Episode 066: David Meltzer - Author, Speaker, Humanitarian & Entrepreneur

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What's going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome to the Rise of the Young podcast. This is episode 66 and it's such a pleasure of mine to have David Meltzer on the show today. And I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show, David.

No, I've been looking forward to it. Thank you so much for having me.

Absolutely. So I know, that being said, I know everyone listening. David, he is the CEO of Sports One Marketing and I know a lot of people listening, either they follow you, they may have seen you on social media, seen a lot of your content, but just before we get into it, I'd love to kind of just catch people up to speed, kind of give people a brief background about what you're currently up to, just so they can kind of catch up to speed with everything you got going on.

Yeah, you know, I moved from being the CEO of the most notable sports agency to CEO of a sports marketing company and media company with hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon about eight years ago. And we really focus in on our media company short form content for different corporations, different entities, legacies, charities, et cetera. Everything we do is to make a lot of money so we can help a lot of people and have a lot of fun. So we don't participate or work in anything that doesn't have a charitable purpose or a cost to it. Combined with the media company in short form. And I'm executive producer and judge on the top digital business show called Elevator Pitch with Entrepreneur magazine. And I also have a top five podcast of my own called the Playbook, where I sit down with the who's who of entertainment and business to talk about their playbooks to success. We also deal with the Pro Football hall of Fame, the Rose Bowl, Super Bowl, Masters, Kentucky Derby, Breeders Cup, ESPYs, Emmys, Oscars, Grammys, to film festivals like Sundance, Tribeca, can, and then finally we do 5,700 or so charitable golf tournaments, galas, things like that. So that's nutshell, what we're doing.

Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing, David. And that being said, I know I already said, but definitely it's a pleasure to take some time out of your day to be on this show. And I know before we started off, I kind of gave you a brief insight about just this. This podcast is for young entrepreneurs by a young entrepreneur, myself, 17 years old. And just before we kind of get into the backstory, I like to kind of just start off to ask you, like, when you were 17, 18, what was your life looking like? Where were you from? What were you doing? Just so people can kind of get a context about where you were?

Yeah. So When I was 17, 18, I was living in San Diego, although I was born in Akron, Ohio, in the same hospitals, LeBron James and Steph Curry.

Okay.

But I moved to San Diego when I was nine. I played mainly football and baseball, although I picked up pole vaulting as an accident, but mostly football and baseball. I wanted to be rich by being a professional football player, although I was touted as a baseball player with scholarship offers and ended up getting a scholarship to college and playing football. I was on the Associated Student Body. I was a Junior Achievement kid. For those of you that don't know, that's an entrepreneurial program for high school kids called Junior Achievement. And then I also beyond sports. Nat had six kids in my family and a single mom, so we didn't have very much money at all. I grew up with pretty much nothing except for a very strong mom who empowered me with a ton of great values in order to effectuate my life. But really pursuing going to college so that I could be a professional football player was my main focus.

Yeah. Wow. So you said with professional football, though, you said baseball, football, which one was like, the one you pursued? You said baseball.

I should have. But no, I pursued football my whole career. There's just been a love affair between football and I, including My business partner, hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon, and the sports agency I ran, Lee Steinberg, we had the largest football practice in the world with eight first pound picks and the who's who, from Steve Young, Detroit, Aikman to Warren Moon to Ricky Williams. You name it, we had it. Yeah, but. Yeah, for some reason, but I was a better looking back as a pragmatic 50 year old, as a better base, I was a better baseball player.

Okay, for sure. That's super cool. So with football, is that sort of just something in sports you kind of grew up with and kind of just felt a passion for ever since you were young?

You know, what happened was my family was extremely academic and intellectual. And so I think I chose football or chose me because that really allowed me in a very dynamic family of academics, to not only just be able to play sports, but to play the most brutal of all sports. I think the only thing I could have done to surprise him more was be a boxer. Yeah, but you know, to weigh 147 pounds, it was really the only thing that my mom didn't tell me I could do. You know, if I told my mom I was gonna be president of the United States, she would have been and still would have said, and I think did to me, oh, of course you can be president of the United States. You can be a billionaire, a great businessman, a lawyer, a doctor, a politician, whatever you wanna be. But when I said I want to be a professional football player, it was literally the only negative thing. My mom, she wouldn't let me play. And then I had to fight her. And then she was like, you'll never ever be a professional football player. And I think that's why what you resist persists. Because I wanted to prove to everyone from the time I started playing that I could play.

Yeah, for sure. That's funny that you bring that up because even for me, I was playing football back freshman, sophomore year of high school, and then I had a really bad neck injury that kind of put me in a neck brace for like 20 weeks. And kind of, that was my turning point, I'd say. And I was talking to Andy, Priscilla about this too. Just like injuries and just a massive setback. So that, that was kind of my run with football. Freaking big L on the injury. But I wanted to bring up just a question regarding that is when it comes to just obviously playing football and now like owning a sports marketing agency and obviously you've done multiple things in between that when was kind of the jump between like playing football to like being in the marketing field of sports and all that sort of stuff that you're doing now.

That's a great question. So my freshman year in college, the first game I ever played in, I was a bullet on the kickoff team. That's the guy that's supposed to run down and tackle the kick returner. I also return kicks myself. But my very first game, we kicked off to a guy named Christian Okoye, who ended up the next year being the NFL player of the year.

Wow.

His nickname was the Nigerian nightmare. He ran a 4 6, weighed about 260. And that very first play, when he ran me over, I realized that there was a different game that professional football players were playing over college football. And that 5 7, £147, I wasn't sure. And so I started a pursuit of other things, because my main goal in life was really to be rich. I just wanted to buy my mom a house and a car. I didn't want to be rich for myself. I just wanted to help my mom.

Yeah. Wow. Dude, I'm on the total same page as you. So after that, was it like that you ran down the field, got hit by him, and it kind of just changed your mindset in a sense?

Yeah, I literally, from there, it started to be an experience. And playing football in college, it wasn't. You know, I love to win. I was still competitive. I wanted to be the best that I could be. But it was the first time in my life that freshman year that, hey, man, I better work my butt off in the classroom and give myself options and opportunities.

Yeah, definitely. I totally feel you on that. But when it comes to just. I know, just the marketing aspect, and now you've been able to sit down with just amazing people, what would you say? It was just like the pivoting point from, like saying, all right, I have options to really pursuing sports marketing and really dominating it in the way that you have now.

One of the things that I did is I focused on my skills, and I did that, you know, to be a professional football player. I looked at three things. One, how can I improve my skills? Two, how can I get the knowledge? I knew that my brain was one of my biggest assets, especially compared to most football players, so that if I could attain the knowledge, be a student of the game, be more interested than interesting, I could give myself a leg up or an advantage in the career that I had. And then finally, how do I stay inspired? Right. So it's an integration of skills, knowledge, and desire. But what I found that made me different than most people is that a lot of people get excited or inspired at the beginning starting a business or at the end when they're exiting a business or doing well. But the real successful people enjoy the consistent, everyday, persistent, without quit pursuit of their potential. They enjoy every day being inspired and they use that as a checkpoint. And so what I did to get involved in sports was, you know, I didn't start in sports. I graduated law school, actually.

Okay.

And I had a choice to be a oil and gas litigator or to work in the Internet. And so I asked my mom what I like to do. And this is really good advice. I know we have a younger audience here. You know, I asked my mom, should I be a lawyer or should I work in the Internet? Not as a lawyer, but as a salesperson selling legal research online. And without blinking, my mom told me for sure I should be a lawyer. She actually said, you should be a real lawyer and litigate. And she said, definitely do not work in the Internet because the Internet's going to be a fad. It wasn't going to last and I'd end up broke. Very valuable lesson here though for young people is just because somebody loves you doesn't mean they give you good advice. You have to seek counsel with people that have situational knowledge or experience in what you're asking about. So, you know, talking to people that were in legal publishing, talking to people that were involved in the Internet, I sought other advice than my mom. And what would have happened if I didn't take that Internet job which made me a millionaire in nine months?

Wow.

I would have resent. I would have resented my mom and the most close gear held relationship in my life. I would end up resenting her. And it would been accountable. I would have been accountable because I'm asking the wrong person for advice about what does a second grade teacher know about the Internet? In 19, you know, the early 1900s, 1992, what did my mom know about the Internet? There wasn't even laptops. So I encourage a lot of young people to seek not only advice or mentorship, but especially mentorship of people who sit in the position that you want to be in or have the expertise, the skills that you want, the knowledge that you want, or just seek the counsel. Someone that's going to keep you inspired. You know, just like a good coach said, yeah, absolutely.

That's a crazy story. So you said this was what year exactly? Because for everyone listening, 92. 92. And that was kind of like the. Do I go Internet way or like you heard your mom said the real way. That was like, you had to choose in that sense.

Yeah.

Okay. It's super interesting to me because, like, obviously, like, I'm 17, so when you say 1990s, it's like, I wasn't even here. I was. I was born in 2000, you know, so just like, I think I wanted to touch on that just. Just regarding Internet social media. And I know, like, everything with personal branding and everything that's happening today, obviously it's not a fad. I've kind of grown up in this social media era, and it'll definitely keep increasing and growing bigger. But when you say, like, you brought up Millionaire in nine months, was it just direct sales or what exactly were you doing during those Internet selling days? In a sense, yeah.

So what I did was I put my whole heart and soul to selling legal research. And so one of the advantages that I had is they hired four young people. They wanted to hire four people with four years of litigation experience because they felt that if you were already a lawyer for four years and litigating, that not only would you have the knowledge on how to do legal research better, but you were a good salesperson. I convinced them I was the only one right out of law school that they hired, and I convinced them that I could sell. In fact, the way I convinced him is I showed a picture to the executive vice president. Back then, there was no cell phones, so there was no pictures on your phone. You carried paper pictures of your girlfriend with you in your wallet. So I showed him. He asked to see my girlfriend, and he looked at her, and he looked at me, and he goes, you know What? You're hired. 2,500 applicants. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm hired? He goes, if an ugly guy like you can get a girl like this, you must be able to sell. And so that's why I ended up with first. In all seriousness, though, too, talking about developing skills. One of the reasons they were interested in interviewing me because I didn't have four years of litigation experience, is I was more interested than interesting. I went the extra mile when I was in law school because I needed money. I Woke up at 4am and I sold tennis shoes. Incoming phone call, incoming sales for Roadrunner Sports in San Diego from 4am to 9am for five hours. I actually ended up making more money selling shoes than I did working in a law firm from 9am to 6pm wow. But it really. It made myself equal. That made myself different. So out of the 2,500 resumes. The reason they interviewed me was, one, I had a reference from one of their biggest lawyers that work there. But two, they still had a pile of resumes from those that came highly recommended. And I had this weird thing on there about, oh, my God, this guy sold shoes at 4 in the morning. This guy must be a salesman, right?

Yeah.

And so it's all those little things. And the same thing held true of how I got into sports. It wasn't that, you know, some obvious way. I've always just been able to put myself in the position to be successful, elevate my awareness and take advantage of opportunities by putting myself out there and, you know, putting the action with my ideas.

Wow, that's. That's insane. So you were 4am to 9. That was the morning grind. And then you were doing your other things on the side, which kind of just built up over time, in a sense. Yeah.

And. Well, no, the legal job was before the Internet, so on the Internet. Let me get back to that. How I became successful is all the other guys were married with kids. They were over 50. And I started realizing that they spent about two hours a day actually working, and they were making, you know, two, 300 grand. And I said to myself, what if I maximize this opportunity, right? I don't have a family, you know, I'm 20. I'm just out of law school. I'm 24 years old. I got nothing and nobody. The expense account, like, even the expense account, they gave me a per diem, which is money per day, to eat, because I was on the road selling. So they gave me $25 a day. What I did is I took that $25 a day to save, and I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and take on the road with me, and I ate those. I was making huge checks every month, and. And every penny was being piled away to buy my mom a house, buy my mom a car, and pay off my law loans. And so in that nine months, you know, I used to joke around, I really wasn't a better salesman. It was just that I was working 7. 7 jobs compared to the 2 hours of productivity that everyone else was getting and making their 250, I was putting in, you know, 14 hours of productivity, and they were only putting in two. And that's because I was efficient, effective, and statistically successful with my time and my money. And then I made a couple real estate investments with my money that escalated and accelerated the amount of money I made within that nine months. Because I knew at that Time in the market when we were in a recession and I knew the market was at its dead bottom, so I built a home and I bought into another real estate investment that did really well in a very short amount of time.

Wow. So that was what you said, like 20, 23 fresh. Just like crushing it that time, right?

Yeah.

Okay. Because I think that's super cool. I like how you brought up the point of just maximizing just everything, you know, because I think a lot of young people, especially myself, it's like, you don't like. For me, it's like about to graduate high school next week, but it's like, you don't really have any prior obligations unless you have a kid or whatever that may be, and you're young. But just like you said, it's like you're maximizing your time because you have the opportunity to, in a sense.

Correct? Yeah. So everyone has advantages. And we want to look at what our capabilities are, the reasons we do it, the impact it has, and the capabilities we have, want, or need. And so many young people think they're a disadvantage when there's so many advantages that they're at and they have. And so what I did was try to maximize the advantages that I had instead of dwelling on the disadvantage of lack of experience, lack of wealth, all the things that the other young people around me were focused in on. Well, how am I ever going to do this? I saw it as, oh, yeah, I'm going to show you what I'm going to do, because I have nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, it's a huge benefit. And believe it or not, as you know or may not know, you know, I became a multimillionaire and ran Samsung's first smartphone division called the PC Phone. And as a multimillionaire, I lost everything. And instead of taking a negative perspective of that, I immediately said, okay, what's my advantage of having nothing? I got nothing to lose. Wow. And my uncle, my wife's uncle actually said, everything has gone that kid's way since I've known him, since he's been 10 years old. I can't wait to see what happens. With his back against the wall and he has nothing to lose. And that's when you know the true tiger in me, the true inspiration, best thing that ever happened in my life was losing everything.

So you went through this phase of just crushing it, killing it, making a lot of money, and then it just collapsed. What's. Because I'm kind of good things when it comes to just like chapters in life, right? You're 22, 23, killing it. When was this next chapter of like losing everything and like everything hit the fan?

So I was a multimillionaire in my 30s, early 30s, and I ended up semi retiring out of Samsung's PC phone and becoming a VC, an angel investor, real estate investor. Surrounding myself with the wrong people and the wrong ideas so things don't happen overnight. And one of the things I tell young people, and it's the only thing that ever caused me to move because I have four kids myself and some are teenagers. Yep, hey, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. And I was surrounding myself with the wrong friends. And you know, ironically, all the great friends I had through college, law school and my business had always elevated and escalated my career. All of a sudden the friends that I had deflated my career and I wasn't paying attention. I lowered my vibr. I lowered my awareness and I ended up losing millions and millions. I had a golf course, a Ski Mountain, 33 homes in San Diego. I mean I lost everything. And because I wasn't paying attention, I wasn't living by the values that got me there. I separated myself and I was empty and unhappy for the first time in my life.

Wow, that's super interesting to me because I think I really like to just live by obviously seeking guidance from people that have gone through it. And me as someone that's 17, it's, it's super interesting to hear that story just because like I never want to think it builds perspective. But I think the follow up question I want to have to that is just like when you say like you have all this stuff, everyone's end goal of success, whether that be owning houses or whatever it may be, you end up losing everything and you're, you were just crushing it like in a mentality state. And from a mental perspective, like what was that? What were your thoughts doing? Was it like, oh my God, like this is insane. Like you said everything hit the fan and it caused to bring out that tiger in you. But like what was that tiger? Was it a new business venture, a new company? Like what was the thing that kind of was the bounce back in a sense that really like set things back into motion.

You know, for me it was my wife telling me to go back and take stock in who I was. So what I did is I went back and I, I spent. My wife always joke she was spent one day depressed. You know, I lied in bed and I remember it's sorry. Everything was Coming down on me. And I literally had to tell myself that one day, man, if I can look up, I can get up. I felt like a boxer.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like just been beaten like a Rocky movie. Was not too young to know a Rocky movie, but I know. So I got up and I started writing down my values. I started writing down gratitude and how that gave me perspective. It made my, my past unbelievable, my present even better, my future even brighter. Then I started looking at the value of empathy, which is forgiveness. And I started forgiving myself for all the stupid stuff that I did. And then I looked at accountability and I said, you know what? I'm not going to live in blame. I'm not going to live in shame. I'm not going to live in justification. I'm going to live in accountability. I'm going to take 100% accountability for everything that I did and I'm going to learn from it, you know, and I'm going to learn and expand from all of this and I'm going to be so much better. And I live in the universe's favor. Only good things are going to happen to me. And there was a reason all this happened. And then I went to effective communication and looking how can I live inspired because I was so empty and utilizing these values and living an inspired life, I started looking at opportunities, focusing on things. And you know, the truth is I. It wasn't like I didn't have a lot of skills, a lot of knowledge or a lot of inspiration, but I got offered a job with Telus in their data division in the interim when I was waiting to finalize everything and move. It was an international job, it was high paying. I was gonna bring myself out of bankruptcy. I met a guy named Lee Steinberg helping out a friend representing. There's a reality show called Showtime with Magic Johnson and Magic was represented with Lee and that group. And I went up to meet Lee and, and I wasn't looking for a job, I had a new job. And I just resonated in a line with Lee and I left his office after a five hour meeting and he called me at seven in the morning and asked if I'd come back up to discuss being his chief operating officer. And within two days I was hired as the COO of the most notable sports agency. And then within six months I earned the position of CEO and I ran the most notable sports agency, which is where I met Warren Moon. But I always just focused in on the development of my skills. Once I said the knowledge I really believe in giving and being of service and asking for help as well. And all these things combined to. You know, I had more confidence when I went bankrupt. I had more confidence that I would be a millionaire within nine months again than 10 times as much when I graduated law school. When I graduated law school, I was so fear based. I had no money, no connections, no skills. And you know, even three years into my first job, I thought it was luck. I didn't know how good I was, but I knew, you know, I think, you know, my wife may not have been as confident as me, but I knew it was just a matter of time because I knew exactly what to do, how to do it, and I was going to be successful financially again, no doubt. Remember, a lot of entrepreneurs, young ones out there, you don't know is not a bad thing. You don't get anywhere without getting no and without learning and losing, you know, that's why the average millionaire in America has gone bankrupt twice.

Yeah, right.

On average, bankrupt twice. Because you got to risk it all to be a millionaire. And if you risk it all, you can lose it all. And so you deal with that, you know, I started studying after going bankrupt the first time for me, how to maintain wealth. So I studied the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilt and empowered wealth and Jack Canfield and Bob Proctor and Napoleon Hill and all these great ways to maintain wealth. But moreover, don't be afraid to get no. You know, in the way that I teach people not to get no, Casey is really interesting. It's really simple to change your perspective. But no, imagine at 17, that's how old you are, right, Casey? Yep.

17.

17 years old. Imagine if I told you this, Casey, that you are 25, no's away from whatever you want. A millionaire, a billionaire, the company that you want. You're 25, no's from being there. Imagine how excited you would be to get your first.

That's a different perspective.

Yeah, no, imagine how excited you'd be your 25th. No, that'd be one of the most exciting days of your life. So I don't know anyone in the world that would be excited after their 25th. No, but you would be if you had that perspective. I'm here to tell you at 17, some of the best advice I could ever give you. You are only a certain number of no's away from getting everything that you want. And so rejoice when you get that one because you're that much closer and you've learned that much more. When you get to the 25th, you should be way more excited than you are at the first. And I take my dear friend Jack Canfield, who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul with Victor Mark Hansen. Mark Victor Hansen. And the most number one selling book of all time, a half a billion books, blah, blah, blah. 200 no's from publishers. People telling you this book sucks. Well, no, it didn't suck. The people sucked. And it wasn't the right time or the perfect place. So you gotta love. No, not only you gotta love receiving no. You gotta tell people no. Because you're made by the people you say no to. You're also made by the way. And your perspective of no.

Wow, that's. That's a unique perspective. I love it. The talent. Your nose. I like it.

Exactly. Love your nose, man.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's amazing. Just I. Because it's like sort of the same concept of just like when they say just like the, like Thomas Edison, the light bulb. 10,000 fails and you get that last one and it's like it equals your end goal. Right. Sort of like you said, with the 25 in a row. Then you'll get to the place you want to be. I think that even a lot of young entrepreneurs, I've. I've talked to a lot of amazing people like yourself and also talk to a lot of young entrepreneurs and like, like even myself, it's like, it's the patience game, you know, I know. I watched your interview with Gary Vee and like, I know he always brings up patience and sort of like that perspective, but it's like a patience with the nose as well, you know?

Yeah. And I got, you know, Gary and I are close and co mentors. We mentor each other and what we're good at, patience for me, is peace. And so like what I like is a very aggressive peace. And I know that seems counterintuitive, but when I tell you that patience is peace, meaning stay peaceful through your pursuit, but pursue like a tiger, pursue like a m effer. I mean, do not be relentless. Just like Gary. He's relentless.

Yeah.

Right. But he's relentless and he's peaceful at the same time. I'm the same way. I stay at peace. But I'm relentless about the action I'm taking in order to get what I want. I'm relentless about empowering those around me to get what they want. I'm relentless about elevating others and being of service. Relentless. But I'm also at peace because I've detached my happiness from that outcome.

Amazing. Yeah. That's because I had the like, if you bring up Gary, I had a little 10 minute convo with him up in New York when he. We just had like a little sit down time. And I know you that you and him are very close. And I wanted to bring up just the fact of just like when it comes to you and just everything you're going on now with the relentless drive you have to the personal brand, with the company, everything and the people you've sat down with. I'm super interested in just the especially from a personal branding perspective. Obviously, I discover you on social media. I've been following your content for a while now, and from someone that's now myself, building my personal brand and trying to connect with people like yourself. When was your kind of pivoting point to like, start documenting? Because I know Gary goes a lot that all the time and he's a pioneer of just the personal brand or whatever it may be. But what was your sort of like pivot point to actually start documenting and building a brand?

Yeah. So when I started understanding content, what happened was, you know, I had more and more speaking engagements and then I knew I should be filming my speaking engagement, so I hired a media team to fill my speaking engagements. Then what happened was the young guys that were on my media team working with the company I hired, they're like, dude, have you ever heard of Gary Vee? I said, no, no. I started watching Gary and as a business person figuring that out, they were rushing me. You know, no peace, no patience. You know, you got to meet him, you got to meet us at the right way, at the perfect time. So a couple years ago at the Super Bowl, I ran into Gary in the Nike suite, and sure enough, Gary's brother AJ and him were starting a sports agency. Someone in the suite said, hey, you know who that is? You know, you know, that's legendary. Lee Steinberg's guy, Dave Meltzer, sports agentry. And so Gary came over to me and said, hey man, you know, I don't know much about sports agentry. My brother aj, would you mind helping us? And I said, oh, man, man, what an honor. I'd love to help you, but could you help me understand personal brand, social media content? I got a media team, blah, blah, blah. And so literally I attracted it to myself, asked for help and at that moment with Gary's assistant. So, you know, Drock trained my camera guy, Tyler, his PR people, AJ and I work closely and now we have, you know, different business opportunities together. And I consider Vayner Sports and VaynerMedia family to me.

Yeah.

AJ, Gary, Justin, Giangande. They're their lead agent. You know all. They're like younger brothers to me. That's how old I am. But it's been a whirlwind. But I will tell you, let me explain to you why and everyone out there why content is king. Content doesn't die. Content can be amplified and perpetuated. If you go onto YouTube right now and look up one of my favorite childhood contents, which is the Mickey Mouse Club, go ahead and look up the Mickey mouse club on YouTube. I think it has 370 million views. That all started. That was also my dad's favorite thing, the Mickey Mouse Club. My dad's already passed, and he was 80 when he passed. So if you come up with great content, right, And I think that's what resonates with you, Casey, with Gary and I and probably some other people that you like. Look, we have great content now. You got to perpetuate it, amplify it, because there's 3.2 billion people in the world, and you can carry a vibration, your frequency, to attract those people that you want to attract. And you can consistently pursue, consistently enjoy the pursuit of your potential to reach as many people as you can with powerful content that will empower them.

Oh, yeah, 100%. And that's just like, especially with myself, it's like growing up into this content era, I didn't really get the whole entire branding aspect until around two years ago when I was. Had my neck injury playing football. And that's when I really started, like, pursuing different things. And now in this entrepreneur, whatever world it is, social media, I want to bring that up because I know, like, just building a brand, obviously you have the show, the playbook with entrepreneur. Now we're sitting down with amazing people. And I just really give you so much respect for just building the brand you have and just doing everything you've done. And I think from a young entrepreneur standpoint, you're someone that I look up to as just like someone that's killing it with content and distributing his story. And I just wanted to ask a question to follow up with that, just based on the fact of what's been your biggest takeaway. Because I know everyone that's young obviously follows Gary. Some of them may follow you. And you being close to Gary. What's been your biggest takeaway from being good friends with Gary? From a content standpoint?

Yeah, from the content standpoint. You know, like, I think finding your own frequency, like one of the biggest obstacles I have in My life was. I would rather, you know, like, I wanted everyone to love me, Right. So I was very middle of the road. Even when I started writing books and speaking, you know, I had a whole bunch of PR agencies, you know, addressing me, and they would tell me, look, you got. You gotta speak your opinion. You can't agree with everyone. Everybody can't love you. Gary's absolutely that way, Right?

Yeah.

So, you know, I just remember someone telling me when I was losing everything that, God, you know, you're so nice to everyone and you've been taking advantage of and all this stuff. And I started thinking, gosh, I'd rather people hate me for who I am than love me for who I'm not. And I want to reiterate that to you.

Yeah.

You know, you much rather people. You're never gonna please everybody. There's gonna be people, Casey, that don't like you. And it's okay, you know, as long as you live with yourself and know that you're doing the best that you can do. This is your frequency. This is my opinion. You know What? I love McDonald's. Now, I don't expect anyone to love me. Cause I love McDonald's. Hate me because I love McDonald's. I don't want anyone to love McDonald's. Cause I love McDonald's or hate. I don't care anymore. Where I used to. To, you know, could understand why people would say anything negative about McDonald's. So one of the needs of the ego is the need to be offended. Yep. And you got to drop that need. The guys who are in, women, the women and men that are successful, especially on the Internet, with 3.2 billion people, are the ones that have found their frequency. They are who they are, including our president. Whether you agree with them or not, man knows his frequency. And there seems to resonate, you know, when you have a polarizing frequency. You know, you could have 50 million people love you. Yep. And another 150 million people hate you.

Yeah. Yeah.

But you know what? If you know how to monetize content, I personally say cancel before this because I believe in canceling what you don't want. But like a monetary. You're way better off. And you'll get this because you and I have the same types of following. You're way better off having 5 million people in the world that love you and engage with you. They love everything about you. And another 3 billion that hate you. Yeah, right. I can do a lot more with it. If there's 3 billion people that hate me and only 5 million that love me will do anything by my. I'm a billionaire, man. If I find 5 million people to be as engaged as the hundreds of thousands of people that are engaged with me now, and, you know, understanding our Lord, like, man, you'll kill it. Truth. Truth is, you know, most people are just projecting themselves when they don't like you. It's what they don't like about themselves. When I have trolls on my, you know, social media, I immediately engage them and say, hey, man, let's have a call. I want to learn why you have your perspective. I appreciate it and I'd like to learn from it. Most of them apologize.

Yeah.

A bad day, you know, this, and you hear crickets back, you know.

Yeah.

That's all you hear. So they're Internet brave, but yeah, find your frequency and amplify it and perpetuate it.

Amazing, amazing. So I love that, especially with, just like you said with Gary, it's like half people might love you, half my hate you, but at the end of the day, you're doing what you believe is right based on your vibration, you know, so with content, because I know you pump out a lot of content. You do a lot of stuff with interviews, and some people may watch that follow, you may be overwhelmed. Right. So what does your day to day look like when it comes to waking up to doing these type of interviews, to interviewing other people, running an organization? Like, how do you stay in the flow? Because I know a lot of people that have different tactics, but what's your tactics for just keeping everything aligned?

Yeah. So mine is to understand time. And the first step in understanding time is being a student of your calendar. So not only do I meditate to know where my center is, but then I'm a student of my calendar. So I studied the calendar to see how everything can fit in. You know, I have a 520 rule. I keep my phone calls to five minutes, my meetings to 20, as you know, you know, I'm very tight on the times for interviews. You know, we keep it exactly what we do with hard stops. But moreover, you know, beyond that side of it is, you know, just always trying to understand that time is only about two things. Everybody has 24 hours. The key is how focused are you on being productive, number one, and accessible, number two. So if you really go back and look at my content, you'll start realizing, wow, Dave Meltzer is very productive and he's very accessible. The way you describe my schedule to me, which is apparent from what you've seen, you describe Somebody that's very productive and very accessible.

Yes.

And that's my goal.

Amazing. So when it comes to just the staying on task and like you said, you meditate and kind of make sure everything's aligned with your time and the calendar and everything. Waking up. Are you someone that wakes up super early? Do you kind of wake up whenever you wake up or how does that.

Look like 4:00am and Pacific Time. 4. Amazing. My goal is to make so people laugh, but my goal is to make it to 11pm okay, so I wake up at 4am and thing is that I don't fall asleep. Another piece of advice, I hate to squeeze this in for young people. You spend a third of your life sleeping on average. Study sleep. Be the best sleeper you can understand how to get to rem, understand how to get the most out of your sleep. It's just as important as getting the most out of a productive meeting. Most people spend a third of their life sleeping. Never do one bit of research. Not even interested in sleep. You're better off studying sleep an hour a day and being an expert on sleep than you are working an hour a day doing something. But I wake up at 4am a.m. after being a student of sleep. And I try to stay up till 11 every day, but I run out of energy. I know myself, I won't drive a car, you know, somewhere between 9:30 and 11. I know my wife hates it, but I have a driver or I have one of my kids or my wife ride me because I just, I don't fall asleep. I pass out. I'm out of energy. There's nothing left. I've never spent a night in the last 10 years tossing and turning.

Wow.

I'm just out. Yeah, yeah, absolutely out cold. And it could happen with my laptop in my hand. It could happen. Sitting on the couch downstairs. Talk. This happened in the middle. Conversation. I got my producer and publicist over here. They're all shaking their head yes because he's thinking, you know, I don't let him post them, but I bet he has a collection of pictures of me sleeping like with my laptop in my hand, a drink or something else because I've run out of energy.

That's amazing. Hey, you know yourself, that's the truth. Yeah, that's amazing. So I know you have to run in the next 15 minutes or so, but I wanted to wrap this up for another two or three more questions and just I wanted to bring up one point that I you brought up on one of your pieces of content. It was about just Sort of the bamboo tree where it's like you have four years where nothing sprouts, nothing's growing. And then that fifth year, everything that exponential trees can grow up to 80ft when it comes to a bamboo tree. And that's something that kind of stuck out to me and more that you're talking throughout your journey of succeeding and failing, there's obviously a foundation that you've built to become where you are. And I wanted you to touch on just like the foundation for young entrepreneurs, because I know that one piece of content was directed towards young entrepreneurs. But what would you say is one of the most important foundations to know when someone's young, they're ambitious, they're hungry, and obviously patience is a prime factor in that. But what would you say is like a key building block to building a strong foundation as a young entrepreneur?

Yeah. The key to the foundation is, number one, ask for help. You can accelerate everything if you spend your time trying to find the mentors and the people to help you, instead of trying to do everything with yourself, you can still do it yourself, but you might as well have someone telling you, instead of trying to go over the wall and around the wall and under the wall, have someone tell you where the key is, man the door and walk through the wall. Then take everything you don't have to to necessarily do it all yourself. So, you know, my biggest mistake when I was young, what I would tell myself when I was 17 years old, is no, no matter how successful you come, keep asking for help. Spend your time finding the people that sit in the position that you want, that have the skills that you want, and ask them for for help. The second thing as an entrepreneur specifically is stay in business. You know, one of the things that I didn't get is, you know, whether I had a fast, successful business or a slow, successful business, if I were to spe, and I still do to this day, my first objective is to make sure I'm in business tomorrow. Because as long as you can see how my career has evolved and my businesses have evolved, you know, my business is nothing like I set out in the business plan that I gave Warren eight years ago.

Yep.

You know, this business looks nothing like it. But I'll tell you, one of the things in my business was I'm going to stay in business every day. We're never going out of business. So financially, the business decisions I make, emotionally resource wise, I'm guaranteed first thing every morning, my objective. And once I get the objective reach that I know I'm in business tomorrow, then I'll go forward and do the rest of my business. But as long as I don't go out of business. It's like your heart.

Yep.

You know you're staying in business is your heart. The minute your heart stops beating, that's the end of it for you.

Yep.

Right. Until that spirit goes wherever you will think it goes or whatever think it does. But your business is the same as a heart, man. If you can't keep the heart beating, then you're done. You're done, and the business is done. So keep your heart beating, stay in business and ask for help. Show me your friends, I show you your future. These are all greater foundational pieces of advice that will accelerate your career. And then lastly, really try to keep a consistent, every day persistent enjoyment of the pursuit of your potential. The more consistent you are. If you could do something every day, you will get exponential results. Don't fool yourself and be a 99 percenter. Do stuff every day. All it takes is one day to have a zero effect that you don't do what you're supposed to do. Meaning you can get all this exponential results. X to the first power, day one, second day two, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth. And then the ninth day you do nothing. And you don't stay focused. You don't stay consistent. You now get X to the zero power and you've zeroed yourself out. You won't wonder why you're not anywhere where you get incremental improvement, if any.

Amazing. Amazing. Just wow. That's. That's the most truthful statement I've heard, the last X amount of interviews that I've done. I definitely appreciate that. So, last thing to wrap it off. I know we're short on time here. You've sat down with some of the most amazing people, the biggest accomplishers that literally this generation have seen. I know that you've sat down with tons and tons of people, and same thing with me when it comes to starting this podcast and being able to sit down with people like yourself or Gary or Mylett or whoever it may be. I know I've learned a lot of key things from these people, but I wanted to ask you to kind of wrap up this podcast when it comes to just the network you've built, the people that you've talked to, what's sort of been some of the most dramatic things and the most insightful things that you've taken away from all these amazing leaders. And I'd love to get that from your perspective.

Yeah. Well, number one, is persistence, right? So whether it be Danica Patrick, Kerry Walsh, or Ed Mylett or Gary Vee or Jack Canfield or Dennis Rodman or, you know, whoever it may be, everybody's persistent. There is no question quit in any of these people. There's no quit in them. The second is consistent, man. They do it every day. And then third is the inspiration that they have. They live inspired lives. They stay inspired consistently and persistent. That's where that whole enjoying the consistent, persistent pursuit of their potential lies. And they're all of service. And so, you know, they understand the shift in the paradigm that things come to those who create value, and they really focus in on being the best you that they can find. They have all found their own frequencies, and they live by their own frequencies. They are themselves. And so I think all of those things encompass a commonality of all of them. And, you know, they try to pursue the truth the best that they can, and they all just have a fire of consistent, persistent enjoyment in what they do.

Amazing. Well, David, I really just wanted to say, number one, thank you so much for your time. I know regarding wrapping up this podcast, gonna make sure that everything social media links to everything is gonna be down in the description because I need people if they're not following you. For everyone listening, make sure you go follow David. He's been the most insightful person that I've been following recently, and I really just want to get your message out there more. And that being said, I definitely appreciate your time, David, and obviously everyone listening, make sure you go hit David up, tell him that you came from the podcast, and I will talk to you guys soon. Thank you so much, David.

Thanks, Casey. I really appreciate it and I love a young audience. You guys are a future. So thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for hopping on.

Y' all are hopeless. This is a decade of devotion it's hard to stop my movement When I'm already in motion this ain't luck this.

Is by design I had to work.

In the dark for my light to shine A lot of people are dope they just quit too soon A lot of rappers A lot of rappers they got rich too soon.

Monarch Legacy of Monsters An Apple Original Series the world is on fire I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me, the most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise. Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV.

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