Ep 189 | Be Kind to Your Future Self

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick and welcome to the No Days Off podcast where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into it today. I want to tell a story, a story I recently heard, and I think the lesson from this story is actually applicable in all areas of life. And business. This story comes from a gentleman named David Meltzer. David is incredibly well known in the sports world. I think he, he kind of made his big breakthrough, his first big breakthrough in the sports game when he was the CEO of the Lee Steinberg Sports and Entertainment Agency. For those of you that may know already, Lee Steinberg is one of the most famous, if not the most famous, sports agents to ever live. As a matter of fact, Lee Steinberg was the inspiration for the movie Jerry Maguire. So if you remember the whole "show me the money," you know, scene, and, and, and the sports agent, you know, played by, played by Tom Cruise, you know, his reaction to all that, that was based on Lee Steinberg. Well, David Meltzer was the CEO of that company. He, he later went on to co-found his own marketing agency. But no matter how you spin it, David's pretty darn well known in the sports game. And he was doing an interview recently I was listening to, and in the interview he describes one of his very first jobs. He worked as a ball boy for the Clippers in basketball. Now it wasn't the LA Clippers yet, they were the San Diego Clippers. And he was a ball boy, uh, at a Clippers game, one of his first Clippers games. And The Lakers come to San Diego to play the Clippers, which is where they were based at the time. And Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, is just all over David, this young ball boy, for the mistakes he was making or whatever he was doing on the court. He was in the way. He wasn't doing his job. And Kareem basically screamed at him, hollered at him. David goes home after that game and tells his mom, I'm not going back. And she says, yes, you are. Right? But he's like, I just got screamed at by this superstar in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And he, you know, he ruined, you know, ruined the guy, the young guy's experience. Well, David goes back to work the next day, and now the Clippers are playing the Philadelphia 76ers. And Julius Irving, known as Dr. J, is in town, another incredible superstar of that era. David drops, I guess, 6 pairs of socks at Dr. J's locker. And Dr. J later sees these 6 pair of socks and says, I don't need 6 pair of socks. And David said, why? You know, I'm just delivering them. I don't know. And Dr. J says to David, well, how many siblings do you have? And David says, well, I have, I have 5. Dr. J proceeds to sign, autograph each pair of socks, and then grabs a basketball and autographs it and hands it over to David. Guy literally has the opposite experience that he had with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Well, years later, David becomes, you know, quite a player in the sports agency game, and he has the opportunity as a player in the marketing game in sports, to work with a number of different athletes and pay them, you know, in many lucrative ways. Who does David end up working with? I can tell you this, it wasn't Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. As a matter of fact, David tells a story, as he tells the story, he said, I had the chance to sign Kareem multiple times to rather lucrative marketing deals, or to different commercials or whatever it may be. But instead, anytime something came up, I called Dr. J. And David contends that Dr. J made well over $1 million net from David's relationships, from David's connections, by David signing him to these other things. Now, the, the point of the story and how, and how David kind of finishes it, he said the lesson he took from this and what he shares with others is to be kind to your future self. Be kind to your future self. He was referring to Dr. J's behavior. Dr. J was kind to David. He, he was the opposite of Kareem. And years later, now Dr. J had no idea what David Meltzer would, would end up becoming. Years later, when David had the opportunity to repay Dr. J for his kindness, he did. 7 figures plus through different contracts. So David's message again to everybody is be kind to your future self. Recognize that your behavior, your actions, how you treat people today is, is going to show up in some way, shape, or form down the road. Maybe it's 3 years, 5 years, 10 years. Hell, maybe it's 20 years down the road, but never forget that while this world is is rather massive, it's rather small at the same time. We cross paths with people all of the time that we thought we'd never ever see again. How we treated them, how we interacted with them, how we let— how we ended that, you know, last conversation or relationship has a direct bearing or impact when we cross paths with them again. Did we leave the previous relationship at the previous time we saw them on a high note? Were we happy? Were we friends? Even if we were getting out of business together or going different directions, did we end on a high level? If so, when you come across paths down the road, because you will, that always happens, odds are things are going to work out favorably. But if you burn bridges thinking, you know what, I'm never going to have to deal with this guy or girl again, you will. It'll come up. We all know this. Any of us that have been at business or life for any time, We always end up crossing paths with people we thought we'd never see again. So be kind to your future self. Recognize that how you behave today, how you treat people today, how you show up today will be seen or felt by others for years to come. They will— it will have an impact on you down the road. That's all I really have for you today. Just thought it was a great message. Thought I had to share it with you. That's all I have though. The No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.