How David Meltzer Lost $100M and Rebuilt Wealth with Think and Grow Rich Principles
Release Date: 11/17/2025
What I Look for Before Trusting a Financial Influencer
Money Ripples Podcast
Start making passive income here: Have you ever noticed how financial influencers, or “finfluencers,” seem to be everywhere on social media right now? Scroll Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube and you’ll see people yelling about debt, promising overnight wealth, or claiming they’ve cracked the financial code. The real question is this: how do you know who to trust? In this episode, I pull back the curtain and walk you through exactly how I personally evaluate financial influencers. I’m not here to tell you who to follow or unfollow. Instead, I want to show you how to think...
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Is Self Storage the Trending Investment in 2026: with Alex Pardo
Money Ripples Podcast
Start making passive income here: Is self-storage investing the place we should be going as we head into 2026? That’s exactly what I’m digging into in this episode with returning guest Alex Pardo. Alex isn’t just a storage operator, he’s done nearly a thousand single-family transactions, built a real estate wholesaling business, and then made a bold pivot in 2020 into self-storage. And if you’ve felt like real estate has been rough the last few years, you’re not alone. I wanted this conversation because I’ve been watching the storage space closely, and I’m asking the...
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What Are Trump Accounts (And Should You Set One Up for Your Kids)
Money Ripples Podcast
Start making passive income here: What are these new Trump accounts, and are they actually a smart move for your kids’ financial future? That’s the question I’m answering in today’s episode, because while these accounts are being marketed as an incredible opportunity, there are some serious downsides you need to understand before you jump in. The Trump account was introduced as part of the so-called “big, beautiful bill” passed in the summer of 2025. It’s being promoted as a way to give kids a financial head start, almost like a hybrid between a 529 college savings plan...
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I'm Reconsidering the AI Stock Bubble - Is a 2026 Boom Coming?
Money Ripples Podcast
Start making passive income here: Are my 2026 market predictions wrong? Is there still an AI-driven stock market boom ahead of us, or are we getting dangerously close to another major correction? In this episode, I challenge my own assumptions and break down why some of Wall Street’s biggest institutions believe the bull market is far from over and why I’m still not convinced. I walk you through recent analyst predictions from major financial firms like Goldman Sachs, UBS, and other institutional strategists who argue that the stock market isn’t in a bubble. Their...
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Will AI Replace Your Job? How to Protect Your Career by Operating in Your Genius
Money Ripples Podcast
Start making passive income here: Is AI really the beginning of the end for jobs or is this one of the biggest opportunities we’ve ever seen? That’s exactly what I dive into in this episode with my longtime friend and former college roommate, Aaron Matthews, a fractional CTO/COO with over 21 years of leadership experience across healthcare, insurance, and technology. Everywhere you look, the headlines are screaming that AI is taking jobs. Engineers are being laid off. Middle managers are disappearing. Entire roles are being redefined. But the real question isn’t whether AI is...
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Do Trump’s Credit Card Caps and Housing Crackdowns Actually Hurt Americans
Money Ripples Podcast
Start making passive income here: President Donald Trump is making big promises as he approaches his one-year mark: banning institutions from buying real estate, capping credit card interest rates, and even talking about firing Jerome Powell. If you’ve been hearing these headlines and wondering, “Is this actually good for the economy, or are we about to make things worse?” this episode is my straight-shooting breakdown of what happens next and why these ideas won’t do what people think they’ll do. Let me be clear: this isn’t a pro-Trump or anti-Trump rant. I’m not...
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The Teen Who Made $250K Before Graduation And How Your Kid Can Learn the Same Skills
Money Ripples Podcast
Your future doesn’t start after school, it starts now. 7F Teenage Tycoon teaches teens how money works, how businesses are built, and how real wealth is created. Tap the link and become a Teenage Tycoon today - Start making passive income here: We talk a lot about building wealth, passive income, and freedom but the real question, especially as parents, is how do we teach our kids to do the same? In this episode, I sit down with Bill Allen, founder of Seven Figure Flipping, to talk about raising financially confident kids who understand money, business, and opportunity. Bill...
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She Escaped Soviet Hardship, Lost $100K… and Still Built the American Dream
Money Ripples Podcast
Start making passive income here: All of us have hard times. The real question is: how do you bounce back when the setback hits you financially, emotionally, and personally all at once? In today's episode, I sit down with Tatiana Zagarovsky, whose story is the kind that makes you rethink what you’re capable of when life punches you in the face. Tatiana immigrated to the United States after growing up in the Soviet Union, where entrepreneurship was treated like a crime and “capitalists” were painted as villains. She later immigrated again through Israel, built a successful career...
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After Losing My Dad… This Is the Money Wisdom I Can’t Stop Thinking About
Money Ripples Podcast
Start making passive income here: So many of you have heard the story of my father before, whether it was here on the Money Ripples podcast or inside my book, The Work Optional Blueprint. But after my dad passed away just a few weeks ago, there’s one piece of advice he gave me about money that hasn’t stopped echoing in my head. And today, I felt compelled to share it with you. My father was the definition of a penny-pinching saver. Raised after the Great Depression, he believed deeply in saving everything possible. He bought things on sale, avoided debt at all costs, and...
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The Most Hands-Off Turnkey Strategy Yet And What Bonds Have to Do With It
Money Ripples Podcast
Start making passive income here: You hear us talk about real estate all the time on this show but what most people don’t realize is that the bond market may be one of the biggest hidden forces influencing real estate returns right now. In today's podcast episode, I sit down with Jeremy Watson, CEO of Bedrock Investment Property, a longtime investor and entrepreneur who has been investing since 2006, has helped buy and sell 5,000+ properties, and has completed four business exits. Jeremy also spent a decade in the financial advice world, reviewing hundreds of millions of dollars’...
info_outlineStart making passive income here: https://bit.ly/43t4xle
A lot of people have heard of the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, but very few actually know how to apply it in real life, right now, in the 21st century.
In this episode, I sit down with David Meltzer, the chairman of the Napoleon Hill Institute, to break down how to truly live these principles so you can create real wealth, real impact, and real happiness.
If you don’t know David’s story, it’s powerful. He made over $100 million, ran the iconic sports agency that inspired the movie Jerry Maguire, and then lost it all. Bankruptcy. Starting over from below zero. What changed everything for him was coming back to the timeless philosophies of Napoleon Hill and learning how to engineer wealth instead of just chasing money.
In our conversation, David and I dive into how to move from “I’ll be happy when…” to living “for the sake of what.” We talk about what it really means to define a definiteness of purpose, why so many people drift without clarity, and how your behaviors what you consistently think, say, do, believe, and feel either move you toward your potential or away from it.
David shares how mentors like Bob Proctor, Sharon Lecter, Greg Reid, Jack Canfield, and even the work of Wayne Dyer helped him reframe his failures, rebuild his life, and apply Hill’s principles from books like Think and Grow Rich, Three Feet from Gold, and Outwitting the Devil. We dig into his concept of “a thousand steps” and why 90% of the time it takes to achieve anything meaningful is spent on the first 250 steps right where most people quit.
We also tackle why people struggle to ask for help, and how the fastest way to get where you want to go is to help someone else get where they want to go. David explains why comparison is the thief of joy, how social media has created a generation of “virtual Great Gatsbys,” and why chasing an image of success keeps you broke, frustrated, and exhausted.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re three feet from gold, this episode will give you a new way to interpret pain, setbacks, and “failures.” David explains how to see them as promotion, protection, love, and perfection, not punishment. That shift alone can completely change the trajectory of your financial life.
We wrap up by talking about David’s mission to empower over a billion people to be happy by teaching them to make a lot of money, help a lot of people, and have a lot of fun. He even shares how you can get a free signed copy of his book, straight from him.
If you’re serious about passive income, financial freedom, and building a rich life with purpose, this conversation will help you connect the dots between timeless wisdom and modern application. You’ll walk away with practical ways to align your mindset, your habits, and your money with the person you’re truly meant to become.
David's Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/davidmeltzer/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidmeltzer11/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidmeltzer/?hl=en