The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - 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.  

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. very fashionable for somebody like me who puts a high importance on looking good. I can wear it to the gym, wear it out with my friends, wear it to the office. So Misfit is offering an exclusive offer just for our listeners. Get five free replacement straps with purchase. Just head over to Misfit.com slash The Skinny Confidential and enter promo code SKINNY to redeem. That's Misfit.com slash The Skinny Confidential and promo code SKINNY to redeem. Go ahead and check out that Misfit vapor too. 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 Skinny 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 have 15-year mortgages, and 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 term. 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. What up, guys? This is The Skinny Confidential.

Him and her podcast, you are back with me, Lauren Everts. I am the creator of The Skinny Confidential, which is a book, a brand, and a podcast. And to my right, I have Michael Bostic, my husband. And CEO of Dear Media, serial entrepreneur, podcast host extraordinaire. That clip was from our guest of the show today, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Sports One Marketing, Dave Meltzer. On this episode, we discuss 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. 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 identified 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 an 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 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 in my opinion. That would be my core advice for time management. I also want to say another time management skill. I don't know if this is helpful, but time batching 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, okay, 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 too. 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 with 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, so HelloFresh really makes the whole saving time situation work well. Their delivery is step-by-step recipes and ingredients that come straight to your door. We love this. The other day I opened my door to fresh, responsibly obtained ingredients from selected farms. Don't you love that? Then don't mean to brag, but I actually whipped up some sweet potato fajitas for Michael Bostic. Like I'm practically Susie Homemaker, guys. Some other fun meals on their menu are a sweet chili chicken, yum, creamy mushroom ravioli, and also sriracha sesame shrimp. Oh my God. Anyway, I picked the veggie one, but they also have classic and family,

so you can do you here. If you're a mom, they have family dinners that are fuss-free with HelloFresh's picky eater, kid-tested, and approved family plan recipes. But back to saving time. This is my favorite part. Each week, there's a 20-minute meal on the classic menu for when you really don't have any more time. So you won't spend all night in the kitchen because these recipes take about 30 minutes. Throw on a podcast, whip up your HelloFresh, and you've just learned tons of knowledge and made a family meal. HelloFresh is delivered right to your door in a recyclable insulated package. So what I liked about this is when it arrived to my door, it's in this really organized box. So it has like a section for your

vegetables and then there's a section for your quinoa or your rice or your pasta. And then they have this little, it's like this little box of herbs and you get a recipe card and you grab the recipe card, lay out your ingredients and you're ready to rock herbs and you get a recipe card and you grab the recipe card lay out your ingredients and you're ready to rock so you get delicious filling meals delivered straight to your door every week for less than ten dollars per serving and free shipping for a total of sixty dollars off that's twenty dollars off your first three boxes visit hellofresh.com skinny 60 and inner code skinny 60 at checkout it's like receiving six meals for free guys make sure So with that, who is Dave Meltzer? Dave Meltzer is currently the CEO of Sports 1 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 1 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 Maguire was based off of. He is an award-winning humanitarian, an international keynote speaker, bestselling author, chairman of the Unstoppable Foundation, and is profiled by national publications such as Entrepreneur, Forbes, ESPN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Yahoo, and more. That 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 like 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 and just me looking like garbage. 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 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 become an audio snob. So we

share San Diego in common. In Camp Cuyamaca, which nobody's going to have any context of that. Sixth grade camp. 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 till after graduate school. And she raised us with one great skill. And I always joke around saying my mom doesn't, she looks like your typical Jewish mom, but she's a black belt in martial arts and you, 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 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? Yeah, my mom's a black belt in Jewish guilt. Different black belt, Dave. Either way, they... I got it. But that's scary, right? Yeah, they're 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, we're 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 gonna be poor why am i in akron ohio right i'm gonna 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 um and the first warning that i got that i was gonna 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 mom a house and 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 super happy kid. I call myself a top to miss. 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. I had a Ferrari, a Porsche, a beautiful wife, three gorgeous daughters, and I wasn't happy. And weird thing was my 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, you know, very wealthy back then. 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, what's going on? 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, which he normally did, she always tried to keep the heroic static. It must've been like the pain on my face or whatever. She laid into 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 so 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 i maybe i need like was your father successful my dad was successful okay true entrepreneur um very successful but you know into he was left, you know, it was just a very weird thing. He was shameful, right? About what, cause 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, why are you punishing me again?

I go, I thought we were developing a relationship, and he said, because I'm worried about you. This was the first warning. I said, what do you mean you're worried about me? I got a Porsche. I got a Ferrari. I live in Rancho 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'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 uh I came home I was at the Emmy Awards with Little John I was already working for Lee Steinberg I you know went back to work uh 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 person that I wasn't interested in. 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 530 in the morning after lying to her,

and she told me she wasn't happy. And like I told you, I outkick my coverage when it comes to 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 and 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 anything. 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 in 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. 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 Maguire. My office is sitting- 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 Hoya, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield. It's about... The who's who. Two billion in management. The biggest sports stars. They made a movie about our firm called Jerry Maguire with Tom Cruise. It was one of the most famous sports movies. You know Jerry Maguire, Lauren? Of course I know Jerry Maguire.

Show me the fucking money, Lauren. Show me the money. You had me at hello. Well, I'm sitting there in my office, which sits overlooking Catalina Island, a 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 what I, 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, I 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

dollars. And this is how I own 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 did my wife, by the way.

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 2007, all of a sudden, I was so leveraged that when I went to the bank and said hey you know i need five 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 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 you? Yeah. So 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 that 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. Some things 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 I couldn't get it out. Was it a chapter seven or 11? Chapter seven. Okay. So yeah. But like literally I had to give my- For those, what's the difference? Seven and one. One's a 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 debtors. 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, 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 skillset 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 and a car. And I had to 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, okay? 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,, 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 hours. 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 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? Gotta get the rose gold. Just head over to misfit.com slash the skinny confidential and enter 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 enter 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 are 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 don't, I feel like you cannot truly be an entrepreneur without getting your face bloodied a few times, right? Maybe you don't go completely bankrupt,

but it's going to happen. You're going to get bloodied. 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 struggling. 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 that but when you're out on your own and the buck stops with you and and it's difficult and like i think that entrepreneurs that are run and this is where i have a difficult time with a lot of like speaking coaches and people that run around and only talk about the good side teach right they only teach right like 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 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 v didn't steal it from me thank you have a holiday 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 the 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 beginner at it. That's a good way to learn. For sure. It's a great app. What is TB? I use Theta Meditation. Theta Med. Yeah, 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 used. 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 seventh plane of vibration. You actually can physically be able to see the vibrations in your brainwaves. Gamma is supposed to be God meditation. So alpha, beta, theta. Theta is a great meditative state. 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 happens 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 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

and 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. Cause you know, 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 roll. 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? Yeah, I got to get back to center. Michael's stoicism meditation is getting back to it. I want to ask you, so you coach and you mentor younger people now. And older people. So when you see, since you've been through some things, been through some shit. Yeah. But when you see, say a young person's doing well, starting to make a little bit of money, what

are some red flags you say, like maybe something you recognize that you've done yourself or something that they're doing that you say, hey, red flag, 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, 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. And she worked, she's smarter than me. She's nicer than me. And I have all these words. What I did is I changed my life by shifting the paradigm of value and putting myself into receivership. Receivership is 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 substantial,

like they're just substantial relationships. And then I fire the people literally that are bleeding me. One piece 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 where you're doing really well. Money's flowing in. You're just crushing it. 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 a you know there's a lot of things that i can learn kicked your ass yeah but it's also when i lost everything or when you get your ass close to 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's going to know your true anatomy. So don't buy a Ferrari, right? That's actually really good advice. But you're not gonna buy a Ferrari right here's what I tell you those cars aren't what interests me yeah good but if they do here's what I tell people now buy a Ferrari and learn from it yeah buy it 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 enjoy, enjoy it, right? 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 onto 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 it's never, 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 an electric car. It's, you know,

it's a nice car. It's not a Ferrari. It's probably 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. I think it's shifting. It's shifting a little bit. I hope i think i think millennials are going to shake it up i hope so i don't think it's about and minivans are 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 the trains the planes the automobiles are that back then it was like such yeah to stand in front of a private jet 10 years ago was like so cool now it's like 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 i see that in my kids right they're not really interested in like seeing that

no you have to have something to say you have to be interesting like you have to provide value in my opinion i mean i'm more interested in that than anything. I don't like the coach, the, like the coaches that do that, or they label themselves coach that do that type of stuff. Cause I feel like they're selling to the desperate and that's going to, 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, and you have people preying on people like that, 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 for 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 the hype into those bullshit lifestyles that 99.99% of the world will never have and shouldn't have by doing those practices, right? 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? Cause I'm, 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. Cause I want to learn. 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 or how 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 a hundred grand. How's 10 grand. Does that sound fair? Yeah. Yeah. That's, 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 to you? And if someone says, Hey, I need all a hundred grand, you know, it'd 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? It's connecting, 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, 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 what was the shift that made you start thinking that way? Right. It's so weird because I was wise beyond my years when I was young. So I literally saved

everything. I had such a long-term goal. What happened, what 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. So I got, 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 that 15-year mortgages, in 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, that long-term was like, well, I'll just continually make 10, 20, 30. So you just thought that it was just going to keep coming. Yeah. Cause 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 can stay here until midnight. And the conversation, 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 until midnight because we're all pretty high up here. You're not going to get down those 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 channels, 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 un-fucking-believable advice it's so simple but it's so true everyone quits yeah you can't quit just do it like and that's what i love about you lauren in our in my podcast is you're like well get get the extra and that's what gary talks about too like are you kidding

quit making excuses go wait tables go bartend. 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 stay in business tomorrow. And then if I'm lucky enough to get incremental or exponential growth, so be it. But I've seen the 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 and I never want to put like a whole generation down, But I feel like there's maybe a softness occurring there. I'm sure every generation does. Every generation thinks that, though. I have that fear for my – because I have 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, it's so much harder to get into San Diego State. Yeah. My grandma's like, oh, your dad is 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 participation awards and all this is like you have to put in the way I have a young sister and she'll get mad at 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 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 figuring out what you do like people like they think they're just going to stumble onto 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 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 that are more in the phase, like you're saying, that aren't willing. Sometimes I thought

about doing a camp for kids. Joe DeSena from Spartan Races, he talks about pain thresholds. I'd love to do 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 he, and his kids picked up on it. So one of the things he says is you 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's volleyball and one's basketball. They're in there at 4 a.m. Then he says, well, my nine-year-old, so she's in her third year of 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, doesn't matter what I say, they're watching me. They know I wake up at 4 AM. They have a spirit of excellence that is carried. And I think that's what I like to teach is,.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 an empowerment camp. Let's bring in a whole bunch of people with a spirit of excellence and just find out what they do. 4 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 hungover.

The thing is I'm hungover a lot less than I was when I was younger. Um, 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.

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. But looking back, I do not regret what I did because I didn't really hurt anyone but myself. Well, I think it's a healthy way to look at what look at entrepreneurship anyway 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 people if you can look at and say okay you know what i was doing really well lost much and i came back like that's 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 pursuit, pursuit of my potential. I could not agree with you more on this. I think that we

should kind of explore this. It's like like what's the fun to getting to the outcome as quick as you can possibly get there for me it's 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 where you've probably heard it where you're sitting on like uh maybe you're looking 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 in your hand 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 that watch and they set these basic like milestones and every time you get to a milestone it's not good enough enough. You 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 times, 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 multidimensional time that exists in your perspective.

And that's where your analogy with the sun setting 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, say your facts analogy. No, I, I, I believe if you're like my biggest thing now that I work towards is just freedom. I don't say 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 needs your facts analogy. It's so good. Oh, well, no, it's not a facts analogy. My dad had a, this is actually more of a patient's thing and we're going on a tangent. Now my dad had a really successful business partner a long time ago, um, back in the day of fax. 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 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 either sorted itself or became

unimportant or went away. Right he says people they they get in these situations like i have to do this i need to do this it's you're basing all your time on other people's schedules what does your dad tell you about being married when you absolutely well now we're going on no you gotta say this one you gotta say this one well this everyone's heard this when you absolutely positively have to say something don't I don't know why you went on all those crazy tangents that's the need to be right

though but yes you died 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 tangents and then tangents time management I have a huge problem with that

I've tried time batching I have a huge problem with that. I've tried time batching. I have, um, I have the, what's the Palm, Palm Mito method. The, the, the tomato. I got the secret for you. What's the secret? My calendar is like all color coded. Yeah. This, this secret is inconsistency of being a student of your calendar. Now 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 of your calendar. Now 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 of 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? 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 a 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 done in five minutes. Every meeting that I have, my objective. And so what happens is you brand yourself. People are literally 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 accessing? 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 the 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.

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 been 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 in a day than most people will in 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? 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 LA, you can't take five meetings here in a day. 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 LA 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 at 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 L.A. today and 10 will show up for an hour. That's really smart.

And then you're also networking quickly. And the 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 consistency. Okay. So when did you learn all this? How long did it take you to learn all this? 50 years. accessibility. And the only thing that gets in my way and your way is consistency, right?

Okay. So 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. Almost there. 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 and 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 I going to keep it? So I studied, read Think and Grow Rich again. I studied Rockefeller and 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 I be of service to this cool couple? Like can I invite them to New Orleans with me? Who can I introduce to help their podcast? I'm in New Orleans.

That's the unlock though because anything that's – What did Alison Broad say? She said a lot of things. She said the thing about how you can become successful is 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, it's always been like, how do I service somebody else? And the things that haven't worked are 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 really, I would love for you to help me. How can I be of service to you? Oh, I knew it. 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 like it's awesome and i need it if we're helping them then

they're happy and 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 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. It actually, you're helping other people come up and then helping other people help other people. Right. Empowering others to empower others. And Oprah, you know, my friend Brian Smith founded Ugg Boots and And he'll tell you, he had a complete failure business until Oprah put it as a top 10 Christmas gift. Wow.

Changed his whole business, ended up selling it for $40 million to Skechers. You know, changed 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. 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 elevating, elevate others to elevate yourself, create an energy of radical humility. You know, that if people ask me all the time, when I get on their pod, 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 it's like, oh, this person is an awesome chef. I'm going to go over there and eat. Right? Why are you trying 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 cleaned dishes, could I eat over? And now I got, you know, got 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 we'll either catch up in San Diego or in Orange County. Or New Orleans. New Orleans is our date, yes. You know what? I've never been to New Orleans, and I don't think Lauren has either. Okay, the latest it's going 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've 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? Yeah. Cushon probably. It's a really great place. Or I think for breakfast, Camille Grill. It's an 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 it? I have, yeah. That'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 it I have yeah that's a great book why'd you just say that randomly

he's the banana king and he's from New Orleans oh wow okay you still have the house there anyways check out that book 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 DaveMeltzer.com. So you can go to either of those.

I have a pretty good SEO. So if you Google me, but at David Meltzer is the strongest place. LinkedIn and Instagram are the strongest places. 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 Chartain Coussoul. 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 in 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. Oh, 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, tscpodcast.com. This episode was brought to you by Misfit Wearables and their brand new smartwatch, by Misfit Wearables and their

brand new smartwatch, the Misfit Vapor 2. You guys know that I love technology, love efficiency. So let me tell you, this smartwatch has it all. Not only can I keep track of my steps every day, I can also track my workouts via Google Fit, read my emails, get texts, see the weather, need to know the weather. Sometimes it's difficult looking outside, listen to music and make NFC enabled payments all from my wrist. Yes, it's the best. And this product is very fashionable for somebody like me who puts a high importance on looking good. I can wear it to the gym, wear it out with my friends, wear it to the office. Don't feel like I have to change it out. Just all day functionality. I also love that I can change out the straps really easily, make it look a little bit different, add a little bit of variation.

So Misfit is offering an exclusive offer just for our listeners. Get five free replacement straps with purchase. Just head over to Misfit.com slash The Skinny Confidential and enter promo code SKINNY to redeem. That's Misfit.com slash The Skinny Confidential and promo code SKINNY to redeem. Go ahead and check out that Misfit Vapor 2.