Living The Red Life - Empowering Change with David Meltzer

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

In this inspiring episode of "Living the Red Life," we welcome David Meltzer, a renowned figure in the world of business and personal development, known for his profound impact on communities and individuals alike. Join us as David shares his journey from facing financial challenges to becoming a millionaire, his philosophy on wealth, happiness, and empowering others, and insights on achieving success.---Key Topics Covered:Introduction to David Meltzer: Dave's background and how he's made a significant impact through his work and social outreach.The Role of Expectations in Success: David emphasizes the importance of setting the right expectations in business, teamwork, and personal life.Overcoming Financial Distress: David personal story of becoming rich to overcome financial distress and the lessons learned from his journey through financial highs and lows.Empowerment Through Values and Execution: How David has dedicated his life to empowering others using his unique values, practices, and execution model.The Importance of Surrounding Yourself with Success: David discusses the power of being around people who embody the success you aspire to achieve and how it shapes your journey.Breaking Through Self-Image Limitations: Insights into overcoming the limitations set by one's self-image to achieve what seems impossible to others.---Key Takeaways:David Meltzer's Transformative Journey: From his early struggles to achieving financial success and facing bankruptcy, to rising again with a mission to empower others.The Power of Expectations: David shares why mastering the art of setting and managing expectations is crucial for success.Financial Freedom and Happiness: How David's pursuit of wealth shifted from personal gain to empowering communities and spreading happiness.Learning from the Best: David stresses the importance of learning from those who've achieved the success you desire, sharing his experiences with figures like Richard Branson.---Join us in this episode of "Living the Red Life" as David Meltzer shares his invaluable experiences and wisdom on overcoming life's challenges, the essence of true wealth, and the journey to empowering oneself and others.---Don’t forget to subscribe for more enriching episodes and share your takeaways from David Meltzer’s inspiring journey in the comments below!#LivingTheRedLife #DaveMeltzer #Empowerment #SuccessJourney #FinancialFreedom #PersonalDevelopment---Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

I would have laughed at, scoffed at, and made fun of when I was your age. And now I'm the guy talking about divine direction and the laws of attraction and gravity and quantum physics and metaphysics. And it's language that I picked up from Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and, you know, beyond the great athletes, celebrities, Tillman Fertitta. All these guys are woo-woos all hell. They're just talking about it behind the doors. Few of us that are trying to promote it outside. My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast. And I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill,

join me in Wonderland and change your life. Guys, welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. I have my good friend on today. You probably know who he is, Dave Meltzer. He's all over the place. He's been around a long time, continues to crush it. Welcome to the show, buddy. Yeah, thanks for having me. And I love that because even the most popular people in the world, they're always surprised they'll apologize to you. Hey, man, I'm really sorry. I've never heard of you. of you i said well there's about 7.6 billion people so even the kardashians the rock uh they're just in an incremental position when it comes to what they do and how they do it and what i love about what you do is the social silo that you've created for yourself understanding how to build a community of people that you can help and know

people that can help you and to watch not only your brand grow, but the impact that you're having on your community makes my heart sing. It's aligned with my mission. For the first day I met you at my beach house, I said, this young man is going to help change the world. And hopefully I can be some part of helping him help others change the world. And besides being the best dressed and best looking guy, I love the fact that you impact so many people and you're all around my spheres of influence. Good.

Well, yeah, you too. I mean, look, the entrepreneurial world, like I was saying earlier to someone, you know, most of us start because we have no money, right? Or we want to help people. And it's amazing how this journey takes us. So talking to that journey in, I would love to get a summary of yours for those who maybe are the few that don't know who you are. Right on. You know, I was called the journey of three worlds, grew up in a world of not enough, not enough of anything as a victim. Everything happened to me. My dad left when I was five, abused as a nine-year-old, six kids.

My mom worked two jobs, packed my dinner paper bag from in between being a second grade teacher and filling up turnstiles at convenience stores with greeting cards. But I wanted to be rich for only one reason is I lived in happiness, joy, and love, except for when there was financial distress. So in my mind, I said, I'm going to relieve the only dis-ease that I experienced, which is financial dis-ease. So all of my emotions were attached to being rich. And nine months out of law school, I was rich. Instead of becoming an oil and gas litigator, although my mom made me take the bar because she told me the internet

was going to be a fad. I was a millionaire. Three years later, my first exit was $3.4 billion selling West Publishing to Thomson Reuters in 1995. Still pre-chasm internet. Ventured up to the Silicon Valley, continually seeking money, continually believing and also confirming that money buys love and happiness. I raised hundreds of millions of dollars on Sand Hill Road until in 1999, I was married to my dream girl from the fourth grade, worth over $100 million, running Samsung's phone division.

At that point in my life, I always say I was lost and I didn't know it. I remember telling my mom, I don't believe in God. And her telling me, you believe in God, but you believe in the wrong God. And at that time, I started to realize that money was amazing, but I didn't understand my relationship to it. And I ended up running the most notable sports agency in the world, a company called Lee Steinberg Sports and Entertainment. They made the movie Jerry Maguire about my firm. So now not only was I a

multimillionaire, but I had access to what billionaires couldn't even afford to do, sidelines and backstages and cabins at the Masters and private jets and all types of great luxuries. And as many of us have bought our own bullshit, I ended up on my two years before I went bankrupt, before I lost everything, I ended up on the edge of my bed thinking that I hated my dad. I hated my mom. I hated my best friend. And now I hated my wife who was going to leave me. And I realized there was only really one person I hated, myself. And my wife had told me she was leaving with my three daughters, who all were under 10 years old, and told me to take stock in who I was and what I wanted to become. And I almost blew it. But thank goodness, I took stock

in who I was and started to look at my values and my practices and the execution of those values and practices. And over 17 years, even though I lost everything, over $100 million, went bankrupt. And my bankruptcy had a bottom. I always say my basement had a basement. Not only did I have to tell my mom that I lost everything, the only reason I wanted to be rich was to take care of her. I forgot to take my mom's house, my name off of title. So I had to tell my mom she was moving

and that she was going to be evicted. But beyond the basements of the basements, I have lived my life now to empower others, to empower others to do three things. I'm really good, always have been at making money, but utilizing it to help the most amount of people I can to have the most amount of fun, to be as happy as I can. And I've created great values, practices, and execution for some of the biggest companies in the world, to entrepreneurs, celebrities, entertainers, billionaires, millionaires. It doesn't matter. I've been able over the last 17 years to empower others, to empower others with these values, practices, and execution model to do just that. Yeah, I love that. There's a lot to unpack there. I think we both started this because I was saying

earlier too, one of my big memories as a kid that drove me to money was always when there were talks about bills and money, but then also we had to sit with a radiator on for like an hour a day, or maybe twice a day, we got to one hour stints in England, and we had to sit by the radiator to stay warm, because we couldn't afford to heat the whole house. So you know, for me, I had a great childhood, right? Great parents, you know, they were actually elite athletes but not financially free so i saw the power that money can have over you and um and i grew up loving entrepreneurship whether it was selling you know candy in school so i think a lot of those entrepreneurs start with that and then before we know it we're making 20 grand a month 30 grand a month right and our lives totally change

so it's funny where life can take you. But one thing I think that's also really cool out of there is that character shift, right? We all start probably young, hungry, and all in on the money side. And then that character shift comes over time. So I would love to talk about a few of these things. And I would also love to talk about your corporate experience and the divide between the corporate experience and the entrepreneurship experience. So maybe we start there. You obviously ran a big division. How is that different, running that versus this entrepreneurial world most of us live in and how we run our companies? Well, the number one thing about running a division or working in a big corporate context is that there's a lot of people you're forced to receive help from.

And this main distinction is really carrying over into our personal lives as well, because we're born, people like you and I, Rudy, that we believe the more you give, the more you receive. And it's absolutely true. But within the context of a big business, you do the more you give, the more you'll receive, but you're missing the key component of entrepreneurship, which is the greatest entrepreneurs know that the more they give, the more they're given and they heighten what their awareness is to what they're given. And then on top of that, what they do is they ask for more. You see,

when you're working in a big company, you don't need to ask. You're being told. You don't need to see or raise your awareness to what you're given from your efforts, your productivity, your accessibility, and gratitude. But when you're an entrepreneur, we attach our emotions to the outcomes of today as if we understand or know those outcomes. And as a leader within a big company, you don't need to understand or know the outcomes because they're all on a spreadsheet. And what I help people do is to let them live in a radical humility where they do their best, learn lessons and have fun, but they don't attach any type of ego to

understanding or knowing today's outcomes as they are relative to today's progress or today's behavior. You see, good behavior automatically creates good progress. Bad behavior automatically creates bad progress. When you're working at a big company, nobody gives a shit. As long as you hit your number, then you're fine. But within the context of entrepreneurial journeys and goals, we have to have a realization that I need to have good progress and patience because the only two things that will shorten your distance between you and what you want is wisdom and faith. And you don't need any faith or wisdom within a big company because you're told what to

do and you're told the number. Or in other words, you're told to attach all your emotions to this number. And that is not how entrepreneurship works. What shortens the distance of resistance is wisdom and faith. And those entrepreneurs that understand that, they continually, although they're not seeing the results, the consequences, coincidence, karma, and luck,

especially when they first start, they have faith and seek wisdom and seek help that they will get there someday. And that's why I give the number one piece of entrepreneurial advice, which is stay in business. When you work for a company, you're not trying to stay in business. You're just trying to hit your number. What about the flip of that?

I think there are some great, more corporate lessons that entrepreneurs lack around the operations, the teams, KPI systems. And as I've grown past 100 employees and ran and been part of companies doing millions and millions a week with hundreds of employees, I've learned these and applied these. What are some of the big things entrepreneurs need to learn from corporate? Well, I'll tell you one thing. First, if you're young, I always highly suggest, unless you have a direct line to capital and great mentorship, the best way is to start working in intrapreneurship.

Because the lessons of intrapreneurship, you have internal mentorship, you have healthcare, you have equity. Now you learn about lottery tickets within the context. You have mitigated risk. There are so many great things to learn. You are utilizing software that you'll never be able to afford at the beginning. You understand how to get access to certain capabilities today, AI or big SaaS solutions, all these different things. You also learn people skills within a context, which is really important.

I don't know if you've read any of the big entrepreneur. I used to work with Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and I've studied Elon Musk, Richard Branson. You know, what I've learned is that they lacked, you know, especially Gates jobs and Elon, people skills. Yeah. Right. They, you know, partly because they probably are on the spectrum and empathy is not a great thing. But, you know, you can learn people skills. I'll tell you the three things I think that you can learn today by working for a big company that will help you.

Number one is technology at somebody else's expense. You can use millions of dollars of technology that you'll never be able to learn about or use that as you become an entrepreneur may be very inexpensive by the time you use it. So AI would be one of those. You're in a playground of education for technology. Two, you learn people skills, right? You learn to build, run really big teams. Like you said, you had no idea what it was like to run 100 employees. I had 7,000 sales reps under me in my twenties. And I had made so many mistakes. I think I owe like 6,999 apology letters because I was such a horrible leader at 26 of 7,000 people. Now that I'm 56

and I've learned those lessons that you're learning right now about having hundreds of employees. And then, so people skills is the other. Here's the one that I didn't realize is so important when working for a company is what you read, right? They have such access to so much data that a differentiator for an entrepreneur in the future, not only is technology, not only is people skills, but it's the access to information and data that gives you awareness and insight that when you have three employees and you're scrapping just to stay alive every day, you have no idea of the secrets in the leveling up cheat codes that big companies have. If you have access and awareness of those while you're doing an entrepreneurial journey in your 20s.

I think, for me, considering plus healthcare and the equity component that you can start learning about, unless you're very dialed in with mentorship and capital, I think you're better off being an entrepreneur first than an entrepreneur. Yeah. I mean, we've had a lot of great 22- know, 22 year olds come in, you know, marketing kind of admin people. And I always say to my C-suite, I'm like, you know, if I had that opportunity to work with this version of me when I was 20, right, like I was a personal trainer in a gym and I learned people skills and sales and communication back then, which was a key skill that I've carried with me. But like I didn't, you know, learn funnels and ads. And, you know, some of our clients pay us 100 grand a year to work with me. But I didn't learn funnels and ads. And some of our clients

pay us 100 grand a year to work with me an hour a month. And these kids are getting 10 hours a week with me on a marketing call and me teaching them, hey, bring this KPI report next Wednesday. And they're learning what data points to track and stuff. So yeah, there's so much power getting around those people in your 20s and even now right we always level up like you know i'm spending more time with richard branson i'm back again on this island in a month and that's because it's like i i want to be a billionaire so my my whole thing is well how do i spend more time with billionaires right so so just always get there find someone that's already there and ask them for directions. I've been out to the island a few times and it has changed my life.

To understand, they already have directions. They've already been told the secrets. Might as well just ask them for it. Some of it too, with mentorship, just before we move on, is what I've learned now as I've become more experienced is taking away the things they don't tell you. I'll always remember sitting with Richard playing chess or having lunch and he was telling me, you know, I can't go into too much confidentially wise, but he

was, you know, making a major decision that was like a hundred million dollar decision for Virgin Brands in between having lunch and playing chess with me. Right. And it's like he was still living his life calm dealing with this thing and so like just seeing how like you're always going to have decisions to make hard decisions as the owner and they're going to get worse and worse and bigger and bigger and it's just part of the game so sometimes you can take a lot away from what they don't say to and how they act yeah well i always say if you learn to love what other people don't love

or other people don't like or what you don't love or what you don't like, and you do it consistently without quit, it'll tell you all its secrets. It'll give you the cheat codes to level up. A lot of people don't have the fortitude or the focus in order to facilitate that discipline of doing things every day. And you can tell the difference. You know, I work with a lot of your partners like Harrington and Darren Prince is one of my older friends, and those are guys who do it every day that don't need to do it anymore. And Richard Branson is also one of those people that I love,

the people that don't need to do it, but they continually do it every single day at the best of their capability. Yeah, you got to fall in love with a game, right? Like the money, because the side of anything is the game. I think that's what I fell in love with, like the game of just leveling up and building cool stuff and running cool teams. And I love that. So what about, I would love to talk more about now, the know, the, the, the bridge, right? Like, I think there's a lot of people listening to this in their twenties or thirties, their money obsessed, money focused, money motivated, which I don't think is a bad thing, but I think you have to have that other side too. So what are some of your,

like if you could go back and tell your younger self 25 years old, what would you teach yourself on that sort of bridge? Yeah. On that bridge, number one is just ask for help, right? It's amazing how much you lose off. People ask me, how the hell did you lose over $100 million? I didn't ask for help. I thought I was Midas. I sat in front of so many people overselling, back-end selling, lying, manipulating, and cheating, and denying who I am, trying to be what I wanted other people to think I am. Even though I was extremely successful for my age, I was working in a false facade of success.

Until I learned about illuminating the truth and humility and faith, that faith and wisdom, those are the bridges that I had to learn about. And in order to do so, you need to know what you want in a divine direction of where you think you should be, but also you need to know who, who you can help get to where they want to be, which is something you do all the time. And also who can help you like Richard Branson gets you to where you want to be or better. And so that bridge of faith and wisdom in order to facilitate where we want to be by three components of energy, money is an energy, but behavior also is an energy and behavior and money. They attract more of the same behavior and the same money. They also accelerate the

outcomes that you want are better, but they also create an exponentiality through the conscious continuum and the understanding of physics and metaphysics and quantum physics energy exponentially grows on itself so instead of progressing in a normal one two three four manner you progress in a one two four eight sixteen manner uh and the outcomes become so far, sometimes unimaginable because most people limit themselves by their self-image and will never overachieve their own self-image. But if they understand exponentiality, they'll start realizing how you become a billionaire isn't 1, 2, 3, 4. It's 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. Yeah, I think that 1, 2, 3, four can get you to like 10 million, right? I've realized that. And then it's like, the 10 to 100 that starts coming in more, and then the hundreds of billion, I'm sure even more. And I've always noticed that too, like,

I think in my 20s, I was so focused on strategy, tactics, hammer and nail stuff. And then in the last couple of years, way more, you know, especially now we're over 100 staff is my energy and environment, right? Like I'll cut people, I'll cut departments, I'll cut projects, even if they're lucrative, if they don't fit the energy and environment that I want to create. And, you know, Richard bought an entire island to create his energy and environment. So just, yeah, understanding more of that, I think is so important. Like I used to think a lot of it,

I would always joke was woo-woo. And, you know, and then you become more open to it and see how it can impact you and how a lot of the best in the world will follow these principles. It's pretty eye-opening to how important those people, those environments, those right projects, those right partners, and those right places can impact your success.

Yeah, there's a genetic and energetic inheritance as well as a collaborative nature of energetics and genetics. They talk about surrounding yourself with the right people and the right ideas, but within the context, they don't give you a framework. In fact, one of the frameworks that I use is I do a three-pronged test of one how much do you feed or bleed me and according to how much you feed or bleed me energetically then i see how relative you are to me so my mom can bleed me every day my kids can bleed me every day because they're so relative. But then I also created an association according to the feeding and the relativity of our relationship. And that association is what you're talking about.

It may sound woo-woo to a lot of people, but that common thread exists. And half the shit I talk about today when I was your age, I would have laughed you know, laughed at, scoffed at, and made fun of when I was your age. And now I'm the guy talking about, you know, divine direction and the laws of attraction and gravity and physics, quantum physics and metaphysics. And it's language that I picked up from, you know, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Richard Branson and, you know, Bob Parsons, even from GoDaddy, beyond the great athletes, celebrities, Tillman Fertitta. All these guys are woo-woos all hell.

They're just talking about it behind the doors. There's a few of us that are trying to promote it outside. Well, I think to become a billionaire or the best in the world, I always say there's a level of insanity and craziness there just to believe that goal, right? And that's what I remind people with me. I want to be a billionaire and I do things very abnormally and people say it's not normal.

I go, that's the whole point. If it wasn't, you can't be normal in your everyday but then want to be abnormal in your goals and your life and your vision. So you have to yeah pretty much understand and accept anyone creating some level of greatness and uniqueness is definitely on the spectrum definitely crazy you know all of those things or they wouldn't get to those those places nobody's ever changed the world ever changed the world that people didn't say that's insane yeah that's

how you do change the world you can't get get there because you, once again, are limited by your self-image and you will never overachieve your own self-image. So when you break through a self-image that makes other people uncomfortable, they're going to think you're crazy. They're going to laugh at you, scoff at you and make fun of you because they have limiting words, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. And if you don't have those, you're crazy. Yeah. It's always funny because once you learn that, then you really see the other person, right? Because it's often just a reflection pushed onto you. So it's always funny once you

understand that. So last question, because we're coming close on time, we could go for so much more, but you've done so much, right? And you're helping so many people and you're still doing so much. What are just some takeaways for, and I know we've already had a lot, but there's so many lessons you've learned and you keep saying, if I could go back to my younger self, I could go back to my younger self. So what is it, if you could have just 30 seconds with your younger self, what would you say to that person? Yeah. Beyond asking for help, I would say, understand time. Utilize every day with a common denominator of time. You're guaranteed 24 hours every single day, except for the last day of your life. So live it that way. The last day, hopefully you'll die in your

sleep and you'll only be cheated a few hours. But if you live every day utilizing time, sleep, number one, then non-negotiables of your family, your finance, your faith, your fitness, and then study time with that time. If you just dedicate seven hours to sleep every day and utilize a coach or a mentor for sleep, and then three hours a day for your non-negotiables of fitness, finance, family, faith, and studying time. You'll have 14 hours to do whatever you want. Now you just got to prioritize because the antidote to the biggest problem in most people's lives is prioritization. Prioritization is the antidote to procrastination and feeling overwhelmed. And the

only way to prioritize is to know what's important to you, not what's important to other people, not what's missing, not what you don't have, what's important to you. So every day, use the 24 hours to prioritize your day, have your non-negotiables, and you will be productive. You'll provide value. You'll be accessible. You'll have accessibility to so many people and be accessible to so many people. And most importantly, the lens of gratitude, the ability to find the light, the love, and the lessons, the things that nobody else loves to do, nobody else likes to do. You're going to learn how, and you're going to do it consistently. You're going to apply your why persistently, applying your why, not quitting in the pursuit

of what you want. And life's going to tell you all its secrets, all its cheat codes. And you're going to end up with everything that you want and more in a world of more than enough of everything for everyone. That's what I tell myself. And that's a wrap. I love that, dude. Beautiful ending to an amazing episode.

One last question. Where do they find you? One place. If they want to get more magic, like they just heard that email me directly. I, for all your community, I will sign my book. I will send it to you. I'll pay for shipping and the book. Email me david at d melzer.com. David at d melzer.com. It's always red, man. You're ready for Valentine's Day someday. That's beautiful, babe. Fun ready. Dude, it's a pleasure, guys.

Keep living the red life. That's a wrap. I'll see you all very soon.