Stay Tranquilo - David Meltzer on “Why You Shouldn’t Do Business with D*cks”

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

We sat down with David Meltzer at Super Bowl Media Row to talk about success, failure, mindset, and the lessons that shaped his life and career. From growing up with a single mother to making (and losing) over $100 million, David shares powerful insights on ego, mental health, business, and why kindness is the ultimate advantage. He also dives into the inspiration behind his new book “Don’t Do Business with Dcks”* and what it really means to build meaningful relationships in business and life. This episode covers: Losing everything in 2008 and rebuilding The role of ego vs. humility in success Why kindness is a business strategy Lessons from working with top athletes and agents Mental health, mindset, and controlling your future If you're into entrepreneurship, personal growth, sports business, or mindset, this is a must-watch. 🎙️ Stay Tranquilo Podcast — real conversations, real perspective. #entrepreneurship #entrepreneur #mindset #author #speaker #sports #newbook #sportsbusiness Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, we are here live from Meteor Row here at the Super Bowl in San Francisco. We got David Handel and Mr. David Meltzer here on set. Double David. Oh, yeah. Double David. Oh, yeah. Best name of the biz. You know.

He's beloved, man. We're beloved to the radio media, whatever they call this thing now. I love that, Meteor Row. When I started, it was radio. Radio. All radio. Yeah. That was it.

That's true. I know. That's actually a good point. use TV. Yeah. It's, well, it's cool to seeing like all like the, so they have so many radio stations here, like especially in the middle, but then you just look around as these massive, huge sets. Yeah. Big activity.

They got like bounty. Yeah. Quicker picker up. They got everything here. Yeah. Bounty genius with wings and, you know, paper towel. Like, bounty, I think it's probably the best product in this room right now. Yeah.

Yeah. But definitely want to be able to tell your story. I know you're coming out with a book. So definitely want to touch on that as well. Before we get into any of that, though. I want to tell your story. Tell us about your upbringing, right? Obviously, you're very well respected in the business space,

very well respected in the sports space, but tell us about your upbringing growing up. You know, it means so much to me because it's the meaning that we give our past that extends limitations of our future. So so many people give a meaning to their past that limits their self-image. And then that limits their future

because you'll never overachieve your own self-image. And so although I grew up in a difficult called situation, single mom, six kids, five boys. My mom was an educator, second grade teacher, packed our dinner in a paper bag, drove us around in a country squire station wagon in Akron, Ohio, filling up turnstiles at convenience stores with grading cards just so we could eat. I literally was made by that. I was protected, promoted by that. And so I had a very high self-image because my mom gave that to me, the meaning of being poor. the meaning of hard work, the meaning of punishment,

or what other people perceived as punishment, she always said was promotion, protection, love, and perfection of us, mentally, physically, and spiritually, which led me to write the books that I write and read the books that I read to write the books that I write. And so for me, all I wanted to do was be rich, and I had to learn those lessons. My mom always would tell me is I grew more successful financially,

bought her the house, the car, bought myself the ferrette, in the Rancho Santa Fe home. So you would constantly remind me you're either humble or you're about to be. And the two most humbling things in my life, my journey was one, losing everything in 2008, over $100 million, including my mom's house. Only reason I wanted to be rich. That was humbling, but even more humbling than that was recently the last time I got to speak to my mom before she passed.

I was honored with an honorary doctorate. I obviously have a law degree from running Lee Steinberg and all that world. And my mom would always tell me as a kid, not only are you humble or you're about to be, but she needed me to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. And so the last day I got to speak to my mom, I said, Mom, you'll be really proud of me. I'm now a doctor. I'm a lawyer, and I'm a failure. And she said to me, I'm so proud of you, but especially for being such a great failure.

The humbling part was when I left. And my wife, whose mom passed when she was 25, looked at me and said, are you going to be okay? And I was arrogant enough to say, yeah, my dad had passed. What a great way to say goodbye. She said the last words, I love you, son, right? And it was a perfect ending to our human experience together. And six hours later, I found out she passed away.

I still dropped me to my knee. And I remember telling myself, you're either humble or you're about to be. And so I wanted to write a book in honor of my mom and the humility that people need, especially today with all the mental health issues, people getting in their own way. And so I want to revive some of the books that meant so much to me by writing a book, don't do business with dicks. That's a great name. It is an incredible book.

I wrote it so that sell at least. can't sell a secret but it's the truth right and I think you bring up something interesting and I can definitely relate with the whole single mom and you know not coming from a background you know where you have that financial security right and

it does shift the way that you think and the way that you act right and your and your motivation right when when things are kind of given to you you kind of have a level of complacency I guess you could say but coming from like a background like you had right like it was the the driver of everything that you did, right? It was the motivator. It was what woke you up in the morning and say,

I got to do this because I don't want to be in this situation, right? And I think a lot of people can leverage off of that type of momentum, right? It's like using that pain for power, I guess is the best way to put it. Yeah, and that pain, you've got to remember, purpose is always relative to pain. And so one of the books I brought today had a great influence on my life. People may or man 20 million copies of this sucker, Dianetics of Ron Hubbard. It's the science of mental health. Wow. So everybody's talking about mental health. especially in sports, but they're not going to the source, to the science. There's a lot of theories out there.

This was a very influenced and still is for me. I'm going now, I don't read anymore, so I actually listen to it. But, you know, every time you listen or read a book, it's a different book. And you pick up more and more about how simple it is to go ahead and remove toxicity from your life and realize that you already are perfect. What are you doing to interfere with your perfection? Your happiness, your health, your wealth, your worthiness. All of these things, it's science, what we do.

And so these two complementary books, you know, I want people to read my book. Obviously, it launches first, 75th anniversary of this sucker's coming out. But Super Bowl, my launch, don't do business with Dix. If you like what you hear, learn the science behind what I'm talking about. I'm not a scientist so I didn't get into it. Yeah, yeah. But there's actually science that backs what I believe that you should not have any dicks in your life. Yeah.

Absolutely. And talk to us a little bit about the, you know, the origin of the book, right? Yes. I know you're talking about the science here. It's a lot about your journey, right? Especially with your mom. What does it mean to be working with a dick, right? Like, what does that look like?

Well, first of all, you guys will enjoy this because you have the same sense of humor I do. You know, if you've worked in the sports and entertainment world, there's a lot of dicks out there. Yeah. Well, when I wrote this. the book and started beginning of football season to promote the pre-orders to launch at Super Bowl, I had so many people from my past threaten me. Dude, if my name's in your book, if you tell, right, I'm going to sue you. I'm like, are you kidding me? You just expose yourself. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Not the purpose of the book to hurt anyone. The purpose of the book is to

remove that type of attitude from your life. But it all started when I was working a really big deal to bring the Rams back with Lee Steinberg was representing Georgia Frontier with the Rams. He was a save the Rams guy. And he wasn't available because of his disease, alcoholism. He was in rehab. So I was over my skis. And I'm like, dude, my mom told me you're the humble. You're about to be.

I'm about to be humble because I don't know what the F I'm doing. And he said to me, David, it's simple. Don't negotiate to the last penny. In other words, don't be scarce. Always be fair. And don't do business with dicks. It's not worth it. And so that, when Simon & Schuster came to me and said, man, connected to goodness, compassionate capitalism,

unstoppable creating the life you love, all of these names of your old books, they don't jump off the shelf at people. No one's walking by going, damn, I want to read compassionate capitalism. You write a book, I've sold so many just off the title. I could have blank pages and would have sold more of these than my other books. Right. Right when you put that book down, like the literally of the title, literally just immediately It's like, oh, look at that name. Right.

It works. You guys get marketing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit about that Steinberg area. How much of that era was, like, an influence when writing this book? A lot. And not for the reasons everybody thinks. It's not because there's more dicks in sports agency than there was in sports marketing.

I think there's actually in book publishing more. It's crazy. People taking advantage of all these entrepreneurs and motivators and bot leaders. But for me, it was the influence that Lee Steinberg had on me. He's a great leader and a genius. And unfortunately, he had a dissees, which he's public about it. And he's sober now. But the influence that he had on me was incredible.

And the people that he surrounded himself. And, you know, he had a charitable qualification for all of our clients. Warren Moon, Steve Young, Troy Aitman, all had to have a charity. They all had to give back to charity. or we want represent them. Wow. And the influence not only that he had, but the influence he had on the greatest leaders,

the Evander Holyfields, the Lennox Lewis's, the Ramirez, Sabathia, even Oscar de La Jolla, he actually encouraged him to start Golden Boy because in boxing, everybody was taking advantage of Oscar, right? And so he said, look, paying 40% commissions in 50 is ridiculous. You need to own your own business. And so when, Lee kind of re-engineered my vision.

I went bankrupt when I was with Lee Steinberg, and he stuck with me, where most guys, especially in that industry, would have dumped me. And I was CEO of the most notable sports agency that touted the fact that our athletes didn't go bankrupt, and I went bankrupt. But he stuck with me,

and he taught me the lessons about life and about doing good and doing kind things. My favorite saying from Lee is be kind, be kind to your future. So when you meet people, think about, and real quick story is one of my favorites about Dr. Jay. A 12-year-old old, I'm a ball boy for the San Diego Clippers because they practice at the Jewish Community Center. And my mom's friend was the head of sports there. And I kept begging him, dude, you got to get me a ball boy.

That's all I dream about. I'm like 4 feet, 6, 70 pounds. And he does it. Mike Schiminski, the trainer, hires me as a ballboy. I'm in heaven. First game, Lakers Clippers. And I screw up everything. Kareemma of Jill Jabbar is pretty intense, dude.

Yeah. I'm not saying he's a dick, but he's pretty intense. But I screwed things up first day, and he was so mean to me. He's like, boy, what the hell do you think? Get him out of here. And I'm like, I'm crying. Right, I'm 12. And that's a monster.

And so I go home and tell me, Mom, I want to quit. She's like, we're not quitters. You're going to quit at the end of the season. That's fine. Next game's Sixers, Clippers. I'm gun shy, of course. Dr. Jay walks up to me, and I'm like, ah, right?

Puts his hand the size of my back on my back. And he said, son, do you know you gave me six pairs of socks? I said, yes, sir, that's what they told me to do. She goes, how many feet do I have? I said, two. He's like, oh, okay. He goes, would it be okay? Do you have any siblings?

I'm like, I do. I have five siblings. He goes, what's their names? And he signed a pair of socks to each of my siblings. And then he said, would you like a basketball? Wow. And he signed a basketball? all hit it and said this is for you.

Years later, you know, I'm interviewed by everybody. Especially when I was with Lee on Radio Row. One of the questions they all asks is who's the coolest athlete, who's the kindest athlete, who's the best athlete? Little did he know that being kind to a 12-year-old would give him free marketing, including this today of a true brand of being kind to your future self. I probably have given him millions of dollars of branding because he was kind to me when I was 12.

That's incredible. But it's like little things like that. Right. Like those stories, it's like, it is so easy to be kind, right? Like, like, people, like, it's, it seems like it's easier for people to be a dick, but like, it really doesn't take much effort to be time. No, it really doesn't. Like, that's the whole thing. Like, look we got, I mean, that's, don't worry, be happy, but it's like, just like, pass it forward. And that's, you know, and that's, that's a good way to live. Like, I, it seems to be right and have a need to be offended. Yes. They need to be right and not kind. Right. Not me. I have no need to be offended and no need to be right. And no need to be right. Right. Yeah. I think it's like all that's driven by ego, right? Of course. And that's what these books are about. Yeah. I know you kind of mentioned a little bit about that. And when anything that's ego driven, and you talked about kind of like that balance between you had all this success, right, but I'm trying to be humble. I got the house for my mom, right? But it's like, where is that fine line and find that middle ground where you're not leading with ego, but you're still confident, right? And I think there's like finding that kind of middle ground. There's actually a science to it. That's why I'm promoting this book. and re-listening to it again,

there's a science to mental health. Absolutely. And there's a science to the ego. And Elron Hubbard 75 years ago literally gave a pragmatic way not to have anxiety, not to react to fear, not to be offended,

actually how to be kind. There's actually the modern science of mental health and included in mental health is kindness, goodness. All the things you and I, that's why we get along from the minute I saw. You can feel it. When you meet someone that's on the same frequency, you're like, oh, this is going to be cool.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Even if your name's David. That just enhances it that much more. That much more. You want to ask about the Jerry Maguire era? So are we, are we top? We got done a minute morning. David, appreciate it.

Yeah, we're going to be doing a lot more together. Shout out to PAC. We're going to run in our own media row at PAC and teaching people about content and how to do podcasts. And I want to have you guys on my podcast. You've seen the playbook on Sirius. That would be awesome. Right? We'd love to have you guys.

Continue the conversation when the time Hitler over there and do it all over. I can feel the stairs coming out. I was ready to dive into it before. There's not enough time. Here's the book. Yes. Go get it.

I will see you guys soon. Thanks.