You Winning Life Podcast Ep 113-The Road To Self Actualization with David Meltzer

Today's guest is David Meltzer, who is the co-founder of Sports One Marketing and formerly served as the CEO of the renowned Leisteinberg Sports and Entertainment Agency, which was the inspiration for the movie Jerry Maguire. His life's mission is to empower over 1 billion people to be happy. This simple yet powerful mission has led him on an incredible journey to provide one thing: value. In all of his content and communication, that's exactly what you'll receive. He's a 3-time international bestselling author, a top 100 business coach, the executive producer of Entrepreneur's #1 digital business show, Elevator Pitch, and host of the top entrepreneur podcast, The Playbook. His book Connected to Goodness teaches how to manifest everything you desire in business and life, and his newest book, Game Time Decision Making, was a number one new release. All right, so we have David Meltzer with us, which I'm incredibly honored to have you today and spending time with you. I've been so excited to, to be doing this. So thank you, first of all.

Well, thank you, and it's so timely because, uh, being one of, you know, the top mentors and coaches of entrepreneurs, TV shows, podcasts, books, speeches, masterminds, and the list goes on and on, I've never received therapy until recently. And, uh, you know, talking to a therapist myself, I just want to start by encouraging everyone to use that aspect, especially as an entrepreneur, to understand, understand the healing. And also what emotional aspects to being an entrepreneur exist for our well-being to increase what we all want: efficiency, effectiveness, and statistical success of making a lot of money, helping a lot of people and having a lot of fun.

Absolutely. And I think that's kind of the overlap of our conversation and the time we have together today is that is the the connection between emotional well-being, mental health, pride in our ego, spirituality, which we— I know you talk a lot about, and sales and success. So, you know, the first is, right, like you just said, this mental health and emotional well-being is such a key part. And I have this belief that, you know, that statement, how you show up in one place of your life, you'll show up in another place of your life, and chaos can ensue because of that. So how come, from your perspective, like you said, you now are doing some form of therapy. How come coaching has become the primary focus versus also therapy being— is there still that stigma? I mean, I know you're out on the West Coast and therapy's been, you know, it's way more accepted there and, uh, in New York, right? Um, but why do you think like coaching is stressed a lot more versus the importance of therapy, healing trauma, old wounds, forgiveness, which I know you've been talking a lot about recently.

Well, I think number one is just, uh, the name, the nomenclature, right? The, uh, coach is so accessible. There's a lot of people that deal in the wellness aspect that call themselves a coach. They call themselves wellness coaches, uh, and, you know, I have been able to decipher, you know, three different areas. A coach to me is someone that brings the best out of us. So they may not have the expertise or skills or knowledge that we have, but but they have a capability of bringing the best out of us. A mentor is someone who actually sits in a situation that we want to be in and gives us directions on how to get it. They give the best of themselves to the other person. And then a trainer and a therapist are people who— that can teach us things. And they may have no skills, knowledge, or desire in whatever aspects that we're working on personally or professionally, other than the ability to teach us things, to raise awareness to, and to allow us to heal for give to expand and grow and accelerate. You know, trauma is a very interesting thing. And as I entered therapy, that was the main purpose is that I had suffered great trauma when I was young, as most people have. I almost would dare to say you're the therapist, but I almost would dare to say that 100% of the people have suffered some debilitating trauma before they're 10.

Sure.

And that they have no idea of the impact that a divorce, uh, some sort of abuse— emotional, financial, sexual, physical abuse— has taken place to 100% of the people by the time they're 10. And it has manifested and aggregated itself through the 20s, 30s, 40s, and I'm 50, into my 50s. And thank goodness for my wife, who's always there to identify a need for me and save my life. You know, she kind of forced me into therapy. Because of course, I once again fell into the belief that I knew everything and I was fine.

Yeah, and I definitely see the consistency of patterns. And as a therapist, I look very much at patterns. And like I said, it can show up in all different aspects of our life. And we have this misnomer, like you were saying, like the titling and the nomenclature of it is really off-putting in some ways. And, and this idea that therapy is only about looking at your past and coaches are only about looking at your future. And as a solution-focused trained therapist, We don't— yeah, we are trained in diagnosis, but we look at what are your goals, right? Reverse engineering the process that we talk about in the entrepreneur space and what's holding you back and who do you need to get in touch or in front of and all that stuff. And, and I know that like one of the reasons why I love having this, this platform is that I get to break that stigma of therapy versus coaching and why all therapists actually coach and why it's so important, especially for young professionals and entrepreneurs. To have that. And I think a lot of that probably comes into, which leads into question 2, is like this pride-ego dance, right? Where healthy pride, healthy ego, right? You're putting yourself out there in the world. You're doing that based on a mission and a purpose, which I don't think everybody gets the importance. And we talk about it and we like, oh, are you mission-based? Are you purpose-based? But can you just like elaborate on how ridiculously binary, that is, in really transforming your life.

Well, as you deal with emotions all the time, right? People put their emotions or place their emotions on an outcome. And all they're doing is setting themselves up for emptiness and, you know, failure. And, you know, I've done that in my entire life until I understood what you're talking about. See, once I shifted my perspective, I used to want to go get wealth, to go get worthiness, to go get happiness, to go get health, Right? I'm gonna go get healthy! You know, I shifted the paradigm through therapy to understand I am healthy, happy, worthy, and wealthy. What am I doing to interfere with my health, happiness? And when we look at it in that respect, to enjoy the consistent, persistent pursuit of our potential by still having that, you know, ferocious attitude but yet be a Buddha of egolessness, forgiveness, and gratitude. You know, I don't think there's a healthy ego. I think what's healthy about the ego is to identify the triggers of the ego. I think it's important. The only healthy is the innate ability of the ego to, you know, stop us from jumping off a building, you know, to tell us, you know, fight, feed, flight, or the other F word so that we procreate and evolve. But most of the time, you know, there is no healthy triggers of the ego, I should say. You know, an ego— where I think you can have a positive aspect of an ego, an ego can motivate us. But it's not going to inspire us. All ego creates interference between us and what we already are. The need to be right, the need to be offended, the need to be separate, inferior, superior, anxious, frustrated, angry, guilty, resentful. All these things just interfere between me and what already I have, which is my potential. And for me, I study the ego a ton. I mean, to the point where I know that when I get into the primal state of fear, The Freudian fear is blood leaves my brain to go into my body. And so many people try to use their higher power of thinking with no blood in their brain. So I've created the stop, drop, and roll methodology. Instead of resisting, you know, that, I go ahead and stop and get to center my higher self, a neutral place, and then remind myself of the what, the who, the how, the now, applying my why. So I've, you know, really utilized therapy, you know, the emotional aspect, the wellness aspect, of business in order to effectuate what creates great entrepreneurship, enjoying the consistent, persistent pursuit of your potential, not just consistently, persistently pursuing your potential, but having the capability to enjoy it.

Yeah, well, you, you're one of the people out there that I love seeing that imbues spirituality with entrepreneurship. And, and it's so exciting and so refreshing. And it's something that from my own personal background, right, where two nice Jewish boys talking about Buddhism and spirituality and law of attraction and all this stuff, as even though we come from our, you know, our roots, right? Exactly, exactly. And then I know, like, I think your brother became a rabbi, and he's still a rabbi, right? Still a rabbi. And I've worked in the informal nonprofit Jewish world for many years before becoming a therapist. Um, and it's funny because I'll teach the law of attraction course. I taught a course on the Matrix and understanding, like, the Matrix through spirituality and personal development for a Hebrew high school program here in South Florida. So I've loved taking and weaving in all these things, which I very much appreciate about you. So one of the things that I find with spirituality, especially as we're trying to incorporate it into practicality, is like, especially Law of Attraction, it's so like heady and it's so up in the ether. How do you find that we can make it in other spiritual approaches, as long as they obviously work for us and enhance us and make us better. How do we make them more practical instead of just this wonderful theory that just like, you know, it's like putting on a pair of Lululemon pants and all of a sudden you're a yogi. How do we like nitty gritty, take it from, you know, the macro to the micro and then really help us evolve?

We start with two other laws. And I think when we understand what effectuates the beacon of attraction, which is our own unconscious competency, our energetics and genetics, And I think there's no accident that genetics falls within energetics. And so for me, what I start with to explain the law of attraction to people is understanding the law of gravity. Before you can attract anything to yourself, before you can raise your awareness or enhance your frequency and strengthen the frequency to create a spectrum to attract what you want, you need to institute the law of gravity. Law of gravity says this: My feet are on this ground, although the Earth is spinning and twirling and hurling at enormous speeds with a mass of unbelievable energy. My feet are right here, which means I'm at the right place at the perfect time. I'm at the right place at the perfect time. Now, once I am settled in a place of centeredness, of neutral, that I'm at the right place at the perfect time, I am not taking for granted what other people are wishing for, right? I have gratitude, forgiveness, and accountability all within the fact that I am standing right here. Once I institute the law of gravity, now the second phase of attraction is the law of GOYA, G-O-Y-A, which I learned from John Assaraf, another one of my friends, mentor, coaches, and therapists. Anyway, John Assaraf taught me the law of GOYA: get off your ass. So you get 24 hours of activity a day and a lot of people say, you know, oh, you're so busy. I'm like, no, I'm actually productive, accessible, and gracious. I'm extremely active in which that 24 hours of man-made constructive time I've been given, you know, for me, somebody that sits at home high on their mom's couch, sick, broke, and dreaming about what they want. Is just as busy as I am. In fact, they're less accessible, so they seem to be even busier, but they're not as productive, accessible, and gracious as I am. So the Law of Goya says, get off your ass, do everything you can to enjoy the consistent, persistent pursuit of what you want. Know that pain, setbacks, failures are all indicators. They're not punishment. They're turn signals. They're actually propelling you to something better. A better place, a better situation. Pain and suffering, uh, shortages, voids, obstacles as seen as indicators or turn signals, not stop signs. And then we can incorporate now the greatest GPS of the law of attraction, which is faith, right? Faith in whatever religion that is. And faith says this: not only Will I be rerouted when I get off at the wrong exit? Not only will I be rerouted when I have a flat tire, not only will I be routed when I'm at the donut shop when I'm supposed to be at the gym, but if I have the right attention, focus, and intention— I think, say, do, believe— and act in an appropriate way with intention, that I will end up somewhere better. I will end up at a better destination than the one I put into the the GPS of faith at the beginning of the day when I determine and take inventory, which you and I share this belief and blend of knowing your what, knowing your who, who you can help and who could help you, knowing your how, and determining your now, prioritizing what's most important according to the what, the who, and the how, and then applying your why. See, the why already exists within us. We allow life to come through us as it longs for itself. We are always connected to the greatest source of light, love, and lessons. We are happy. Healthy, worthy, and wealthy. What are we doing to interfere with it and not living in a world of not enough where things happen to you as a victim, or for you buying things you don't need to impress people you don't like, taking for granted about things that people dream of, but instead this abundant world of faith, an abundant world of more than enough of everything for everyone, where you receive to give, allowing everything to come through you with appreciation, forgiveness, and accountability to add your value, add your life to it, and then let prolong and long for itself and give it away. Recognizing, acknowledging, remembering, bringing us all together, reuniting, reminding, recollecting— all re words that mean one. And when we have that oneness, that central centrality, then abundance will flow through us and the laws of attraction become apparent.

Well, does that really lock in values-based consulting, values-based coaching. I'm all about values-based decision-making. And I tell my clients this all the time, like when they're trying to struggle with figuring out what they should do next, I reverse engineer that process, right? And that's—

Yeah, there's a plug right there. I wrote that whole book about that, Game Time Decision-Making. Everything I teach is value-based. If you know your weighted values, personal values, experiential values, your giving values and receiving values every day, weighting them by the day, taking into consideration when you know your daily values, your intermediate and long-term values, because they will always have an impact and influence on your daily values. Once you know your values, you then can figure out the fastest way to get what you want, because you can know who can help you and who you can help. Then the how becomes easier and easier because you have the law of attraction, The Law of Goya and the Law of Gravity all working as a continuum in your favor, then you can start prioritizing. People who can't make a goddamn decision are not taking inventory of their values. They don't know their values. See, people who know their values make decisions like that. And if they take inventory of those values, weighted values every day, not trying to balance a perfect unattainable life of 25% of my day will be personal, 25% will be experiential, 25% will be giving. No, if you're 19 years old, you better be weighted on your values of receiving, experience, personal. Forget the giving. Like, you could have 5% or 10% of your, your values being giving. But if you're a 53-year-old and you're focused in, then you should have 80% of your values be on the giving side. Because you can't give what you don't have, but you've amassed enough to give. Start focusing on giving it away. And guess what? You find through that process that more and more you receive, more and more. Not as a trader negotiation. I don't give to receive. I receive so I can give. I expand and grow from giving, which allows more room for the law of attraction to supply me more. It's just like people who tell me they meditate for 6 hours. I'm like, are you an idiot? Like, how can you utilize that much of a download? There's only 24 hours of activity. I meditate for 20 minutes because that's all the download I can handle. That's all the download that I could handle. And the same thing with exercise. I work out 6 times. Why? You're just— the human body can't withstand that. And we do the same thing. If you practice receiving, then you could receive more and more and more. And if you give it away, you have more room to receive more, right?

We set these limitations based on our, like you said, these old experiences, these traumas, these family of origin stuff, this under 10-year-old experiences, and that informs our decision-making. And I just had this conversation with a client an hour ago. You're telling me these goals. I'm more concerned about why these goals— what's the filter in which you're setting up these goals in the first place? And I want to get the common denominator between all that. And that's the way that your life is informing you. And that's whether that's either helping you and enhancing everything, or that's keeping you stuck. And no matter what goal you create from there is just going to be more of the same, and it's not going to get you to your purpose and potential. And especially going back to the core values, the way I see it is that if you know your core values, it's not, is this the right decision for me? Is this the right job for me? Is this the right relationship for me? It's what are all of the ones that align with that? And then like you said, prioritizing and putting them in order, which one are you going to do first? Well, right. Which job of the 5 jobs or careers all align with those values? Which business? And which one do you want to— none of them will be wrong.

It's so interesting, because, you know, I was a pleaser, I wanted everyone to love me. I had all these issues that manifested themselves in business and personal relationships. And because I was abused at 9, then I have not just a learned hopelessness, but a taught hopelessness. It never would have brought to my awareness that pattern without the help of a therapist. And now that it's to my attention, because of a therapist who's been able to identify this emotional aspect that has manifested and materialized itself in so many of my decisions, uh, and so many of the things that I do, it has enabled me to clear more interference between me and the greatest source of light, love, and lessons, to live my life with gratitude and forgiveness and accountability allowing me to help empower others. The more energy I have, the more I can give to empower others. And I keep on, you know, Dennis Waitley was a mentor of mine in sales early on in San Diego, and the line that always stuck with me is he said, "I am planting seeds under trees I may never sit under." And I am one of those trees. Fortunately, I allow him to see the tree that he has helped me grow into to provide shade and nourishment and fruit to so many. But I'm sure as confident as I am that I've articulated to Dennis Whateley the help that he's given me, there's thousands of other trees that he has planted that he has no idea. And now at 53, every day I get a new tree that comes to me and lets me know the shade and the fruit and the energy that they're giving and the oxygen that they're providing for others as well. And I just want to tell you, thank you, because I believe that whoever your mentors, coaches, and teachers and therapists were, that they've created a tree, a tree of giving as well. And whether or not they know it or not, I certainly appreciate what you do and how you do it.

Thank you. Thank you. It was an honor to have you. And again, Game Time Decision Making, the book just, just came out. You have your Connected to Goodness which is awesome, awesome book. Guys, please check out David Meltzer if you haven't heard of him before. I don't know, like, I don't know what's going on.

You can email me directly, those 5 daily practices, david@deltzer.com. I do free trainings on Friday. Please, I answer every email, david@deltzer.com, @DavidMeltzer, Google David Meltzer, or reach out to Jason Wasser. He'll give you my email address, david@deltzer.com. Jason Wasser, thank you so much. Keep up the great work. Let's do more stuff together.

Looking forward. Thanks so much.