Developing the Qualities of Success. Zig Ziglar
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they have somebody teaching the young Scouts how to drive the stakes and set the tent up. At the next Scout camp, this kid who was learning is now teaching! That’s the way you learn things. You hear/you forget; you see/you remember. But if you see it and hear it and do it, you understand. And you are successful at it. Do a good deed every day.
Now, what’s all this self-talk about? Well, here’s what it’s about. The most important opinion you have is the opinion you have of yourself. And the most important conversation you will have today is the conversation that you will have with yourself. These are values that make such a difference. But before we’re through, we’re going to have you talking to yourself.
In the March 1990 issue of US AIR magazine they had this study that validated that what you say to yourself has a direct bearing on your performance. Dr. Joyce Brothers says you cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself. A lot of people say, “Well, I don’t talk to myself,” but, interestingly enough, the same person talks to the driver of another car three blocks away…with considerable feeling, I hasten to add. You’re not going to believe it, but some people even talk to golf balls…”Go in the hole,” “Stay in there.” You know exactly what I’m talking about there, don’t you?
There was a sixty-five year old lady in Dallas who watched an exercise video. She got all motivated. She went home, she told everybody, “Now, I’m gonna start an exercise program. Gonna start walkin’. Gonna walk five miles a day every day the rest of my life, startin’ today.”
Well, her family tried to talk her out of it. They said, “Now, you know, that’s too much! You don’t start with five miles! Start with one mile.”
“Nope, gonna walk five miles a day every day for the rest of my life.” She is now eighty-three years old and her family doesn’t have a clue as to where she is.
Now, we’re going to talk about change.
Change is stressful—but so is unemployment. And bankruptcy. One of the old statements from AA simply says that one definition of insanity is to think you can keep on doing the same thing and somehow or another get different results. The truth is if you keep on doing what you’ve been doing, you’re going to keep on getting what you’ve been getting! If you like what you’ve been getting, that’s fine, but if you don’t like what you’re getting, maybe you need to explore some change.
I want you to think big. Let me share with you our mission statement at The Zig Ziglar Corporation: Be the difference-maker in the personal, family and business lives of enough people to make a positive difference in America and the world. Now, I know that’s pretentious. Small company. But that’s our mission. And let me tell you why it’s not impossible.
I love the story of the grandfather walking the beach with his grandson. And every step or two the grandfather would reach down, pick up a sand dollar and throw it out to sea. He’d take a couple more steps, pick up another one and throw it out, and another one, and finally the grandson said, “Granddaddy, what are you doin’?”
And the grandfather said, “Son, these sand dollars are living organisms. If I don’t throw them out to sea they’ll die in the hot sun. They’ve been washed ashore by the tide.”
The grandson said, “But, Granddaddy, there are thousands of them. What possible difference can it make?”
And the grandfather reached down, picked up another one, threw it out to sea and said, “To this one, it makes all the difference in the world.”
We’re going to be talking about significant things. We’re going to explore why it is that legal immigrants are four times as likely to become millionaires in America as are the people who are born here. It was explained to me in minute detail by a four-year-old girl. Three or four years ago, I got aboard an aircraft in Dallas headed for Norfolk, Virginia. I was the first passenger aboard. I was seated in seat 2C. A mother and her three little ones got aboard right behind me. She was carrying the infant, leading the toddler, and the four-year-old was following behind. The four-year-old got aboard and she looked left into the cockpit and saw those three impressive figures with all the boards and she saw the electronic gadgetry there, probably more than she’d ever seen in her lifetime. When she turned around those little eyes were as big as the proverbial saucers. I don’t know why this child did it, but she put her hands on her legs just above her knees and she bent down and she looked down that long fuselage and said it all with one word: GOSH!
Gosh! That’s what immigrants say when they get to America. They’ve left it all behind them—friends and family and support group, climate and culture and language. They come into this land without the things that so many of us have. One of our key people at our company, Krish Dhanam, got here with nine dollars in his pocket ten years ago, but he came with that dream that we’re going to talk about so much more.
The first thing they do when they land in America is get the daily paper and look at the jobs that are available and say, “There’s two hundred and ninety-one jobs advertised today! Some of them paying over five dollars an hour! Now, I know that doesn’t sound like a whole lot of money to you folks, but where I come from that’s three days’ wages! I’ll work not just eight hours a day, I’ll work twelve hours. I’ll get my education at a little community college. I will live cheaply. I will save my money. I will take advantage of the opportunities that are here,” and by the time they find out we’ve got problems, it’s too late. They’ve already made it. It’s GOSH when they see it.
In 1990 the number one-selling tee-shirt in Japan was, “We’re Number One.” The number one-selling tee-shirt in America was “Underachiever—and proud of it!” Too many people born in America get up every morning and say, “Big deal.” The immigrant gets up and says, “Wow! What a deal!” What a difference it makes. They come here with a vision, with a mission. A vision is a clearly articulated, results-oriented picture of a future you intend to create.
Let me say it again. I will not tell you this is easy; it’s not. Life is tough. But I also know that when you are tough on yourself, life is going to be infinitely easier on you. In a church in Sussex, England, on the wall, here’s what they have: “A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. But a vision and a task are the hope of the world.” I believe that is absolutely true. Not easy, but it’s worth it.
All of my life I have thought I was an optimist until I heard about this lady who had moved into a retirement home. On the very first day at lunch, she was seated across the table from a gentleman who was there, and after a moment or two he became concerned about the fact that she was really eyeballing him. I mean, she was staring a hole through him! He grew uncomfortable and finally he said, “Ma’am, I don’t understand. Why are you staring at me?”
She said, “I can’t believe it.”
“You can’t believe what?”
”I can’t believe that you look exactly like my third husband. The color of your eyes, your mannerisms, the way you talk, your age, your size! I mean, you look exactly like my third husband!”
“Third husband! How many times have you been married?”
”Twice.”
I want you to know that people can change. I want you to know even animals can change. This past week the Redhead and I were down at our home at Holly Lake, Sugarville. We were out walking our little dog, we have a little Welsh Corgi, and his name is Taffy. We were out walking and we met this other couple and they had a dog; he was about three times as big as our dog. He was beautiful with gorgeous fur, healthy-looking and the whole bit, and we got talking as dog owners always do. I said, “Well, you know, that’s such a beautiful dog. Looks so healthy. What’re you feeding that dog?”
The man said, “Turnip greens.”
I said, “I never heard of anyone feeding a dog turnip greens. My dog wouldn’t eat turnip greens.”
He said, “Mine wouldn’t either the first three weeks!”
Too many times we forget