Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of Be the Wolf. I am very excited. Today we are gonna be talking to David Meltzer. He's the chairman of the Napoleon Hill Institute. He is a renowned entrepreneur. Top business coach investor. He has made millions and lost millions, and he has a great powerful journey for anybody who is on their entrepreneurial path. He's got lots of TV shows and lots of ways to connect with him, so I'm super excited.
And I know that you are gonna get so much value out of this episode. So buckle up, take notes, or put it on repeat whatever you have to do and let's get to it. Okay. Hi David. I'm super excited that you're here and let's just jump right in. You have a special story. You don't have the typical, I just had a super easy path to get to, to success. So before we dive into all the details and all the value that you I know provide, 'cause you always do.
Can you give us a breakdown of your entrepreneurial journey? Yeah. It's really a world of threes. My entrepreneurial journey started by being poor as a single mom. At five years old, my dad left six kids in Akron, Ohio. So my journey was what I caught and what I caught was my mom working two jobs, packing my dinner in a paper bag so I could eat.
And showing me, about consistent persistent pursuit of your own potential, showing me values, showing me daily practices of purpose and an execution of that. And so I grew up as an entrepreneur out of desperation. The respect that the only time I wasn't happy I had these amazing siblings. An amazing mom, great health, but no money. So what else would a young. Entrepreneur think then, wow, if I make a lot of money, I'm gonna live this amazing life. That's all that's missing.
Like my mom cries when the car breaks down or the dishwasher. She can't afford to buy clothes or food or send me to camp. Imagine if I just made a lot of money. And so at a very young age, I lived in a world of not enough, a competitive world, not enough. A world where you're a victim because you know you are equal to or better than other people. That seem to be happier than you because they have money. They can just go to camp. They can just buy food, they can go on vacation. And so.
My entire intention in the first part of my life was to make a lot of money so I could buy my mom a house and a car and live this dream life that the only thing between me and my dream life was money. So through a variety of different activities from trying to be a professional football player, to be a doctor, a lawyer, but finally entering. When I graduated law school, the world of the internet in 1992 when most people felt, the internet was like AI today. Never gonna work.
Nobody's ever gonna use it. Justice Scalia himself, the Supreme Court Justice told me nobody would ever do research on a computer. You needed books. anyways, nobody would ever use a credit card. Anyways, nine months outta law school, I was a millionaire and I bought my mom a house in a car. And that's when I entered the second world of entrepreneurship. The first world. Not enough victim, always in blame, shame, and justification. Second World is a confusing world.
It's the world of for me, not to me. So everything happened to me when I was young. Now everything was happening for me, and you would think this would be an abundant world. I was giving millions of dollars to charity. I, my exit was 19 95, 3 $0.4 billion with Thomson Reuters buying West Publishing. Went to the Silicon Valley, raised hundreds of millions of dollars. I. Everything was happening for me. Married my dream girl.
Uh, ran Samsung's phone division, the first data phone in the world, the windows CE PCE phone. I had. Like, what's that? I, everything was happening for me. I, I was charitable. Then I started, running Lee Steinberg Sports Entertainment, the most notable sports agency. So not only was I a multi multimillionaire, but I had access to what billionaires didn't even have access to. You can't buy a sideline pass to the Super Bowl or backstage at the Grammy Awards. Yeah, you can't buy these things.
And unfortunately in the world of, for me, everything happening, for me it's a world of scarcity as well, not like a victim. It's a world where everyone's trading, negotiating, buying shit. They don't need to impress people they don't like. It's an empty world, a shallow world, right? It's a meaningless world. It's a drifter's world. There's no definiteness of purpose. There's no pursuit of my potential.
And sooner or later, the wrong people in the wrong ideas kept aggregating in my life, accelerating, and I ended up hating my mom, hating my dad, hating my best friend, and hating my wife. Until she finally set me straight and told me I better take stock in who I was or what I wanted to become because I was gonna end up dead. Threatened to leave me, with my children. Three beautiful daughters under the end of 10.
I'd everything you could imagine, anything I wanted I could buy, and I've never been so low. So my basement had a basement and I ended up losing all of it. Over a hundred million dollars, went bankrupt, lost my mom's house and car. Had to tell her that I went bankrupt and lost her house and car, which was the ultimate step in me realizing, you know, I don't hate my mom. I don't hate my dad, I don't hate my best friend, and I certainly don't hate my wife. I hated myself, right?
And I stood in front of my mom and I said, mom, I don't know why God's punishing me. I don't deserve this. I don't believe in God. She looked at me and smirked. I said, mom, I don't think you heard me. You have to move. I lost your house. Why? Why are you smirking at me? She said, son, you believe in God. You just believe in the wrong God. And I want you to think about the People and the ideas and what you're surrounding yourself with and where you wanna be and what you wanna become.
Because I know if you put your mind to that, you will be exactly where you're supposed to be in a better place, in a better situation. And so I use the wisdom of people like my mom. And faith that there was something bigger than me that wasn't punishing me, but protecting me, promoting me, loving me, and perfecting me, which led me to the last 18 years of my life in the world of more than enough, a world where I give more.
I use gratitude, forgiveness, and accountability to see all that I'm given by the promotion. When there's no evidence, when the evidence is contrary to where I think I want to be. I have fate. I'm being protected, promoted, loved, and perfected, and I receive more. And I ask for more than more because I know there's more than enough of everything. So I can give more than more. Be given. More than more. Receive more than more. Ask for more than, more than more.
Most people don't have a problem giving. They have a problem either seeing what they're given, receiving what they're given, or asking for more. And I will tell you, the math is quite simple. If you give more than you receive. You don't ask for more, you're gonna end up at zero. It's just math. It's just math.
Eventually you'll end up at zero, and so my entrepreneurial's journey is one from the world of to me as a victim, for me in the world of just enough to the world of more than enough of everything for everyone. In the world that I live in, in the infinite loop of giving my whole life is dedicated to empowering over a billion people to give more, to be given more, to receive more, and ask for more than more.
I have a huge private networking group of these people that want to help each other and know people that want to help each other. I do all of my TV shows, my movies, my books, my speeches, meetups, holding courts, 200 cities in a year I go to on a mission. The commissions follow. I've never made more money in my life, but the mission holds true to be and empower those that they want to become.
You know what really strikes me in the whole Be the Wolf fashion, which is about being your truest self. And it really resonates to me that this third part of your journey is where you stepped into being who you truly are, rather than looking at who you are through these distorted lenses, if you will. And so. That being said, I know your mission is to empower a billion people to be happy over over a billion. Don't limit. Over a billion.
Yes. Let's nothing small because as you just said, ask for more. So can you tell me more specifically about how you're doing that? I mean, I'm looped into your network so I know a little bit more than my listeners do. So yeah, share some of. I think you brought up a good point. There's a huge energy gap between I am and this is what I want people to think I am. Mm-hmm. And it's amplified, exacerbated by social media of course. But it's always been there. It's part of human nature. Mm-hmm.
And understanding our essence, this wolf. As you say is so essential to be comfortable because the total addressable community is so large today that it's okay to be who you are. There's a tribe, a wolf pack for you that is at your frequency, and it's the people that no matter what are gonna resonate with what you're saying and believing, thinking, and doing. And those that disagree with you are resonating with you. And I tell people, pay particular attention to both.
Yeah. Don't worry about the people that you're, that aren't aware of. You worry. Focus in on what resonates with people in the positive, but also why is this such a, a Tabasco in a wound to somebody? Why? Why do they hate me for no reason? Why? Why are they attacking me for no reason? I wanna know why. Please call me when people attack. Give me a call. I want to learn what it is that resonates so much with you that I'm saying that it causes disdain attack. Anger, frustration, worry, anxiety.
What is it that it my frequency does that I wanna learn to get that out of? So let's all look at I am compared to this is what I want people to think I am. And what I'm doing today to empower over a billion people is, is to find a thousand people like you. You know, it worried me when I got my calling and I knew it was my calling that I had the ability to teach three things. I know I've always made money. I haven't always kept it, but since the day I graduated law school, I made a lot of money.
Never stopped through bankruptcy. I made a lot of money after bankruptcy. I made a lot of, I know how to teach people to make a lot of money, to live in abundance. I know how to people teach people what to do with their money to help people. So, you know, shop, I used to say money was, is gonna buy me love and happiness. It does not, no, but it, it allows you to shop and I can teach you to shop for the right things for the right reason.
And if you spend your money on the right things for the right reasons, nothing will make you happier. And then finally, how to have fun. You're here to learn and to enjoy your human experience. And so my mission is predicated upon finding a thousand people like you. I can teach in my network, my TV shows, my movies, my meetups, my holding courts, my speeches, my books, my exercises, my digital shows, all the different things that I do. By mastering time and efficiency, I can teach people.
Like you to empower another thousand people, to empower another thousand people to make a lot of money, help a lot of people, and have a lot of fun. So a thousand of you times a thousand is a million. A million of you times a thousand is a billion. And so when I got my calling, I needed to figure out a pragmatic, realistic way to empower over a billion people. And so my mission is in my lifetime.
To find a thousand people like you to join my private networking group, to join my events, to come on my shows, to interview me, and have me interview you to provide options, opportunities that touches a favor, introductions to more people in our frequency, our neighborhood, so that we all can empower more people to empower more people, and it may not happen in my lifetime.
The billion or over a billion, but I know in my lifetime that I'm going to empower over a thousand people to empower a thousand to empower a thousand. And we are gonna change the collective consciousness. I say this humbly, I have the capability and so do you to change the world. And if we teach the whole world how to live in abundance in a world of more than enough, how to make more money, help more people, and have more fun, this world will be an amazing. Place to share your human experience.
Yes, and it resonates a lot with my Be the Wolf mission, which is to empower a million leaders, change makers and creatives to be the wolf because it's, it's. A similar thing of the same thing that we're both committed to creating, that rising of the collective consciousness, or my language, would be the evolution of humanity. We talked, you talked about money and using, teaching people how to use their money for the right things to shop for the right things.
I always like to think of money as a middleman. And so in that middle part of your entrepreneurial journey, you, it sounds like you used money for the wrong things, for the wrong reasons too. Right. So I'll give you an example. Yeah. This video. Really well, I met this young kid and I, I, he spent all his money on a credit card for me to coach him for two months, and I guarantee it, but he still did it.
And after a year, he made his first million dollars of me coaching him, and he bought a Lambo. And so I went and called him and said, Hey, we can't work together. You're not getting my mission. And he said, excuse me, Mr. Meltzer, you told me to buy the right things for the right reasons. You didn't even ask me the reason I bought the Lambo. Now I bought my Lambo for the wrong reasons, right? So I just assumed he did the same. I said, fine. His name's Tay. I said, why'd you buy the Lambo?
He said, because where I'm from, kids come up to me when you drive a car like that and ask me, how'd you get that car, man, you a drug dealer, you a rapper? How'd you get that car? And he said, I teach and help people. I read books. You see, for me, that's the bug light, that's the advertising for the people in my neighborhood to give credibility to your mission and for you to fire me over. That makes you a hypocrite, Mr. Meltzer. And I said, you know what? You're right. I admit what I'm wrong.
So I'm gonna coach you for free for the next year. And with my forgiveness of thinking, I know what you think and I apologize for judging you without knowing the right reasons. Yeah. And that speaks a lot to our own individual thing. We have this beautiful thing in self, in each of us that makes us unique in the way we see. The world and the way we operate. And you talk a lot about that with not DEI, but DAI. Yeah. Tell me more about that. Diversity, appreciation, and inclusion. We're not equal.
Nobody. We, we should have equal opportunity according to the appreciation of our differences. Diversity, no doubt. Inclusion, no doubt. Because we're one, right? We all make up one, but. The ai, we need to learn to appreciate the differences and not search for something that's impossible. Because as far as I've learned, I'm the only one on earth that has that. Yeah, that's, that's mine. So that means none of us could be equal. Absolutely.
And again, that's part of the whole be the Wolf mission, where if each of us are operating in our true frequency, not trying to be what we should be. That is what creates harmony in our ecosystem that actually elevates and I think makes everything work with. Flow essentially instead of that beating your head against the wall to make things happen. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs are doing that, that are just working themselves to the bone in a way that's not sustainable.
And I know you are a powerhouse. You are doing so much. So as we get close and wrap this up, can you tell. People give some insight into how you do so much without feeling depleted, without feeling resentful, without getting sucked into those lower level emotions, if you will. I. It's two ways and you know, one, once again, I wanna offer your entire community, I'd be more than happy to send them, pay for the book and shipping, pay for my book, and pay for shipping for anyone.
So anyone that would like to learn this next thing, this is my My Life hack David@dmeltzer.com. So, number one, you need to determine your relationship with circumstance. So you need to know there's non-negotiable behavior. That two minutes a day will equal two hours on a Saturday that you're committed to every day. For me, it's sleep, family, finance, health. Study of time, study relativity, and then you have to be an expert at prioritization of negotiable behaviors that are circumstantial.
And so when we divide out activities, understanding the quantum nature of time that you get exponentiality through consistency, we need to know are non-negotiable and negotiable behaviors. Second. And like I said, I'm more than happy to send a full book on this, so please email me david@dmeltzer.com. The second one is the wolf. See, most people think they're going to go get everything more of this. They, they think that they have to work so hard that that's not what it is.
We, we are in an infinite system of infinite information and infinite energy. And we create a lapse of time between problems and solutions and we create resistance that wisdom and faith can shorten. And so what I want everyone to do beyond knowing your negotiables and non-negotiables is to say to yourself, I am. I am happy. What am I doing to interfere with it? I am wealthy. What am I doing to interfere with it? I am healthy. What am I doing to interfere with it? I am worthy.
What am I doing to interfere with it? And as you shift the paradigm of the wolf of I am not, this is what I want people to think I am, but I am part of an infinite, abundant, unified system of everything. Of more than enough of everything I. What am I doing to interfere with it between the linear usage of time on non-negotiable, negotiable behaviors according to your relationship of circumstance, reprioritizing, prioritizing, and pro post prioritizing of circumstance.
And I am, I promise you, I. You'll make a lot of money, help a lot of people, and have a lot of fun. Beautiful. Thank you so much, David, for your time, your generosity of wisdom. Thank you. And be sure don't be shy. The book that David is talking about is amazing and will give you grounded insight that is. Practical that you can apply in your life and it is worth the time to send that email to david (david@dmeltzer.com) He will send you the book for free.
You've got nothing to lose and so much to gain. And remember, the world is infinitely full of abundance. So do one of the things that David talks about and ask for more. And of course, remember everybody, when you unleash the power of you, humanity evolves. We'll see you all next time on Be The Wolf By Everyone.