[00:00:00] Kristen: Welcome to this edition of insider secrets, the weekly podcast that turns real estate investing goals into reality. Each show, we interview guests who are seasoned real estate professionals, actively closing and managing real estate deals. Mike is the founder of my core intentions and would like to help you make your real estate investing dreams a reality.

[00:00:22] Mike coaches you to buy investment real estate, creating short-term cash flow and long-term wealth, your host and real estate coach. Mike Morawski has more than 30 years of real estate investing and property management experience. Here’s your host, Mike.

[00:00:39] Mike Morawski:

[00:00:39] Hey everybody. Good afternoon and welcome back. It is Mike, your host of Insider Secrets. I am super excited, today is episode 100. Insider Secrets has been brought to you by My Core Intentions. We keep dropping great information, but today I am really excited and honored to have Dave Meltzer on our show. Before getting into anything, we’re going to dive right into who Dave is because I want to get going. Dave, you want to say hi real quick to everybody?

[00:01:06] David Meltzer: So excited to be here, wanted to congratulate you. I’ve been honored so many different times, what an esteemed honor to be here. The hundredth guest, the hundredth show, what a milestone of consistent, persistent behavior to help other people. Just wanted to honor you and say thank you for having me here.

[00:01:23] Mike Morawski: Thank you, I appreciate it. I’m really glad that we’ve had the opportunity to meet and share a little bit, and it’s awesome because I’ve really had an opportunity to learn a few things from you, too and I think that’s what this is all about, right? As we get back and forth and we learn from each other. Anyhow, Dave Meltzer, he’s the co-founder of Sports 1 Marketing and formerly served as the CEO of the well-known Leigh Steinberg Sports and Entertainment agency.

[00:01:48] That’s the company that inspired the movie Jerry McGuire for anybody who might remember that. Dave’s been recognized by Variety Magazine as the Sports Humanitarian of the Year and awarded the Ellis Island Medal Of Honor. He’s been the executive producer of Bloomberg’s Amazon prime TV series, The Two Minute Drill and Office Hours. I love this, his life’s mission is to empower over 1 billion people to be happy. This simple, yet powerful mission has led him on an incredible journey to prove one thing, value in all his content and communication, that’s exactly what you’re going to receive today. As part of this mission, for 20 years, he’s been providing free weekly trainings to empower others to be happy.

[00:02:34] Hey Dave, welcome to Insider Secrets.

[00:02:37] David Meltzer: I’m excited to be here. Can’t wait to share them.

[00:02:41] Mike Morawski: One question I ask all my guests at the beginning of the show, same question. One word, what drives you personally and professionally?

[00:02:49] David Meltzer: Kindness.

[00:02:51] Mike Morawski: This is a hundredth episode, and I don’t think anybody’s ever said kindness. That’s a place that I love to live in. Two words, love, and kindness. Dave, tell us a little bit about your backstory. How’d you get to this place?

[00:03:01] David Meltzer: Yeah, I don’t think they’d hire you to be a sports agent of the most notable sports agency in the world if kindness was your moniker. Although I learned a lot about it working there. I lived in three worlds in my life, and the first world is the one I was born into, it’s a world of not enough. My dad left when I was five, my mom struggled to empower six children, five boys, and a girl, by working two jobs as a second-grade teacher. Packing our dinner in a Country Squire station wagon, and a paper bag and filling up turnstiles at convenience stores with greeting cards just so we could eat.

[00:03:35] In my mind, the world was victimizing me, I didn’t think it was fair, I didn’t have enough food or education, or money. I was super happy cause I had this extraordinary family, but I always was living in liability, blame, shame, justification. Every time there’s a financial problem, tears in my house. So I grew up wanting to be rich, and thought my worth was going to be how much my bank account said. I was driven, as my siblings were in academics, I was driven by money. I wanted to buy my mom a house and a car. I wanted to solve the one piece of happiness that was missing from my life. Money.

[00:04:15] Out of law school, I took a job in the internet, despite my mom telling me the internet’s a fad in 1992, that I was going to lose everything if I didn’t use my law degree. Just so you know, just because someone loves you doesn’t mean they give you good advice. My mom loves me too much, but that was horrible advice. The internet is pretty big, so I don’t listen to her when she tells me crypto’s doesn’t work either. Nine months out of law school, though, I was a millionaire, and I moved from the world of not enough to what I call the world of just enough for me. I was an optimist or even what I call a top-timist. I look for the light, the love, and the lessons in everything, but money still drove me. There was going to be enough for me. Three years after I started working, we exited to Thomson Reuters for $3.4 billion.

[00:04:57] By the time I was 30 years old, I was a multimillionaire, married to my dream girl from the fourth grade. I had everything I ever dreamed of, except for, I lived in this world of just enough for me, and I was buying things to be happy. I’d buy different things if I was unhappy, I’d buy more things if I was unhappy, I’d buy things to impress people. I’d even buy things, Mike, to impress people that I didn’t even like. I called this world a scarce world, an unhappy world, and that’s what was the catalyst for me losing all the blessings that I was given as a young man by my mother. All the different values that I had learned and built multimillion-dollar empire, a happy wife, happy life.

[00:05:38] I even had three daughters. I ended up, being the CEO of Leigh Steinberg, this great sports agency. So not only was I a multi-millionaire, I had access to everything billionaires could afford to have access to. I hung around Joe Montana and Warren Moon and Steve Young and Vander Holyfield, and Lennox Lewis.

[00:05:55] I had backstage, anywhere, locker room access. I had things that nobody had, and that was the bottom of my life because I had lost the four things that I had built this empire on. Which are four things that I didn’t realize I needed to build the empire. I thought I just needed monetary talent, I just needed that money. That’s what created the greatest paradigm shift in my life, when I realized it hit rock bottom, because I lost my values, and thanks to a few people in my life, they brought forth the truth and made me confront who I was and what I wanted to be.

[00:06:31] Mike Morawski: I think people chase this dream of real estate and chase the dream of money, and it’s elusive, right? It just slips through your hands, doesn’t it?

[00:06:40] David Meltzer: Especially in real estate, I lost over a hundred million dollars primarily in real estate. I owned a golf course, a ski mountain, 33 homes in San Diego alone, multifamily properties. So it’s extremely elusive in real estate because of the nature of real estate, where you have a downpayment, the financing of the property based on asset-based lending. It’s an interesting strategy that I think is a lot different than if you were investing in something different that didn’t let you leverage not only the money, but the laws of America in your favor. Especially in 2008, when they were giving that money away to anyone.

[00:07:18] Mike Morawski: That elusiveness, I think people chase it for the happiness. You’re saying you chased all that for happiness too, but at some point, you realized that wasn’t going to make you happy. We all have those turning points in our life, and for you, what was yours?

[00:07:33] David Meltzer: There’s three things that happened very quickly. My father, when I was 30, he gave me a warning shot. He gave me a birthday present for the first time in 20 years, he had left when I was five. So he gave me a jacket with no pockets and instead of receiving the jacket for what it was, which was a message that money doesn’t buy happiness, that you can’t take anything with you when you’re gone. He had suggested to hang it in my closet to remind myself every day that money would not buy me happiness. I wouldn’t be the richest man in the cemetery and then not to make the mistakes that he made. Now at 30 years old, I wasn’t ready to hear that. So I told him to F off, I was nothing like him. He was a liar, a cheater, manipulator.

[00:08:13] Second time, six years later, the next red flag was my best friend, Rob, who was the boy in fourth grade, who I asked to ask my wife in the sixth grade to go steady with me. We’ve been friends that long. I invited him to the Masters, private jet, back cabin everything. He said, “no, I don’t like who you hang out with, I don’t like what you’re doing, and I don’t like what you’re becoming. I don’t want to be a part of it.” The turning point came two weeks after that, when I lied to my wife, I went to the Grammy Awards with the famous rapper, named Little John. I told her I had a business meeting.

[00:08:48] She had told me not to go because I wasn’t paying attention to my family, and I was drinking and partying way too much. I came home at 5:30 in the morning, completely blindsided in my perspective, my wife told me she wasn’t happy. She told me she was leaving me. She told me I better take stock in who I was and what I wanted to become, or I was going to end up dead. It took me a little while to let that sink in. I wasn’t happy when she told me, but when I finally woke up the next morning, thinking about what divorce lawyer to take her money and happiness away, it was that jacket and my wife’s words that saved my life.

[00:09:27] Because as I was literally calling the lawyer to figure out how I was going to take advantage of this situation and blame, shame, and justification. That jacket, sitting in my closet, I hadn’t seen it in years, I don’t know where it came from or how I caught my eye, but I just broke down in tears. I realized, man, I’m the liar, I’m the cheater, I’m the manipulator, the overseller, the backend seller. I don’t hate my father. I don’t hate my wife, I hated myself. 16 years later, here I am with more money, more happiness, more health and more wealth than I’ve ever dreamed of. More worthiness inside of me by shifting the paradigm that day in my life, over a lot of hard work, personal development, a lot of progress and practice. Now can tell you that I spend minutes and moments in that ego-based consciousness of scarcity instead of days, weeks, months, and years, self-sabotaging my own worth my own health, wealth and worthiness.

[00:10:28] Mike Morawski: Wow. Had no idea where we’re going here, but I’m glad we are. There’s a lot of people that need to hear this message. You’re at this place where you’re broke down. It’s like driving a car and all of a sudden you need a tow truck. So what was your tow truck that showed up?

[00:10:41] David Meltzer: Faith. Ironically, I’m not a very religious person, my family is very religious. Instead of thinking that I had to go get healthy, wealthy, worthy, and happy. I have faith of two things: one, there’s something bigger than me. An omniscient, all powerful source that’s bigger than me. Two, that that source cares more about me, then I care about my own children. as much as I want for my children, I do to my children, protect my children, promote my children. I have limited capacity because I’m human. But once I had faith that every mistake, setback, failure, pain in my life was for my protection was for my promotion. Not for my punishment, that pain itself was just an indicator that I was moving in the wrong direction.

[00:11:30] I had a lesson to learn, and it was this source, this omniscient all powerful being saying, “hey the only way human beings learn to not put their hand in the fire is just slap the hand of a three-year-old so he doesn’t put his hand in the fire. The three-year-old thinks he’s being punished when you’re protecting and promoting him. The same thing happens when you lose over a hundred million dollars or your wife threatens to leave you, or you get an illness, some sort of setback or obstacle.

[00:11:57] All I think about is I have faith there’s something bigger than me who cares more about me than I care about my own children. So why create worry, stress, anxiety, fear, let’s just go ahead and have faith and do my best, learn lessons, and have fun. That’s worked for me and I help empower, in my lifetime I’ll get to empower over a billion people to make money, help people, and have fun. To be happy utilizing this shift in the paradigm.

[00:12:24] Mike Morawski: You had the run at this thing pretty hard to get to where you’re at today. Cause that’s no small feat. Dave, I gotta ask, what’d you put your faith in? You’ve said, ” I didn’t believe in God.” So all of a sudden, what was it in?

[00:12:37] David Meltzer: God, it was in God. It was this radical human. That I’ve been working so hard. I had a desire that I must be what I can be. I felt like I may have always been blessed, but I did it myself. What I realized all I had to do was instead of trying to go get healthy, go get happy, go get wealthy, or to be worthy because I gave everything I had. For me, it shifted to I already am happy, healthy, wealthy, and worthy. What am I doing to interfere with it? Because like I said, there’s this omniscient God, this all powerful God who cares more about me than I care about my children. What do I have to worry about? I got to figure out what I’m doing to interfere with what he’s trying to give to me. I see that as a father, it helped me as well, that we create resistance and what we resist persists.

[00:13:30] Mike Morawski: So when you and I met, we met in a park on a summer night in Chicago, you stood in the middle of this park, had a group of people around you. We had a couple of conversations, but I asked a couple of questions. One of the questions I asked you was, what do you see as the biggest challenges in the world today? COVID aside.

[00:13:49] David Meltzer: Yeah, there’s three things that I think we are challenged with, one we have to understand we’re in control of our mindset. Beyond trying to change the way we think or change the way we see things. We first have to have the recognition that we’re in charge of our mindset. Until somebody believes that they have control of their own mindset, it’s very difficult to change their mindset. If you can’t change the way you look at things, the things you look at will never change. So I try to help inspire people that you’re in control of your mindset, that you can find the light, the love and the lessons and everything. That you can manifest what you desire from possibility to probability to perspective.

[00:14:32] The second thing is, you’re in control of your heartset. A lot of people are cerebral and very pragmatic, and I know I’m controlling in my discipline and strategy, but they have no control of the way they feel. So other people control the way they feel, they allow comparison to rob their joy, which is a common thing through social media. We allow separation to occur and what we have to realize if I have control of my mind and I have control of my heart the way I feel, I get to choose how I feel about what you say. I can be angry, or I can be happy regardless of the content that you say, I’m in charge of my feelings.

[00:15:11] And then lastly, we’re in control of our handset, our mindset, our heartset, and our handset. The biggest problem with the handset is most people are depreciating themselves by an old adage that says ‘the more I give, the more I receive.’ the bigger problem in the world is actually the distinguishment of humility. People think that giving away everything is humble. I don’t believe that. I believe that you should appreciate what you have. So if you appreciate what you have it adds value to and it expands. You then can only know what you have or knowledge what you have by giving it away. You acquire the knowledge of what you have by giving it away.

[00:15:57] What remains is a bigger vessel, a bigger space. Now, this is where everyone falls down with their handset because you need to receive, you can’t give what you don’t have. You asked me how you lose a hundred million dollars in real estate. I’ll tell you, don’t ask for help. That’s a good way to lose all your money, because I didn’t ask anybody for help. If I would have asked a banker, a financer, a real estate guru, a golf owner, whatever for help, I’d triple my money. I could’ve just leveraged the situation or knowledge, but I didn’t ask for help. See if you don’t ask for help, what happens is you leave an empty space and this is what happened to my mom.

[00:16:33] She’s such a giver that she gave her health, her wealth and her knowledge to everyone, second graders, Sunday school kids, her six children, her community, or 15 grandchildren, and slowly but surely as she gets to be 80 years old, she doesn’t have any health or wealth. Now she has to rely on everyone else, which is the exact opposite of what her mission in life was. So I’m here to tell you, appreciate what you have. Don’t take for granted what other people are wishing for. Expand it, acknowledge it and give it away. But most importantly, have the handset to ask for help. Receive, feel good about receiving, nobody feels bad when they’re giving, so make someone else feel good by letting them give to you. I am telling you that the mindset, the heart set, and the handset, if you’re in control of it, our whole society, collective consciousness will change.

[00:17:24] Mike Morawski: Man. That’s crazy, that’s good stuff, Dave. If people could just grasp that and live it out, just start to live out some of these principles, I think people’s lives would change. I know mine has, yours has. You and I are both great examples of all this success and all this loss that we’ve had. Now here we are, living proof that there’s a different way. Here’s what I like about you, you’re a huge thought leader, you’re respected among your peers, you’re respected among other people. I stood in that park that night and I just watched people just melt into you and absorb what you had to say. Some of the things that you talked about were gratitude, kindness, happiness, fear, and giving to others. Those were probably the five biggest things, but as a thought leader, talk about gratitude.

[00:18:12] David Meltzer: As a thought leader, gratitude is so powerful. In fact, I tell people all the time, if you want to change your life, I have the easiest, cheapest, fastest way to do it. It’s to say thank you before you go to bed and when you wake up, do it for 30 straight days, I guarantee you a quantitative value, a quantitative difference in your life. Not only do I say this, but all the thought leaders that you mentioned, the Bob Proctor’s, the Jack Canfield, the Oprah Winfrey’s that whoever it is out there, they all agree with me that gratitude is the most powerful thing in the world. The ability to find the light, the love, and the lessons, the ability to appreciate everything. Gratitude is a superpower. It takes 0.1 seconds to think or say, it’s free.

[00:18:55] Here’s the saddest thing, by tonight half the people listening will not say thank you. By tomorrow morning, another half of the audience will not say thank you. Within three days, almost all of us will not say thank you. Now I have studied physics, quantum physics, and metaphysics. I have talked to the world thought leaders and read the greatest texts in the world, religious and historical. All somewhere in it tell you gratitude is the superpower. It’s the best way to change you life, to be grateful, and guess what? Despite that, we get in our own way, and we forget to say thank you. It took me nine months, Mike, nine months to say thank you before I went to bed and when I woke up for 30 straight days. I made it a mission.

[00:19:44] We talk about creating interference between us and the omniscient, all-powerful God. That’s how much interference that we create, that we’re so afraid that gratitude and love actually work and kindness actually work that we’ll do everything, even if it takes 0.1 seconds and it’s free, we’ll do everything in our human power, not to get it done, to get in our own way. It’s amazing to me.

[00:20:08] Mike Morawski: Yeah, interesting. My sister, she’s five years younger than me and she’s just not real happy. And so I’ve expressed this to her, write three to five things down every day. I have been on her for two months, she’s finally doing it now and I’m starting to see a little bit of change in her voice. It’s just amazing how this stuff happens, but, how do you make high stakes decisions, high stress decisions in your life today? I’m sure it’s different than you did when you were in that Jerry Maguire environment and all that was going on?

[00:20:39] David Meltzer: Yeah, of course. So I wrote a book called Game-Time Decision Making that talks about the way that we prioritize and make decisions. The first thing that we need to do to make our decisions is take inventory of what we want. See, most people don’t take the time to think about, “this is what I want today personally, experientially, giving wise, productivity wise, receiving wise.” If you take inventory every day, this is what I want in those four aspects. Then think about who can I help with what I want, and most importantly, who can help me with what I want? Then how best to get it done, utilizing time, discipline, strategy, productivity, accessibility, gratitude, all these different techniques.

[00:21:20] Then if you know your what, your who, and your how it’s easy to determine what’s important to you. You have stable data, non-negotiable data. So when anything arises in your life, you’re able to prioritize and that’s all decision making is, prioritizing one thing over another. It’s a matter of priority. Should I spend an extra hour at the office or go home and have dinner with my family? Matter of priority. Should I say yes to this business opportunity? Even though I know this person is dishonest and I can make a billion dollars, that’s a priority. So in order to make efficient, effective, and statistically successful decisions, you need to know your what, your who, and your how, then you will know your now. What this process does, these five daily practices that I created for people, it allows me to apply my why. No longer once again, am I in search of what I already have. No longer am I trying to go find my why. I know what I want, who I can help, who could help me. How to get it done and prioritize what I’m doing now. I apply my why to it, which creates inspiration and keeps me in the flow to not only receive more, but to give more as well.

[00:22:32] Mike Morawski: Here’s what I know, I know that for the next few days, that the top three things on my gratitude list are going to be this interview with you, because I’ve learned more in a few minutes than I’ve learned in years. I’m honored, extremely honored. As we’re winding down here, three questions I like to ask everybody. You get around a lot, you travel a lot, you’ve seen a lot of things, best tourist attraction?

[00:22:54] David Meltzer: Wow. I wasn’t expecting that one, I’ve been to so many. I have to tell you that the best tourist attraction may be in my backyard. The masters in Disneyland, to me, I’ve been so many times right, over 25 years to the masters, over 50 years to Disneyland. Every time I’m about to go into either, I say to myself, “oh, I don’t need to go, I’ll give someone my ticket or whatever.” The minute I walk in, it’s the best place on earth. Like they say, there is none other, so I’m going to put a childhood Disneyland tourist, attraction and an adult Augusta National Masters attraction.

[00:23:29] Mike Morawski: Awesome. Best restaurant you’ve ever eaten at?

[00:23:31] David Meltzer: Oh wow. You’re killing me because I travel so much, best restaurant I’ve ever eaten at? Wow, God, I’m searching cause there’s so many good ones. I’m going to have to say once again my favorite restaurant is Mastro’s. Tilman Fertitta wrote the forward to my book. I’m going to give him a big plug, but the ocean club at Mastro’s in Newport beach that’s my kind of food and it’s amazing.

[00:23:55] Mike Morawski: Yeah, I’ve been there, love that.

[00:23:57] David Meltzer: That’s not counting the residential superior food I get it home from my mom.

[00:24:01] Mike Morawski: Yeah, we didn’t even talk about our moms, next time. Then best book you’ve ever read

[00:24:05] David Meltzer: Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich. That’s easy.

[00:24:08] Mike Morawski: Yeah. I got a copy right here. Dave, how do people get ahold of you if they want to touch base with you? If they want to reach out, connect with you? I know that you have a great coaching platform, you have some great opportunities out there. Tell people how they reach out to you and get ahold of you.

[00:24:23] David Meltzer: The best way is two ways, one email me and for your audience for the anniversary of his hundredth anniversary, anyone that emails me, david@dmeltzer.com. I will sign a copy of my book, I will pay for the book and shipping. I’ll pay for everything. Email me, I’ll send you a signed copy of my book in honor of the hundredth episode.

[00:24:44] Mike Morawski: Wow, that’s awesome. Listeners, you heard it from Dave. He said email him and he’ll send you a signed copy of his book, which is an awesome book. You need to get your hands on it. Dave, I’m honored, my 100th episode, I couldn’t have asked for a better guest. I appreciate you so much. Looks like you’re getting ready for a football game behind you there.

[00:25:05] David Meltzer: This is my office podcast studio and suite. At SoFi Stadium, that’s not a green-screen, you can reach right through there.

[00:25:12] Mike Morawski: Nice. No shadow. I love that. Hey, thank you very much. Listeners, I hope you enjoy this. I hope you listen to it more than once and take some notes. See you guys soon.