Successful People Learn To Be Successful - Zig Ziglar's Born to Win Course

Seth Godin is arguably the top expert on marketing and personal branding in the U.S. today.  I read his blog posts every morning and own many of the over a dozen books he's written.

But before anyone had heard of Seth Godin, who kept him inspired as he went from one failure to the next? From one of his blog posts Seth tells us:

"With his relentless generosity, corny stories and down-home wisdom, Zig Ziglar invented modern motivational speaking, and touched the world. He touched my world, that's for sure.

We have very different backgrounds, we're from different generations and we have very different styles, but I'm in his debt. In my dreams, I hope that I will help and inspire a small fraction of the millions of people that Zig has over his fifty year career.

He contributed two giant tools to those of us in business: the notion of listening, over and over, to educational and motivational tapes, and the idea of writing down your goals, committing to them, in writing.

Twenty years ago, when my business was flatlining, Zig spoke up. For hours and hours every day in the car (on cassettes that literally melted from overuse), Zig poked and prodded and encouraged and mostly called my bluff. I remember the long drive home from yet another failed sales call, an hour or two that could have been spent planning on how I was going to quit--instead, Zig was helping me plan how I was going to stick it out.

Thank you for everything, Zig."

Pat Croce started with nothing and went on to be an international karate champion, founder of Sports Physical Therapists, president of the Philadelphia 76ers Basketball Team and a motivational speaker. Much of his rise to the top can be attributed to his repeated exposure to Zig Ziglar. In his book, "I Feel Great" Pat shares:

"The first motivational book that really go my juices percolating was Zig Ziglar's "See You At The Top". I read it in the late 1970's and then began to buy and absorb his audio cassette tapes. His message reinforced my long-standing belief in approaching everything with a positive attitude... If you can load up on the positives - without losing perspective or ignoring reality - then you have a huge built-in advantage."

In "The Zig Ziglar Difference", legendary Notre Dame football coach Lou Holz shares how Zig's recordings got him through one of the lowest points of his professional life. 

Basketball coach, Pat Riley went on record in a New York Times article stating that Zig Ziglar is his inspirational favorite.

I haven't had the successes that Seth Godin, Pat Croce, Lou Holtz or Pat Riley have experienced.  But Zig was the one who kept me inspired through my early failures.  I too say Thank You!