The Bossticks - David Meltzer - How To Master Time Management, Keeping Ego In Check, & Fulfillment Through Contribution

Episode Date: December 14, 2018

#156: On this episode we sit down with entrepreneur David Meltzer. Dave Meltzer is a Speaker, Best-Selling Author, Award-Winning Humanitarian, and CEO of Sports 1 Marketing. Dave brings a ton of value to this episode by covering topics on time management, how to pick yourself up and dust yourself off after setbacks and failures, and how to reach fulfillment by contribution. We also discuss the benefits of keeping ego in check and practices to do so.  To connect with David Meltzer click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) For Detailed Show Notes click HERE This episode is brought to you by Misfit Wearables and their brand new smartwatch, Misfit Vapor 2. This smartwatch has it all. Right now for our listeners, Misfit is offering an exclusive offer of 5 FREE replacement straps with purchase. Just head over to misfit.com/theskinnyconfidential and enter promo code SKINNY to redeem.  

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She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skis.

Guinea confidential, him and her. Aha. I always was a long-term thinker. I had like, I'm going to hold Qualcomm for life. These are the things I would say. I'm going to buy one property a year. And then in 15-year mortgages, and on year 16, I'll refinance it for tax-free income. I always long.

By the time I hit 30, I was a multimillionaire. And I just literally lost that short term. Like that long term was like, well, I'll just continually make 10, 20,000. 30 million. So you just thought that it was just going to keep coming? Yeah, because I never lost. And that's where 99.9% of people have to experience something themselves. It's the truly wise, in my opinion, that can read about it or be told about it and make a significant change in their life.

What up, guys? This is The Skinny Confidential. Him and her podcast, you are back with me, Lauren Everett. I am the creator of The Skinny Confidential, which is a book, a brand, and a podcast. And to my right, I have Michael Bostick, my husband. And CEO of Dear Media, Serial Entrepreneur, podcast host, Extraordinary. That clip was from our guest of the show today, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Sports One Marketing, Dave Meltzer. On this episode, we discussed perseverance through failures, keeping ego in check, time management,

and how to seek fulfillment by contribution. And just because this is so on brand for this episode, Michael, let's talk about a couple tips that we have for time management. I'll start. Oh, this ought to be rich. Let's go, Lauren. What's your tips? I am not the best with time management. management. It's something that I work on every single day, but I do work on it. I really do,

I really do, Michael. Might have to work a little harder. Okay, but this has helped a lot, you guys. So what I do is, we've talked about this before. I did a podcast. Michael can maybe tell me what number it was on time management. And one of the things I really talked about was having my calendar color-coded with driving time in it from the second I wake up to the second I go to bed. even reading time is in there. I schedule even alone time in my calendar. And so what that does is it makes me feel really in control of my schedule. My tip's not really necessarily like a singular tip, but it's more of a approach to the way I manage my time. First of all, I believe fundamentally that you never want to be playing defense when it comes to managing your calendar or your time to give some

examples. I, and we get into this in the episode with Dave, he says he is a student of his calendar. when he said that, I really identify with it. I am somebody that uses Google Calendar primarily to book all of my appointments. My assistant helps me book the appointments. Everything in my day is down to the minute in that calendar. Color-coded based on the project or business I'm working on, who I'm meeting with, where I'm meeting them, if it's a phone, if it's in-person, if it's whatever it is. But the night before, and this is true, I've done this for years, the night before,

every night for my calendar, I go in my office or wherever I need to go, my phone, and I sit and I study that calendar to see what's coming the next day because I never want to be in a position where something is surprising me, right? I look at it the night before. That way the next day, I know what's coming. I can sleep on it. I can think about it. And the second thing about not being defensive, I think whenever you are late to something, you automatically end up in a position where you have to apologize to that person. And for whatever reason, psychologically, this puts you in my mind at a disadvantage.

You start every meeting with kind of a negative, apologizing, saying sorry. because you never want to be that person that's late and then doesn't apologize. But at the same time, when you are late and you're stuck in a defensive apologetic stance, it puts you, in my opinion, in a weakened position, especially if you're someone that needs to be in a power position, which I think all of us need to be. So never be a defensive player when it comes to time management. It's a huge disadvantage of my opinion.

That would be my core advice per time management. I also want to say another time management skill. I don't know if this is helpful, but time batch. has changed my life because it allows my brain to focus on one thing and I feel like with what Michael's saying about being defensive, it does help with that because you're doing one task for a certain amount of time. So I take all my calls and do all my interviews on Wednesdays. I know that I'm going to be on the phone basically the entire day. And then on Fridays I'll shoot all my content or on Mondays I'll focus down and really try to clear my inbox and go through my Slack messages. Like time batching has

really changed my life. I remember when I first started out I would be jumping from emails to a blog post to a conference call and it was really confusing for my brain. So my tips would be get your calendar being like color coded. Keep it gangster. Mine is like light pink and dark pink and purple and all these very cute colors. My workout is always in yellow and important deadlines are obviously always in hot pink and then my beauty appointments are in light pink. My conference calls are in like a coral pink. So when you start to look at your calendar, your brain starts to be like, this is what I have to do. It makes it a lot easier. And I, like I said, use the Google calendar app. Highly, highly recommend add your driving time to that helps a lot. I also firmly believe that once you

have that calendar organized and you start going through it week after week, you should start analyzing and auditing that time, right? Like, does every meeting need to be 30 minutes? Can it be 15? Does every call need to be 15 minutes? Can it be five? I really study my time and say, okay, you know, let's book these appointments and these time slots and see where they pan out. Most of the time, we can get those meetings done much quicker. I feel like people waste a lot of time in these meetings that go way too long. Really, for a time management tip, I would say sit down with your team, whoever you're working and say, hey, guys, does this really need to be this long?

Can we cut it in a half? Can we cut it in a third? I think a lot of people are wasting time in these meetings. And for me, I'm really trying to create a culture where people get things done in meetings. And if they're not getting done, if there's not something being accomplished every time, does it really have to be a meeting or a call? And in this episode, David does touch on how he has this five-minute call rule. I forgot what it's called.

We get into it. Five-and-20. Five-and-20. And you guys have to really hear this tip because I needed it so bad. I tend to go over five minutes sometimes. Do you love saving time? I sure do. Okay.

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They were bomb. You will love them. So with that, who is Dave Meltzer? Dave Meltzer is currently the CEO of Sports One Marketing, one of the world's leading sports entertainment marketing agencies, which he co-founded with Hall of Fame quarterback, Warren Moon. Prior to Sports One Marketing, he was the CEO of the world's first smartphone, the PCE phone, and later became CEO of the world's most notable sports agency, Lee Steinberg, which was the agency that Jerry McGuire was based off of.

He is an award-winning humanitarian, an international keynote speaker, best-selling author, chairman of the Unstoppable Foundation, and is profiled by national publications such as entrepreneur, Forbes, ESPN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Yahoo, and more. is a mouthful. Dave, you got a lot going on. With that, Dave Meltzer, welcome to the show. Let's get into it. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. I have a beautiful family picture above my fireplace that literally my wife looks 20 years younger than me. It's kind of like that picture, right? Super duper hot. And I look like a fat, old man. Like, who's that your dad? I like that. I want people to ask if Michael's my dad. She has a whole segment on her Instagram and

Her story is called Who Gives a Shit What He Looks Like, and it's like all these beautiful pictures of her. That's awesome. The whole segment is Who Cares what he looks like anyway, right? Right. No one does. Good. You're going to love my wife.

No one's looking at you. They should not. In the studio with Dave Meltzer, here we are. We're going to get into a lot of stuff. We just went on his podcast, which will be out soon. And now he's on ours. We've got him in the hot seat. We're going to ask you a lot of questions.

Can't wait. Lauren, what are you doing over there? I'm pouring water. Michael, don't freak out. Michael hates when there's weird sounds in the background. I've become an audio snob. So we share San Diego in common in Camp Quiramauga, which really, I mean, nobody's going to have any context of that. Sixth grade camp.

So where do you, how did you end up in San Diego? By luck, it's the best thing my mom ever did for me. So I grew up with a single mom in Akron, Ohio. My dad left when I was five, five boys and a girl. And literally my mom's only objective in life was the fetus wasn't going to be fully developed until after graduate school. And she raised us with one great skill. And I was joke around saying my mom doesn't, she looks like your typical Jewish mom, but she's a black belt in martial arts.

And she wouldn't look like it. She's a third degree black belt in the martial art of Jewish guilt. I wonder, this is so weird. My mom's, my mom's half Japanese and she's also a black belt. Yeah, but your mom's a real black belt. His mom's in Jewish guilt, right? Oh, yeah. Different black belts, Dave.

Well, either either way. I got it. But that's scary, right? Yeah, they both scary. But you saw that at Torrey Pines, I'm sure, some of those kids. Well, anyway, so my siblings love to study, like, were terrified to get a B. When my mom, I was nine, she decided her sister lived in San Diego and her brother moved to San Diego.

My mom decided we were so broke, like food stamp broke. My mom worked two jobs, a teacher, and then filled turnstiles with greeting cards, moved us to San Diego and literally made a decision. And if I'm going to be poor, why am I in Akron, Ohio? Right? I'm going to move to San Diego. Okay. So take us back.

to right before you lost everything. Okay. Tell me about what the year before you lost everything was looking like. It was really two years before. Okay. And the first warning that I got that I was going to lose everything, because everything for me was ego-based. For the first time in my life,

when I built my home in Rancho, Santa Fe, I wasn't happy. Every other time, even broke in Akron, Ohio. I was a super happy kid. I wanted to be rich only to buy my mama house in a car because the only time there was any unhappiness in my life, it was my mom was crying because the car broke down and she didn't have enough money. But I was a super happy kid. I called myself a toptomist.

That's how happy I was. But when I built that home in Rancho Santa Fe, I woke up in the morning for the first time looked at the ceiling. I didn't have a job. I didn't need anything out of Ferrari, a Porsche, beautiful wife, three gorgeous daughters. And I wasn't happy. And weird thing was, by 30th birthday, I get this birthday present. Now, my father left at five. He was my hero.

At 10 years old, he was still my hero. Very wealthy back then in the 70s. Did you have communication with him after he left? Yeah, I did. Not great because he was off with his super young wife, spending money not paying my mom child support, which must have been really difficult for my mom to always talk about how super cool my dad was. And meanwhile, she's struggling because he's not giving her anything. Because she's looking at him like, hey, asshole.

Right. And always hiding that from me until. my 10th birthday when he forgot my birthday. And to me, it was devastating. And when I called him, now that I'm old, I know what he was doing, but he told me something that was horrible. He said to me, I didn't forget your birthday. I just don't believe in birthdays at 10 years old. And I was crushed. And what my mom did, because she knew how crushed I was, instead of protecting him, what she normally did, she always tried to keep the heroic static. It must have been, like, the pain on my face or whatever, she laid in to my dad.

And I realized my dad was now not my hero. And I ended up hating my dad through my teenage years. And then as I started being successful, my aunt told me to try to understand my dad. And so what I did, my 30th birthday came, I got a birthday present from my dad. Super excited. Were you successful at this time? Yeah, I was almost. Did you ever get anything where he was like coming back around?

Like, hey, this guy actually turned out all right. He's doing well. Maybe I need. Like, was your father successful? My dad was successful. Okay. True entrepreneur. Very successful.

But, you know, into it, he was, because we left, you know, it was just a very weird thing. He was shameful, right, about what, because he cheated on my mom. He wasn't nice. But he was a good guy. And I became really close with him when I got older. So I get this birthday present. It is a big box. And it's a gorgeous blazer that fit perfectly, which meant more, because I could afford anything at 30 that I wanted.

It meant more that it fit perfectly because he called my wife. and asked for, you know, my custom sizes. And I opened it up. I'm so excited. I'm like, my dad's finally apologizing. Like, he finally gets life. And I opened it up, and all the lining, pockets, everything is torn out. And my wife told me, like, I've never seen you look like that.

I was devastated. And I called him. I'm like, you know, why are you punished me again? I go, I thought we were a developing relationship. And he said, because I'm worried about you. This was the first warning. So what do you mean you're worried about me? I got a Porsche. I got a Ferrari. I live in Ranch with Santa Fe. He goes, no. He goes, you're just like me.

And he goes, I don't want you to wear that jacket. I was like, what are you doing? Punishing me? He goes, no, I want you to hang it in the closet and every day look at it to remind you, you're just like me. I'm like, okay, I'm an asshole. Like literally, that's what I'm thinking. He goes, no. He goes, I don't want you to be the richest man in the cemetery. He goes, you're not taking anything with you. That's why I ripped the pockets out. my relationship with my dad that day changed forever. Like I got a touch of understanding because years later, when I lost everything, I realized that everything I hated about my father was what I hated about myself. And the first warning was that, now two years before I went bankrupt, my wife,

I came home, I was at the Emmy Awards with Little John. I was already working for Lee Steinberg. I went back to work, still surrounding myself. with the wrong people, doing absolutely the wrong things. When you say the wrong people, what do you mean? People that didn't work, that did drugs, alcohol, went to strip clubs in the middle of the day, things I don't necessarily love my daughters seeing all the time, but it was the truth. I was surrounding myself with morons, and it was because I was bored.

Instead of trying to help people, I was always this, you know, just person that I wasn't interested. I was trying to help my family always. I was trying, I had purpose and passion. and I had no purpose or passion. And here I am running. Doesn't Tony Robbins say that this is the science of achievement, but not the art of fulfillment?

You nailed it. Yeah. And I wasn't fulfilled. My wife, I came home at 5.30 in the morning after lying to her, and she told me she wasn't happy. And like I told you, I out kicked my coverage when it comes from my wife. I met her in the fourth grade. It took me until I was 26 years old to even have a conversation of anything

with her and convince her to marry me by the time I'm 29. here I was with everything. And when I woke up in the morning, not remembering everything, it clicked in my head like, you know what, I'm in trouble. And we hadn't lost everything yet.

It was two years before. And my wife, literally I went downstairs and for the first time, in my head, I'm like, what is she unhappy about? We have a living nanny. We live here.

Anything we want, we can go anywhere, buy anything, do any, what is she talking about? There was no connection. No, and she clicked it out right away

and said, you better go back and take stock. and who you were and what you want to become or I'm not going to be here. And something clicked in my head. Unlike most addicts or people who have problems, it just clicked in my head. And I spent one whole day outlining what then became my book connected to goodness

about how to live your life with gratitude, empathy, which is forgiveness, accountability, and effective communication, which has a duality. And I wrote this outline and I kept it in my pocket. You know, I asked for forgiveness for myself. And the hardest part for me was two years later. Two years later, I'm living my life the right way. I'm CEO of Lee Steinberg Sports Entertainment, Jerry McGuire.

You know, unbelievable. My office is sitting. Like, I'm not a sports fan, so what do you mean? So it's the most notable sports agency in the world. We represented everyone from Warren Moon, Steve Young, Oscar de La Jolla, Lennox Lewis, or Vanderholy Field. It's about the who's who, two billion in management. The biggest sports stars.

They made a movie about our. firm called Jerry McGuire with Tom Cruise. It was one of the most famous sports board. Of course I know Jerry McGuire. Show me the money, Lauren. Show me the money. You had me a hello. Well, I'm sitting there in my office, which sits overlooking Catalina Island, a Newport,

you know, Newport Center Drive, right, Fashion Island, with Warren Moon, the Hall of Fame quarterback on one side of me and Lee Steinberg, the legend on the other. And I wake up in the morning, realize that the causes that I created two years earlier, and many years before that had caught up with me, that I had let my arrogance, my ego get in my own way, and that I was claiming bankruptcy. Now, best day of my life. What do you mean you realized?

Like, how do you just realize that one day? Do you look at your finances over? No, look, I realized that, I realized, one, by claim. I knew I was going to go bankrupt about nine months before because I was liquidating everything to help pay. Because I wanted to go bankrupt to restart. I could have done different things, but I literally, this is how, I lost over $100 million,

and this is how. I owned a golf course in a ski mountain in many properties. I had tons of equity. I got into a lawsuit that I ended up losing, but then winning the malpractice suit against my lawyers. But I spent millions of dollars in cash to win because I had the need to be right, period. I had a law degree, right?

I passed the bar, but I had a need to be right. So to my wife, by the way. We weren't willing to settle. I was not willing to walk away. I had to prove myself right. Well, meanwhile, I made one, mistake because I had no mentors. I thought that because I had millions of dollars of equity, that I could just go to the bank and borrow against my golf course.

Leverage is a hell of a thing. Well, what happened was in 2006 and seven, all of a sudden, I was so leveraged that when I went to the bank and said, hey, you know, I need $5 million, you know, which I had. They said, nah. I'm like, what do you mean? I got $60 million in equity in the golf course. They said, yeah, but we're not comfortable lending it to you. I didn't realize. With all the education. With all the education. I had, all the experience that the bank would not, like that situation, the banks were going under, they weren't going to take the risk on me because I had so much. Can they just decide not to give you the money from the- Yeah, because it's just someone,

it's collateral. Like someone just decides. Yeah. And then what happens is you start applying more places to try to get it and your credit, right, because they're reporting all the times inquiries. Now it's even harder to get money. And meanwhile, my bills aren't stopping as I'm trying to figure out, right, I have a lot of bills. Something's. are profitable. The golf course was not profitable, but I had a huge equity in it. I had bills. So what I decided to do was to bankrupt it. And literally, I didn't owe anybody anything because the equity was there, but I couldn't get it out. Was it a chapter seven or 11? Chapter seven. Okay. So yeah. And I, but like, literally I had to give my. For those of, what's the difference? Seven and ones are restructuring and

one's a straight bankruptcy. It clears all debt. Which is. Seven is the one I did, which clears all debt and you create a bankruptcy trust and then they pay all the debtor. So what happened was I had enough equity that they were now forced to sell the properties and everybody did okay. It wasn't like I had this huge loss for everyone. I'm the big loser, but I was the big winner for one reason. When I said it came to me that morning when I had to claim bankruptcy, two things came to me.

One, that I had to go up to the most famous sports agency in the world, which I had my dream job. In fact, kids will tell me today, I dream. about being you, right? This sports agent, so many kids want to do it. I had to go up there and tell the guys that hired me because I was Midas, everything I touched I made money with, that I had lost everything. Because I wasn't really telling them everything going on because I thought I could pull myself out. So literally out of nowhere, I had to tell them, hey, I'm just so you know, I'm claiming bankruptcy, and I can understand if I'm not the guy you thought I would to run your company. Fortunately for me, Lee was super gracious because he had gone bankrupt when he was in his 20s

and he understood where I was taking the company and what my skill set was. But the hardest thing I've ever done is before I went to work, I had to drive over to my mom's house. Only reason I ever wanted to be rich from five years old on, and that's all I wanted to be was to buy my mom a house in a car. And I'd go over to her house and tell her, I've gone bankrupt and that you're going to have to move because I lost your house. I am all about counting my steps. I feel like I have tightened up so much by implementing walking into my life.

I walk on conference calls. I walk when I listen to podcasts. I walk to get coffee every morning. I am walking. And a lot of you guys have asked me what I count my steps with. And I have been wearing a rose gold situation. It's by misfit wearables. And they have this brand new smart watch called Misfit Vapor 2.

I even got Michael on it because they have a black one that's super. masculine. I mean, I feel like you guys already know that I love to get in at least 10K steps a day. That's on a really good day, guys. Sometimes it's not as good. But we hope for 10K, at least a day. Sometimes even aiming for 15K if I'm feeling really good about myself, aka I'm in New York City. Anyway, I just love multitasking and efficiency. And this smartwatch has everything in it. You can count your steps, but you also can track workouts via Google Fit. You can read your emails. you can get texts. You can even see the weather and listen to music, which is insane. One of the coolest functions, though, I have to say is you can make NFC-enabled payments all from your watch. I mean,

it's like doing everything from your wrist. My obviously main obsession, though, is how you can count your steps. And the watch is something that you can wear to the gym, but you can also wear it to happy hour, so you don't feel like you have to take it off. You can wear it all day. The product's really chic. It's something any TSC reader would like. And I feel like it. it makes like a very cute flat lay too if you're into Instagram, which I know you guys are. Anyway, you can change out the band too. A lot of people like to change out the band according to what outfit you're wearing. It's just not like an ugly fitness tracker, okay? It's cute. Get excited because right now Misfit Wearables is offering all TSC listeners an exclusive offer of five free replacement

straps with purchase. That is five free replacement straps. Okay, got to get the rose gold. Just head over to misfit.com slash the skinny confidential and inner promo code Skinny to redeem. I would love to know via DM if you like counting your steps. Keep me updated. Just go to misfit.com slash the skinny confidential and inner promo code Skinny to redeem this offer. You know what though? I think conversations like this coming from people like you who've done so much since then, they're so important because everybody wants to celebrate and talk about the success as an entrepreneur and nobody wants to talk about the hard times. And I feel like you cannot truly be an entrepreneur without getting your face bloodied a few times. Maybe you don't go completely bankrupt.

but it's going to happen. You're going to get blooded and people have this idea that, you know, it's all bells and whistles and it's all fun and games and it's not struggle. Like, there's working for yourself and building your own business is the hardest thing you can do, in my opinion, when it comes to, you know, a professional career. Like, it's, you know, getting, having a job is one thing I respect everybody that does it. But when you're out on your own and the buck stops with you and it, it's difficult. And like, I think that entrepreneurs that are run, and this is right, I have a difficult time

with a lot of, like, speaking coaches and people that run around and only talk about. the good side. The only teach, right? It's important to talk about the struggles because it gives validity to what you're doing. And if you can, you know, if you can do something like that and come back from it, then I don't want to say anybody can, but it's possible to. Anybody can. Like, I believe that, you know, with this consistent nature like you have, Lauren, you know, consistency to me is the nemesis of human nature. And, you know, I'll get into gratitude a little bit. Gary Vee didn't steal it from me. Thank you ever Thalady. But no, honestly, I'm amazed, even within myself. Like, I know certain things are so good for me.

I'm a smart, disciplined guy. But yet, my human nature doesn't allow for consistency. I can teach people to say thank you before they go to bed and when they wake up. I've studied physics, quantum physics, metaphysics. I know it'll change your life. 30 straight days. One second a day. That's all you got to give me.

I promise it'll change your life. But when I speak in the morning, by night, half the people won't say thank you. By the next morning, another half and within three days, most people will forget to say thank you. When I want to be healthy, I'm amazed how sometimes I just can't get to the gym. Everybody knows working out, especially at 50, is important stretching, right? And it's taken me years to meditate every morning for 20 minutes. I know that's, to me, the key to my life. I meditate every morning, but I can't tell you that it's not a struggle still for me.

Why is it so hard to be consistent? What app do you use, because I like a detail? Do you use Headspace? Headspace. Well, I do Theta meditation now, but I work with Headspace. I'm a huge fan of Headspace because most people don't really understand what meditation is. It's praying, right? And it's just being in a place, a center.

I think the key to life is how quickly you can get back to center, not how you react to things. So you use Headspace for 20 minutes every morning and you also do another practice of meditation? No, I personally don't use Headspace anymore, but I would if you're a beginning. beginner app. That's a good way to learn. For sure. It's a great app. What is TB?

I use theta meditation. Theta. It's a vibrational. So my philosophy in life is that you can only be aware of that which vibrates equal to and less than you. So theta meditation allows you to vibrate faster. And it's what the old shamans use. They go up for 20 years in the mountains to elevate their own vibration.

Now, through this technique, you can in 20 minutes reach what's called the 7th plane of vibration. You actually can physically be able to see the vibrations in your brain waves. Gamma is supposed to be God meditation. So alpha beta, theta is a great meditative state. It allows everything to

it allows me to proclaim what I want proactively allow things to happen in my life, putting me in a sense of peace in the flow. I'm very energetic, very vibrational, very spiritual, but I have this other side like you, Michael. I'm extreme entrepreneur. which is where that book Think and Grow Rich

to me was the catalyst for how I wrote my book. It was like there's a duality to the world. I just have a question that I feel like no one asks people. What happens if you don't meditate? Everyone asks what happened if you do meditate. What happens if you don't meditate? I believe that if you don't meditate that you create a wall of resistance.

So, okay, let's say it's a random Monday. You wake up, you're rushed, you don't get meditation. And you've been meditating six days the last week. How is it different than a day that you do? Oh, without a doubt, it has a zeroing effect. If I don't know my baseline where center is, if I am not in the flow, then I'm actually going to start putting faith into the wrong things. I'm starting to track the wrong things. I'll have the wrong energy that goes to what I call an unconscious competency.

It changes my whole day. It changes my whole day because it's like here's the example. If you meditate, it's like a car on the top of the hill in San Francisco. If you meditate, all it takes is one finger to hold the car there all day because you know where that's at. If you don't meditate, you wake up and the car's already rolling down the hill and you just keep letting it rolling. And by the time the day's over, you're run over. When you meditate, you can get back to center. You know where it's at.

Michael. Michael Stoicism, meditation's getting back to it. I want to ask you, so when you coach and you mentor younger people now. And older people. And so when you see, since you've been through some things. things, been through some shit. Yeah. What do you, when you see, say a young person's doing well, starting to make a little bit

money, what are some red flies? You say, like, that's not like maybe you've, something you recognize that that you've done yourself or something that they're doing that just say, hey, like red fly, we got to fix that. Need to be right. Need to be offended. Need to be separate, inferior, superior. Guilt.

They'll feel very guilty. I feel like a lot of people need to be offended these days. Yeah. There's a need to be guilty, which is a really key one that I find in people that are very successful because most people in order to have the drive to be. economically successful, they come from nothing or they're pushed really hard. And so what happens is they have a worthiness issue. And when they receive all, they're not in receivership, but they've received a lot and their vessels overflowing in full. That's what happened to me. I had too much and I

didn't feel worthy of it. My mom made $17,000 a year. I made $10 million in one year. You know, and she worked, she's smarter than me. She's nicer than me. Right. And I have had all these What I did is I changed my life by shifting the paradigm of value and putting myself into receivership. Receivership's important because for me, it's appreciation. I'm grateful for everything I've attracted or allowed to happen, but then it's my responsibility to add value, appreciate, like a house. I appreciate what I'm thankful for by what? Adding value and giving it away.

And if I see young entrepreneurs or old entrepreneurs like a vessel just filling up that everything's happening for me. They're a positive attitude. No, everything should be happening through you. Like, I live my whole life. Everything happens for me. I'm Midas. You know, everything's for me, for me, for me. No, everything now is through me for everyone else. That's the whole distinction. That's the true success in life. And what happens is if you allow things to come through you, your vessel is always empty so you're expanding. You actually can receive more. And that's how the shift of paradigm for me. I make more money. I'm way more fulfilled.

Passionate, my relationships with all the people in my life are so much, they're just substantial relationships. And then I fire the people literally that are bleeding me. What pieces of advice I would give anyone that's young. Do you think you can get to that space, though, without having basically your face slammed in? Because I know that I, because I've been in those situations, you're doing really well, money's flowing in,

you're discretion, you think you're on top of the world, you think you're right about everything. You think you know more. I've been there. and the only way that I figured out that I didn't know and then I there's a lot of things that

I can learn. When your wife kicked your ass Yeah, but it's also when like When you get your ass To get your ass kicked everything Yeah 99.9% of the people on earth It forces you Have to be forced.

It's like being a parent And you guys will be great parents But one thing I've learned about being a parent Nobody listens to me But they watch me And that's why I stopped telling people I used to tell kids all the time Don't buy that Ferrari

Let me tell you The only thing about buying a Ferrari If you drive it too much, it breaks down. If you drive it too little, it breaks down. If something breaks down, it's really expensive. All your friends are going to think you're an asshole. And worse, every girl is going to know your true anatomy. So don't buy a Ferrari, right?

That's actually really good advice. But you're not going to buy a Ferrari, right? Luckily, those cars aren't what interests me so much. Yeah, good. But if they do, here's what I tell people now, buy a far and learn from it. Yeah. Buy it and learn from it. But don't hold on to it.

If it doesn't make you happy, let it go. Here's my warning to you. this is what my experience was. If that doesn't resonate with you, buy the goddamn thing. Go enjoy it. You might be one of these people that it's good for you. But I think in life,

my job is to attract what I want, learn from it. And then if it keeps me happy, hold on to it. Like my wife. Like I just know my relationship with my wife, that's something I want to hold on forever. Like I will fight.

Like I just know that thing's never going to roll down the hill where I get to a point with my wife where when I was young, I didn't understand that, where I could have ruined my relationship. Now it's so, the litmus test is so high with my relationship. Because I never want to, she makes me so happy. She makes me me, right? And other things in my life, I'm like, I drive a Volt.

You know, I love, I'm around pretty famous, successful people, and they laugh. They'll ask the guys that are filming, they're like, is that Dave's car? Like, yeah. It's a Chevy Volt. It's a electric car. It's a nice car. It's not a Ferrari. Why the most practical car you can own?

I don't get why people care so much. They do. I think that we're shifting a little bit. There is some people that do, but I think it's shifting. It's shifting a little bit. I hope so. I think millennials are going to shake it up. I hope so.

I don't think it's about the handbag you have or the car you drive anymore. I think it's about more experiences and getting off your phone and actually enjoying the experiences and documenting them as well at the same time. Yeah, I just don't think that the trains, the planes, the automobiles are that. Back then it was like such to stand in front of a private jet 10 years. ago was like so cool. Now it's like, eh, what else? What else do you have? I hope you're right, because I still think there's people that sell at the back of the room, that oversell back and sell, manipulate people that sit on, lean on a Rolls-Royce with, you know, a fake house

behind them. You know, I see those people on the internet. And in my mind, I'm thinking, who actually buys into that? And I'm so glad you said that, Lauren, because I see that in my kids, right? They're not really interested in, like, seeing that. You have to have to have something to say. You have to be interesting. You have to provide value, in my opinion. I mean, I'm more interested in that than anything. I don't like the coaches that do that, or they label themselves to coach that do that type of stuff because I feel like they're selling to the desperate. And that's going to be a controversial statement. But it's people that are just looking for a quick, easy fix. I need that Ferrari. I need that car. I want that big thing. And you have people praying on people like that. Maybe, you know, maybe you shouldn't be signing up for that course that may be bullshit. or maybe you shouldn't be following this person with a lifestyle that's not realistic. Like for me, like look to the people your age, look to the people that have done it the right way,

that have looked with very long-term vision and built actual brand. Or haven't done it the right way and out of not doing it the right way, have learned the right way. Right. Young people, listen, I'm all about bettering yourself, taking courses, going and seeing people speak, but don't believe into, don't believe the hype into those bullshit lifestyles that 99.99% of the world will never have

and shouldn't have by doing those practices, right? Like, go and build something. Right. It's a scarce energy, right? And that's what I try to teach people. In fact, I tell people that, you know, the word guarantee means something to me. I can't believe that people don't make people guarantee things. Even with my coaching, right?

Because I'm amazed. I tell people all the time. You want me to coach you. This is what I have to do. I'm going to work for free for you for a month because I want to learn about, I want to learn if I can help you, how I can help you. And then after a month, Every month, I can determine how I can help you and how much it is by how much I can make you. And how much you need from me.

So I don't believe in, hey, pay me 60 grand in a year and I'll make you 600. I know I can do that with most people, but it doesn't make sense to me. I'd rather someone at the end of the month, I say, you know what, this is what I did for you this month. I think you made 100 grand. How's 10 grand? Does that sound fair? Yeah. Yeah, that's cool.

It's so much easier at the end of the month to tell somebody, hey, this is the performance, what piece, you know, how did I help and what's it worth you? And if someone says, hey, I need all $100 grand, you know, it would be okay, David. Yeah, cool, okay, want me to coach you next month? But in the end, I end up making so much more money and everybody's so happy. It's a weird thing to do, but I really take a lot of time to assess people and give them a free coaching so I can tell them, you know what, I'm not really for you, but I know a guy Michael that does podcasts and he would be a great podcast coach for you or whatever it is.

Well, that's what life is, right? connecting the, you know, because I have some expertise in some areas, but I have a lot of areas where I'm not expert at all and don't know, and I need, you know, and you need that help. And I think anybody that labels themselves, like, they're an expert of all things, that's when you got to be wary. I wanted to ask you, we were talking a little bit of this on your show about patience and building long-term brands and long-term vision. Have you always thought that way or how, what was the shift that made you start thinking

that way? Right. It's so weird because I was wise beyond my ears when I was young. So I literally saved everything. I had such a long-term goal. What happened would really hurt me was great success. So by the time I was 26, my company sold that I was working for for $3.4 billion in 1995. That's it?

So yeah. And that's a billion was a lot. I ended up with a big chunk of change. I started investing into technology and real estate. 93 was when I started investing into real estate, which was a low, right? Bottom of the market recession in Southern California. So all of a sudden, I always was a long-term thinker. I had like, I'm going to hold Qualcomm for life.

These are the things I would say. I'm going to buy one property a year. And then in 15-year mortgages, on year 16, I'll refinance it for tax-free income. Always long. By the time I hit 30, I was a multimillionaire. And I just literally lost that short, like that long term was like, well, I'll just continually make 10, 20, 30 million. So you just thought that it was just going to keep coming.

Yeah, because I never lost. And that's where 99.9% of people have to experience something themselves. It's the truly wise, in my opinion, that can read about it or be told about it and make a significant change in their life. That to me is the wisdom that now I do have, which is why I always have at least three mentors, all ages, by the way, which I think is why. Like, Lauren, you, my wife and I, who she's not here, I think it's so awesome because we all have complimentary, but totally different expertise in situation knowledge where I just have met you guys and feel like, you know what, I could stay here till midnight

and the conversation would, and if my wife was here too, we would laugh, we'd cry, but we all would learn and as a whole, we would kill it. Well, Dave, I got some bad news for you because the power's out in the building, so you may be here till midnight because we're all pretty high up here. You're not gonna get down the stairs. So there's a lot of young people that listen to this show

and all walks of life, a lot of people starting blogs, some YouTube channel, some starting new businesses. What would you tell somebody that says, you know, I've been doing this for a year and I haven't got the results that I want? It's been a whole year. What do I do? Stay in business. My key to business always is stay in business.

That's unfucking believable advice. It's so simple, but it's so true. Everyone quits. Yeah. You can't quit. Just do what. And that's what I love about you, Lauren, in my podcast is you're like, well, get the extra. And that's what Gary talks about too.

Like, are you kidding? Quit making excuses. Go wait tables. go bartend, do if you want the money. But for me, even today, the first thing after meditation, and when I'm analyzing my business in my head for today, can I guarantee I'm in business tomorrow? I go down every business I own everything.

I'm like, am I guaranteed I'm in business tomorrow? Because number one, I know that I can evolve. And two, it sets the tone for the day that I'm not going to make any decisions that go against the main point, which is staying business tomorrow. And then if I'm lucky enough to get incremental or exponential growth, so be it but I've seen advantage of being a little older I've seen people like you

started something in 2011 and it grows like a hockey stick and it comes out of nowhere and some companies grow in eight months and some 80 years but all of the companies have something in common they stayed in business and I think if you want something bad enough

you will figure it out if you want to if you have a vision and you can't sleep at night because you have this vision you will figure out a way. And if that means waiting tables until two in the morning, you'll do it. I think that if you think you want something, maybe you don't want it bad enough if you're not willing to figure out a way, a different angle. Well, we have young siblings. I think it's interesting. There's your generation, there's ours. And then we have, I think Lauren and I are a little bit in the middle, right? The generation below us, it's funny. I worry about them sometimes. I never want to put like a whole generation down,

but I feel like there's a, maybe a softness occurring there that. I'm sure every generation Every generation thinks that though. But I have that fear for my, because I have a generational kids, right, 19 to 8. But I feel like every generation above the generation thinks the generation is soft. I'm sorry, but I think that that's how every generation. I agree. I don't want to colleges. They're always, the next generations.

Yeah. It's so much harder to get into Standio State now than it was. Yeah, my grandma's like, oh, your dad is. And back in my day, we were like, like, every generation. I'm aging myself. But no, I think that there's, you know, like there's people talk about it all the time, like eighth place trophies and like participations. awards and all this is like you have to put in the way i have young sister and she'll get mad

of me but it's like you want to figure out what you want to do then go do it like i told her you go go go taste a bunch of things go work here go work there go get a job here go go do a bunch of shit you're going to find out that you don't like 90% of it but at least you're putting in the work and figure out what you do like people like they think they're just going to stumble on to this great idea there's grand vision and they're sitting back waiting for it to come along they're not out there making they're waiting for the world to come to them they're not going to the world and i'll tell you there's some people because there's a genetic unconscious competency there's some people that are just still born driven. You know, I'm blessed to travel the world and just see like

from Kenya to Portugal down to New York City that I, you know, I see some eight-year-olds that are just born with the same thing that we're born with. And I just wonder the medium, like how many are entitled, which has nothing to do with how much money you have, but, you know, that are more in the phase like you're saying that aren't willing. Sometimes I thought about doing a camp for kids. Like Joe DeSenter from Spartan races, he talks about, pain thresholds. I'd love to do like this empowerment camp where by watching, not by telling, but by watching, like watching Kobe Ryan today when we were doing the thing for 10 cent, I'm watching him going, he has the spirit of excellence. Let me give you an example. Relentless.

Relentless. And his kids picked up on it. So one of the things he says he took a year off from true exercise when he quit playing basketball just to get out of that. And now 4 a.m., he's back in the gym every morning. 4 a.m. And then he said, Well, my daughters, they come with me as well because they want to be great basketball players. One volleyball and one's basketball. They're in there at 4 am. Then he says, well, my 9-year-old, so she's under third-year Mandarin because she wants to come to China with me and be an interpreter. There's an energy that they've watched their dad because he hasn't had the time to tell them everything that he wants to do.

And I don't have the time, but I see my 19-year-old, my 17-year-old, my 14-year-old. It doesn't matter what I say. They're watching me. They know I wake up at 4 a.m. They have a spirit of excellence that is carried. And I think that's what I like to teach is, hey, let's have a spirit of an empowerment camp. There's bringing a whole bunch of people with the spirit,

spirit of excellence and just find out what they do. And four a.m. Yeah, every day. How do you do it? Even when you're hungover? Yeah. Well, if I go to bed at 4, no. Even if I'm hung over.

The thing is I'm hungover a lot less than I was when I was younger. Because I started, first of all, I've had a lot of fun. and appreciate it. Even through the dumb stuff I did, I'm one of the few old guys who have lost everything, made tons of mistakes, drives my wife crazy. But I will tell you,

I don't regret it. I mean, it was a credit. Imagine being like young, fairly good looking, totally rich, and just blowing it out. You know, I mean,

and I know it's easy to say now because I didn't lose my wife. I think I would look differently if I lost my wife or favorite. Yeah. But looking back, I do not regret what I did. because I don't really hurt anyone but myself.

Well, I think it's a healthy way to look at entrepreneurship. Right? Like you have your ups, you have your downs. Like if you're so fixated on the monetary aspect of it and just saying, like, I have to have this to be happy. That's when you get in trouble. But if you can look at it and say, okay, you know what?

I was doing really well, a lost bunch and I came back. Like that's the healthy way to look at it. That's how you can enjoy life. The people that get so fixated, like you said earlier, I've known a lot of old rich dudes that have died miserable with, you know, maybe they have all the money in the world, but they end up having nothing in the end.

Because they attach their happiness to an outcome. And this is hard for people. It's counterintuitive. I always say detach yourself from the outcome, detach your happiness from an outcome. I'm one of the most driven people you'll meet. Still, I wake up before. I'm a student in my calendar.

I believe in productivity and accessibility. Time is a huge thing for me. But I've detached all my happiness from the outcomes. I enjoy. My happiness is derived from the consistent, everyday, persistent without quit. The process. I could not agree with you more.

on this, I think that we should kind of explore this. It's like, what's the fun to getting to the outcome as quick as you can possibly get there? For me, it's the building. It's the creating. It's the meeting different people. It's the journey. And there's that theory of experience stretching we've talked about on the show where it's like, you know, maybe you're sitting, and I've talked about this word, you've probably

heard it where you're sitting on like, maybe you're looking and enjoying one of the best sunset in the world and you say, wow, this life could never get better. And then later you see that sunset and you have like a cocktail. under him like, wow, can't get better. Next thing, you're like, you see that same sunset on a boat. You're like, this never get better. And all of a sudden, the original sunset that you saw actually makes you unhappy. Right.

And that's where people get in trouble in life. It's like, I need to get that car or that watch. And they set these basic, like, milestones. And every time you get to a milestone, it's not good enough. You've got to keep going, going. And then the one that you really look towards in the beginning that you thought would make you the most happy actually becomes a source of depression. Yeah, no doubt.

And I think people just look at activities the wrong way. Time is essential to me. So there's two types of time, one linear time, 24 hours a day we all have. For me, I look at it to see how productive and accessible can I be during those 24 hours. And I look at it as activity. Some of the activities I get paid for, some I don't. So I don't believe in work. In fact, I believe a litmus test in life.

If you're someone that rushes to the place where you work and you also rush home, you're living a really good life. And that's like today, I was rushing. to get to the office, but I'm also going to be in a really big hurry after I speak tonight to get home. And my life is complete that way. Linear time people can't control, but even worse is multi-dimensional time that exists in your perspective. And that's where your analogy with the sunsetting is, is that how do we control different perspectives of time when they're only exclusively ours? And so we have to really generate through gratitude, empathy, accountability, and effective communication, the control of our perspective by, you know, I'll give you a simple life lesson right now. I tell people all the time.

Anytime you say I got to do something, cancel it. Say I get to do it. All right. I'm going to give him credit for this. He says this too. He's so happy that you just said that because he says to say your facts analogy. No, I believe if you're like, my biggest thing now that I work towards is just freedom. financial freedom. It's not, it has nothing to do with money. It's just being able to say yes and no

to things that serve me and the people around me when I want to, how I want to, right? Like that's, I believe in options. Yeah, options. Yeah, options. Like, I, if there's ever a situation where I'm like, I have to do something or somebody need your fax analogy, it's so good. Oh, well, no, it's not a fact analogy. My dad had a, this is actually more of a patience thing and we're going on a tangent now. My dad had a really successful business partner a long time ago back in the day of facts. And he says that when he used to get faxes when they'd come through. He would take the whatever most recent one was, you'd take it and put it at the very bottom of the pile.

And he would wait till all the other ones got sorted until this one came back to the top. And he said, most of the time, it'd either sorted itself or became unimportant or went away, right? And he says, people, they get in these situations like, I have to do this, I need to do this. You're basing all your time on other people's scheduled. And what does your dad tell you about being married when you absolutely. Well, now we're going on 50 tangents. You got to say this one.

Everyone's heard of this one. you absolutely positively have to say something, don't. That's fair advice. I don't know why you went on those crazy tangents. That's the need to be right, though. But yes. I like your dad even more. We're hooking up in San Diego.

That's awesome. So I want to talk a little bit more about time. Sorry to interrupt. Mike's like, tangents and that comes up. Tangent and the kind of all. Time management. I have a huge problem with that.

I've tried time batching. I have, what's the Palm Pommito method? the tomato. I got the secret. I got the secret for you. What's the secret? My calendar is all color-coded. Yeah. The secret is inconsistency of being a student of your calendar. Listen to me, don't look at your calendar. You have to put an amount of time every day, get in the habit of being a student in your calendar.

What does that mean? I look at everything that's scheduled during the day and study it. I think to myself, how in person on the phone via email or media am I going to attract or help others, right? So I have two questions. How can I be of service or who is it that can help me? But I look at that and I look at it with the lens of productivity and accessibility, meaning how productive can I be during this 15 minute phone call? So one of the smartest things I ever did was brand myself the 520 rule.

Now, when you guys start following me, you'll learn about the 520 rule. My objective of every phone call is to get off it in five minutes, to get it done in five minutes. Every meeting that I have, my objective. And so what happens is you brand yourself, people are literally on. on the phone talking to me with clocks. I know I got a minute left. People come into my office, they're prepared. Believe it or not, 20 minutes is a long time for a meeting.

And yet people will take two hours during the day when I can have six meetings, but branding myself, but that's part of being productive. Accessibility is different. Accessibility is one, how accessible during that time am I to others? And most importantly, how am I accessing what I want? Right? We're so allowing, right? How am I access?

Everything exists already. so how efficient am I in accessing what I want out of this meeting? But even more importantly than being productive and accessible in the time slots that you have with your color-coded program, the most important thing to study is that blank spots, how productive and accessible am I going to be in the time that I don't have something to do? That's where I kill everybody. I have in multiplied by efficiencies, effectiveness, and statistical success, I'm 64 hours productive during a day, because of the time usage in the student of my calendar and looking at things with the lens of productivity and accessibility.

I do things now. Like people freak out. We were talking about Instagram, call my cell phone. Literally people will say, hey, can we schedule a call? That's a complete waste of time, in my opinion. If I have the time now, I'm like, here, here's my cell, call me now. And then I'm on the clock when they call me. I can handle it in one minute.

So instead of, hey, talk to June, have her call me to schedule, and create all this mess for myself. I've done to do it now person. And if I can't do it now, it goes into a folder. Literally, I'll email myself or take the email, put it into a Do It Now folder. I prioritize those at the end of the day. Like you said, your fax files. And now I'm doing now what I can do and get through that.

These guys will tell you. I know that they traveled me all over the world. I get more done than a day than most people will than a month. Okay, but let me ask you this. So say you have a day. It's a Monday. You wake up, you do your meditation. you're up at four and you have your whole schedule cleared out and you have blank spaces throughout

obviously. Yeah. Are you like having a holder in there that says what you're going to do during the blank spaces or are you just reactive to what's happening in those blank spaces? Both. So what I've done within that blank space, I may say, okay, here's this slot. I'm going to call my wife, right? So right, I might call my mother and I literally, then I'll go to my Do It Now folder and move

things over of what I want to achieve. Yesterday, for example, I had a blank space. I said, okay, prepare for CES, which is in January, January 8th and 9th, which meant get my hotel rooms, get my flights, have a conversation with my PR agent about what are the list of people that we're going to do. I have all my days of objectives. Like today, if I'm traveling, I have meetups. I have what's called holding court. So I don't usually take, and you guys live in L.A. You can't take five meetings here in a day. I'll do 10 minutes. When I leave here, before I go speak, I'll do 10 meetings. It's called holding court. So what I do is I hit up all the guys I know in L.A. and say, hey, I'm going to be in Santa Monica between 4 and 5 o'clock before I speak. If you want to

meet me, come on by. Are you a coffee? It could be anywhere. Lobby of a hotel. It could be a Starbucks. And what happens is I'll take meetings and use my 520 rule, but also all the people that come, they start meeting each other and doing business. That's really fucking smart. That is great advice. And so I'll invite 100 people I know in LA today and 10 will show up for an hour. That's really smart. And then you're also networking quickly. Other 90 love me because I've invited them to meet with me. And there's something else that comes up and they're like, Dave, I want you to meet this guy.

I am on the defensive in my life because I literally ask and attract in person on the phone via email and social media. I do things now. I'm a student in my calendar with a lens of productivity and accessibility. And the only thing that gets in my way and your way is consistently. Consistency, right? I literally try to be consistent. When did you learn all this? How long did it take you to learn all this?

50 years. 50 years. Okay. So I kind of. 20 more to go. I want to go back to after you declared bankruptcy, how did you build yourself back up to what you are now? So that's awesome.

So I knew I've always been able to track money. Like who the hell is a millionaire nine months out of law school? Right. I bought my mom a house in a car and paid off my law loans. For whatever reason, I have an unconscious competency to attract wealth. I don't know what it is. but what I didn't know is how to maintain it. So what I did when I lost everything is, okay, what am I going to change so that when I make this money?

Because when I first started making money, I had law loans. I didn't know anyone, never had a real job, and somehow I was able to do this. Why would I think now that I have hundreds of people that love me? I've made money before. I paid the dummy tax that I wasn't going to make money again. How was it going to keep it? Right. So I studied, you know, red think and grow rich again.

I studied Rockefeller. in Vanderbilt. You became a student. Yeah. I asked for help. Literally, the difference in my life is that all I do is ask people how I can be of service. Like when you're talking to me when I first met you, all I'm thinking of is how can be disservice to this cool couple?

Like, can I invite him to New Orleans with me? Who can I introduce to help? I'm down. I'm in New Orleans. That's the unlock though, because anything that's... What did Allison Broad say? She said a lot of things. She said the thing about how you can become successful and asking people what they need.

Yes. And when I think back on anything, that's worked out for me, it's always been trying to provide value to someone else first, right? Any partnership, any business, like, it's always been like, how do I service somebody else? And of the things that haven't worked or the things that I'm trying to serve myself. No doubt. And then the second, it's all radical humility because number one, being of service is radically humble, but even moreover, being able to be humble enough to say, do you know anyone, this is a great line. Do you know anyone that can help me? Right? It's self-inclusive of you too. So if I said,

Hey, you know, I have a podcast and I'm looking to figure out the best way to market it because right now I don't know how. You know, Michael, do you know anyone that can help me? And you say, oh, I own dear media. We could package you in LinkedIn, Dave, and do it. Really, I would love for you to help me. How can I be a service to you? Oh, I know, right?

And that's how these conversations in my life. But it's funny because that's the concept behind that is like, right? Like, help people that are podcasting using this medium help them. Like that's really, that's it. That's awesome. And I need it. If we're helping them, then they're happy. Then we're doing well.

I always say that Oprah is one of the greatest influencers of our time because she not only brought herself up, she brought other people up. Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, like she utilized her platform to bring other people up with her. And that's why I think she has such staying power. And it's even, it takes it more than even being collaborative. Actually, you're helping other people come up and then helping other people help other people.

Right. Empowering others, do empower others. And Oprah, you know, my friend Brian Smith founded Uggboots. And he'll tell you he had a complete failure business until Oprah put it as a top 10 Christmas gift. Wow. Change his whole business, ended up selling it for 40 million to Skechers. You know, change his entire life.

So it's an energy that she carries. And the number one energy that she carries is one that I work on every day is she's one of the first women, African American women, that came out and she was just radically humble. I'm overweight. Right? I'm human. I was abused as a child. You know, a lot of these things that people do that make an impact. And all of a sudden people are like, wow, she's honest. She's here to help me, right? And bringing Dr. Phil on to

talk about all these other issues, right? And elevate others to elevate yourself. Created energy of radical humility. You know, that people ask me all the time when I get on their pot, what would the best piece of advice you would give yourself when you were 18 or 21? It's simple. radical humility ask for help I can't do every I'm good at what I'm good at you guys are great at what you're great at and why not combine or collaborate together so that's like oh this person is an awesome chef I'm gonna go over there and eat right why you try to cook it you know but you know what I'm really good at this I can clean dishes so hey maybe I'll offer hey if I came over and

clean dishes could I eat over and now I got you know Ming Sai cooking for me in Boston because he hates cleaning and I'm a neat freak and I like to clean and I'm good at it. Are you really a neat freak? Yeah. Oh my God. Well, Dave, you are an interesting guy. We've got to do this again and would either catch up in San Diego or in Orange County. Or New Orleans.

New Orleans is our date. You know what? I've never been to New Orleans and I don't think Lauren has either. Okay. The latest it's going to be is Jazz Fest. I'm an executive resident of Tulane University. They honored me and blessed me to be a part of their school. but I'm going to be there February, March, and April.

But my favorite time is Jazz Fest. And offline, we'll talk about all the cool things, but don't eat for a week when you get there because crawfish bread, the best fried chicken. If someone's going to New Orleans, where should they go first? What's the first hot spot? To eat. Couchon probably is a really great place. Or I think for breakfast, Camille Grill is old-fashioned grill. I mean, there's a list of 20 places.

I want to go to New Orleans. Let's get going. I'm there. You ever read the fish that ate the whale? You ever heard of? I have, yeah. That's a great book. Why did you just say that randomly?

He's the banana king and he's from New Orleans. Oh, oh, okay. He still have the house there. All right. Anyways, everybody check out that book. All right. So where can everyone find you? What's your Instagram handle?

Pimp yourself out. Tell us everything. There we go. At David Meltzer is my Instagram handle. I have Dave Meltzer. So you can go to either of those. I have pretty good SEO. So if you Google me.

But at David Meltzer is the strongest place. LinkedIn and Instagram on the strongest What's your podcast? Podcast is called The Playbook and we didn't talk about it but I have a top digital business show for entrepreneurs with Entrepreneur Magazine we're in our fourth season

it's called Elevator Pitch and it teaches you how to basically pitch your company and we fund you as well we have four judges, pretty famous people that are up there really it's a mentoring program I call it Chartanku's soul

I was just going to say it sounds similar but in the digital space Yeah, way more pressure, though. You try doing your pitch in 60 seconds going up 60 floors and elevator with cameras on you. You can really... Sweat a little bit. Yeah, it's awesome.

It's a pressure cooker, but we enjoy it. Thank you for doing this. Thanks for coming on. You guys are awesome, my new best friends. Thank you. Thank you. Do you want to win five very TSC beauty goodies from me? I'll also include a TSC pop socket for you to rock.

All you have to do is tell me your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram. Dave is incredible. I'm sure there's lots of favorite parts. I know I was taking notes during the podcast. Let us know your favorite part of Dave's podcast on my latest Instagram. I will pick one of you. I will DM you and you will win. Also, guys, don't forget to check out the new podcast site over at tscpodcast.com. All of the show notes from this episode and all of our other episodes can be found there. It's a really great resource to find all of the different resources, book recommendations, product lines, services that we recommend on the show as well as the recommendations. from the guests on the show, and it's very searchable, easy-to-use site. There's also a section on there for new listeners trying to get caught up with a little bit of a highlight reel of our best shows, where to start, our best-in-class shows. So again, go to tSCpodcast.com. We also have TSC Podcast on Instagram if you're more of a social Instagram person. Check it out.

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