This is a YouTube interview (uploaded June 2, 2021) featuring David Meltzer in conversation about his life journey, early success, major financial loss, and the personal lessons that followed. Meltzer describes growing up with a hardworking single mother, achieving rapid financial success (millionaire soon after law school, multimillionaire in his 20s), then losing over $100 million which catalyzed a shift from measuring life by money to measuring it by relationships, values, and faith. The discussion also covers how he now attracts and curates people around him, treats pain as an indicator for learning, and emphasizes four deep human needs (to be seen, heard, valued, appreciated).
Questions this video answers
June 2, 2021.
Nine months out of law school.
In his 20s.
Over $100 million.
About 14–15 years (he says almost 15, will be 15 in December).
Chapters
You know, one of the other things that he said that we share together is obviously difficult kind of story, kind of starting out life, you know, obviously growing up with a single mother, yourself. I grew up with a single grandmother, you know, kind of thing, same kind of deal, wanting very much to help them succeed and, you know, and kind of provide a better life for them. And that kind of drove me and drove you. And we both went through some challenging situations and then had to kind of rebuild. If you don't mind, just for the audience's sake, would you mind just giving a brief overview of kind of some of that journey? Because I think that plays direct, has a direct impact in who you are now and why you're so effective in helping people change from their lives.
I think first it was my relationship with money and my relationship to happiness. So for me, I grew up with a happiness gene and a happiness culture. At five years old, even though my father left, my mom was an extraordinary individual who raised six kids with two jobs and would pack our dinners in a station wagon and never complain about anything. Although I catch her crying over financial stress. And I know the reason she was financially stressed is she just wanted more for us, not for herself. But that drove me to this understanding that I was going to buy her a house and a car. And in order to do so, I needed to make a lot of money. And so money was then the guide to me to buy the final piece of happiness, the final piece of love. To be the favorite child to distinguish myself with hyper competitive, academic, intelligent siblings, all who went to the Ivy Leagues and graduated summa cum laude. I was going to show them. And although it's more genetically from my father, the entrepreneurial side, who was absent, I took that journey on. And the interesting thing is I did make a million dollars nine months out of law school. I was a multimillionaire in my 20s. All those things just reaffirmed. Money buys love and happiness. And maybe you can see the thing behind me. It says, money doesn't buy love or happiness.
Yeah, it cost me over $100 million and almost my health, my family, and everything to learn that unbelievably valuable lesson that has put us both on a journey to put faith in front of the other currency, money, the object of energy that we put in the flow to get things. But I have a different relationship to money now than I ever have.
That's. It's phenomenal. I went through a very similar situation, you know, battling homelessness, building my first company, and then having to replace my Executive team, literally overnight, due to embezzlement, that cost. That was a million dollar plus mistake. So that was. That was a hard thing because, you know, you let people into your inner circle and you're always trying to surround yourself with good people, you know, And I think that's one of the things that can really define, you know, who we become and what possibilities lay before us. I know that a lot of. A lot of things that kind of surround you now is attracting certain levels of talent, attracting certain things into your life and things of that nature. And I'm curious, you know, how do you. How are you able to put quality people, you know, around yourself to kind of, you know, not only just empower them, but also kind of keep yourself insulated and protected so you can be the most effective version of yourself?
You know, it's so interesting because I used to judge and define myself by the bank account I had. Now I judge and define myself by the people who I attract.
And also how I feel. And one of the greatest achievements of my entire life is that I keep attracting people like you, Evan Carmichael, or, you know, unbelievable people who impact the entire world. You know, the Deepak Chopras and the Jack Canfields and the Bob Proctors and the John Assaroffs. And these, these are my friends, these are my associates. And I look around me and I have, especially in the last five years, I know I set forth on this new journey 14, almost 15 years now, almost 15 will be 15 in December. But the main thing is, you know, I'm getting very rigid about not allowing people who believe me to be around me. I allow people to fall away. I pray for their happiness, and if they're disastrous, I will fire them from my lives. And someone who wants to please everyone, someone who wants to be loved by everyone in inherent quantum nature that I've had to break the chain of. It's very difficult still today at 52, to realize, wait a second, why am I wasting my time being sucked dry when I could be either mutually or even better being fed? And I want to feed those people that feed me.
Amen to that, for sure. You know, it's funny you said that because, you know, I discovered a long time ago that it seems to be there. There seems to be four underlying needs that most people have in either trying to transform their own lives or trying to be a quality relationship for somebody else. You'd mentioned, you know, relationships that kind of can bleed you a little bit. And I found that people typically want one of four things at a very, very Deep level until they get to the level of sacrifice and things that you've gone through yourself to kind of grow out of a little bit, which is to be seen to be heard, to be valued and be appreciated. Right. You know, all of us are, you know, for lack of a better word, we're all chasing this stuff, you know, and, you know, I think there's wisdom and understanding, and I think that's one of the things that I, that I love most about adversity and how it produces a miraculous milk, so to speak, of how it shapes our lives, you know, and, you know, when I look at what you've been building and what you've been building for a long time, one of the things I love most about it, these genuine sincerity behind it. Now, where do you think that genuine sincerity was built? Because there are a lot of, obviously, as Evan refers to the good guys and the bad guys kind of thing, Right. He referred to you as one of the good guys, which is why he insisted that we connect. And, you know, what do you think differentiates the good guys and the bad guys in today's environment?
Lessons. And most likely the lessons about the ego. And I've been blessed because I had been born into kindness. My mom instilled these traits and values of gratitude, forgiveness, accountability, and inspiration. And I grew up with those and through the wrong focus and through buying into my own BS and from finally enlightening myself. You know, the biggest lesson for me was I hated my father because he was a liar, cheater, manipulator, overseller, and back end seller. And he tried to redeem that relationship late in my 20s and early 30s, and I wasn't ready for it. And I just went to blame, shame and justification and went down a slippery slope, a spiral of blame, shame and unhappiness. And it was so interesting because when I made my transformational shift, the first catalytic event of that transformational shift was my wife telling me that I had lost taking stock in my values. And I still didn't want to listen to her. I went again and said, you know, I was offended, I was resentful. I'm like, are you kidding me? Look around at the cars, the houses, the boats, the motorhomes, the golf courses came out and all the things that we own. Are you kidding me? The live in nanny. Are you kidding me? The happy three beautiful girls at the time. And then I saw that one thing my father had given me in 30 years, a jacket with no pockets at 30 years old, gave it to me years earlier. And I Looked at it. I still get choked up thinking about it because I remember thinking, man, I'm a liar, right? I'm a cheater. I'm a manipulator. I'm not a. I wasn't a bad person. You know, I. A little bit different than my friend Evan. I believe everyone is good. They just have lessons to learn. I think I've seen. I've seen really good, desperate people do bad things. I. I think people do bad things and some people do more bad things than others for varying reasons. So for me, I was just doing some bad things. I was a good person. I gave to charity for the wrong reasons. Is that bad? Right. I gave to receive. I gave money so people would, like you said, acknowledge me. I would. Right. All the things you just mentioned, those four things. That's why I was philanthropic. Not unconditionally, like my mom was philanthropic. I think it was that shift to me of looking and fully understanding. I have a journey now. For me, pain is not going to be a stop sign. Pain is going to be an indicator, a turn signal that I have a better direction to go, that I have lessons to learn. And once I learn the lessons, the pain will go away. Mental, physical, spiritual, emotional and financial. They'll all go away when I learn the lessons. And so now when pain comes up in my life, I don't go to blame. Shame, justification. I look for the light, the love and the lessons in it. And I expedite through different pragmatic procedures and my values, which I take inventory of every day to create happiness, bright lights and loves and lessons. And then I empower others to do the same.
I absolutely love it. You know, I went through a similar thing with my own father. My father unfortunately suffered from alcoholism. Missed a huge chunk of my life. Mother, mental abuse, had mental abuse.
Physical abuse.
Another person meant a huge chunk of my life. One of the biggest differentiators between the two is one did try to reconcile, has done a fantastic job. He's a fantastic grandfather, for example. Like, he's, you know, it's his second chance. He loves his grandkids. You know, whether or not I got, you know, I got three that are quasi adults, two that are in college, and, you know, one that's actually working in one of my companies in the accounting office. And, you know, but one of the things that struck me was one of the pivot moments I had in understanding grace towards that was a buddy of mine, a friend of mine, Chris Lakoto, out of Texas. He asked me, he said, I got a question for you. I know you've went through all this hurt and all this pain and all these different things to be sure. It's got to be heavy carrying that around, for one. And second of all, let me ask you this. Who taught them to be parents?
Where did they learn to be parents? And then he gave me something I'll never forget. He said, here's what I want you to do. From now on, anytime someone hurts you or offends you, I want you to consider taking the time to see them how God sees him. I'm like, okay, well, what does that mean? He goes, well, you're a wounded child. You've made stupid mistakes. You've done stupid. I've done stupid with steroids, with zeros and everything else you know, I've made. I've made lots of. Lots of. I'm being an example of how to survive your mistakes.
He said, you know, next time you think about somebody's wounded, you look at it like a wounded child with their hands up and with their hands up in the air and their knees all skinned. And he said, jenny, you'll be able to love people unconditional, even past their traumas. Doesn't mean you have to, like, stay so connected where you can't, you know, where they can injure you again, but you can create enough distance and space to allow them to grow. Hey there. If you really enjoyed that snippet, you're really going to love the full interview right here, so make sure you check it out.
Meditate. I don't have time to meditate. I'm a multimillionaire. I run the most notable sports agency in the world. I used to be the CEO of the world's first smartphone. Do you know who I am? Why would I meditate? I make everything happen. I grew up with nothing. I'm a multimillionaire there. I got a beautiful wife, beautiful cars.
