Zig Ziglar faithful positivity

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Early life

Born as the tenth child in Coffee County, Alabama, in the year 1926. He had a total of eleven brothers and sisters. He got his nickname 'Zig' after his favorite pet dog. When he was only 5 years old, tragedy struck as his father died of a stroke, and merely two day's later, his younger sister faced the same fate. 

This first hardship Zig had to face made it very clear for him, that one is to provide for his family. As his mother had eleven mouths to feed, Zig started to make extra money selling peanuts during his primary school years. 

He has always described his mother as a remarkable woman for her efforts to take care of such a big family and providing them with life's important values. This resulted in Zig being so upbeat and positive towards life, and even when confronted with adversity, he puts on a friendly face. 

After finishing high school, during the Second World War, he served the United States Navy as a V-12 in the Navy College Training Program. It was during this period that Zig met his future wife, Jean Ziglar. This was in the year 1944, they married two years later and had a total of four children.

When WWII ended, he attended the University of South Carolina, where he dropped out in 1947 to move to Lancaster, South Carolina.  Here he took his first job as a salesman for the WearEver Cookware company.

Career

When working his first job for the WearEver Cookware company, Zig acquired his basic skills and tactics in sales. It wasn't before long that Zig excelled greatly in his line of work, gaining promotion to field manager and later divisional supervisor in 1950.

During these years, Zig gained an interest in self-help and motivational speaking. He got to work together with Richard Gardner and Hal Krause for the Establishment of American Salesmasters. This company aimed to amplify the image of salespeople in America through seminars. Here, Ziglar spoke on the same stage that featured many of the greats, like Norman Vincent Peale, Ken McFarland and Maxwell Maltz. 

In 1965 Richard Gardner founded the National Association of Sales Education (Nase), where Zig spoke considerable amounts in front of large audiences and also worked as a major sales trainer for Mary Kay Cosmetics. In 1968, he became vice president and training director for the Automotive Performance Company, which made him move to Dallas, unfortunately the company went bankrupt two years later.

Through this setback, Zig felt motivated to start his own company and also wrote his best-seller book ' See you at the Top'. Building from the ground up, he founded the Zigmanship Institute in 1977, which later evolved into Ziglar Inc. Through this company, he established his unique approach called 'The Ziglar Way'. This method led to many audio programs, books and DVD's.

During this period, he wrote more than 30 books, of which at least 10 were best sellers. These included Success for Dummies and Top performance. Zig's Secret of Closing the Sale is also one of his most renown audio programs and is still seen as relevant. 

Ziglar Inc. employed and trained several speakers, including Will Harris who became a best-selling author and motivational speaker and is still active today. 

Zig stepped down in 1994 and let his son, Tom Ziglar take over as CEO of Ziglar Inc. It's interesting to note that Tom had to work his way up through the company where he started in the warehouse. 

In 2007 Zig fell down a flight of stairs, leaving him with short-term memory problems. This didn't make him stop giving motivational seminars until he finally retired in 2010. 

Summary

The humble life of Zig Ziglar has inspired millions of people around the globe and his story is still motivating young startups today. His morals and life values, which he intertwined in his seminars, audiobooks, and even company, are a prime example of how, if you stand for something and live by it, you truly can achieve greatness.

As Zig quoted many times throughout his lifetime : ' Remember that failure is an event, not a person.' Don't take failure personally and see it as a moment to grow upon, and keep a friendly face at all times.

To wrap it up, here are some other of his most famous quotes:

' You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.'

'You can have everything in life you want, if you just help other people get what they want.'

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