In 1999 I was living in North Dallas, and a friend invited me to join her for the church at Prestonwood Baptist in Plano, TX. She hinted that she had a surprise for me but shared no further details.
As we approached the church, I was blown away by the facility. Prestonwood sits on 150 acres, including a K-12 private school with football and baseball fields. That, however, was not a surprise.
As we walked into the large Sunday school classroom, my eyes scanned around and fell on an older gentleman at the front of the room. He was sharply dressed and waited patiently as the remaining guests found their seats. He then called attention to the room with a friendly “Good morning.”
I had been studying Zig Ziglar’s books and listening to him on audio tapes for years, but seeing and hearing him in person brought tears to my eyes. My mind flashed back three years to a trip back to Dallas from visiting my family in East TX. I had popped in a cassette tape given to me by one of my best friends, and the message that came out changed my life.
Zig Ziglar, in his most unique style, touched my heart when he said:
“You are what you are and where you are because of what has gone into your mind. You change what you are and where you are by changing what goes into your mind.”
He also said:
“You can have everything you want if you just help enough other people get what they want.”
I had never heard of Zig nor been exposed to those two profound ideas. Yet, I was so moved by his words that I pulled off the side of the road to write them down. At 28 years old, I was doing okay. I had an excellent job in sales, living in the big city of Dallas, TX, but to say I was living my “dream” life would be far from the truth.
Zig’s simple message gave me so much hope because I could choose to spend time further developing myself through the written word and “automobile university.” I could also, to a large degree, select the type of people I associated with.
Fast forward to the present, and Zig has been gone to be with the Lord since November 2012. In 2003 I also started attending Prestonwood and had the good fortune to visit his Sunday school class several times. Further, I would see Zig and his lovely wife, Jean, in service every week.
To date, I have read or listened to Zig on audio for hundreds of hours, and he has forever changed and influenced my life with his message of hope and encouragement.
As a Christian businessman, he was a tremendous example of taking your Faith into the marketplace correctly and impacting lives for the positive.
As a husband and father, he built a family and cared for them in a way that set a standard for what a successful Christian family should be.
As a personal development mentor, he taught me the value of attitude, persistence, belief, goal setting, and never-ending improvement through daily intentional education.
I miss Zig and will continue to study his works with no end in sight. Like other masters of the personal development field, such as Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie, his message is timeless. It will be forever relevant and applicable to anyone seeking to improve themselves and serve their fellow man.
Action Steps for My Readers:
For all the wisdom Zig shared over the years, his teachings on Attitude, Goal Setting, and Continuous Personal Development impacted me the strongest.
Attitude: Zig believed attitude was a skill to be developed, which took daily discipline.
Most people claim to have a “positive” attitude, yet they’ve never read the first book or taken a course on attitude. Attitude is a choice, and it comes from within. It is not based on outside circumstances.
If you allow outside circumstances to determine your attitude, you will live life on a roller coaster. Decide today to develop a positive attitude, then go to work daily to make that a reality. The books you read (or don’t read) and the people you associate with will largely determine your outcome in life…including your attitude.
Feed your mind with the positive and guard your associations carefully. These two choices will make or break you.
Goal Setting: The highest achievers are always masters of goal setting. Zig was a huge proponent of setting goals in all areas of your life. For years I’ve divided my goals into Faith, Family & Friends, Finance, and Fitness. For a goal to be valid, it needs to be written down and “SMART”:
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Attractive (the real “why” behind the goal)
R – Realistic
T – Timely
While Zig believed in setting goals, he taught only targeting a few goals at a time. Instead, consider for each quarter of the year 3 significant objectives that will most impact your life. Then determine the monthly, weekly, and daily steps that need to occur to make these goals a reality. Focus has great power, and chasing after more than 3 primary goals at a time will typically result in only diluted efforts.
Continuous Personal Development: Zig was a lifelong learner and routinely read for 3 hours daily in his Golden Years. While most of us don’t have the time to physically read for hours a day, through “Automobile University,” you can still take in a tremendous amount of information over time.
Consider that you have a 30-minute commute to and from work five days a week. That’s 1 hour a day, 50 weeks a year, for 250 hours. This equates to 6.25 (40) hour work weeks of education of your choice.
Most people undervalue small blocks of time. You could easily double this by listening to audiobooks in your car while dressing in the morning or cooking dinner at night. Ask yourself…how much difference would roughly 3 months of extra education in whatever subject do for you and your career? Or your home life?
In closing, I encourage you to take control of your attitude, live on principle and commitment with firmly established goals, and never stop working to improve yourself.
Life is not a dress rehearsal. You only get one shot. So make the most of it.
Next up in my Mentor Series: John Maxwell
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