckered me in to literally theta meditation and vibration. And what happened is. And this deals with what you're talking about. Your three things, consistent, persistent patience. Here's the anomaly of the faith pragmatic blend. Here's the focus you should have of manifestation and gratitude. Why this all works together. There's a lily pond and a lily, right? The little green circles that sit on top of a pond, they double in size every single day. The size of the pond is literally to the point where after one month, it'll be covered. There's one lily after the month. Now, when you ask people or sangeeta sahi, that guru of mine would have said, david, I'm going to teach you to meditate. I'm going to teach you gratitude. I'm going to teach you to manifest, to take the possibility of what you think of, turn it into a probability with inspiration to clear the interference and corrosion between you and what you're already connected to, and then teach you the pragmatic way to materialize that with strategy, discipline, with which is the consistent, persistent part of that faith that you're talking about. I could ask most people and say, how many days would it take to cover the pond? If it's covered in 30 days, 99% of the people will tell you 15 days. But that's not true. The reason you need consistent, persistent impatience is that your life is like a lily. Your lessons are like a lily. Your progress is like the Lily. Because after 28 days, the pond is only a quarter full. After 28 days in whatever segmentation you want to. In 28 out of 30 segments, you are only 25% of the way there. That is if you are consistent, persistent and patient. If you are not, you will never get to the quarter. 99% of the people quit. Here is the thing. In day 29, you're still only 50% of the way there, right? It's only 50% of the way there. But day 30 comes, you're all the way there. The lily pond analogy is why I meditate. It's why I tell people not only to be consistent, persistent and patient in the pursuit of your potential, but to enjoy it. Enjoy day one, even though you don't even see anything. Enjoy day two. Enjoy day three, four, five. It's really hard to enjoy day 25, right? Because you see no progress. Our senses are stupid, our memories, even worse. We sit there and go, I've worked all. I've worked 25 out of 25 30th of my life, and I'm not even a quarter of the way there. I quit. But not the people like you and I. Not the people that have consistent, persistent patience that enjoy that consistent, persistent pursuit of your potential. The lily pond not only fills in day 30, but day 31, you need two lily ponds. And day 32, you need four lily ponds. And day 33, you need eight lily ponds. And yet the 99% don't ever see it because they quit. Day 10, day 11, day 12, day 22. And the worst. Some people quit day 27.5% of the way there's. And they don't even know how close they are. There's millions of books, millions of poems, millions of stories that are about the lily pond. But that's where gratitude and manifestation play a role. To make your possibilities, your probabilities, and then utilize the enjoyment of the consistent, persistent pursuit of your potential with strategy, discipline and awareness to materialize everything you dream of. Well, I remember one of the great guys, right? He says, van Gogh, I dream. He goes, I imagine what I'm going to paint. And then I paint what I have imagined. You can't do that unless you have patience, persistence and consistency.

Well, David, man, I have fully enjoyed this conversation. Again, I'm honored. Last question that we'll wrap this up. Somebody's out there listening. And right now. And again, let's face it, it's not the greatest of times. For some people, they're at a low point. They've lost their job, maybe they've lost their house, maybe are having marital issues, whatever it might be, what piece of advice would you give that person?

Right, Go do something for someone else. Personally, I do free trainings every Friday, and half of them is about trying to shift the paradigm and perspective of people to make room in your life for what you want by being of service and of value to others and then asking for what you want. If you don't know how to ask what for you want, write this sentence down. Do you know anyone that can help me? Do you know anyone that can help me? Radical humility in a box. Do you know anyone that could help me? I do trainings every single Friday for free for everyone to empower others. To empower others to be happy. You know, Andy, please invite everybody to come.

I was just gonna say, what's the. What's the easiest way for somebody to jump on one of those trainings?

Two ways. I do all my emails, so davidmeltzer.com or text me 9492-9829-0594-9298-2905 or davidmeltzer.com get you registered for free every Friday. Once you register, you're in for every Friday. And we're doing this one. This week's on toughness and telephone. So little faith and pragmatism.

I know I need to get my butt over there because my Fridays are education days, so I'm going to definitely be joining that next one. If you're listening in right now, do yourself a favor. If you need a punch of inspiration, please start following this man if you're not already, whether it's his playbook podcast, go out and get his books. I've got Connected to goodness here. He's got so many good books right now. He's got game time, decision making, compassionate capitalism, be unstoppable. David, one last time. I just want to thank you for being on. And again, if you're out there listening in, last thing I want to leave with you. Remember, where confidence and clarity collide, action happens. Go make it happen today. Take care.