Zig Ziglar Dies - What We Can Learn!

This week, Zig Ziglar died from pneumonia at 86.  Sadly, I’d never met Ziglar, one of the finest motivational speakers ever, although I’ve read several of his books and listened to many of his motivational speeches.  With a distinctive blend of sound-bite optimism, country wit, Christian faith and good-natured nudging for people to see the bright side of life, I liked him a lot. 

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time,” he used to say. “Attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude,” was another of his mantras.  Coined by him sometime in the 1970’s, they’re still true today.

Ziglar reached people through more than two dozen books with sales well into the millions; through his children, who help run his company; through tapes and podcasts; and of course through personal presentations. At his busiest, he said, he spoke 150 times a year, and well into his 70s he was speaking 60 times a year. His fee was $50,000 a speech, plus expenses.  WOW!

Ziglar stood for 5 things, each one near and dear to my heart:

1.    We generally get from ourselves and others only what we expect.  Bottom line? If you expect to lose, you will. Expect to be average, and then average you’ll be.  If you expect to feel bad, you will and if you expect to feel great, nothing will slow you down. And what is true for you holds for others too. Your expectations for others will be what they deliver and achieve.  Expect mediocrity from your workers?  Well, then that’s what you’ll get.  Ziglar agreed (as do I) with Gandhi’s famous quote, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

2.    The difference between good and great employees is training.  The only thing worse than training employees and losing them is to not train them and keep them!  Ziglar said that training is practice and preparation.  Today, it makes me wonder how businesses survive that don’t train their people.   Well, actually they don’t last. They operate from a competitive disadvantage and are eventually gobbled up and defeated. If you want to improve and move from good to excellent, a good training strategy is key.

3.    You’ll find what you look for.  Look for the good things in life, you will find them. Look for opportunities to grow and prosper, you’ll find them too. If you look for positive, enthusiastic friends and associates who will support you, they’ll appear, (seemingly seamlessly).  On the other hand, if you look for ways to cheat, you’ll find them (or they’ll find you).  If you look for ways to justify leaving your spouse, you will find them.  We’re created such that we look for things that will justify what we think we need or want. If you are not living by the foundations of honesty, character, integrity, faith, love, and loyalty, you will be drawn to seeking selfish gratification – that often leads to misery and unfulfilled dreams. The result: whatever you have will never be enough.  And always, and Ziglar meant always – look for the good in others. 

4.   When you make a promise, have a plan. Far too many people make promises they can’t keep. They intend to keep the promise, but without a plan, they won’t be able to. If you make a commitment, you must understand and be willing to do whatever it takes to honour it.  More than 50% of first marriages fail because each spouse does not understand what it takes to have a great marriage. They do not plan for or understand the sacrifices each must make for the other to enable a long-lasting relationship.

5.       Happiness, joy, and gratitude are universal if we know what to look for.  Ziglar believed you can have everything in life you want if you help enough people get what they want. Everyone wants happiness and joy, but you have to know what produces happiness and how to do the things that produce it.  When you worry about the things you want and the things you don’t have, you lose gratitude for what you actually have. Be ungrateful, and you’ll never be satisfied.   Too much won’t even be enough.  Ziglar truly believed the greatest source of happiness is the ability to be grateful at all times.

But I think Zig was most well-known for saying “Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile and a grateful heart”.   

And that folks is how I live my life. 

Rest in Peace Mr. Ziglar.