About:
- This week, Dr. Glenn Vo spoke with a fellow entrepreneur with an amazing mission: David Meltzer.
- David is one of Glenn’s life coaches, but he’s more than just a role model for Glenn—David is also a speaker, author, podcaster, attorney, sports agent, TV personality, and a philanthropist (just to name a few of the “roles” he plays).
- So, why does David go above and beyond to create so much value and produce so much content? Well, he has a purpose: to empower thousands of people—like you—with values and practices to effectuate happiness.
- In fact, David’s life mission is to teach over one billion people to make a lot of money and help a lot of other people all while having fun—“a thousand times a thousand is a million, and a million times a thousand is a billion.”
- Call him what they will, but David isn’t afraid to tell people the truth. And one truth he believes in is that while money may not buy happiness, it allows you to “shop” for it. He knows that if he can teach you to “shop” for the “right things” for the “right reasons,” then you will be happy.
“Big Entrepreneur 3”
- Have an “unwinding routine.”
- For David, his “tomorrow” starts today. You’ll spend a third of your life sleeping, after all, and most people go to bed only to wake up more tired the next morning. They’ll then wonder why they lack productivity, feel incapable of adding value to the world as though they’re inaccessible to others, or aren’t as grateful as they’d like to be… “they don’t feel happy, healthy, wealthy, and worthy.”
- Most people live like “tubes,” David believes, where they’re putting food in and food out, living paycheck to paycheck, and so on. An “unwinding” routine is all about putting yourself in a position every night to not only recover for the next day—to be your “best self” or “higher self”—but to access the information required to “plateau and grow.”
- While most people think of plateauing as finding a ground without much acceleration or growth, David has a figurative meaning behind the word “plateau”—he likens it to the Myth of Sisyphus… In case you’re unfamiliar with the myth of Sisyphus, the long and short of it is that he pushes a boulder to the top of a hill only for it to roll back to the bottom. Likewise, many entrepreneurs produce a ton one day only to feel like they need to start back over once they wake up in the morning.
- Become a “student of your calendar.”
- By that, David means you ought to pay attention and give your “five levels of intention.” As an entrepreneur, you can beat people with math if you understand time. Too many people don’t even look at their calendar let alone “reconcile” time by studying it with what they do, say, think, believe, and feel. You can utilize your time by using your calendar as a cornerstone to make the right pivots to put yourself on the right path.
- Start by taking the activities you have planned and the activities you don’t have planned. Then take the activities you do get paid for and the activities you don’t get paid for. Finally, study those activities and discern exactly how you can be more productive, accessible, gracious, efficient, effective, and physically successful.
- Read Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill.
- David reads this classic on a daily basis. Why? First, it’s bifocal of why human nature never changes: the 500 most successful people in the world weren’t so different than you, Dave, or Glenn. Secondly, David sees himself as a more modern Napolean Hill. While Mr. Hill was able to interview 500 people over the course of his life about how they became financially successful, David is able to interview 20-25 people on a daily basis about how they become successful in their respective industries… And, on that note, David was blessed to be in the movie Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy as well as being featured in the book itself.
Learning From the Past
Believe it or not, one of David’s biggest mistakes was misunderstanding how mistakes work. He thought that mistakes, failures, and setbacks aren’t “protection and promotion” or opportunities to learn but, rather, are forms of punishment. In fact, David believes that problems and solutions aren’t separate from one another but are “inherent and reconciled” within each other. When we can utilize faith—and not necessarily in a religious way, although David is proudly a man of God—we can motivate ourselves to look at setbacks in the right light.
David conveys this by telling us a story about a three-year-old who goes to touch a hot stove. Their mom has never yelled at them before but, at that moment, she slaps them harder than ever and loudly screams at them not to do that. The kid immediately breaks into tears and asks why their mother is punishing them. The mom offers a hug and tells the child that she’s protecting him, not trying to hurt him.
Likewise, we feel like we’re being punished when we don’t get the job we want or get into the school we want or the relationship we want. But if we look at it omnisciently, all things may very well happen for a reason; perhaps we’re not being punished—perhaps life has set us on a different path that actually is in favor of our betterment. And perhaps we’re receiving “protection and promotion” from what appears to be punishment.
One mistake David will never forget was the loss of hundreds of million dollars. As a result, he lost his wife and almost his life because he didn’t realize that pain was an indicator that he had a lesson to learn. This setback was protecting and promoting him to do better in the future, although he saw it as a punishment at the time.
If David could go back in time to talk to his younger self—whether that younger version is 14, 24, or 34 years old—he’d tell him to ask for help. People limit themselves when they don’t ask for help. There’s always someone they can confide in to lend a helping hand and set them in the right direction. The only way you can acquire the knowledge of what you have in life is to give it away, let it be lost, stolen, or manipulated from you. If you want to know more, add more value, or achieve more in life then you need to ask: “If you’re healthy, you have as many asks as you want. But if you’re unhealthy, you only have one ask.”
Don’t Stop Here!
David shares his “four values” and “five daily practices” with every one of his clients—people like Glenn himself. And while everyone needs to learn their own values, David shared his: gratitude, forgiveness, accountability, and Faith.
So, what are your values? What’s important to you? Once you know your values—according to your mid and long-term objectives—then you’ll know what you should do, who you can help, who can help you, how best to get something done, and how to prioritize what’s most important to you. You’ll know the “what,” the “who,” and the “how” so you can apply your “why.” From there, you will be happy as you live in acceleration, growth, and expansion.
Interested in more? Just reach out to Dave on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. If you want it, he’s got it. However, the best way to contact him is to email him directly at [email protected].
David wanted everyone to know that he reads all his own emails, and he’ll even send you a signed copy of his book at no cost. For over 22 years he has done free training every Friday with tens of thousands of folks signing up on a weekly basis.