The Fastest Way To Success

Mastering your Mindset, Habits, and Goals

Zig Ziglar

• Publisher: G&D Media
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781722527266
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

In the world of personal development, motivation, public speaking and sales, there will never be another Zig Ziglar. 

His infectious sense of humor, his masterful storytelling skills, his uncanny ability to inspire, and his downhome Southern charm will last forever. With this classic collection of his ideas, you will learn timeless lessons on how to thrive by achieving a positive and happy mindset, identify and develop the habits it takes to reach success in all areas of your life and overcome any adversity to attain the goal of living your dreams. 

Here is just a sampling of what you will learn: 

• WINNERS respond, not react 
• STEPS to a healthy self-image 
• WINNING relationships at home and at work 
• PLANNING, preparing, and expecting to win 
• TAKING the first step to a brighter future 
• MAINTAINING a winning attitude. 
• MOTIVATION, the key to accomplishment 
• IMPORTANCE of Mindset 
• IDENTIFYING and DEVELOPING the qualities of success 
• SPECIFICS of Goal Setting 
• FOUNTATIONS for Greatness 
• REACHING Your Goals in Life

ZIG ZIGLAR was a talented author and compelling speaker. He traveled over five million miles and worked with clients and corporations of all sizes, from Fortune 500 companies to churches, schools and non-profit associations. He wrote 25 books on personal growth, leadership, sales, faith, and success, nine of which have been bestsellers. He has inspired millions of people for more than a generation. Despite the modern world of technology and rapid change, you must keep your focus on the “truths that never change.” Let Zig Zigar be your guide as he shows you the fastest way to success.             

MASTER SUCCESSFUL PERSONAL HABITS

Zig Ziglar

Foreword by Tom Ziglar

Published 2021 by Gildan Media LLC

aka G&D Media

www.GandDmedia.com

MASTER SUCCESSFUL PERSONAL HABITS. Copyright © 2019, 2021 by Ziglar, Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any manner whatsoever, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. No liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained within. Although every precaution has been taken, the author and publisher assume no liability for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

FIRST EDITION 2019

FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION 2021

Front cover design by David Rheinhardt of Pyrographx

Design by Meghan Day Healey of Story Horse, LLC

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request

ISBN: 978-1-7225-0531-8

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

1. Foreword by Tom Ziglar
2. Chapter 1 Four Concepts That Make a Difference
3. Chapter 2 The Size of the Hope
4. Chapter 3 The Day before Vacation
5. Chapter 4 The Power of Words
6. Chapter 5 Relationships and Motivation
7. Chapter 6 Building and Maintaining a Winning Attitude

Foreword

by Tom Ziglar

I am very excited to introduce you to Master Successful Personal Habits. I’ve had the privilege of growing up with Zig Ziglar and seeing him as a father, a speaker, an author, and a person. I’ve met with many people that he impacted—many of today’s leading speakers, authors, and business leaders. They are still being influenced by his messages, his wisdom, and his philosophy—his core statement that you can have everything in life you want if you’ll just help other people get what they want.

That is more true today than ever. People need help and encouragement more than they ever have. All you have to do is check out the Internet, listen to the news, listen to people in the line at Starbucks, and you’ll see how many are concerned about the future. They don’t know what’s up next. But the simple truths of life that are found in this book are the things that make all the difference. It’s about your relationships. It’s about the way you see yourself, and it’s about the goals that you set and the way you view the future.

These teachings are the summation of Dad’s entire career, and I think you have to go back to the start to figure out how we ended up here. In his early life, he was in sales, and he really struggled in the beginning. Then a wise person named P.C. Merrill spoke to Dad and taught him some important principles.

After that, Dad’s sales career took off. In fact, he was immediately recognized as one of the top salespeople in an organization of over 7,000. When that happens, no matter what business you’re in, you immediately get elected to do training. So Dad’s first start in training was in sales training—sharing with others the principles, ideas, techniques, and tactics that he had learned and applied that made him successful.

As Dad grew into this role, he realized this simple truth: you can take all the best skills in the world and put them on the wrong person, and it won’t do any good. So as Dad developed, and he started to learn and see people’s responses, he realized that the first thing you had to do was develop the person from the inside out.

The person needed to have character and integrity and discipline. They needed to be motivated. They needed to have a specific goal-setting plan in place so they could become the right kind of person. Then they had to have relationship skills so that they could work with others.

Once you have that person, you can give them the technical skills, and they can do and achieve just about anything. That’s what this book is about. It’s about understanding that while skills are critically important, it doesn’t really matter unless the right person is employing those skills.

Dad had an amazing impact. His character was unquestioned. The impact that he had on other people’s lives to help them become more, be more, do more, and have more is legendary, but it wasn’t until he passed away in 2012 that we really understood the magnitude of his legacy.

We had over 13,000 comments on our Facebook page within twenty-four hours of the announcement. As people sent in a message or an email or a letter or a card, the story was almost the same. It was this: “You know, I heard Zig Ziglar, in 1978, or 1986, or 1994. I was in a room, and there were 10,000, 20,000 people. When it was over, I was inspired, and I wanted to meet him. So I stood in line for two hours, and when I finally got to him to get that autograph, it was like I was the only person in the room.”

For me, that’s such a powerful story, because it’s going to be hard for anybody to think, “Golly, I could be Zig Ziglar on stage,” but you know what? I believe that each person reading this can be Zig Ziglar one-on-one. That means that you can give somebody undivided attention and let them know that you care about them.

My good friend Scott Schilling came to me and said, “Tom, I was backstage with your Dad years ago, and I asked him, ‘Zig, how come when you speak to a large audience like this, 80 or 90 percent of your talk is exactly the same talk that you gave the last time?’” Scott said, “You know, Tom, your dad just smiled and looked at me, and he said, ‘Scott, the truth never changes.’”

Dad went on to tell me many times that people are always hungry for the truth. I think that this book is more relevant today than ever, because for some reason our culture has bought into the idea that things are relative. Dad couldn’t have disagreed more, and neither can I.

Things are more dependent upon the truth than ever. We want truth. We want to know that we can count on somebody. We want to deal with people who have honesty and integrity. We want to know that what we stand for and who we locks arms with have values that line up with truth.

As you go through this book and learn these different truths, understand that the more you employ them, the more effective you will be. Our good friend Seth Godin talks about the idea of trust. In his business, he focuses on scaling trust. Think about thatscaling trust—because Dad said years ago that the number-one reason that people won’t buy is lack of trust.

If we can build trust, then we’ve overcome the number-one objection that people have to us or to our product or service, and trust is the by-product of integrity. Many people ask, “What is Ziglar up to these days? Is Ziglar going to continue on?” and I am excited to say that Ziglar is about legacy.

Legacy really means this: it’s the sum total of the impacts that you’ve had and the generational impacts that these have in turn, and so on and so on. Dad’s legacy is living and growing even as we speak, as people are equipped with these materials and these ideas, use them in their own lives, and then teach others.

Dad’s legacy lives on when we share these messages with others. That’s why I’m so excited about this project, because it’s not just a product with a result that ends some day. It’s actually carrying on a legacy.

Legacy is different from inheritance. Inheritance is when you give somebody money or something like that which they can spend. Legacy is when you give somebody a guideline, a set of rules, a set of beliefs and principles that they can apply to any situation they go into and have it bear fruit. It’s the difference between giving somebody a fish and teaching them how to fish.

Dad’s legacy can be summed up in his famous quote, “You can have everything in life you want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.” There’s pushback today in our society, because you hear about people who teach ideas of “win at all costs” or “crush the competition” or “in it to win it.”

What does that mean in terms of Dad’s legacy? First off, Dad believed, and I believe as well, that you want to start with having the other person’s best interests in mind. When you serve somebody else’s best interests first, and they know that, that builds a feeling of trust and endearment. Whether you can help them in that situation or not—the timing may or may not be right—they will always remember that. Over time business will seek you out, because people want to do business with people they know, like, and trust.

Legacy is a journey, and we all go through a journey in life. When I speak to organizations, I talk about the process we go through from survival to stability, from stability to success, and from success to significance. The world is hung up on this idea of success. This is a good thing; it’s not a bad thing to say, “I want success,” but success is really about the things you can have. It’s about money or fame or influence, but people who understand the difference between success and significance are the ones who really get it.

Significance is when you help somebody else be, do, or have more than they thought possible. Legacy is about significance. Again, it’s about helping someone else become, be, do, or have more than they thought possible. When you achieve significance, you achieve the greatest level of joy imaginable, because there is no greater joy than seeing somebody do something they didn’t think they could do. They look up, and they give you that smile, and that’s what drove Dad.

That’s what inspires us today. It’s to achieve not only success but significance, and the more we seek significance, the more likely we are to be successful along the way.

Legacy is intentional. It’s actually a choice, just as attitude is a choice, or success is a choice; so, really, is anything that we do.

There’s a feeling today that “life is so full of circumstances. I have no control over where I’m going.”

The reality is, you have complete control over the choices you make. You may not like the circumstances, but you can choose to respond or react to those circumstances, and Dad knew full and well early on that he was going to leave a legacy.

You know what? You’re going to leave a legacy as well. The question is, what kind of legacy are you going to leave? What kind of markers and mileposts?

Quick story on this. I had the job of helping Dad clean out his library when he moved from his large home to a smaller place in his last few years. As we looked at those 3,000 books there, I knew I had to get them down to about 100. Boy, that was a big task. I had to decide which books I was going to keep and which we were we going to get rid of.

I decided to flip through each book. The more markings a book had in it, the more likely I was to save it in that special pile. As I was flipping through the books, I looked down, and I could see from his markings on a certain page that this was the foundational information that he used for part of one of his talks. It was like finding buried treasure, and when I closed the book—you wouldn’t believe this—the title of the book was Buried Treasure by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

So what kind of legacy are you going to leave? What kind of mileposts and markers will you leave behind when your kids go to your home or your office or your desk and flip through the books and look at your emails and texts? What kind of markers are you leaving?

Dad influenced my life in many ways, but he never said, “Son, I want you to be a speaker. I want you to follow in my footsteps and lead this company or be in sales.”

I’m sure he hoped those things, but what he told me was this: “Son, whatever you do, I want you to do it with 100 percent effort and 100 percent integrity.” That gave me the freedom to go out and explore who God made me to be. So, as you learn from this book, and you think about how you can impa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Master Your Winning Edge
• Master Successful Personal Habits
• Master Your Goals