Hilary Hinton Ziglar -better known as Zig Ziglar- was an  internationally famous salesman, speaker, author  and president of the Zig Ziglar Corporation who  was born on November 6, 1926  in Cofee, Alabama.

When little Zig Ziglar was four years old,  the family moved to Yazoo City , Mississippi, and shortly before he was six,  his father died , leaving his mother alone to raise all the children and in the midst of great depression.

Zig Ziglar  had to work very early . At the age of seven, he took care of the cows, the pigs… and he sold milk and vegetables to his neighbors. At age nine, he started working at a grocery store and as a butcher, he also sold peanuts after school. Twelve-year-old Zig Ziglar worked all day Saturday and five afternoons a week; he spent three nights a week delivering the paper ; he helped with housework; and he went to church on Wednesdays and Sundays.

On July 1, 1944, after passing the examinations for the Marine Air Corps, Zig Ziglar was assigned to Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi,  and on September 15, 1944, he met his future wife, Jean Abernathy (the redhead) . A short time later, he was sent to Columbia University in South Carolina, and later to Great Lakes , Illinois. Finally, he was discharged on June 30, 1946 and he returned to Yazoo City. It was around this time that he proposed to Jean .

Zig Ziglar returned to the University of South Carolina in the fall of 1946, selling sandwiches, milk, and coffee cupcakes in the dorms, earning enough money to cover his expenses.

Zig Ziglar and “the Redhead” were married  on November 26, 1946.

In the summer of 1947 the sandwich business began to wind down, so  Zig Ziglar got a job at WearEver Aluminum as a cookware salesman . Because of this they moved to Lancaster, South Carolina.

On May 10, 1949  , Jean Suzanne Ziglar , their first daughter, was born.

The first two and a half years at Lancaster were difficult, as  Zig Ziglar’s sales were low and he was not earning enough to break even. Everything changed when Zig Ziglar went to a meeting where Mr. PC Merrel, the Tennessee divisional supervisor, persuaded him that he could become the national sales champion .

That year he finished as the second best seller in the country  among a total of seven thousand sellers and received the best promotion offered by the company. The following year he was  the highest paid employee  of WearEver Aluminum in the United States. Three years later he was the youngest person to hold a  division supervisor position  in the company’s sixty-six-year history. The family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. His second daughter, Cindy, was born there  .

During the summer of 1955, Zig Ziglar and his family moved to New York to franchise the Dale Carnegie Institute on Long Island. After three months he quit because he hardly saw his daughters, so he returned to South Carolina, where Julie, his third daughter, was born.

The success obtained in the previous years went to his head, which led him to lose his way and go through a difficult time full of ups and downs. Zig Ziglar went through a total of  seventeen different jobs in five years looking for an opportunity, which involved a large number of transfers from one city to another.

In this period, Zig Ziglar participated together with Dr. Emol Fails in some seminars of the Chamber of Commerce , which in a way marked the beginning of his future career as a lecturer.

Given his dire financial situation, in 1960, Zig Ziglar  returned to selling cookware  in a new company called  Vita Craft , but soon joined the Saladmaster company.  In 1961, he was  the fifth best seller  in the country  and the following year he was the first.

Zig Ziglar later  teamed up with Hal Krause and others to create an association called American Salesmasters , whose goal was to recognize the work of America’s professional salespeople.

He joined  Amway  and became South Carolina’s first distributor. She left him and joined  Holiday Magic , another multi-level marketing program that distributed cosmetics. He did very well, but he ended up resigning his position.

On February 1, 1964, their fourth child, Tom, was born, and in 1968, the Automotive Performance company offered him the vice president and the position of director of training allowing him to develop his career as a speaker. They moved to Dallas. It was a turning point in his career and a turning point in fortune for his family. When everything seemed to be going well, after two years, the company went bankrupt and so did Zig Ziglar.

For the next two years, her main source of income was giving sales training and motivational seminars at the request of Mary Kay Ash for her cosmetics company.

On July 4, 1972,  Zig Ziglar made a commitment to follow God , which completely changed his life and made him a whole new and better person. He joined the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas.

Suddenly,  the American Salesmaster took off and Zig Ziglar was invited to speak across the country . W. Clement Stone also called on him to give talks and make presentations, which allowed him to share the stage with others such as Norman Vincent Peale, Paul Harvey, Don Hutson… and many more.

In 1975, Zig Ziglar  published his first book ,  Biscuits, Fleas & Pump Handles,  which he later renamed to  See You At The Summit .

On May 13, 1995,  his first daughter , Suzan, died at the age of 46, due to pulmonary fibrosis.

Zig Ziglar has received  three honorary doctorates : the 1985 honorary doctorate from the Chriswell Center for Biblical Studies, the 1995 honorary doctorate of humane letters from the Oklahoma Christian College of Science and Arts, and the 1998 honorary doctorate of letters for Contribution to the Literature on Human Potential from Southern Nazarene University.

In 1998 he was elected to serve as a  vice president at the Southern Baptist Convention .

Zig Ziglar  passed away on November 28, 2012 , at the age of 86.

Phrases

-Happiness is the ability to move forward knowing the future will be better than the past.

-The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now.

-It makes no difference where you go, there you are. And it makes no difference what you have, there’s always more to want. Until you are happy with who you are, you will never be happy because of what you have.

-Don’t let someone who gave up on their dreams talk you out of going after yours.

-Hope is the power that gives a person the confidence to step out and try.

-Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.

-Don’t let others be your judge and jury with their pity and negative thoughts or feeling. Know that you are here for a reason. Recognize, develop, and use the resources you do have. Others see the surface; you know your heart.

-The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you think you can only do a little.

-If you don’t like who you are and where you are, don’t worry about it because you’re not stuck either with who you are or where you are. You can grow. You can change. You can be more than you are.

-Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others.

-Outside of your relationship with God, the most important relationship you can have is with yourself. I don’t mean that we are to spend all our time focused on me, me, me to the exclusion of others. Instead, I mean that we must be healthy internally, emotionally and spiritually – in order to create healthy relationships with others.
-If you have the character to hang in there when it’s tough, you will develop or acquire every other characteristic necessary to WIN in the game of life.

-If you do not think you deserve success, then you will do things that will keep you from getting success.

-You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.

-Moving from survival to stability, from stability to success, from success to significance.

-Success comes when opportunity meets preparation.

-You can change everything about your business by changing your thinking about your business.

-Fear has two meaning; ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours.

-Money is not everything but it ranks right up there with oxygen.

-Success is dependent upon the glands – sweat glands.

-If you aim at nothing, you will hit every time.

-A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.

-You already have every characteristic necessary for success if you recognize, claim, develop and use them.

-You are the only person on Earth who can use your ability.

-Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.

-When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.

-When you do more than you’re paid for. Eventually, you’ll be paid for more than you do.

-Outstanding people have one thing in common: an an absolute sense of mission.

-Motivation is the fuel necessary to keep the human engine running.

-Where you start is not as important as where you finish.

-Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the ‘gotta have it’ scale.

-Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.

-You can start where you are with what you’ve got and go to wherever it is you want to go.

-If you are going to be successful, you must develop persistence. How do you do that? It is not easily condensed in one simple statement, but one thing you can be sure of is that your must define your purpose.

-You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.

-Most people who fail in their dream fail not from lack of ability but from lack of commitment.

-There is little you can learn from doing nothing.

-Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker.

-You don’t drown by falling in water; you only drown if you stay there.

-One of the main reasons people fail to reach their full potential is because they are unwilling to risk anything.

-Try to look at your weakness and convert it into your strength.

-Don’t let the mistakes and disappointments of the past control and direct your future.

-Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

-Failure is an event, it is not a person—yesterday ended last night—today is a brand new day and it’s yours.

-If you don’t plan your time, someone else will help you waste it.

-Firstly, you must have some big goals, because thinking big creates the excitement necessary for accomplishment. Second, you must have some long range goals, so that short range frustrations don’t stop you in your tracks. Third, you must have daily objectives cause making it big means working every day toward your long range goals. And fourth, your goals must be specific, not vague or general.

-You need a plan to build a house. To build a life, it is even more important to have a plan or goal.

-In order for a goal is to be effective, it must effect change.

-Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.

-You can’t hit a target you cannot see, and you cannot see a target you do not have.

-Identify your goals, and set a deadline for reaching them. Make a list of obstacles you have to overcome to reach your goals, identify the people who can help you overcome those obstacles, and make a list of skills you have and those you need to achieve your goals and then develop a plan.

-The real benefit of having goals is what you become by reaching them.

-You got to have long range goals. You go as far as you can see, and when you get there, you will always be able to see further.

-To reach your full potential, you have to set goals that will stretch you.

-When you stop planning and preparing, you stop winning.

-People do not wander around and then find themselves at the top of Mount Everest.

-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.

-What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.

-Look back in forgiveness, forward in hope, down in compassion, and up with gratitude.

-How happy a person is depends upon the depth of his gratitude. You will notice at once that the unhappy person has little gratitude toward life, other people and God.

-You become part of what you are around.

-The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.

-You don’t build a business – you build people – and people build the business.

-You cannot fly with the eagles if you continue to scratch with the turkeys.

-You don’t climb the high mountain all by yourself, it is in conjunction with others that we really accomplish the major things in life.

-The greatest cause of a poor image is the absence of unconditional love.

-The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.

-Like sterling silver, love will tarnish unless it is polished with daily applications of interest, involvement, and expressions of love.

-Many marriages would be better if the husband and wife clearly understood that they’re on the same side.

-To a child love is spelled T-I-M-E.

-The best way to make your spouse and children feel secure is not with big deposits in bank accounts, but with little deposits of thoughtfulness and affection in the “love” account.

-When you encourage others, you in the process are encouraged because you’re making a commitment and difference in that person’s life. Encouragement really does make a difference.

-You are the most influential person you will talk to all day.

-Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember ~ the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.

-People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.

-Put all excuses aside and remember this: YOU are capable.

-You can start from where you are with what you’ve got and go to where it is you want to go.

-I recognize that winning is not everything, but the effort to win is.

-It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.

-When you’ve got a strong enough why, you can always find the how.

-You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.

-Peak performance is dependent on passion, grit, determination, and a willingness to do something poorly until you can do it well.

-You cannot solve a problem until you acknowledge that you have one and accept responsibility for solving it.