What is the secret to true happiness? Happiness may mean differently to different people, but for entrepreneurs, the first step to attaining any measure of it is to step out of the world of “not enough” and into the world of “more than enough.” David Meltzer sees this recognition of the abundance that already exists around us as the critical mindset shift that every entrepreneur has to make in order to succeed. Joining Elliot Begoun in an insightful and thought-provoking rapid-fire conversation, David gives us a run through of the five daily practices and other secrets that have led him to where he is now and will certainly lead you to where you want to be. If you’re finding yourself stuck somewhere on your journey and you need to get inspired, you’ll be getting that inspiration from the best, right here in this episode. Plow on.
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The Happiness Playbook: Five Daily Practices That Will Change Your Life With David Meltzer
It’s a unique show because we have our guest with us for the first twenty minutes. It’s going to be a rapid-fire twenty minutes, and then I’ll hold down the fore after he jumps off and try to circle back to any of the questions and some of those questions that you’ve left for me. I want to tell you a little bit about David Meltzer. There’s a lot to know. He’s well-known as the Cofounder of Sports 1 Marketing and for his time with Leigh Steinberg. What I want to make sure to convey and have him share with all of you because it’s so aligned with what we talk about and it’s so important to me is his mission. His mission is around empowering people to be happy, and empowering you to empower others to be happy. He’s doing that through a series of Free Friday Training, which I hope he’ll expound on. David, I’m thrilled to have you here. I appreciate you taking the time. I’ll let you kick it off with an overview and an introduction.
I appreciate it so much. My introduction revolves around my relationship with money. Coming from a scarce world that was a world of being a victim where things happened to me. I call it the world of not enough because there wasn’t enough money. I had a single mom with six kids. She would have to pack our dinner in a paper bag so she could work her second job filling up turnstiles at convenience stores of greeting cards, to being a millionaire nine months out of law school where I thought I was living in an abundant world and a philanthropic world. I was taught the more that I gave, the more I would receive. Being a natural salesperson, an overseller, a backend seller, even a manipulator, liar and cheater at times, giving to me to receive was a trade or a negotiation, not an abundant philosophy.
Happiness Secrets: When you live in that world of more than enough with complete faith in limitlessness and infinity, you can truly be abundant.
The world that I lived in from 24 to 34 with a variety of great positions and dream jobs and dream economy of being a multimillionaire and running the first smartphone to running the world’s most notable sports agency, Leigh Steinberg, to partnering with Warren Moon and creating my own sports marketing company for over a decade. That world was a scarce world as well. It was a world where I wasn’t happy. I was buying things I didn’t need to impress people I didn’t like. I had to learn some lessons the hard way. I bottomed out in my 30s when my wife threatened to leave me because I wasn’t living to my truth and to my potential. I was surrounding myself with the wrong people with the wrong ideas. I had to go through a transformation, one that’s based on values and daily practices.
Through that, I lost everything. Two years before I lost everything, I went through my transformation, which is interesting. I’m one of the few people that bottomed out before they lost all their money. Losing all my money was an easy process. It was a beneficial circumstance that I had the right mindset, heartset and conscious practices in place. From there, I’ve moved and transformed over the last several years to a world of more than enough. That world is one where I receive so I can give. I believe money is super important. You can go shopping with money. It’s what you buy with your money that’s so important. Money doesn’t buy love or happiness.
It allows you to shop. If you shop for the right things, you’ll be happy. If you shop for things you don’t need to impress people you don’t like, trust me, you’ll be very unhappy and you’ll most likely lose all your money. That transformation from the world of to me to the world of for me, to now the world of through me is the journey that I’ve taken. The lessons that I’ve learned along the way, I want to teach through all of the free content that I do, books, guides, exercises, free training on Friday. I have three TV shows, one of the top podcasts. All are there to help people so that they don’t have to pay the dummy tax that I’ve paid.
As a fan of The Playbook and of you in general, there are things that you talk about that resonate with me and also that we talk about among those who are reading and the entrepreneurs that I work with day in and day out. A few of them is that concept around abundance. We talk a lot about what abundance looks like. The other is I frame it somewhat differently than you do, I call them karmic boomerangs. This ability to be out in the world with the understanding of the way. There’s a natural Law of Reciprocity, but take a minute if you would to explain your operational definition of abundance because it’s very important for those reading to understand that.
For me, it’s the idea that everything already exists. Instead of having to go get things to get healthy or to get wealthy or to get happy or to get worthiness into my life, I believe an abundant world is one that is the blend of currencies. The currency of money or pragmatic man-made value, currencies and objects of energy that you put into the flow to get what you want to be blended with faith. Faith is a currency, an object of energy you put into the flow to get what you want. The difference is that man-made constructive currencies like money, there’s a perception of a limited amount of, whereas faith lives between limitlessness and infinity. If you can live with the blend of currencies, between limitlessness and infinity, and truly have faith that there’s more than enough of everything for everything and everyone, that it already exists, then you can shift your paradigm from trying to get things to create limitations, void, shortages, obstacles, interference between you and what you already are.
Happiness Secrets: One hundred percent of the things you get done, get done. Figure out what you should do now and do it.
Meaning if I am healthy, then my perspective shifts in a world that’s abundant to what am I doing to interfere with what I already am. What am I doing to interfere with my health, my wealth, my happiness, my worthiness? Instead of, “I got to get happy. I got to get healthy. I got to get money.” It’s already there. It’s limitlessness and infinity. What am I doing to interfere with what I already am connected to and through, therefore, I can effectuate a greater flow to come through me with appreciation. Appreciation to me means to add value through gratitude, forgiveness and accountability. That’s our true appreciation, the combination of gratitude, forgiveness and accountability for others. When you live in that world of more than enough with complete faith in the two currencies, you can truly be abundant and have fewer interferences, voids, shortages and obstacles. Your life becomes simple and abundant, and you become happy.
That message, I can’t think of a time where it’s more important than in the moment we’re in right now. I’m a big believer in making sure that this show is actionable, that the people aren’t just tuning in, but they’re stepping away from it and able to get shit done. Give the folks some steps as to how they can stop interfering with their own natural abundance that’s available to them.
That’s why in the sports world we call it softball because I’m dying for that question. We’re not even rehearsed. Thank you for asking. There are five daily practices. If you want these five daily practices, I give them out to everyone. You can email me directly at [email protected]. Here they are, know your what, know your who, know your how, know your now and know your why. What does that mean? Know what you want first. Forget about your why. Take inventory of what you want personally, experientially, giving-wise and receiving-wise. Take inventory and don’t be afraid of changing your mind or being a hypocrite. Don’t be afraid of learning and growing. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, failures and setbacks. Those are indicators that you’re in the right place. You just need a little angle to a better place, a better direction.
Know your what. Once you know your what, know your who. Know who can help you get what you want. The fastest way to get what you want is to find someone that already has it or is already there and ask them for directions. Know who you can help. Know your what and know your who, then you got to know your how. Knowing your how is to be a student, to pay attention to, and give intention to. The coincidences that you want is the mathematical equation of luck. What we focus on and what we give our thinking, saying, doing and believing, even how we apply our personality traits or characteristics are obsessions and addictions towards what we want and who we want it from creates the coincidences or the mathematical equation of luck.
After you know your what, who and how, know you’re now. Meaning you have to constantly prioritize by what’s important of your what, who and how to effectuate getting things done. As you suggested, get shit done. One hundred percent of the things you get done, get done. The difference between people that are passionate, purposeful and profitable and everyone else is they get shit done. Go ahead and figure out what you should do now and do it. There is only activity every day, activity you get paid for, activity you don’t get paid for, activity you planned, activity you don’t have planned. Sleep, these are all activities. Utilize them in an efficient, effective and statistically successful way with the 24 hours of man-made construct of time that you’ve been given. If you know your what, who, how and now, we now can practice that interference that I talked about.
It’s called knowing your why. Practice interference and you’ll know your why. How do we practice interference? First, number one, you got to identify your triggers. Who triggers you? What triggers you? What are the needs of the ego that trigger you? The need to be separate, inferior, superior, right, offended, angry, anxious, frustrated, worried. Worrying is wishing for what you don’t want. Stop interfering with what you want by worrying about it. The need to be resentful and guilty. All of these different needs of the ego need to be identified. Why? Because any trigger in your life that triggers your ego which edges goodness out of your life, edges gold out of your life, whatever acronym you want to use for ego is not good. It creates interference, voids and shortages.
If you can identify these triggers of when the blood is leaving your brain because that’s what the ego does. It needs to fight, flee, feed and the other F-word that Gary Vee uses a lot. In all four of those F-functions, they need the blood to be in the body, not in the brain. What happens is we try to make critical decisions or utilize our higher power thinking with no blood in our brain because we haven’t identified a trigger. If you can identify the trigger, you can realize, “I’m not going to resist this and think and try to change this. I’m simply going to stop and breathe. Put the blood back into my brain so I can use my higher power of thinking.”
The blood in the body may have gotten you through high school, it isn’t going to get you much farther. We got to put the blood back into our brain so that we can roll in the right trajectory of our what, who, how and now. I will send you these five daily practices to change your life. The more you are consistent at it, I promise you, you will be more profitable, passionate and purposeful. You will have everything you desire. It’s simple as long as you can enjoy the consistent everyday, persistent without quit pursuit of your potential.
At least you’re not at all passionate about this. I could tell that.
It works. It changes lives. That’s why I’m here.
Let me ask this question in follow-up because I find it curious personally. You mentioned that all of this was through self-work and through hitting rock bottom. How did you discover these five practices? How did they come to you?
Happiness Secrets: If you search and ask for help from people with open hands and minds, you’ll have exponential growth acceleration.
It’s an evolution, not a revolution. It’s seventeen years of introspective thinking, starting with understanding what I’m in control of. When initially my wife threatened to leave me two years before I lost over $100 million, two years before my rock bottom had a basement of losing everything, my wife told me to take stock in who I was. When I realized who I was, was gratitude for perspective, accountability for control, forgiveness for peace and inspiration in the world of abundance. I had to understand, I had control of my mindset that I was giving meaning to everything I see. I had control of my heartset and of the way I felt. I had to effectuate it with the third thing that I had control of, which is my conscious continuum. I have control of the data that I input into my conscious that then creates a subconscious layer of 40,000 of the same thoughts that are rehabilitating my brain, creating neural pathways. Even the frequency and the vibration that I carry through my unconscious competencies, my genetic makeup, my quantum being of personality traits, characteristics, obsessions and addictions that create a frequency.
What it created were three laws that I built these practices upon. The first law was I had to learn the Law of Gravity. I was never happy where I was at. You got to be happy. You’re at the right place at the perfect time. I had so many blessings in my life and I ignored it because I was always trying to make more money, have a better job, define myself by my bank account, graduate from here and get married. Everything I was going to be happy when instead of being happy with what I already had, which was everything. The Law of Gravity, I had to institute, then the Law of GOYA, I was good at. The Law of GOYA was Get Off Your Ass. What I found was a lot of spiritual people that understood the mindset stuff that I didn’t understand. They literally thought they could get high at home laying down doing nothing on their mom’s couch and they wonder why they’re sick and broke even though they think they can manifest something. You can’t. You got to utilize the Law of GOYA. You got to create the void for the universe to fill by getting off your ass.
Finally, the Law of Attraction. When I started putting attention and intention into the Law of Gravity, the Law of GOYA, and then the Law of Attraction, filling the voids, allowing what already existed to come into my life rapidly and accurately, and putting the attention in intention into the coincidences. Voting for what I wanted, not what other people wanted for me, not what’s missing, not what I didn’t want, which is the three things that I paid attention to most in my life, what other people are wanting for me, what was missing or what I didn’t want. I somehow was surprised when I kept getting what other people wanted from me, what was missing in my life or what I didn’t want.
This is a quick rapid-fire question. Will the current you even recognize the former you?
I coached the former me all the time. That’s the only reason I recognize him. They would hang out together. The current me would be coaching the old me.
When you have that kind of self-evolution, I find it fascinating. I’m in service to the entrepreneurs. To me, the entrepreneurs that I work with every day inspire the hell out of me because they’re world changers, they’re doing stuff, but I worry about them because most of them do come into this with a scarcity mindset. Few of them are taking the time to understand the happiness that surrounds them and the joy that is this journey, that they’re doing something amazing. They miss that. They get to the end of the journey. They think it’s the destination and it’s not. It’s all about this journey. What is most important for those reading to walk away with and understand? What do you want to leave them with? We want to make sure to plug them into what you’re offering, especially in your Free Friday Training.
There are two things that I would tell my 13, 23, 33, 43 and 53-year-old self, which is what I am now. Ask for help. The ultimate connectivity and proof of radical humility of being able to be of service and of value are to being able to receive, to maximize what we are connected with and through and to. The biggest challenge that entrepreneurs have is they try to do it by themselves. They utilize their ego to create the separation of inferiority or superiority and don’t take advantage of the greatest asset of connectivity. If you search and ask for help from people with open hands and minds, you’ll have exponential growth acceleration. The second thing beyond that is to understand time. The aggregate effect of your efforts takes 90% of the effort to see any results.
Meaning it’ll take you 90% of the time until you see 25% of where you should be. It then takes only 5% more to get to 50% and 5% more to get to 100%. It takes 5% more to get to 200%, 400% and 800%. That’s the hockey stick of an entrepreneur. The problem is most people quit before they get to the 25% because negative behavior works in the favor of how long things take to show or appear or create a result. Meaning if I do negative things, it’s too late when I see the results because I’m 90% down the road of the negative, drinking, drugs, laziness, procrastination and whatever the negative. The problem with positive behaviors is we expect a result. With negative behavior, you don’t expect a result. If we’re expecting a result, 90% of the effort is too long until we get a result, so we quit. The key to the success of being an entrepreneur is to enjoy the consistent every day, persistent without quit pursuit of your potential, not somebody else’s, not what you’re missing or not what you don’t want.
Remember, ask for help, enjoy the consistent, persistent pursuit of your potential. Blend persistence with patience by having faith that you’re going to end up somewhere better than you are now. Faith itself is the ultimate GPS of an entrepreneur because not only does it reroute you like a GPS when you miss the exit, when you have a flat tire, when the car breaks down or when you end up at the donut shop instead of the gym. Beyond rerouting you, it’s the super GPS of entrepreneurs because it will change your destination to a better place, situation or make your situation better. Use that ultimate GPS by having faith and enjoying the consistent, persistent pursuit of your potential. They will laugh at you, scoff at you, make fun of you and then they will applaud you.
Happiness Secrets: Faith itself is the ultimate GPS of an entrepreneur.
Remember most importantly, be kind to your future self and do good deeds. Email me if you need anything, the Five Daily Practices. My book, I’ll sign it, send it and ship it to you. I’ll send you the eBook, audiobook or whatever your fancy is. I’m at [email protected]. You can also register. We have about 43,000 people registered for training every Friday at 11:00 AM Pacific, 2:00 PM Eastern. If you miss it, as you know, it’s right there on The Playbook, my podcast, millionaires, billionaires, entrepreneurs, absolute celebrities, athletes, and entertainers talking about their secrets to success, their playbook to success, their desire to must be what they can be. Reach out. I’m here to be of service.
David, thanks so much for being here. I appreciate very much everything that you’re doing. I’m a huge fan. I appreciate you sharing this message with our readers.
I appreciate the opportunity. I’m happy to come back. I appreciate your patience in having me. It allows me to be more accessible to more people. I’ll be happy to come back and share. Please reach out to me at [email protected]. Enjoy your day. Be kind. Thank you.
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Thank you. That was rapid-fire with David Meltzer. He’s an amazing guy. He’s like a strong dose of energy. He’s passionate about what he is teaching and it comes from his personal experiences. It’s something that we talk a lot about. It’s something that I want to finish off this episode re-emphasizing. You are all on an incredible journey. You are all on a hard-fought, tough, epic road trip. In order to persevere, to cross the chasm, the valley of death as we say it, it takes the things that David outlined for you. Your what, who, now, how and why. The thing that I wish I had more time to explore with him is faith.
A lot of times, we tie faith to religion but more broadly, faith is just belief. It’s the confidence that if I show up in the right way, if I make myself available to the right opportunities, if I put in the right effort, if I manifest in a way that does good, that the world will open up to me and that there will be an opportunity. That sounds woo-woo and crazy but it’s not. It is the way the world works. It doesn’t mean you won’t have your setbacks and hard knocks and you might get knocked on your ass. What it does mean is that if you don’t open yourself up, if you don’t show up in a way that avails these abundant opportunities, then you’ll never meet them. They’ll never connect with you.
You hear the old saying, “You’ve got to make your own luck.” That’s what this is about. You have to have faith that if you do everything for the right reasons in the right way, work your ass off, ask for help, do all the things that are there that there’s enough out there, there’s abundance out there to reward you. It’s also important to align what those rewards look like. I’m going to switch gears at the end of this episode here to talk about two other things that I want to make sure everybody knows. The first is rejection. The second is pervasive innovation. Rejection, I’ve had lots of conversations with entrepreneurs who are facing a mounting swell of noes from investors, buyers and retailers.
Noes aren’t noes in this business. They’re not noes unless they’re attached to a restraining order. They’re just not now. When you get not now, the question shouldn’t be, “What am I doing wrong?” The question that comes back to what David outlined is, “How am I interfering with the yes? How is what I am showing up and offering, interfering with the opportunity to get at yes? Is it something inherent in the way I’m presenting? Is it something that I’m not offering? Is it something that I’m not hearing, seeing?” I take these not-nows as an opportunity to turn introspective and to ask that question. It’s not, “I’m a victim. This sucks. Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing.” The question should be, “How am I getting in my own way? How’s my business getting in my own way? How’s the proposition that I have getting in the own way. How’s the business case, the investment case, all of that getting in my way?”
I’m wanting you all to use that not as defeat, not as negative. No doubt about it, it sucks when you’re hoping to get, “Yes, we’ll put you on the shelf. Yes, we’ll write you a check. You give me your wire instructions,” that type of thing and you get a not now. I don’t want to bullshit you and say that’s not going to hurt. It does. It feels lousy, but you can let those mount and defeat you and begin to talk yourself out of showing back up or you can turn it into a great question, “What’s interfering with the yes?” That’s lesson one that I wanted to hit.
The second one is more about pervasive innovation. I’m going to write an article about this, just a forewarning. Here is my kick in the ass to all of you. Everyone reading who’s an entrepreneur is an innovator. You’re a change agent. You’re doing something cool in this. For whatever reason, there’s an element of business for everybody. I see it most around things like discovery and driving trial where we check that innovation mindset at the door. We’re super innovative around product or packaging, even some of our messaging or our marketing. When we get down to the tactical part about connecting with our consumer or shopper and activating them in the store, online or engaging with a retailer, or trying to get an investor meeting or a meeting with a potential advisor, all those kinds of things, our innovator’s mindset disappears.
It wanes and we become rote and followers of normative behavior. That does not serve you well. I want to encourage everybody to think like the innovator that you are in those kinds of situations. “How do I get past all the blocks? How do I show up differently? How do I connect in a way that nobody else is? What tools are there? What can I be doing?” For example, if you’re moving into a new retailer and you want to activate, the typical mindset now is, “You only have demos so you’re just doing TPRs.” Maybe you’re going to be super creative and use an IRC, an Instant Redeemable Coupon, or you’re going to hopefully, get some secondary placements.
All that’s great. I’m not diminishing any of it, but what if you thought differently? What if you hired telemarketers and did a telemarketing campaign to people that met your demographics within a 5 square mile radius of the stores, or you did a physical mail campaign, or you were reaching out to physical influencers, yoga studios, and places like that, offering them samples or coupons to give out? None of these ideas may be good, they’re just illustrative. I’m encouraging everyone reading to be an innovator pervasively in their business. Every aspect of your business, you should look at through the lens of innovation, of being a disruptor, and of being a change agent. If you can do that, you’re going to lead yourself in a direction that is uncharted and that’s how you make progress.
That’s it for now. A very short episode but a powerful episode. I’m going to be joining David on one of his upcoming shows. I’m looking forward to that as well. I appreciate everybody’s support. I’m going to put a little plugin here. We’re trying to grow the reach of TikTok. I feel like it’s important. We’re trying to cross a bunch of different subjects. We’re trying to make an impact on entrepreneurs who are fighting the good fight. Do me a favor, do two things for me. Wherever you get your podcasts, take a minute to write a review and give us five stars. Secondly, take this link and share it with five of your friends. Help us grow the audience and increase the reach of this message. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day.
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About David Meltzer
In his early 20s, David Meltzer quickly rose to the top of his game in the business world, becoming a millionaire. David lectured around the globe and saw rapid success in every business project he touched. But something was missing, and in his 30s as a multimillionaire, he went on a rapid downward spiral that ended in bankruptcy. It was only then that David realized, in order to revive and thrive, he needed to codify what had made him successful in the first place. He has since emerged to realize even more rewarding heights of success in business and life.
David Meltzer has created a platform that uses four overarching principles—gratitude, empathy, accountability, and effective communication—and these principles have allowed him to communicate and mentor everyone from college students to c-suite executives. These four principles in everyday practice allow David to live by his mission to “make a lot of money, help a lot of people, and have a lot of fun.”
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