Sports 1 Marketing CEO David Meltzer first burst into the scene as a technology entrepreneur who introduced the first smart phone to America. Known as the former CEO of Leigh Steinberg Sports and Entertainment, Meltzer’s influence in the sports agency world as well as technology industry is unrivaled.
Now on tour for his new book “Connected to Goodness,” Meltzer visited the University of Oregon campus to speak on the topics of empathy and gratitude, while also sharing his ups and downs as a successful sports businessman.
Here is his one-on-one with Associate Sports Editor Hayden Kim:
Q: What have you been up to since serving as the CEO of Leigh Steinberg Sports and Entertainment and why did you decide to go on a book tour?
A: I ran Leigh Steinberg Sports Industry. About five years ago, Warren Moon and I we spun off a marketing arm specifically to leverage the $2 billion in management that we have. Instead of representing athletes and celebrities, we bring them to our projects. All of our projects are based off of three things: make a lot of money, get to help a lot of people and have a lot of fun doing it, so through that business objective, I created this personal mission of empowering others to power others. I’ve gone on this book tour, specifically targeting graduate schools and undergrad students to empower them, to believe in what they want is possible. A lot of people are intimidated by the scarcity in sports, the unavailability of opportunity and I come to these schools and talk about the abundance that sports provide and the clarity, balance, focus and confidence that you can have by doing what you love to do. At a really high level, I want to teach kids the importance of being happy and doing what you love, teaching them the pragmatic tools in order for them to do that.
Q: College students are looking to people like you, who’ve thrived in the business, for inspiration. What’s your main piece of advice for them?
A: It’s a little bit different than what they anticipate. I teach and talk about gratitude and empathy. In fact, I always tell kids: if you want to change your life, the easiest way to do that is to say thank you before you go to bed and thank you when you wake up, consciously, 30 days in a row. Most people think that empathy is sympathy, feeling for others. It’s really not because I can’t feel bad enough to make you feel good. Can’t be poor enough to make you rich, I can’t be sick enough to make you healthy. Empathy is much deeper. It’s actually forgiveness and forgiving yourself because you can’t give what you don’t have for one and two, you don’t know what you really have until we’ve given it away. There’s this interesting dichotomy to empathy, but if I can teach kids empathy and gratitude, to be empowered and to teach other people to be empathetic and gracious, that will really propel and accelerate everything that you dream of. I’m really here to inspire people to have the right perspective in life, so that we’re not condemning others for what we do ourselves. I teach them to detach themselves from the outcome, the kind and harsher opinions of others. One of the biggest anxieties in life is talking to your parents about your future, so I teach kids on how to deal with that advice from other people, who want the best for us, but they want different things for us than what we want for ourselves. There’s no use trying to achieve what others want for us and then resenting them when exactly what they want is attracted into our lives. We want to attract into our lives what makes us happy and what you’ll find in the end, from my own experience is that the best thing we can do is to be happy and to achieve what we want because in the end, that’s truly what our parents want.
Q: Can you pinpoint a moment in your life that prompted you to go on this book tour?
A: I went through a journey where I was extremely wealthy in my twenties. I retired in my thirties, I brought the first smart phone to America, I had achieved what I though was everything that I wanted and when I hit that moment, I myself, lost gratitude and empathy. Just like a great athlete or a celebrity who becomes entitled, I lost perspective of what was important. When I lost everything and went bankrupt after having millions of millions of dollars, to lose all of it was humbling, but was also inspiring to me that I had lost the principles that made me successful and happy and how long was it going to take to do that the second time? It didn’t take much time at all to regain prosperity, gratitude, empathy, the ability to attract everything, including becoming CEO of Leigh Steinberg. I was ability to, rags to riches, back to rags, back to riches again. I really have clarity on ‘wow, this isn’t so difficult.’ All I have to do is get out of my own way, teach people about their ego, edging goodness out of their life, teach them that you have no need to be right, no need to be offended, no need for accolades and awards, no need to be separate or superior, what we have a need to do is use all of our free will to create and affect goodness or gratitude and empathy and if we work really hard, we’re not just going to stay at home on our couches, get high and manifest the publisher’s clearing house million dollar check to our door, we actually have to go out and get these things. Whereas in my thirties, I used to lecture around the world about technology and tell kids your age: look, you don’t want all this wealth, you don’t a Ferrari, you don’t want a big house and it was bullshit. What’s really true is I want you to have everything that you want, but I want you to get it quickly. I don’t want you spend your whole life thinking you want to be a millionaire and at 55 becoming a millionaire, going this is horseshit. I want you to get the Ferrari two months from now and determine for yourself, whether it makes you happy, whether it’s worth the money, whether you should give it away. Whatever it is, I want you to have exactly what you want as rapidly and accurately as you can and that’s why I’m here to empower kids to understand that it’s not difficult, that we are own worst enemies, how to get out of their own way, achieve what they want to achieve rapidly and accurately.
Q: College students are constantly looking for the ‘next big thing.’ What do you foresee as the next niche in sports and what types of skills are necessary to make that kind of impact?
A: Staying on top of the understanding of what drives the interest in sports, this interaction, this ability to empathize and have gratitude for the sport. Why do people like the Olympics? It’s the B-roll. Why do people like the NFL? Yes, they like the action on the field, but they identify with the players because Fantasy Football for example, has accelerated the interest in the NFL. If you can identify how social networking, how does PR marketing, how does publications, how does journalism relate to technology, whatever area you’re in, it accelerates the statistical success, the efficiency in the amount of hours you can spend in your job, you are going to be much more successful than anyone else from a mathematical sense. Work twice as many hours, twice as efficiently and twice as statistically successful. That’s what technology does for us.
Q: One of the biggest takeaways from Leigh Steinberg’s lecture here was the value of building strong relationships. What are your methods for successful networking? 
A: It’s interesting that Leigh (Steinberg) spoke about that because he’s an expert. Even Warren (Moon), considers him (Leigh Steinberg) a mentor in relationship capital. I have a philosophy: be kind to your future self. It’s easy for people to say they listen and to be hypocrites about that. Relationship capital and situational knowledge are the two biggest things you need to build your entire career. You need to be focused when you’re young, surrounding yourself with the right people and the right ideas and treating those people and those ideas correctly. Understanding that situational knowledge is invaluable and that only comes with time and experience. You can’t do anything about time, but you can utilize your time more efficiently and you can get as much experiences as you can in the shortest amount of time that you can in order to build your situational knowledge as well.
Q: Leigh Steinberg said to never send in a “flat resume,” encouraging creativity and uniqueness among potential job applicants. What do you look for in job applicants?
A: I have a little different philosophy. I like Leigh’s imaginative things. Unfortunately, I don’t think that on statistical success the resume system is the best system. So, what Warren (Moon) and I have done is built Internships.com. My whole philosophy is surround yourself with the right people and the right ideas and be more interested than interesting. Utilizing the same way that Leigh (Steinberg) recruited his clients with spheres of influence, what I suggest kids do is that if you’re interested in being a general manager of a team or starting an internship, you need to be more interested than interesting and find out who the people are. Where they went to school, what foundations they worked for, what charities they volunteer, where they’re going to be and start surrounding yourself with the circumstances in which you want. Then utilize what I call the “Ben Franklin” effect, which says: the best thing you can do is ask for help because you become an investment of others. I also add in it’s the “Ben Franklin” effect because you should also offer your help. When looking for a job, the kids that stand out are the ones who have their relationship capitals, situational knowledge that get my attention. They’re the ones that walk the walk and don’t just talk the talk. We get 2,500 resumes a month. The ones that stand out are the ones who have gone to an event of mine, come up to me personally or hear when I speak. Kids will come and talk to me and give me their information, email me, they ask me questions, they volunteer, they do all of the actions I am looking for and they’ve done research.