Stop Interfering with Your Potential: David Meltzer on Creating Certainty | SMFG Podcast

Sports agency legend, author and entrepreneur David Meltzer joins the podcast  to discuss his mission of empowering over a billion people to find true, lasting  happiness. In this episode, Meltzer explores the core philosophy of his new book, Don't Do Business with D*cks, emphasizing the vital importance of accountability, goodness, and ditching toxicity in professional relationships. 

Our conversation highlights how surrounding yourself with positive influences and being "kind to your future self" creates a legacy of leadership and community. David and Brad share valuable insights into the "power of reciprocity" and the disciplined intentionality required to turn slow progress into sudden, life-changing success.

About David Meltzer:

​​David Meltzer is the Chairman of the Napoleon Hill Institute and formerly served as CEO of the renowned Leigh Steinberg Sports & Entertainment agency, which was the inspiration for the movie Jerry Maguire. He is a globally recognized entrepreneur, investor, and top business coach. Variety Magazine has recognized him as their Sports Humanitarian of the Year and has been awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

As Executive Producer of the Apple TV series 2 Minute Drill and Office Hours, as well as Entrepreneur's #1 digital business show, Elevator Pitch, David brings unmatched insights to audiences worldwide. His journey has been featured in books, movies, and TV, including World’s Greatest Motivators, Think and Grow Rich, and Netflix’s Beyond the Secret. 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 provide one thing… VALUE.

Follow David Meltzer:

Website - https://bit.ly/2L052wW

Instagram - https://bit.ly/2LfIRly

Twitter - https://bit.ly/2KZWo1b

David’s New Book - https://dontdobusinesswithdcks.com/

#leadership #optimism #personaldevelopment #business

Connect with us online and become a part of the SALTYmf family!

Website: https://saltymf.com/

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Transcript

Brad Banyas (00:00)
All Alright everybody. Welcome back to the McBastard's Studio. You're listening to the SALTYmf GOAT Podcast. I'm Brad Banyas I'm your host today. And I'm really excited to interview David Meltzer today. He is just, if you have not ever heard of David, he's a sports agency legend. He's a philanthropist. He's the chairman of the Napoleon Hill Institute. And he's just done so many wonderful things for the world with his endeavors and his books. So David,

Thank you for joining us.

David Meltzer (00:31)
Thank you for having me on my mission. It takes platforms and people like you to help me help other people to make a lot of money, help a lot of people and have a lot of fun. Let's pay it forward.

Brad Banyas (00:43)
 I love it. Hey, it's great motto that everyone can agree with. And you know, when I started getting back and reading kind of, you know, what you were up to about trying to make 1 billion people happy in the world, I was like, you know, who can't get behind that endeavor? And it's just, it's an amazing mission. I was just so excited to get you on the show.

David Meltzer (01:07)
Well, thank you so much. And to correct you with one thing, it's over a billion people. ⁓ Too many people tried it. Too many people my whole life have tried to limit me. And so I don't ever allow people to limit me. It's over a billion people. We're going to do it together. They tried to limit me, telling me I couldn't play college football. And I achieved my goal. I was a below average college football player. But no one's going to limit me.

Brad Banyas (01:16)
All right.

Yeah

All right, Touche, Touche on that over a billion trillions. We're going for the trillions, Mark. The trillions is the next milestone. So over a billion go into a trillion. So that's awesome. Well, you know, I love Napoleon Hill. mean, you think and grow rich, you know, so I know your writing style. ⁓ It's yeah. Outwitting the devil. I love that one as well.

David Meltzer (01:38)
Yeah!

There you go. Thank you.

Favorite book, yeah, my

favorite book.

Brad Banyas (02:00)
He was an amazing human being. I, know, after reading your book, so we are here today to talk about Don't Do Business with Dicks. That's the new book, but we'll get to that. But when I started really your style of writing, it just like it just clicked in my my brain. So so tell us, tell us. Hey, it's a it's kind of a in your face, you know, name, right? Don't do business with Dicks.

David Meltzer (02:03)
Yeah.

Thank you.

I don't, yeah, yeah. So

it leads back to Napoleon Hill, right? That he also had really shitty titles to his books and they changed the title to Think and Grow Rich, which is I think a great title as well. But, you know, I wrote Connected to Goodness, a bestseller. I wrote Compassionate Capitalism, a bestseller. I wrote Unstoppable, Creating the Life You Love, a bestseller. I wrote ⁓ Game Time Decision Making, a bestseller.

but they didn't fly off the shelves. You ⁓ walk by the airport, nobody remembers compassionate capitalism. as you know, and Simon and Schuster told me, Dave, you cannot name this book, Ditch Toxicity or Surround Yourself with the Right People. I had all these, Dave Meltzer, really kind type of titles. And they said, you gotta take a risk. You're gonna offend some people.

Brad Banyas (03:13)
Right.

David Meltzer (03:21)
You know, that word is offensive, but you gotta be okay with it because it's gonna sell. And your mission is for over a billion people to learn these lessons and you cannot sell a secret, David. You can't sell a secret. So trust us. And so I thought of, you know, for me, what I would buy, right? If I would buy a book and...

Brad Banyas (03:42)
Yeah.

David Meltzer (03:46)
the general theme of negative energy, surround yourself with positive influences, ditching toxicity. The best attention grabber was don't do business with dicks. Because everybody, when they read it, go, shit, I wish I would have learned that. I should buy this book because I'm tired of doing business with dicks.

Brad Banyas (03:55)
Yep.

That's awesome. Well, you my dad always used to tell me and he's my mentor, my business partner, my best friend. He said, Brad in marketing, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad as long as they remember it, right? As long as they remember it. And that's a memorable title. So it had me at hello. No pun on that one. But, ⁓ you know, it definitely had me on hello. So

David Meltzer (04:17)
Yeah!

Brad Banyas (04:27)
Well, when I read the book and I won't, I'm not going to give your secrets away. You're are going to have to go out and read this book. You're not, not going to give you a synopsis breakdown of it, but it was so true that it was really about goodness and accountability and you know, all the good things, family and health and, just the things that are really great. And so I kind of assumed it was going to be that way. Cause I've kind of read some of your stuff. it, Touche it's awesome. It was great.

David Meltzer (04:52)
How about

this though, Brad? You'll enjoy this as well, considering what you do ⁓ with the salty MF goat podcast. I had people, you'll love this. I had people call me and threaten me. They said, hey man, if you listed me in this book, if you diminish my character in this book and tell them what I did to you, I'm going to sue you. And I said, well, buy the book. And if there's anything libelous is in there.

Right? I purposely said that. If there's anything libelous in there, I welcome every lawsuit that you have, And as you and I both know, that's not Dave Meltzer's style to blame anybody else for my bad fortunes and bad decisions. And so I think I sold an extra, you know, 10 books from the 10 people that I I was going to mention them in my book as being a dick. And they just proved that they were dicks. They proved they were dicks by calling me anyway.

Brad Banyas (05:23)
Yeah, right.

Yeah. ⁓

Absolutely.

Well, the real question is...

Yeah,

I was going to say, well, the truth in that is if you've got to call and threaten someone, you probably already know that you're a dick and you probably did something bad. So let's be honest. So I don't know who you are, but I'm going to find you. So yeah.

David Meltzer (05:57)
Yeah, man, just stay

away from those guys and I'm not telling you their names.

Brad Banyas (06:07)
Yeah, that's a

well, you know, in life, think, you know, attitude is everything, right? And you kind of get into that in your book. And I loved how you talked about your grandfather as the optimist, like the ultimate optimist. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was just, that's amazing. And just your stories about your family and how you got to where you were and your foot. did not know you were a big football player. I did not know that. So I was.

David Meltzer (06:19)
Yeah, yeah.

Well,

big football players exaggeration, but yes, I was a below average college football player. I'm a big football guy. love, that's why, you know, I represented the best football players in the world, both on the agency and marketing side. And I love football. Unfortunately, my son inherited that, because he also inherited my size. Luckily he inherited my wife's skill. So he'll probably be a division one football player, probably Ivy league player. And he's.

Brad Banyas (06:36)
That's it. ⁓

Yeah.

that's

great. Yeah.

David Meltzer (07:00)
He's above average. ⁓ And so it

fills my heart, I, you he's a great golfer, but he just has the passion for football. And, you know, I, I stay quiet because I'd love for him to play college golf instead, but I know what it's like to live, drink, eat, and believe in football. It is one of the greatest games ever created to create community and, and fans. It's just, it's an amazing, amazing game.

Brad Banyas (07:11)
Thank you.

David Meltzer (07:30)
Let's just put it that way.

Brad Banyas (07:30)
Yeah.

Well, I, you know, I, I'm a football guy. So, my father was an all American football player. got the bears wanted him. The Packers wanted him. went to the army instead. He, so I grew up in that thing. I played football all through high school up, up through some college. was kind of a nut. So, but I went to Tennessee for a little bit and walked on. So, ⁓ I, I feel that. And then later in life, you know, sports, I kind of fell out of love with that, you know, cause you're, you're not playing. It's hard for players to.

David Meltzer (07:41)
Thank you.

Nice.

Brad Banyas (08:00)
move into something else when that's been such a part of your identity. And I fell in love when my kids started playing sports and coached you sports for football, my main sport for 22 years. So football, I'm a football guy. So I'm with you. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love it. I love it. So I loved that part of that and your passion around it. It made a lot of sense when you went into you're really the agency world, right? And I think that's why you were such a great

David Meltzer (08:03)
So true.

We're brothers then, Double B. That's awesome.

Brad Banyas (08:30)
great impact in that sport and your stories with Warren Moon and it's just, it's great. So if you're a sports guy and you don't read this book or even a humanitarian and just trying to find out a better way to connect with people, you're missing out. So.

David Meltzer (08:43)
Yeah, man,

so many people get in their own way. And I think what it's gonna teach you is to identify what you're doing to interfere with your potential. And so many people are searching for what they already have. They're just interfering with it. And so as you go through the book, you realize that there's a lot of things that, although the universe is uncertain, that I can create certainty and happiness in my life.

by removing the toxicity, by surrounding myself. You know, my pop-domest, my papa, my grandfather, the ultimate optimist, he lived to 97 years old, right? And in, you know, he served in World War II. I believe, and his brother died as a paratrooper in World War II, and he just was always touched by protection, promotion, love, and perfection of God. And it was because of what Napoleon Hill.

Brad Banyas (09:21)
wow.

Thank you.

David Meltzer (09:40)
taught him, which was, you know, for me, my grandfather made me read that book, Thinking Grow Rich. And it's a pop-tum-us book, and this is a pop-tum-us book. And I have no doubt that one of the reasons, if not the main reason that he lived so long and was protected and promoted his entire life, through a whole bunch of struggles and challenges, the Depression and Ellis Island and World War II and...

Brad Banyas (09:42)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

That's nice.

David Meltzer (10:08)
You know, all these things that happened, a bankruptcy as well for himself, that my optimist, you know, lived a happy, healthy, wealthy life until he was 97 years old when he died in his sleep. Died in his sleep.

Brad Banyas (10:23)
That's what, yeah.

Well, and that's a great way to die, to be honest with you, because I've seen my parents and grandparents and stuff go a different way and ⁓ it's painful to watch. But one thing I will say about you, and I do believe this, I do believe, ⁓ I call it kind of the power of reciprocity, right?

Not meaning, hey, I do this for you, have to do this for me, but just genuine interest in people, like you're taking genuine interest in people, you wanna help them. Like when I called you, like, well, how can I help you? I'm like, well, I don't know, I really wasn't. But your attitude towards that, if everyone took an approach of kind of trying to connect people, and I know ⁓ you're a master connector of people, is how that'll come back to you. I truly believe that comes back to you if you...

connect people with the right people for business or personal reasons or whatever. It compounds just, it's unbelievable. So.

David Meltzer (11:19)
It is so true and you know, I use different terminology as people the connector word for me isn't enough, right? I'm a community member and I You know people say you have so many followers, you know Because I have a big social media presence now and I said followers mean nothing to me

Brad Banyas (11:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

David Meltzer (11:39)
I'm looking for leaders, right? I'm looking for leaders. My community members are leaders like you, Brad, that are helping people and know people that help people, right? And when you create that exponentiality that you mentioned previously about, look, I don't care about connections. I'm a community builder. I'm a leader of leaders who build communities. And my whole mission, people say, are you insane? You know, are you insane? God called you to empower over a billion people.

Brad Banyas (11:40)
Yep.

Thank you.

Right.

David Meltzer (12:08)
And I said, first of all, God's not going to give me an invitation without already knowing my limitations. And I get choked. Right. He's not going to give me that invitation. And two, it's not as hard as you think, because all I got to do is find a thousand people like Brad, who's going to power a thousand people to empower another thousand, because a thousand times a thousand is a million, a million times a thousand is a billion. So in my lifetime, as a optimist, I'm going to empower a thousand Brad.

Brad Banyas (12:15)
Yeah, that's a great.

David Meltzer (12:37)
And my work is done. And that's not that many people when you have millions of people in your community, when you do the right thing. know, Lee Steinberg not only said, you know, don't negotiate to the last penny, always be fair and don't do business with dicks, but he also told me, be kind to your future self. Now I've added to that and I tell people every day, be kind to your future self, do good deeds. And you'll be amazed what happens.

Brad Banyas (12:38)
Yeah.

Bye.

And it's true. think people like, I love your approach to health and your kind of routines that you do and take care of yourself, you know, first. I mean, you hear that a lot, but the reality of that is true. And you know, my wife tells me I go to the gym every day and she goes, ⁓ why are you going to the gym to look at? go, I'm going to the gym for longevity. I'm not done here. And I want to be like your pop and live 97 years. Cause there's a lot of stuff I want to do. I'm a lot older. I'm a lot grayer. I have a lot less hair, but

David Meltzer (13:25)
Yeah

Brad Banyas (13:36)
My mind works and as long as my mind works, I want to do something good, right? Good for people.

David Meltzer (13:42)
And then people that feel good do good. And I pray for people's happiness and health, ⁓ because happy and healthy people, they do a lot of good and they make people feel good. ⁓ And when people are hurting, right? Hurt people hurt people. You know, that's part of my mission is to heal the people that are hurting. And sometimes it's just acknowledging them, giving them time. You know, I give five minutes a time to anybody, right? I give out my cell phone to everybody. And I said,

Brad Banyas (13:54)
Thanks

David Meltzer (14:12)
I will give you five minutes, be and come prepared because you need to be ready. I'm not visiting with you. My visiting time is with my family and with my friends, people I know, not people I don't know or barely know. But if you need my help, I will give you five minutes of time and I will either be able to help you or find someone that can help you in that five minutes. And it's a real...

Real thing for me, a minimum of an hour a day. do 12 calls a day, seven days a week. My wife sometimes think I'm insane. She's like, why do you do it? I said, because I was invited, I was invited to change the world, humbly, humbly. You know, my favorite quote is you're either humble or you're about to be. When I say I'm gonna change the world, all I'm doing is empowering a thousand people to empower a thousand and they, that, so, but that's my legacy, not what I leave behind.

Brad Banyas (14:45)
That's awesome.

David Meltzer (15:08)
But with the thousand people that I empower, what they leave behind, that's my legacy.

Brad Banyas (15:15)
Absolutely. And I can tell you, mean, like I said, well, what you said, I know, I know for a hundred percent truth, right? I mean, I know that I've seen, I've seen you operate and I don't, I don't really know you. I don't know you that well yet, right? I don't know you that well yet, but I love your saying. So our saying is, ⁓ family, friends and loyal MFers. And that's what our whole community around Salty is because it was built to honor people. ran into an old guy on the beach and thought,

David Meltzer (15:27)
Yeah.

Yes.

Brad Banyas (15:44)
God, this guy's the coolest guy I've ever met. I bet no one knows of this guy's story. Let's just build a brand that honors people like this. Like, and it was literally, my wife said the same thing. She goes, are you insane naming a company salty MF? I'm like, she goes, what are you doing? Like that's going to get no, but it's like your book, right? If you dig deeper for the gold or the good things that are in it and you pay attention to it, you realize, this is not anything about like these guys are just nutty psychos.

They're trying to do something. I guess it sits with me synergistically, just your whole life philosophy.

David Meltzer (16:22)
Well, you can't help yourself when you're at the same frequency ⁓ with people. It's okay. 10 % of people are going to love you no matter what, because they're at your frequency. And it's okay. 10 % of the people are not going to like you no matter what. That's okay. In fact, you know, in my first book, I learned this valuable lesson with my first book. I wrote Connected to Goodness way back in 2013. The Napoleon Hill Foundation helped me write it. It's very stylistic, like Napoleon Hill. But when I wrote it,

Brad Banyas (16:31)
turn.

Right.

David Meltzer (16:51)
⁓ Amazon books was like a really big thing. It was before Amazon was really a big thing. Amazon books, right? And, and they had Goodreads, which was the big reviewer for Amazon. And the number one reviewer reviewed connected to goodness and shit on it. One star said, David Meltzer is an idiot. He thinks you can talk to water and change the molecular structure of water.

Brad Banyas (16:57)
Right.

David Meltzer (17:17)
Which I truly believe still today. I've done my research. I put it in the books. It wasn't like I made this up, right? There's science behind this. Anyway, I was crushed. I cried to my wife. have to admit. said, I can't believe I spent all these years writing this book and no one's going to buy it because it got a one-star review from the biggest reviewer in the world of Amazon. And so something remarkable happened. Everybody that read that review because it's such a big reviewer.

Brad Banyas (17:22)
Yeah. ⁓

David Meltzer (17:48)
that agreed with her never bought my book. So I never got another person that didn't understand my philosophy or resonate with me because she protected me from all the people would say this book sucks, right? But here's what was even more remarkable when you talk about protection, promotion, love and perfection of being a pop-timist. All the people that didn't know who I was,

Brad Banyas (17:57)
Right. Right. ⁓

David Meltzer (18:13)
would never have bought the book because it didn't have a cool title like Don't Do Business with Dicks. They read that review and they said, this lady is an idiot. I believe, I believe you can talk to water. I believe it changes the molecular structure. I'm gonna go ahead and read this book. I wanna know who this David Meltzer character is because he is somebody that resonates with me. And all these people bought the books because it had a bad review.

a one-star review. Now the book has thousands and thousands of five-star reviews, number one bestseller for so many years. And it is a evergreen book like Think and Grow Rich that's changing and helping me change the world. So I want to thank that person who hated me and talked shit about me. Thank you for protecting me, promoting me, loving and perfecting

Brad Banyas (18:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely. And you know, it's funny because you see like when you, when you get involved in something, there's like your passion to empower over a billion people and you get involved in it you, see the vision, you see where it's going, you understand it's not here right now, but it's going to be there. Like you see kind of the future of what this will be. Same type thing. We started a music service and we know anything about the music service and the people in the town that we were trying to help were literally just coming out like they like burning our t-shirts and stuff.

David Meltzer (19:35)
Yeah.

Brad Banyas (19:36)
And we're like, we just put $500,000 of our own money because we're trying to help you. Like people like you and my wife said, they don't see it yet. They don't see it yet. They don't see it yet. So the reality of that is I feel that pain today, every day and stuff we do. the greatest thing is when your fans or your tribe starts defending you. What I've learned is never defend yourself.

Your tribe, if it's strong enough, will take care of the dirty business for you. that's been a good, that's been a good thing to live by. So.

David Meltzer (20:09)
Yeah,

and you don't want those other people in your neighborhood anyway, you don't need them. They're no friends of yours. And when people do things that are not friendly, and they pretend to be your friend, they're not friends of mine. And it's so easy to live your life in that way. And just remember this lesson about everything. And then, you know, I do want to offer, by the way, before it gets too late, everybody in your community, anybody that orders don't do business with Dick. ⁓

Brad Banyas (20:21)
of

Yeah.

Bye

David Meltzer (20:36)
just email me, you don't have to prove it to me. If you wanna pretend like you bought it, that's cool. But I would like to send you ⁓ my other books for free. I wanna send them, assign them. I will pay for shipping and send them to you and the book. if, please support me by buying Don't Do Business With Dicks. Please let me know that you got it. You don't have to prove it to me. And if you just want the other books for free, pretend like you bought Don't Do Business With Dicks, I'll still.

Brad Banyas (20:46)
out.

David Meltzer (21:04)
Sign it, send it, pay for shipping and the books. And my email, hopefully you'll put it in the notes, is daviddaviddmeltzer.com. I would love to build my community for people reading my books. And I really appreciate the support that you give, but here's the lesson. This is with everything. Everything in life happens very slowly Then all of a sudden Interest rates simple interest the rule of 72 money

Brad Banyas (21:10)
Absolutely.

Okay.

David Meltzer (21:34)
relationships physical health all of it's happening very slowly then all of a sudden because it keeps doubling So day one you have two fans year one you might have two fans year two four then 8 16 32 But in 20 years you'll have 2 million people who are getting you 2 million people a year Yes, it took 20 years. And guess what? Nobody knew who you were until the last two years.

Brad Banyas (21:57)
That's all.

David Meltzer (22:02)
when it went from 500,000 people to a million, a million to two million. And then it went to four, eight, 16 million. And it happens all of a sudden. So remember categorize things as either this is in my divine direction and I'm devotional that's more than discipline that's intentional doing saying thinking feeling and believing every single day seven days a week because what you pay attention to and what you give intention to will eventually equal the coincidences in your life the coinciding

So remember if you're feeling frustrated because there's no evidence or the evidence is contrary to where you want to be things happen very slowly then all of a sudden

Brad Banyas (22:38)
Yeah.

That's great advice for everyone, entrepreneurs, athletes, anybody, right? You know, could, the whole Michael Jordan story where he got cut off from his high school team, didn't make it. I mean, it doesn't matter. It's if you believe. So if you believe in yourself, keep going, that's amazing. Well, David, I know you're a busy man and you're gonna go talk to 12 individuals today that deserve maybe a chance. And I'm grateful for that about you. I just, as my brief.

being around you, really appreciate you and what you're trying to do with the world. We're going for a trillion. Happy people is the new goal, but we're going over a billion, over a billion, getting to a trillion. David Meltzer, I really appreciate you and we're grateful to have you on the SALTYmf GOAT and we'd love to do business with you and definitely love to see you at the master. So let us know how we can help you there.

David Meltzer (23:33)
We will be reaching out, God bless you. Be more interested than interesting. Be kind to your future self and do good deeds. God bless you, Brad.

Brad Banyas (23:41)
God bless you. I appreciate your time.