David Meltzer: Sports Marketing Genius

This is National Entrepreneurship Week, brought to you by Microsoft. And this is Microsoft Launch the program. I'm Alan Taylor from Inc. Magazine with my buddy Scott Duffy, who is the author of the book Launch. Scott, good to see you today.

It's great to see you, Alan.

So now you have one of your friends here. I know you know a lot about him, and our job is to help people get inspired by stories that are like Dave here, Dave Meltzer from Sports1 Marketing. I mean, these stories, we all struggle in life, right? And especially when it comes to business. And I think Dave's story is quite inspiring.

Well, I'll tell you, first of all, Dave, thank you so much for joining us today.

My pleasure.

And I'm so excited to have you here because Dave has been one of my longtime mentors and people I look up to because he's not only incredibly successful in his business, but he shares the bumps and bruises that he's had along the way and how those help to shape him. And so, Dave, I. I'd love you to share some of your experience and really what it means to the entrepreneurs watching today.

Sure. Well, you know, every great entrepreneur likes to tell you about the wins. I kind of shifted the paradigm, and I like to focus in on what I call successive events of my life, because those difficult moments, the challenges that I faced, all really created the successes that I have. So I've redefined challenges or even failures as successive events. So being a millionaire in my 20s, a multimillionaire in my 30s, I actually retired and end up screwing all that up, and that was the best part of my career.

Well, you know, the interesting thing is the way most people talk, all you hear about is the wins. And I think that for most of us as entrepreneurs, it can feel really lonely while we're going through our own struggle. And so how did you get through those hard times, and how did you really get those experiences to start working for you?

You know, I really owe a debt of gratitude to my wife because as I retired and started believing my own bs, she told me that I wasn't the same person, and she was preparing me for what was about to happen. She told me I wasn't paying attention and I should go back and codify the principles that I live by. Because she felt that if I could regain the gratitude, the empathy, the accountability, and the ability to effectively communicate that very quickly, I could put myself back onto the path. The interesting thing was she saw it before I lost everything.

Wow.

As they usually do, by the way, I've been married 30 years. And my wife a number of times said, are you watching what's going on? Are you seeing what's going on? And I think in the tornado of what's going on, sometimes we do get lost. So it's great to use our partners as kind of, you know, somebody that actually is the help, the navigator helping us, and listen to them.

I have to share a story. So last summer I had the opportunity to watch Dave speak. And one of the people in the audience at the very end asked if there was only one thing that we should do. Like, as entrepreneurs, you know, we have good days, we have bad days. We don't know which is which until sometime way down the line because we don't know what will make of the experience. But the question was, if there was only one piece of advice that you would give an entrepreneur to turn things around, what is it? And Dave said, thank you. He said, come from a place of gratitude. Can you share what that means? Because it had a profound impact on my life.

Yeah, you know, it's very, very interesting that two simple words can change everything in your life. And so what gratitude does in the two words of thank you is it changes your perspective of the past. You know, this idea of successive events comes from the idea that, oh, thank goodness that happened to me, but for that happening, I wouldn't be here in the present. Now, gratitude takes another step by being thankful of the present. What we do is we start imagining the future in a much more positive way, which what? By taking the appropriate actions, allows us to manifest that probability right into our reality. So gratitude is the key to success.

So one of the ways that I applied, what you taught me was this. I set an alarm on my phone, and here's what I do at 8 o' clock in the morning, and at 8 o' clock at night, that alarm rings and I call my wife. I set the same alarm on my wife's phone. And what we do is we make sure every day, no matter where we are, to talk to each other at those. At those two times and say two words, thank you. And what happens is it doesn't matter what's going on around you that day. What you do is you focus on what you have versus what you lack. And can you talk to me about how that relates to gratitude and everything that you teach?

And I want to hear your story, too, before you get out of here.

Absolutely. So I actually built an app called the Meltzer Mission, which is available on my Microsoft device, but it reminds you to say thank you before you go to bed and when you wake up, that way you're programming your mind to be grateful in your subconscious as well as reminding yourself to be consciously grateful for everything that happens. And it's so powerful. So to share my story and how gratitude affects is I grew up broke, single mom, six kids. So all I wanted to be was rich. But my mom didn't have anything. So all she could teach us was gratitude and empathy. Empathy was forgiveness because she knew we were imperfect. Especially when you have five boys and one girl. And so I took that gratitude and subconsciously I became very successful. I still combined it with hard work, tried my best. In fact, I had a philosophy that I could outwork anybody, but without gratitude, it was amazing. When I became self entitled, I lost my own gratitude. I became self entitled and I was retired in my 30s and pretty soon I felt like I deserved everything. And this idea of entitlement is a crucial issue for younger people today.

Oh yeah.

And if they only knew about how empowering gratitude was. And when we give to others by being gracious, more comes to us. And so instead of this me feeling that I had because I had made it, finally I felt I deserved everything that I made. I started just giving it all away.

By the way, for those who are watching right now, raise your hand if you've also been one of those entrepreneurs that thinks they can outwork anybody that works for them. Because I'm one of those guys. I think that's our mantra. I can work so hard, nobody can outwork me.

And so then the question is, is that all it takes? Is that all it takes is working harder than anyone else.

I thought it did and I did. I made millions of dollars out working everyone. But where the key, success. And it took me about nine months to make everything back. And where I gained the power that really changed my life was it wasn't just discipline, strategy and awareness, the action principles that I created. It was actually financial, foundational values, guideposts and the laws of attraction that allowed me to imagine and utilize my energy in such an efficient manner to manifest what I want. So what it allows me to do is I think of what I want. Could be anything. I think of it, it's a possibility. I imagine it in a certain way. I become inspired. And inspiration is awesome because it mathematically takes your possibility and makes it a probability. And that's now where the action takes place, is that probability has only one thing in its way, you. So you need to take action to make your probability your reality or your perspective.

I Love this, because ultimately you use virtues and values and systems and processes, honor and dignity. And these are principles that were given by God, which is really great. And you just started to apply them. I love that man.

Thank you.

So it's amazing that you went through all that you went through and you were able to really reboot and turn things around in nine months. The question is, you know, sometimes we wake up in the morning as entrepreneurs. Actually, you taught me something. You taught me that sometimes when things are tough. The purpose of today is to get to tomorrow and to focus on those short term goals. And so if you had one or two pieces of advice for the person that maybe is struggling out there to take their dream and make it a reality, what would that be?

Number one rule of entrepreneurship, stay in business. I had these grandiose ideas as an entrepreneur, and if I just would have realized that my only goal of today first is to stay in business, then I'll never fail. Because as long as I'm in business. All these great companies, including Microsoft, didn't start off the way they were. What they did is they took one day at a time and they made sure they were in business tomorrow. My first goal still today. And I run one of the most notable sports agencies in the world.

You're the Jerry Maguire.

My goal, literally every day after I meditate is what do I need to do today to stay in business tomorrow? Once that's done, everything else is gravy. And eventually I know that if I manifest what I desire, I'll evolve into what I'm supposed to do. The second piece of advice would be everything comes at the right way at the perfect time. Trust the universe. But tie up your camels. That's my.

I love it. All right, I'll add one to that. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. One day at a time, right?

Absolutely. Same last day.

It's so counterintuitive because so often we hear to look out into the future 5, 10, 15 years versus thinking one day and one kind of one thing at a time. Yeah. And so it's. That's great advice.

It is. Dave Meltzer, everybody. Sports one, Marketing. Well, we're celebrating National Entrepreneurship Week presented by Microsoft.