David Meltzer shares some of the most powerful lessons he’s learned in the process of losing over $100 million dollars and nearly losing his life and family, and then rebuilding his life from scratch. Learn about David’s philosophy on faith and money, and why gratitude and humility are the keys to accelerating the process of creating wealth and happiness in your life.

• David grew up in the world of “not enough”. He had no shortage of love and happiness, but his family certainly struggled with money. This shaped him as he got older because, in his mind, the only missing piece to his life was money. That gave him a drive to achieve everything he could, but it also gave him a major chip on his shoulder.
• The story of not having enough had positives and negatives. In a healthy way, it taught David to keep his options open and be creative when figuring out how to solve problems in his life. During the pandemic, the ability to see opportunities where other people can’t has been a superpower.
• The problem with growing up with not enough is that you are always asking for crumbs, because you don’t know any better. The size of the world you live in is so small when you’re poor, and you focus on what you don’t have rather than realizing how limitless life really is.
• Many people that achieve big results in their life still feel unhappy because they are constantly chasing the things they don’t have. You need to find a way to be enough for yourself.
• When David lost everything, he was almost relieved. He had this extraordinary gift to sell but he never really felt like he earned it. He bought things he didn’t need to impress people he didn’t like. Losing everything allowed David to reassess his approach and appreciate what he has.
• When you appreciate what you have, you add value to it and expand it. When you give it away, you now have a bigger space to receive even more. Appreciating what you have must be part of the process.
• Receiving starts with our belief system. The moment that David shifted his paradigm and realized that he was already happy and healthy, he just needed to identify how he was getting his own way.
• Where are you putting all your energy? Put your emotion and energy into the relationships that are feeding you instead of the people bleeding you.
• David was abused as a nine year old. Pain and trauma are going to happen to everyone, it’s part of living, but it’s what we do with the pain that’s important. Pain was trained into David to be a propeller.
• Faith was David’s ultimate GPS because he had faith that anything that happened in his life was an opportunity to grow, learn, and accelerate instead of a punishment.
• Everyone has a different definition of meaning and happiness that’s unique to them. The way that you reconcile that with your successes will determine how much you can give and how great an impact you can have.
• David’s mom and two grandfathers were the biggest influences in his early life. One lesson he learned along the way though was that just because someone loves, that doesn’t mean they give good advice.
• Two years before David lost everything was the greatest moment of adversity. He almost lost both his life and family after years of going down the wrong path in life. On the edge of taking his own life, David realized that he didn’t hate his father, or his best friend, or his wife, he hated himself. 
• Of everything that David teaches, the two things that have had the most impact are gratitude and to ask for help. The same lessons he learned before he was 3 years old.
• If you say thank you before you go to bed for the next 30 days it will change your life.
• No one knows everything, but we often pretend we do. There are only two types of people in the world: people who don’t know and ask for help, and arrogant people that pretend they know and cause separation and offense and pain. Come from a place of humility in everything you do.
• David’s early story was that he wanted everyone to love him, but that’s changed to simply loving himself. When you try to get people to love you it turns people off.
• Gratitude changes the way that we see the world and turns what we have into enough.
• People need to know their what, who they can help and who can help them, how to get it done through the lens of gratitude, and then apply the why within. The more you get done, the more you will be profitable, passionate, and personable in what you do.
• David is always grateful for his health. He spends an hour everyday on his health because when you’re healthy you get as many wishes as you want. When you’re unhealthy, you have only one.
• Happiness is the greatest virus. All you need to do is witness giving and happiness is released.
• If David were to give his younger self advice, it would be the same thing that’s currently on his nightstand: ask for help. Asking for help is the fastest way to accomplish something, but it also allows people to feel important and special. Be ignorant and humble, and ask for help.
• The key to life is to be interested, curious, and creative. Ask people open-ended questions and be more interested than interesting. When combined, it accelerates the process of creation.
• Meditation is the practice of being quiet so that you can acquire a higher vibration. It’s the one practice that has changed David’s life more than anything else.
• David’s comeback story shoutout goes to his mom and wife.

Mentioned in this Episode:

david@dmeltzer.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices