The Entrepreneur’s Edge: Dave Meltzer's Triple A Strategy
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You're either humble or you're about to be. And that was the lesson I learned from losing everything. But today I want to share this AAA strategy that I implemented that I wish somebody would have helped me learn instead of me paying the $100 million in dummy tax in my first half of my career.

Remember, behavior has one instant result that we don't know or understand. It's called progress. So good behavior creates good progress. Bad behavior interferes with it or creates negative progress. That's why the AAA strategy is so important. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life.

What's up guys, welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Lies. Today's a rare occasion because we have a return guest, but you probably know why because this man is a legend. You know who he is, Dave Meltzer. He is a very famous entrepreneur. We bump into each other a lot and he's done a lot of amazing things in his life. And today we're going to talk about something most entrepreneurs need. Okay, me and Dave are talking about this offline, this AAA method.

that will really break down how to actually run your business more effectively. So buddy, welcome back to the show.

It's an honor. I feel like Saturday Night Live being a repeat offender, but there's nobody I'd rather revisit than someone like you that's really pouring in to the entrepreneurial community. And my mission of empowering others to empower others is aligned with what you're doing, Rudy. And I really want to tell you how proud I am of you and appreciate what you're doing for the community of people.

And excited to talk about some of the corporate philosophies and principles that entrepreneurs can use to aggregate their business, accelerate their business and compound exponentially the outcomes that they desire in their entrepreneurial journey.

Yes. And so let's dive in. I mean, let's just give a bit of a background. I know that most people know who you are, but if they don't, can you just talk about, you know, your kind of growth through more corporate and in the entertainment space and how you kind of got here today?

Yeah. I grew up poor, wanted to be rich. So I went to law school because my mom always told me doctor, lawyer, or failure. But when I graduated law school, the only type of lawyer I wanted to be was a rich lawyer. So I went into oil and gas law because it paid the most money. But at the same time, my maritime mentor, my maritime professor at my law school,

had a job opportunity, believe it or not, in the internet, selling legal research online in 1992. And he said, Dave, if you want to make money, you think oil and gas pays well, the internet's going to pay a ton. This is 1992. Ironically, my mom told me the internet was a fad. It never was going to work. So she made me actually take the bar. And in the aspect of that,

taking the bar, I took the sales job in the internet. And so to, hold on one second. It is edible, right? Yeah. That's one of my...

All right. So my mom told me the internet was going to be a fad, but despite the fact that just because someone loves you, especially as an entrepreneur, doesn't mean they give you good advice because sometimes the people that love us are too afraid to allow us to make good business decisions. And so at a very young age, I became a salesperson and nine months out of law school, I made my first million dollars selling legal research online. And by 1995, we exited

for 3.4 billion with a B in 1995. And so I really leveraged corporate experience in an entrepreneurial way. And so I learned a lot of lessons from the corporate world, then became an entrepreneur, went up to the Silicon Valley, raised hundreds of millions of dollars,

Ended up being the CEO of Samsung's data division in America, their first convergence device in 99, which led me to being the CEO of Lee Steinberg Sports Entertainment, the most notable sports agency in the world, where they made the movie Jerry Maguire about our firm, Warren Moon, the Hall of Fame quarterback, and I started a global marketing company. And for the last...

18 years, I've really followed the entrepreneurial journey. And so what I really like to share is what secrets, what cheat codes have I learned from the corporations that I've learned from and put them into my entrepreneurial journey over the last 18 years. By the way, I did get the great entrepreneurial award.

award of losing everything. So in 2008, worth over $100 billion, I was honored with a bankruptcy, losing everything. I have a saying, you're either humble or you're about to be. And that was the lesson I learned from losing everything. But

But today I want to share this AAA strategy that I implemented in humility as an entrepreneur that I wish somebody would have helped me learn instead of me paying the $100 million in dummy tax that I had to pay in my first half of my career.

Well, and I love that because you, you know, and the reason I wanted to talk about it with you is you've got that perfect blend of both, right? Like, you know, obviously a lot of time in high level companies managing big teams working under, you know, some of the most famous brands and they have obviously crazy systems and structure and

And then you've seen the other side. And now obviously present day, you're hanging out with, with, with people like me and scrappy entrepreneurs and speaking at big events. Like we, we see each other out when pretty much the whole room doesn't really know what an SOP is or, or an old chart. Right. So it's like the, the opposite ends of the spectrum. And I was very lucky because I,

worked at Marriott Hotel, my first job at 18. And it taught me the respect of, you know, SOP systems frameworks. And I really, for some reason, I was fascinated by it. So I think I got an advantage coming into entrepreneurship, because I've always tried to build my business like the Marriott was built with the entrepreneurial quick start element. And

I think that is the secret is combining those two. So I would love to dive into how do you combine the two best parts of corporate and entrepreneurship? - Yeah, I think first just having an overall framework in which you were excited to learn when you were 18 and have utilized in your successful career

And the first is that most entrepreneurs miss the fact that most successful businesses not only started with an entrepreneur and have evolved to a multi-billion dollar corporation like Marriott, for example, they started as a small entrepreneurial venture. And what they started with is called a strategy of alignment.

And in order to align your business with where you want to be or better, you have to take inventory of a few things. You have to take inventory of capability based off of the skills that are necessary for each component of the business. The knowledge that's necessary, meaning the knowledge of what accounting, sales, accounting,

human resources, because it's all going to fall under one hat usually when you start or a few hats when you're an entrepreneur. And then, of course, the understanding of how am I going to sustain my desire because nobody gets punched in the

in the face more in a day than an entrepreneur. And I'm talking about no matter if you're Elon Musk, Balmer, Meltzer, Vaynerchuk, Bill you, Rudy, it doesn't matter. Nobody gets punched in the face more than an entrepreneur. So if you take your skills, your knowledge, and your desires in each day, align it, spend the majority of your time aligning it

with what's doing well today, what's stable today, and what you think will be doing well in the future. Then take action according to the circumstances of the day by deriving the lessons from the past

and aligning it with your new self-image of those skills, knowledge, and desire. So the first step, the first A is alignment. But in order to align, we have to know our own skills, knowledge, and desire. We have to align it with our timing and risk tolerance. Then we have to align it with the circumstances of today and the lessons of the past and our self-image of the future.

And if we take our time and we apply this alignment, now we can start to create these SOPs, standard operating procedures. We can start taking the clues from the alignment and taking and looking at the patterns that we now can take action with.

And we're continually staying aligned with what's doing well, what's stable and what we think is going to do well, which adds to our statistical success. And so in the alignment phase, we have all of those steps. The second one is action. And we only take action day to day.

And the way that we take action is we're aligned with what's important to us, who we can help and who can help us, and how best we can get it done within the 24 hours of today. But the key to action is actually prioritization because 100% of the things we do now and do next get done.

The antidote to the biggest problems that entrepreneurs have that corporations don't have is procrastination and feeling overwhelmed. Because in a corporate setting, you're told, hey, Rudy, show up at nine o'clock. Here's what you need to do today. And here's when you can go home.

None of that is true as an entrepreneur. No one's telling you, hey, show up at this time. Here's what you do today. And here's when you can go home. And so most entrepreneurs, they create resistance in their journey of action because they feel overwhelmed because they have so many options, opportunities and touches of favor. And they then procrastinate because they don't know what to do now or next. We're in a corporation. They have so...

standard operating procedures, task duties and responsibilities, time cards, pay grade, all the different things that exist in the corporate world. So what we want to do is blend

that SOP by taking action, by defining what we're going to do now and what we're going to do next, utilizing our calendars or a time management system in order to facilitate staying aligned with that alignment of the skills, knowledge, and desire, circumstances of the day, lessons of the past, self-image of the future. So go ahead.

No, no, I was just going to say, and I mean, you have to also know that it changes over time, right? As you get more successful. That's right, 30, yeah. Yeah, because like when I started, I was doing everything super scrappy. And then even when I got to 10, 15, 20 employees or staff, it was still wearing lots of hats, covering lots of things. And it was just funny as you were saying that about, you know, when you're more corporate, you come in at a set time, have your meetings, your day job, and then you leave.

And now I would actually say like 80%, 85% of my staff, it's kind of like that because the way we build it is they actually have the roles and responsibilities, how much everything

everything takes, what they're doing each day, even blocks on their calendars. And then there's probably like my top people, my executives and a couple of my kind of jackable trade guys, I call them, where we like, you know, for those people, they're just tackling problems, right? And that's where it changes every day and they're working longer hours. But I think you have to understand like

You have to believe you will get there one day and it doesn't always have to be this way. And obviously that's hard to see when you're starting out. Yeah, and I think that's the third A. So alignment's the first A, action's the second, and you nailed it without me even having to teach it. Preparing for adjustment, adjustment is the third A. Because here's the interesting thing about being an entrepreneur versus the corporations.

In a corporation, you don't have to worry about the time, emotion, and value changing each day because they have such a huge glacial system in place that they're dealing with quarters and annual numbers where entrepreneurs are up and down every single day. What do I mean by that? When we're an entrepreneur and we make a decision or we come to an agreement,

The instant we come to an agreement or make a decision, whether it's verbal, implied, written, or even with payment, which is called consideration, any of those circumstances, the minute it happens, time changes, emotions change, and value change. Now, these changes don't have a significant impact on a multi-million or billion dollar business. But when you have a few employees, they have significant impact.

When interest rates go up, it has a significant impact on you as an entrepreneur. It does not have a significant impact on a major corporation. And so we need to adhere not only the alignment phase, the action phase with prioritization and doing it now and doing it next, the antidote to feeling overwhelmed and procrastinating,

but we have to prepare for adjustment. We have to understand that time, emotion, and value will change with the circumstances of the day exponentially impacting us comparatively to bigger businesses. And I think

the reaction you had is indicative of why you're successful as an entrepreneur. Because as I was speaking about alignment and action, you were nodding your head like a jury, but you were thinking about, oh, wait a second. There's so much adjustment in what he's saying. That's where the AAA strategy and the AAA really comes into effect, which allows us to have the right behaviors of good behavior, good progress. Remember,

as an entrepreneur, individual good behavior is aligned with behavior where you want to be or better. Bad behavior interferes with it. That's not necessarily true in the corporation. The good behavior is where the company wants you to be or better.

And your behavior has to align with where the company wants to be or better, not where you want to be or better. And bad behavior is that which interferes with it. Remember, behavior has one instant result that we don't know or understand. It's called progress. So good behavior creates good progress. Bad behavior interferes with it or creates negative progress. That's why the AAA strategy is so important.

Yeah, and I live with, you know, how you're breaking it down. It's kind of great to reflect on, like, my personal growth and lifestyle, like, life as an entrepreneur.

And, you know, this is why I get a lot of enjoyment coaching it now. And I always say a lot of people hire me for like marketing ads, social media. But half of what we teach on the back end with our year long members in the mastermind and stuff is all of this other stuff, you know, because a lot of them are less than 10 or 15 or 20 employees. And there's so much like.

I think, breakaway advantages in not only like the latest funnel or ad, but like how are you spending your time? Like we have every single one of them do a kind of grid exercise, like, you know, high value, high ROI, high value.

high time and we kind of break it down low value high time and we do this with our employees every quarter too because you only have so many hours in the day and entrepreneurs I think one of the biggest curses which I used to have too is mistaken busy work for productive work and I think corporate's pretty good at

the downside score is they might take sometimes weeks to approve an email whereas an entrepreneur loads up MailChimp or ActiveCampaign and sends it out a minute later. But they're pretty good at analyzing projects and really looking at success metrics and is this going to work whereas I

I think entrepreneurs just do everything. And often, and I still make that mistake, you look back and you took on a lot of things that didn't really help you. So can you talk a little about that? Because I'm really interested in how you see that change between corporate and entrepreneurs.

Yeah. In a corporation, people get so busy working, they forget to make money. Yeah. And especially today in a hybrid or remote approach, we have to be very aware of how engaged and accessible people are to not only accessible to others, but

but how they access information, how they access receivables, how they access other people. And so utilizing engagement and accessibility in the facet of an entrepreneur is far greater of an asset than that in a corporation. And so we actually want to determine what type of activity

We have with three different lenses that are different than if we were working for a company or a corporation. The first lens is the one that you adhere to very well, which is productivity. So if we're very intentional about being productive, we're looking at what are we thinking, saying, doing, believing and feeling about this activity? Is it aligned with where we think we want to be or better?

The second one is the accessibility of it. What am I going to access from this activity? Notice I say activity because busy means unavailable to me. I want to be very active, productive, and accessible. And I want to work with definite purpose or intentionality that's

aligned the actions, words, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs with where I want to be or better, but also open-minded enough to adjust to a different circumstance that's just around the corner.

And so for me, the third lens is the most critical as an entrepreneur. And it's not even critical within a corporation. And it's a lens that you have used before you were an entrepreneur. And it's the lens of gratitude. Let me explain that to you. The most successful entrepreneurs, one of the SOPs that is inherent in their nature is to find the light, the love and the lessons that

in the mistakes, failures, setbacks, successes in their life. It takes an entrepreneurial mind to say, I'm being protected, promoted, and loved by this contract not going through, by me losing a million dollars, by whatever circumstances exist in the day. In a corporate setting,

To be honest, there's nothing personal about it to have to have some lens of gratitude if you're working for a company and...

the deal doesn't go through, even if you're commission-based, you don't have to have the gratitude lens like you do as an entrepreneur. Every day, remember, entrepreneurs get punched in the face more than any other human beings a day, no matter whether or not you're successful. It doesn't matter. So if we don't have a lens of gratitude, we're going to literally live our lives in punishment. We're going to be victims our entire lives. So the three lenses of gratitude, gratitude,

accessibility, and productivity are much more necessary as entrepreneurs than in the corporate world. Yeah, yeah. It's funny you say that last box. I was talking the other day and posted about running because I do a lot of running and triathlon. And I find running fascinating, at least for me, every second and minute sucks. And it doesn't matter how much faster or better you get, it always sucks. Yeah.

and entrepreneurship like you know that's no matter how big you get like there's gonna be lots of times it sucks whether you're elon musk right getting sued by the government or mark zuckerberg or having two thousand or twin or twitter being worth eighty percent less than yeah yeah yeah that sucks yeah it's gonna suck and i find a lot of the beginner entrepreneurs like i

They don't get used to this, right? And that's what, I mean, makes some breaks a lot that get to like the tens of millions versus most I see stay at like the one, two, three million or less is that mindset side. And it's like the mindset of failure and handling this. And then the mindset of building beyond themselves as an entrepreneur, which is what we've talked about on today's episode, which is all the systems and, you know, this AAA kind of system you've broke down, which I love.

So, yeah, I just I find it fascinating as I watch more entrepreneurs and coach so many more like how everyone is so different. And then the few that grow to 10 million and beyond and all of our peers and mutual friends, like the distinct characteristics and traits that we all have, like that.

It's kind of like watching pro NBA players like they all have. They all look a similar certain body size and shape and can jump and can dribble well and shoot well. It's just interesting to see those traits again and again and again. So, yeah, I just have a couple of rapid fire questions to finish. Real quick, one distinction just for everyone.

If you want to distinguish between corporations and entrepreneurs, remember this, look for who's in charge of the employees and the overhead. If you're in charge of employees and overhead, then you're an entrepreneur.

If you have no, if you're not in charge of the employees in the overhead, meaning a company is, you're much better off in that respect. Go ahead, Rudy. Sorry. I like that. So the last couple of rapid fire questions I always like to ask. So I'll put you on the spot here. So first one, one of your most controversial beliefs that you believe to be true in the world of business or success in life?

That it takes not just wisdom, but faith. I believe you need to believe in something bigger than you that loves you more than your mom. I believe if you don't, you can't be an entrepreneur. Love it. And you probably already mentioned this, the biggest failure ever. I lost over $100 million and went bankrupt.

Yeah, that's a good one. Next one. If you could go back to your younger self and teach one, two or three things that would stay with you forever and change the outcome of your life, what would they be? Show me your friends. I'll show you your future and ask for help. Those two things. You surround yourself with the right people, the right ideas and ask for help.

Good. And last one's a bit easier. If people want to learn more about you, obviously, you have great podcast shows, social content, you're speaking a ton. Where do they go and find more of you and get more of you?

Well, you can Google me, David Meltzer, but email me directly. I'd love to give your whole community. I have a workbook with Jack Canfield who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul called Creating the Life You Love. And so if you want that for free, I'll pay you for the book, pay for shipping. Just email me, david at dmeltzer.com. I'm on every platform at my name, David Meltzer, but david at dmeltzer.com. Email me. I answer personally myself. Thank you so much.

Love it. Thank you for that generous gift. And we'll add all that to the show notes too. There we go. Well, that was a blast. We covered a lot. And again, super grateful for your time and your wisdom. And every time we chat and hang out in the hallways of events, I really enjoy it. And I love today's conversation. So thank you so much, guys. That's a wrap. Go check out more of his stuff if you've not already. And as always, keep living the red life. See you guys soon. Take care.

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