Discipline Versus Devotion

In today’s episode, I sit down with John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffman to talk about the lessons that came from losing everything, rebuilding my life, and learning to stop letting ego control my decisions. We discuss the difference between discipline and devotion, why repetition and honesty are essential to success, and how the meaning we assign to our past shapes our self image. I also share why receiving help is just as important as giving it, how I structure my time around non negotiable priorities, and why protecting your energy can create more consistency, clarity, and fulfillment in every area of life. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  David, thanks for joining us.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you for having me and allowing me to live that mission that I do today of empowering over a billion people to be happy.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  I'd like to start right there where you have talked about spending millions fighting a lawsuit because you quote, "had to be right." What is it that you learned in that? And I can only imagine something regarding ego or behavior or decision making. What did you learn in that? And how has that learning served you?

• 0:30Speaker 01

  What completely shifted my paradigm in life from thinking that I needed to control everything, thinking I needed to defend everything, thinking I needed to prove everything and understanding the ego, as you suggest, has the need when there's uncertainty that could be exacerbated by disagreements or judgments or conditions or circumstances that are unexpected, which is the only certainty that I know is uncertainty, that the ego evokes the need to control, to defend and to prove yourself.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  And if you're not aware of your response to that need, you can accelerate, or as I mentioned in shifting the paradigm of my life, to categorize things as what I'm doing, saying, thinking and feeling in this response, is it aligned with my divine direction? Or is it interfering with it? So my response was a need to be right, or a need to be offended, or a need to be inferior, superior, anxious, frustrated, angry, guilty, resentful, worried. I had all of these responses because of the need to defend, control and prove myself.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  And it cost me, it cost me a fortune, it cost me everything to learn the lesson that I am happy, I am healthy, I am wealthy, I am worthy. I gotta figure out what I'm doing to interfere with it. And so not only was it a new mission to seek wisdom from people like you that sit in a situation that I want to be in, but it was a newfound faith, a new understanding of faith that no matter what the circumstances of the day were, no matter that there's no evidence or the evidence is contrary to where I want to be or better, which happens every day. The evidence today has no even suggestion that I'm going to be where I want to be or better.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  But faith tells me that it's okay because I'm protected, promoted, loved and perfected. I just don't understand the evidence. It's not that the evidence is not aligned in the divine direction.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  David, you said your mission is to help 1 billion people to be happy.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Don't limit me.

• 2:51Speaker 00

  Over, over, over. We're not gonna stop. You're right, you're right. Over 1 billion people to be happy. How do you do that? Not how like from a, how do you reach them? But how do you help Rich and I be happy? Like, what is the secret sauce underneath all of that?

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd like to address both because when I got a calling and didn't believe in calling and not a religious person at the time at all, not even a faith-based person, a spiritual person, you know, I was terrified to think that I had this mission with these capabilities that I would always, and I've developed, but I've always had. I'm someone that knows how to make a lot of money. Even though I lost a lot of money, I made a lot of money and I made a lot of money after I lost a lot of money. So I know how to make a lot of money for the sake of helping other people, for the sake of having fun. So my mission was my capability that God gave me, which is if I could empower 1,000

• 3:47Speaker 01

  people like you guys, that I know would empower 1,000 people, that could empower another 1,000 people, 1,000 times a thousand's a million, a million times a thousand's a billion, that is a collective consciousness, that's an eighth of the world. I could change the world by empowering 1,000 leaders. I don't look for followers. I have millions of followers on TikTok, on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on YouTube. I got millions of people in my community. I want leaders like you. All I need is 1,000 that can empower 1,000 to empower 1,000. Really, the biggest challenge I had wasn't the math. It's not my capability that's proven over 35 years to make millions and millions of dollars for the sake of helping others and having fun. You know what the real challenge was?

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Was my own self-image. And it took a guy, a mentor of mine, my comeback coach, very famous comeback coach. His name's Tim Story. He helped Robert Downey Jr. And Oprah and all these different guys. Tim Story said, I said, "Tim, people are gonna think I'm insane. Here I am, I've lost over 100 million, I made it back, and now people are asking me, what's next? And I tell them, my mission is to change the world. I'm gonna empower over a billion people to be happy. They're gonna laugh at me, scoff at me and make fun of me. I'm gonna lose all credibility of my comeback." And he gave me this great wisdom. He said, "David, God will not give you an invitation," and I get choked up, "without

• 5:16Speaker 01

  already knowing your limitations." So I started to work on my self-image more than the math, more than the capability of making money, helping people and having fun. And it has not only been the wisdom and support of people like you, but faith in something bigger than me, that's protecting me, promoting me, loving and perfecting me each and every day, even though I don't understand how losing everything or losing my mom's house could ever have been something that would have promoted me to the place I am today. But here I am 20 years later and it did.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Well, thanks for sharing all of that. So when you talk about empowering 1,000 leaders to empower 1,000, to empower 1,000, how are you helping those leaders? So if I was one of those people, hey, I'm in, I'm in, make money, help people have fun, I'm in, I want to be one of those leaders. How does that work exactly? Do you, are you building a cohort of leaders that are spreading kind of the message? Or how's that work?

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I have buckets to help matulate the leaders out there. If people aren't in a position yet to afford help, to proximity, to all the lessons that I can do, 90% of what I do is free. I've been doing Free Friday training for over 28 years. It'll be 29 years, October 11th. I do free Napoleon Hill trainings on Wednesdays. I do Ask Me Anythings, Instagram Lives, digital shows. I do live meetups and holding courts for free. And then I have a strategic alliance community, a membership of people that meet me every Monday around the world, thousands of people that are learning to be these thousand leaders

• 6:59Speaker 01

  that I meet on Monday, answer questions and make personal introductions for those people. I do have 100 people in my leadership training program, one-on-one program, and I have a waitlist of over 300. So the system's starting to build these thousands as people are maturing through it. And then I make my real money by doing business advisory and investments. I still need to serve only from my saucer, which I've learned throughout the years that receiving is one with giving. In fact, when you accept help from people, you're actually giving the greatest gift to the person that you received the help from because we love to give for one reason.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  When we are able and capable of helping other people, we're closest to God. We're at our higher self. And too many people cheat the leaders because they won't ask for or receive help from people. They cheat them of their higher self. They cheat them to be close to God because, oh, no, I don't need it. No, it's okay. No, I am here to tell you that receiving is equal to giving. And the greatest gift you can give someone is to allow them to be able and capable of helping you.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  What are the hallmarks of the Napoleon Hill Institute? And how are you using that to perpetuate your mission?

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Well, at its core, Napoleon Hill has so many different pieces of content beyond the half a billion Think and Grow Rich books that are sold. My favorite book is actually Outwitting the Devil, which was written in 1938, not published until 2011. But he has laws of success. He has decision-making content. But the core of the Institute is to make sure we preserve, capture, modify, amplify and perpetuate the seminal thought leader of our century. I have testimonials from Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra and Damon John, all the sharks, Ed Mylett and Jack Ma and Elon Musk.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  They will all tell you that one of the greatest educators of their careers as an entrepreneur is the man who said, "What the mind can conceive, man can achieve." And all of the laws of success and all the frameworks and systems and quotes. And I can't tell you, we have an archive at University of Virginia of Napoleon Hill, and we probably tapped into Russell Brunson and I. I'm the chairman. Russell's the biggest supporter of Napoleon Hill Foundation and Institute. But we probably have tapped into 10% of the content that's available to people.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  Wow, I didn't, I had no idea there was so much content out there. It's just amazing. Books written in 1938, right? That are still coming out of that is amazing.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Good news for anyone who's bad at waiting. Black Friday deals at Lowe's are already on. Get up to three free select wall craftsmen or cobalt power tools with the purchase of a select battery kit. Three for free, you better believe it. Plus, select ladders are up to 50% off. So go ahead, get in there early. Shop Black Friday deals in store or online now at Lowe's. Valid through 11/18 while supplies last. Free tools vary based on battery kit purchased and location.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  You also wrote a book, Don't Do Business With Dicks. And I'm trying to, in my head, marry the concepts of what you're trying to do with a mission of over a billion people and making them happy, making money, having fun. And then there's this whole don't do business with dicks thing that comes out of left field. Tell me, why did you write that book? Like, why is that the title of the book? What's the why?

• 10:50Speaker 00

  John, I think the title made you happy just to begin with. You smiled when you said it. That's part of the happy.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:55Speaker 03

  I love it. I agree with that.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  That is the question that I was hoping people would allow me to answer instead of placing a judgment. I've written Connected to Goodness, Compassionate Capitalism, Unstoppable: Creating the Life You Love, Game Time Decision Making. And Simon and Schuster said, Dave, how to ditch toxicity isn't going to sell either. People are going to walk by it at the airport and/or maybe like compassionate capitalism. It's like kryptonite to people. You know, I don't want to read that book, compassionate capitalism. So they said, why don't you name a book under the experience you have as a marketer? You can't sell a secret, brother.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  And so I want you to be clever and it may be misaligned with what the contents of the books are, and it definitely may be misaligned with your mission and even your brand. But if nobody reads it, compassionate capitalism is not going to help anyone. So I took a line that Lee Steinberg told me when he told me to always be fair, never negotiate to the last penny, and make sure you don't do business with dicks. And people buy that book out of my hand. They don't care what's inside of it. They buy it and I think hopefully they're pleasantly surprised that it's really about

• 12:21Speaker 01

  how to ditch toxicity, about the paradigm shift that I mentioned before, about aligning with the divine direction and not interfering with it with negative energy and people and places and things and circumstances, mindset and handset and heart set. It's a phenomenal book, but if nobody reads it, what good is it? And so I finally sold out and went with my marketing capability, a little bit off brand, but I will tell you, more people buy it than any other book I've ever written. And I don't think I could have done it for my first five or six books, but for my seventh book, definitely more people know already what I'm about and it's gives a good smirk

• 13:02Speaker 01

  or a smile and they all want to ask me, dude, that is so off brand, but I love the title. I can't wait to read it.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  David, why do intelligent and capable people just repeatedly fail to do the things they already know they need to do?

• 13:23Speaker 01

  What a great question. Man, there's, there's the problem. There's several things. Number one, human nature itself. Human nature hates two things and they're the two things that you need to do to be successful. One, repetition. Human beings do not like repetition and they don't like honesty. We don't like to be honest to ourselves. So we love to make excuses, blame, shame and justification to make ourselves feel good as we're trying to prove control and defend ourselves. And most people fail because they refuse to be repetitive and honest. Let's be honest, the most successful people are serious, consistent people.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Why do you think Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer of all times? Because Tiger Woods is the most consistent golfer from the youngest age of all time. He put the most reps in of any other player, regardless of their age. There's no doubt. Why am I successful at what I do? Because I assign time every day, non-negotiable, no matter what the circumstances are, to my sleep, to my health, to my family, to my faith, to my finance, to the study of time and the study of relativity. 12 hours of my day is non-negotiable, seven days a week. There's no need to go off the grid because I go off the grid every day. There's no need to vacation because I vacation every day. I don't miss out there.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  There's no swing in what I'm doing because I am consistent and persistent in the pursuit of my potential. That's why I'm the chairman of Napoleon Hill Institute, because Napoleon Hill was the first one to talk about what? Definiteness of purpose. Wayne Dyer called it the power of intention. I utilize a formula of assigning time in the divine direction with non-negotiable behavior and then teaching people to prioritize the other 12 hours of awake time with pre-prioritization, prioritization and post-prioritization of circumstance. What's important to me, determined by my divine direction and aligning the meaning of the past, the mistakes, setbacks, failures, those defining moments, historical relevances

• 15:35Speaker 01

  of my past with that same divine direction. That limitation I talked about earlier, my self-image, there's only one thing that limits your self-image. It's the meaning you give your past. If you don't align the meaning of your past, you will limit your self-image. And I will tell you this about self-image, you will never overachieve your own self-image. And so in the context of repetition and honesty, here's what most people do that you talk about that are very capable and are working so hard they forget to make money is they don't understand the difference between discipline and devotion. Discipline people, they get so busy working, they forget to make money. They get so busy working, they forget to tend time with their family.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  They get so busy working, they ruin their health. See, those are disciplined people. They're working hard. In fact, they're the people tell you, I'll work harder than you. I'll outwork everybody. I'm like, great, bro. But are you devotional? Are you aligning your activities in a divine direction in the meaning of the past the same? And are you devotional about it? Meaning that you have a desire aligned with that discipline to be what you must be, to learn lessons, to do your best, to have fun. And I promise you, those people out there that enjoy the consistent, everyday, persistent without quit pursuit of their own potential, not what other people want, not what's missing,

• 16:59Speaker 01

  not what they don't have, those are the people that are what I call the empty milers. Cause the other people, the disciplined people, the, I go the extra mile guy every day. Those extra milers, you know what they do? They actually, because they're not honest and repetitive, they go the extra mile every once in a while and they use that to justify why they're not successful, why they're not where they want to be. Where the empty miler spends 15 minutes a day studying Spanish every day, seven days a week, 15 minutes a day and guarantees himself an A. When the other schmucks, they're studying 15 hours before the test and telling their mom, I'm an extra miler, mom. Nobody's going to outwork me.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  I studied 15 hours for this test. Great, Sherlock, you just defined the difference between discipline and devotion. And you are utilizing human nature in the wrong trajectory with understanding, I need to be repetitive and honest with myself. That's what's going to get me to where I want to be or better.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  Wow, David, that was fantastic. I guess one big question I have is if I'm listening to this as a listener or even myself, where does it all start? What's the first thing I should do when I'm done listening to this conversation?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  So good. By the way, you guys don't prepare questions like I don't. And I just want to use you two as an example, because the questions that you ask are indicative of the intelligence and also the quality and quantity of advice nuggets that the show can provide for other people. So thank you so much, because every question you're just like, damn, those are good questions. So where do we get started is a really important question, because zero to one is harder than one to 100. And so if you really want to get started, there's two things you could do. One is reach out to me, come to my free trainings, join my group. I will give anyone in your community that emails me, [email protected], I will sign

• 18:55Speaker 01

  my book, I will send it to you, I will pay for the book and shipping, because I know that's my best way to get you to be a leader, to be one of my 1,000. That's how I would start by emailing David Meltzer, [email protected]. But if you don't like David Meltzer and you don't want David Meltzer's book and you don't want to know how to get this thing moving, then what I would do is start to say every day, I am, I am happy, I am healthy, I am wealthy, I am worthy. And just start looking for what you're doing to interfere with what you already are. There's a huge energy gap, especially concerning with our kids. I am versus this is what I want people to think I am.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  And that energy gap, whoo, we need to close it. And the way that we're going to close it is to shift their paradigm before they have to pay the dummy tax of over a hundred million dollars, almost losing my life and my wife. I paid the dummy tax for you. So let's change your perspective. You are part of an infinite energy, an infinite intelligence, an infinite intuition, infinite inspiration. Stop interfering with it. I'm 58 years old and I take Dwyane Wade out with me. He wants to shadow me for business, right? I'm like, bro, meet me at 4:00 AM and hang with me till 5:00 PM. Just shadow me and I promise you, you will get what I'm talking about. It'd be the best lesson I could give you.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  3:00 PM, we're driving and I have a mobile office, right? We're driving in the back of my mobile office, passed out Dwyane Wade. I have to wake him up. I'm like, hey, man. He's like, oh, Mr. Meltzer. He goes, I know you're a lot older than me. I know you're shorter than me. I know you're not as strong as me. I know you're not as good a shape as me. How is it that from 4:00 AM till 3:00 PM, you have more energy than me? I said, because I don't interfere with it. I said, when my wife calls and upsets me, I spend minutes and moments in upset. When my daughter calls and upsets me or tells me about a boyfriend, I spend minutes and moments in upset.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  When things don't happen like I want them to happen and I have to talk to attorneys and accountants and associates and partners and employees or overhead, I only get upset for minutes and moments. I watched you get upset for literally hours when you talk to certain people. What do you think that does, interferes with the infinite energy, the exact same amount of energy that we all had? If you were able to utilize my methodologies and techniques to access more energy, you could handle the energy better than I could. Why? Cause you're younger, stronger, faster, better shape than Dave Meltzer. But it doesn't matter that I'm not, because I'm accessing so much more energy.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  It's just my body couldn't handle all the energy that you could access if you were accessing it as well as you could.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  How can John and I best support your mission?

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Be one of my leaders, man. If you guys could join my group, come to my meetups, holding court, my VIP dinners, come onto my show, anything I could do to empower you, to get you into the frequency, the neighborhood, hanging around, let me bring guests like Tim Story on or Ed Milat or other people that can share this mission, that share my mission with me. If, would love for you guys to join my group, hang out with us on Mondays, come and speak at my VIP dinners, my stages, meetups, ask me any things, just be a part of our community, man. I would love for you two guys to be those leaders.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Honored to be invited and don't be surprised when we take you up on it.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Please, it would be an honor. I appreciate both of you so much.