42. David Meltzer: Author of Game-Time Decision Making

Hello, BookThinkers family, and welcome to episode number 42 of our personal development podcast, BookThinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, I interview one of the world's top authors. And as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In this episode, I have the pleasure to interview the author David Meltzer. David is the co-founder of SportsOne Marketing and formerly served as the CEO of the renowned Les Steinberg Sports and Entertainment Agency, which was funny enough the inspiration for the movie Jerry Maguire. Great movie. His life's mission is to empower over 1 billion people to be happy. And this simple yet powerful mission has led him to an incredible journey to provide one simple thing, value. And it's in all of his content, all of his communication. It's exactly what you will receive in today's conversation. He is a 3-time international bestselling author. a top 100 business coach, the producer of a top business show, and the host of a very successful podcast. Our conversation today is all about the principles in David's book, Game Time Decision Making: High-Scoring Business Strategies from the Biggest Names in Sports. You'll enjoy today's conversation. So without further ado, David Meltzer. David, thank you so much for joining the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you doing today?

I'm amazing, man. Thank you so much for having me. I love the Book Thinkers. I love books. I love information. I love lessons and stories.

Well, we're definitely going to dive into it today. For those in the audience that aren't familiar with your work, can you introduce yourself to everybody?

Sure. I'm Dave Meltzer, author, speaker, executive coach, and sports business executive. I have had an eclectic career with a law degree selling legal research on the internet to my first company exit was $3.4 billion, to running the world's first smartphone in 1999, to running the most notable sports agency in the world, Leigh Steinberg Sports and Entertainment. Most people know Leigh from the movie Jerry Maguire. 11 years ago, Warren Moon, the Hall of Fame quarterback, and I spun off our own marketing and media company, global marketing and media company, specifically to bring all the greatest celebrities, athletes, entertainers, billionaires, millionaires, and entrepreneurs to the biggest sporting events in the world, to raise money for charity. So we believe in making a lot of money, helping a lot of people, and having a lot of fun. And for the last 4 years, I've built my own brand, top podcast in the world of entrepreneurs called The Playbook, featured on Spotify, Entrepreneur, and all platforms. I got books and 2 TV shows, Elevator Pitch, and also now on Bloomberg TV in January, 2 Minute Drill.

Well, I love how diverse your background is today. Well, I love how diverse your background is, but today specifically, we're going to jump into Game Time Decision Making. And right in the introduction, there's a quote that I'd like to read to everybody and kind of have you reflect on it a little bit. The quote says that the premise behind this book is simple: learn to be prepared to make decisions in the moment with confidence, clarity, balance, and focus. And so why did you choose those 4 words, and who is the target reader for this book?

Well, because it ties into how decisions are made. Everybody that makes decisions are candidates for this book. If you like sports, more than, than not. So if you like sports and you want to learn how to make the most effective, efficient, statistically successful decisions, and notice I said efficient, then this is the book to read, especially if you love sports. But more importantly, what that quote is talking about and why I intentionally use clarity, balance, and focus to create that confidence is that people need to take inventory of their values every day. And don't be afraid of being a hypocrite. If you're a hypocrite on your values, it just means you're accelerating, growing, learning, and light-finding. And when I say that, I mean you have the right perspective. So look at your personality. values every single day, your experiential giving and receiving values. And then that's where clarity, balance, and focus come in. Because if you're taking inventory of your values, then you have clarity on the what. You balance, weighted balance all of those values, personal, experiential, giving and receiving, and then you get focused in on it.

Why?

Because you want confidence because confidence activates the mathematical equation of luck. Attention, focus, plus intention, what you think, say, do, believe, hear, et cetera. And equals coincidence confidence. So attention plus intention equals competence. Confidence is luck.

We will dive into the core values piece again in a little bit more detail when we address chapter 1. But there's one more thing in the introduction that I want to touch on. And you talk a little bit about consistency and specifically about consistency. You say whether in life, in the field, in the boardroom, it comes from a combination of factors. And so consistency as a subject is very popular on this podcast and also throughout a lot of the personal development books that we're reading. What is your formula for consistency and why do you think it's important?

Consistency is the thread that ties together the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious continuum. The way the human body, mind, and soul all work together is through consistency. The cellular memory of our cells, it takes a consistent behavior in order to send a signal to our subconscious to create the neural pathways in our subconscious. And the more we access those same thoughts with consistency, the same action with consistency, those neural pathways are what sends a signal to our unconscious, our DNA, our quantum memory. We actually know there is an epigenetic layer of the DNA that is activated by this frequency that draws out the personality traits, the characteristics, the obsessions and addictions that we want in our life. It allows the acceleration, exponential growth, and compound interest that creates the greatest effect for everyone. And that segmentation of acceleration, Einstein's rule of 12, are all implemented into consistency within the conscious continuum.

I love all of that, and I'm sure we could nerd out on it forever. I mean, neural pathways and consistently hammering the right positive ones, that's what my brand is really all about. One of the first books that I ever read was The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, and I realized that, wow, you know, small steps in the right direction over a long period of time can really lead to disproportionate outcomes. And so, I love how you address that right in the beginning of the book because I think it sets the framework for chapter 1.

Yeah.

And the title for chapter 1 is Putting Together Your Roster by Building Yourself. And the first piece, we'll go back to core values. Why do you need to put your core values in place before you can build a team?

Because you have a frequency. And the biggest mistake that people make is they worry about the ego. They worry about defining themselves by what they do, defining themselves by what they got, G, and defining themselves what other people think. And so you need to look within to find what exists outside of you. And so if you're going to build a team outside of you, you better know your frequency, the strength of your signal, the spectrum, and the clarity of your own personality so that you can build a team around you to complement your weaknesses and to enhance your strengths.

Yeah, I thought of that, that popular metaphor about putting your mask on first before you help other people on an airplane. It's like you got to get your core values straight before you can set yourself for growth. Like, that's a very important piece of the foundation. So I'm happy that you mentioned that.

And then it applies to everything, by the way, health, money, you need to take care of yourself before you can give it away. Forgiveness too.

Forgiveness. Yeah. It's an important piece. What are your thoughts on forgiveness? How can, how should we apply that? What do you mean by that?

Yeah. So for me, forgiveness is very critical because our highest frequency, the ability to plateau and grow in our lives comes from what I call living in neutral. And neutral is a state of forgiveness and peace. Forgiveness gives us peace. And what we have to do is work really hard to forgive ourselves. If we are expanding individuals in an expansive universe, we're going to make a lot of mistakes. I always tell people, I can't pay your state taxes, I can't pay your federal taxes, but I can pay your dummy tax. And that dummy tax is far more valuable than both of those taxes combined. If you're not going to invest in yourself, what are you ever going to invest in?

Yeah, I like how you mentioned the dummy tax in the book. That was a fun little section. And so what, you know, speaking a little bit more about core values, what are some of the core values that have helped you grow your different business units? Like, what are your decision-making filters?

You know, for me, values are a practice, and I was born into the genetic disposition of these values. I was born into the social implementation of these values with my family, and then I self-entitled myself and got away, went astray From these values. The first is gratitude. Gratitude is the most powerful thing in the world. Say thank you before you go to bed. Thank you when you wake up. I guarantee in 30 straight days with that consistent behavior, your life will change. The saddest thing is by tonight, half of us won't say thank you. By tomorrow morning, another half of us won't say thank you. Within 3 days, almost all of us won't say thank you. That's how hard it is to be consistent, even with the 0.1 seconds that it takes just to say thank you. Metaphysics, quantum physics, all types Regular physics, all thought leaders will agree that gratitude's the most powerful thing because it allows you to learn to love what you're doing at all times. It allows you to find the light, the love, and the lessons, to see pain as an indicator that you have a lesson to learn. It's not a stop sign, it's a turn signal telling you to get to a better direction, a better place, a better situation. Suffering itself is just that process. Suffering and gratitude to me are completely combined because as I suffer, I know I'm expanding, growing, and learning. I use gratitude in which to find the light, the love, and the lessons in the process of suffering. pain being the indicator of the lessons I learned. Second was forgiveness, because that gave me peace. So gratitude gave me perspective, forgiveness gives me peace. The third one gives me control, which is so important today with the pandemic because people are trying to control things outside of them. They're talking about uncertainty. Look, if anybody here knows certainly what's going to happen tomorrow, call me, email me, david@dmelzer.com. I can make billions of dollars. But in the history of my life, in the history of all that I've read, no one's ever been certain about what's going to happen tomorrow. So let's focus in on change. The world is changing. It's expanding. It's growing. So what do we do to find the opportunities of life, love, and lessons in the change? We take control of our lives. And the way we take control is through accountability, asking ourselves, what did I do to attract this to myself? And what am I supposed to learn from it? Not blaming other people, not living in shame, not justifying everything that we do, but simply accountable for everything in our lives. And then the 4th one. Most importantly is effective communication, which to me is a duality of not only inspiring and motivating other people. A tree has no branches. One branch would not go to war against another branch. Stop attacking each other. Stop looking at people as gatekeepers. They are sponsors, power sponsors. They're there. Do you know anyone that can help me? They can help you. They know someone that can help you. This is how the universe works. But more importantly than effectively communicate with everything we're connected to, it's what we're connected from. That's the most important communication. We are connected between infinity and limitlessness to the greatest source of light, love, and power that ever existed. And we are that pure power. We're just creating interferences, voids, shortages, obstacles, and gatekeepers from that power. So that effective communication is to draw all that power through us with appreciation, forgiveness, and accountability to give through us to others.

Those are a beautiful 4, and I'm happy that you took the time to expand on each one a little bit. Going back to the first one, the power of gratitude, that was one of the first things that got me into this personal development industry and the consistent growth. And I, for a long time, I journaled about 3 things I was grateful for every single day when I woke up and actually got the numbers 1, 2, 3 tattooed on my wrist because from a neuro-linguistic programming standpoint, I can see this. I don't know how many times a day subconsciously, and it's always reinforcing the gratitude, and I feel really good about it. So, for anybody out there that is looking to implement more gratitude in their life, is there a specific exercise that you would recommend?

Yeah, you know, for me, it is saying thank you. So, I can't tell you how powerful it is just to simply get into the attitude of gratitude practice. So, set your phone reminders, say it at least once, if not twice a day, and, you know, journaling, listing out what you're grateful for, as long and as far as you can expand. And just bringing attention and putting intention into gratitude, it'll accelerate the coincidences in your life. It is part of the mathematical equation of luck.

So for people who are listening to this show, and maybe it's their first time listening to this show, it's— or it's their first time receiving advice from you, and they're thinking, geez, you know, some of these things aren't part of my day-to-day life right now, I'm not sure what I should implement. You have in chapter 1 a section, a subtitle about processing advice from others. So what advice would you give people about processing your advice? I think that this will be a fun answer.

Yeah, great question. Um, find people that sit in a situation that you want to be in. In other words, if you want to go somewhere, find someone that's already there and ask them for directions. So taking my advice, if you want to be or see a situation that I'm knowledgeable at in entrepreneurship or sports, agency, TV, movies, podcasts, book writing, speaking, coaching, An area that I have great capability, skills, knowledge, and desire. It's the skills to do it, the knowledge of what and who, and the desire that I must be what I can be on the enjoyment of the consistent, persistent pursuit of my potential, then take my advice. Otherwise, just because someone cares about you and loves you doesn't mean they give you good advice. Take advice with a handful of sand. If it's not aligned, synergistic, or supplementary to your values and where you want to go, just let and be grateful with it. Let the sand pass through your hand and move on to the next piece of advice.

Well, that is great advice. Who are some of the people in your life that are most influential to you? Who, who do you open up the floodgates to and receive all of their wisdom?

Well, for me, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill, every day. A Course in Miracles, every day. Dr. Wayne Dyer, Power of Intention, mainly every day. And then what I do is I take concepts Uh, from those 3 things as an aggregate, from— I have a certain amount of time talking about consistency every day. I spend a minimum of a certain amount of time every day studying, and it starts with those 3. And then I go ahead and find the concepts that are most intriguing or intuitive to what I'm looking at, and I Google it. And then I find all types of podcasts, books, radio, print, all types of things that I can learn even more and more. But those are the anchor to the concepts, and then the concepts are amplified through Google into a variety of all different people, places, and things that we've heard of and not have heard of.

In your best guess, how many books do you think you've read throughout your lifetime, starting when your mom was kind of forcing them to you all the way up through now?

Remember, I went to law school, man. So, uh, yeah, I, I would average— and, uh, so I'm 52. I probably averaged 20 years, over 1,000 books.

Yeah, and you said in the book that, you know, sort of from an early age your mom was really pushing books on you, and there was one in particular that you were very grateful for. And so what book was that?

It's one of the most boring books I've ever read, Ben Franklin's autobiography. It's huge, it's long, but it's so valuable because if 2 lessons are in there, Ben Franklin said the best thing you can do is ask for help. And if I was going to give myself advice as an 18, 28, 38, 48, and when I turn 58, it'll be to be radically humble, to know that I'm connected to everything and that I need to learn that question, do you know anyone that can help me? Because not only is everyone connected and willing to help, but you become an investment in that person. So they become part of your focus and their focus and the attention and intention start collectively working in your favor as well. And then the other part about that book was it was so historical to me, right? In the autobiography, it was all history. And it was the first insight I had of how important history was going to be in my life. Uh, and the reason history— I study history all the time, especially when I'm amplifying my study time. Uh, it is because human nature never changes. And the better that I understand human nature, this conscious continuum and the ego and spirituality and inspiration, the better I can make decisions. And so that book was significant, But I'm telling you, it is one boring book. So if you just want to take my Cliff Notes, you'll be better off.

Well, skipping ahead to chapter 3, which is where you touch on some of these subjects in your book, I love how you just mentioned the ability to ask questions. And so what role do you think humility plays in growing? Like, it sounds like you've got to be okay asking what some people would consider to be dumb questions.

Yeah, I'm not one of those people. There's just dumb people.

No kidding.

No, I, I, uh, radical humility sits on my nightstand. It's on my screensaver. It's on my phone. Radical humility is the ability to say that I'm gonna allow— I'm gonna do everything I can to make what I think is gonna happen happen, but I'm gonna allow something better to happen. And that radical humility is that delta that exists between there to say, I'm not gonna do this alone. When we talk about allowing things to happen, That means you're asking for help. It could be from a higher source of power, light, love, and lessons, or it could be in a different form. That powerful source of light, love, and lessons could come from a parent, a teacher. It could come from, you know, someone that's attacking us. And so I'm always looking for those light, the love, and the lessons. And radical humility is the lens that allows me to see what the truth, not the illusions, are creating in my life.

That's great. Well, well, in that chapter 3, which is titled Coaching Trees and Growth, there's another subject that I get asked about a lot. And so I'd like to ask your advice here for everybody. Mentorship. It's a very broad subject, but you have some very strong advice for people who are looking to accelerate their growth through mentorship. And so for the average person out there, somebody who's just getting into the industry, maybe a young professional specifically, how should they seek mentorship and maybe what forms of mentorship are available?

Well, you should seek as high up as possible. You know, in the book we talk about the people that I just had met, like a great hospitality— well, look at my book itself. Tilman Fertitta wrote the foreword, right? The owner of the Rockets, the owner of Golden Nugget, the owner of Landry's, multi-billionaire, the greatest office I've ever seen. And, you know, I asked him, I, I asked him to mentor me. I asked him to write my foreword. I asked for his help. And so what we need to do is not limit ourselves. You know, the greatest minds are not making statues of critics, by the way. Right? I didn't come up with this, right? They don't make statues of critics. They make statues of dreamers. So you better ask in order to reach those dreams, and you better ask big, ask big, and ask bigger, and ask more often. And so the key to mentorship is finding the most powerful source of situational knowledge you can and asking them for help. And I'll tell you one thing about not only finding a mentor, but being a mentor will teach you more than finding a mentor. I am on, you know, one of the top business coaches in the world with Fortune 500 CEOs, athletes, entertainers, billionaires, and millionaires. And half the time I'm talking to them, I say to myself, gosh, that's such a good idea. I should really implement in my own life. So you'll learn a lot from helping other people to implement things in your own life.

Yeah, there's a, there's a lot to be said for refreshing the fundamentals as well. I mean, that's the consistency that you're talking about. That's like the neuro-linguistic programming that you're talking about. Speaking of that, in chapter 2, you talk about unconscious competency. And so that's a subject that I'm sure a lot of people don't know much about. Why are you so involved in that and why is it so powerful for you?

Well, you know, I take a technology approach to things, a mathematical approach to things. We talk about the mathematical equation of luck. And if you look at the unconscious, it's such a powerful thing. And so I know that it has its own competency, its own understanding that genetically, if through our DNA, through our code, we know that there's messaging There's information that's passed on. It is proven scientifically from 4 generations, from your great-grandparents to your grandparents, to your parents, to you. Now, I'm a little freak, you know, an NLP guy like you, and I believe in past lifetimes. So I believe that my hard drive is my unconscious competency. It's a hard drive that I have to figure out a code to activate all the infinity of information that I've received from billions of galaxies and lifetimes and things that have made up that hard drive. And that this embodiment that I have today, the conscious and subconscious that exists within that embodiment, are just input facilitators to my hard drive that will carry on. Some people will call it your soul. And so I'm very involved with how they display themselves in this vibration, which is one, personality traits, two, characteristics. 3 obsessions and 4 addictions.

Mm-hmm. I love, I love when people ask me about book summaries because I always say you need to read the full book. You need to understand all of the examples and things like that because that's how your subconscious goes to work on your behalf. It's the studying, it's the deep studying, it's the truly understanding of a subject that allows your subconscious to say, hey, there's an opportunity to, opportunity to implement what I just read. And so I think that's really important. Hello, Book Thinkers family. A quick word from today's podcast sponsor. Today's episode is sponsored by Audible. Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks ranging from bestsellers to celebrity memoirs, business, and my favorite, personal development. And as part of Audible's partnership with us, we're actually offering listeners a free 30-day trial. Oh, that's awesome. This trial includes 1 credit good for any Premium Selection titles you'd like on the whole platform. So that's pretty much any book, including the one we're talking about today. That book is yours to keep even after the trial is over. Now this trial also includes access to Audible's Plus catalog of podcasts, audiobooks, guided wellness programs, and Audible Originals. You can listen all you want, no credits needed. Now everyone on the Book Thinkers Instagram knows that I love physical paper books. There's nothing better than having a book in your hand Scribbling notes everywhere in the margins. I kind of tear those things up, but I've been completing an additional 20 to 30 books every single year using Audible by listening when I'm in the car, doing chores around the house, or while I'm on my morning walks or runs. You could take advantage of this free trial by clicking the link in today's show notes or going to www.bookthinkers.com/audibletrial.

Awesome.

You will not regret it. Now, back to today's episode. I know we're jumping around chapters a lot, but there's another question I have for you about out of chapter 1. You say in the leverage experience section that there are 2 values in business. You say relationship capital and situational knowledge. What are those all about?

Yeah, so relationship capital is the most powerful capital that we have. And that's earned by being kind. And I have a saying, be kind to your future self and do good deeds. When we're looking to elevate others, we elevate ourselves. The most powerful thing is to identify through radical humility that we're all connected and that we need help. And so relationship capital is understanding the value of the relationships from those that are most relative to us to those that aren't. And then situational knowledge is finding the person who is in the exact situation I want to be and gaining that knowledge without having to pay the dummy tax.

Words of wisdom. I like that. I like that. Um, chapter 4 is titled Don't Trip on, on the First Down Chains Behind You. And what caught my attention in that chapter and something that I'd like to have you kind of dumb down for everybody is the relationship between time and perception. I thought that was really interesting, and a lot of us probably don't think about how the past might be holding us down. And so what is the relationship between time and perception in kind of simplistic terms?

You know, to simply put it, that time itself has 3 components. It has the past, which then we have our perception of, right? It's not the actual thing that happened. Our senses are too weak and our memories are weaker. So we have a perception of what had happened and that we can in certain ways allow ourselves to determine what is happening now and in the future by our perception of what happened in the past. And so your perceptions are completely dictated by your past. So if you have gratitude, if you found the light, the love, and the lessons in your past, You're gonna have a brighter future. And that's the simplest way I could put it. And I study time, uh, religiously. I, you know, why not? If I could double the amount of time I'm going to be here, or quadruple the amount of time, or create the effect— I mean, you save 4 minutes a day, it's 24 hours of productivity a year. You know, how old are you? 25 years old, right?

26.

Yeah. 26. Yeah. So, you know, 50 years, 3 full days, I, I just got 150 more days of your life. to be productive because I taught you to save 4 minutes. That is so important about time.

Yeah, that's why The 4-Hour Workweek was one of the first books that I read, and I cherish that book because it taught me to automate, delegate, or eliminate low-impact activity and replace it with high-impact activity. And you can create a lot of time for yourself working that way.

Absolutely.

A lot of time.

Activity you get paid for, activity you don't. That's what I say. True.

I like that. I like that. Well, we've only got a couple minutes left, so I'd like to ask a couple rapid-fire questions. When I ask you about your favorite books, the books that have had the biggest impact on your life, what are 3 that come to mind right off the bat?

Well, for me, A Course in Miracles, Wayne Dyer's Power of Intention, and of course Think and Grow Rich. Good to Great is another one. Surrender Experiment. Alter Ego Effect by Herman. Those are quite a few that I read recently.

What about your podcast? You sit down with a lot of really interesting people. Who are some of your favorite podcast episodes or interview opportunities?

Danica Patrick, Ray Lewis, Cameron Diaz, the CEO of PayPal. I'm gonna blow over people's names. Sri, you know, I'm so blessed. Over 600 episodes of the most famous celebrities, athletes, entertainers, media, billionaires, millionaires. Gary Vee is another great one. Tom Bilyeu, people like that.

Yeah, I watched an episode of yours where you sat down with Ed Mylett. I really love Ed and what he's doing. One of my favorites. Yeah, you guys kind of sit back and you say, hey, we're best friends already. And I love that. That's, that's really cool that you've done a lot of that. And, um, you know, I'll put some links down to a lot of the different content and your different business units in the show notes of this episode. But for those that want to learn a little bit more about you, they want to come see what you're up to, they might want to attend one of your Friday trainings, where should they go? What should they do?

Well, number one, email me, right? I'm one of the few people— I answer all my emails. David Join my text community, 949-298-2905. Otherwise, just Google or look up David Meltzer on every platform and you will find me, David Meltzer. My website's dmeltzer.com, david@dmeltzer.com to email me.

Well, David, we spent a good amount of time on a lot of different subjects. I really appreciate your time today. You were super responsive, so I could definitely verify your statement there. And, and again, thank you for coming on our show today. I really appreciated it.

What a great show, helping so many people, helping me with my mission of empowering over a billion people to be happy through being book thinkers, learning from what we see in other people's lessons and stories. So thank you for sharing it with everybody.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers: Life-Changing It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, go read something.