It’s actually pretty easy to get ahead of 99% of people. | Zig Ziglar
In this motivational video, Zig Ziglar and interview host Jim discuss how ordinary people can surpass the majority by changing their mindset and daily habits. The centerpiece is the inspiring transformation of Tom Hartman, who went from extreme financial, spiritual, physical, and social bankruptcy—weighing 406 lb, divorced, and disengaged from church—to a thriving professional with a psychology doctorate, a successful business, and a vibrant family and spiritual life. Jim attributes Tom’s turnaround to relentless repetition of Zig’s self‑image tapes, illustrating the power of consistent mental conditioning. The conversation then tackles common misconceptions: motivation is not permanent and must be renewed daily, and positive thinking, while beneficial, cannot replace skill or effort. They review a list of 27 success qualities, revealing that every item is fundamentally an attitude rather than a teachable skill. Jim highlights a systemic failure: schools devote only about 1,080 of the 8,760 annual hours to students, leaving the vast majority of character formation to parents, who therefore bear responsibility for instilling honesty, integrity, faith, and a positive mental attitude. The speakers argue that if these core values were taught at home and reinforced in schools, society would improve dramatically. Throughout, Zig emphasizes the necessity of building life on a solid foundation of honesty and integrity, urging viewers to commit to daily personal development and to apply these principles to achieve any goal.
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When you do more than you're paid to do, ultimately you're going to be paid more for what you do. If you get a job, if you show up on time, do what you're paid to do, and leave on time, and the boss pays you, everybody's even. You were hired out and you were paid off. Nobody owes anybody anything. Now, if you want to get a raise, you If you want to get ahead in that job, if you want to get ahead in life, what you got to do is you got to get there a little bit early and you got to stay a little bit late. You got to look for things to get into and to do instead of things to avoid. You have got to do more than you're being paid to do. You must make yourself indispensable, and when you do that, you are going to go up. You ought to never have to look for but one job. and you ought to do that job so exceptionally well that the man or woman you're working for recognizes such incredible talent there that you will move right on up in the structure, or else somebody else will say, hey, that's the kind of person I want. What I'm really saying is that your future is primarily in your hands, and if you give it everything you got, then you have a beautiful future. Zig Ziglar was one of the world's most popular motivational speakers. Ziglar was one of 12 children raised by a widowed mother during the Great Depression. He wrote over 25 books, including "See You at the Top," and inspired millions of people around the world. In this exclusive training, Ziglar shares with us powerful strategies to set better goals, build unbreakable discipline, and develop a growth mindset. Special thanks to the Ziglar family for partnering with us to release this exclusive content on our YouTube channel. Enjoy. Many years ago, a wise old king called all of his wise men together. Now he said, "Gentlemen, I'm getting on up in years and I want us to compile something that we might leave to posterity. We want to compile the wisdom of the ages. I want it in bound book form so that people might refer to it." Well, the wise men went out and they worked a long period of time. They finally came back with a book with 12 huge volumes, and the old king looked at it and he said, "Well, I'm certain this is the wisdom of the ages, but it's too lengthy. People will never read it. You must condense it." They again went out and they worked a long time. They came back this time with 1 huge volume, and the wise old king looked at it and he said, "Well, you know, that's a lot better, but people still won't read that much. You must condense it." They went out and they worked again, and they came back with a single chapter. Again, he said, "Too lengthy." They came back with a page. He said, "Too lengthy." They came back with a paragraph. He says, "Too lengthy," and finally, They came back with a single sentence. The wise old king looked at it, he smiled broadly, and he said, "That's it. As soon as all men everywhere realize the significance of this sentence, then many of our problems will be solved. This truly is the wisdom of the ages." And the sentence simply said, "There ain't no free lunch." Despite the fact that they're trying to tell us differently in Washington, there really ain't no free lunch. You know, it's kind of interesting how responsible people generally agree with that, and yet they will pass legislation that permits us to have horse racing and dog racing and legalized gambling, which extracted $80 billion from our economy last year, and even state lotteries. With one word, they're saying, "There ain't no free lunch," and then they say, set up something like that which disproves what they say they really believe. No, there really ain't no free lunch. You know, when you think about it in this light, a wise man observed that the success family really has work as the father and integrity as the mother. And if you can get along with the parents, you won't have any trouble at all with any other member of the family. I'd like to also stress, you know, we've been talking about Born to Win, from hello to goodbye, from the very first presentation, and we'll be talking about it right on through the very last one. And yes, it is, I think, a beautiful philosophy, but like any other concept or philosophy, it won't work unless you work. We got to remember that, you see. They say that education covers an awful lot of ground, but it won't cultivate any of it. And so the message I want to deliver over and over and over is that one. Now let me warn you, as I have in each one of these presentations, I hope you enjoy what I have to say. And those in the audiences where they're seeing this film, I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you, you know, you get a lot out of it. But let me stress something: this is not just to entertain you or just to inform you. This is to get you into action. You know, it's an amazing fact that a lot of times people quit looking for work just as soon as they find a job. Like somebody asked this old boy one time, said, "How long you been working for your company?" And he said, "Ever since they threatened to fire me." Another boss was asked, "How many people do you have working for you?" And he said, "About half of them now." You know, I'm delighted to say that that certainly isn't true in my company, and I know it's not true in any of the companies represented here, and I know it won't even be true in the companies which have bought these presentations. Corporations and are teaching their employees that, but work, yes, work really is important. But you know, here's an interesting thing. I don't really believe there is any such thing as a lazy man or a lazy woman. I believe they're either sick or they're uninspired. Now, if they're sick, they obviously ought to go to the doctor and get something done about it. If they're uninspired, well, gracious, that's what Born to Win really is all about. Now, I found that in today's economy, a lot of people are getting excited more so than ever before about working because they realize that they've got to get excited about their job if they're going to keep those jobs and get ahead in those jobs. What I want to really say, though, is that men must learn that if we want to occupy their place in the sun, that they've got to expect some blisters along the way. That's just an absolute fact. Work is the price we enjoy, in other words, to travel the highway of success. A lot of people, you know, unfortunately believe that success is dependent upon the glands. Well, actually, that's what I believe, but I'm talking about the sweat glands now, you know, if you know what I mean by that. But I want to emphasize that the importance of the work concept itself is important because to a large degree our standard of living is dependent upon the individual productivity of everybody here. Productivity expert Leo Presley, for example, points out that this generation of which you are now a part is the first generation which has ever suffered a decline in the standard of living from the generation which just preceded us. I'm convinced that some of the things we've been talking about in Born to Win basically is the reason for that. In other words, we have not really committed ourselves to working as hard as we used to. Let me give you, let me give you a simple example of a concept which I'm speaking of. If you were to go to Japan today, as an example, and talk to the average 15-year-old over there, they could tell you the company they were going to be working with. They could tell you what they were going to major in when they got into the university. They could diagram and outline for you a plan for their life. They are taking this business very seriously. Now, if you come to the average 15-year-old American American and talk to him, he can tell you the name of the rock stars, the movie stars, the television stars, the football players, the basketball players, the baseball heroes. In short, he can tell you the names of those people. His interest is in sports and in playing and having a good time. Well, you see, it's not all bad to know some of those things, but what I am saying is we need to be putting more emphasis on what we teach, this concept is that there really ain't no free lunch, that we've got to do some work in order to get it. You see, when you relate to those athletic heroes and rock stars, you're talking about a lifestyle and an income potential there which is totally unrealistic to 999 people out of every 1,000. We got to get serious about this thing called productivity. When we look at those unrealistic lifestyles, we just simply have to remind ourselves that that is for the very, very, very few people, that those of us who do not have those particular talents have got to tough it up, we've got to suck it up, we've got to hang in there, we've got to stay with it. Now, if we will do that, then the sky literally is the limit in America. I say it over and over and over, you can start from where you are with what you've got and you can go where you want to go, you can do what you want to do, you can be like you want to be. That's one of the beautiful things about living in our America. But you know, a famous man, Will Rogers, whom I guess everybody who'll ever view this has heard, heard him quoted from one time or another, says that you got to know what you're doing. He says you got to like what you're doing, and he says you got to believe in what you're doing. Now, when you put those three things together, then people are going to work awfully hard and do a much better job at what they're doing. See, our work really should give us more than a living. Our work should literally give us our life. We ought to be excited about our work. Hey there, it's Mark Timm with the Ziglar family, and I sure hope you're enjoying the video from my mentor, the legendary Zig Ziglar. Because you're part of Evan's audience, we want to give you a special bonus. It's a cool little book called The Little Book of Big Quotes, packed with awesome content. This book is free just for you. Check out the description below and it's yours. Alrighty, let's get you back to Zig. I think, for example, of one of the most beautiful stories that I've ever heard. It was quoted in Guideposts originally, and as you know, I put it in See You at the Top. It's the story of the old French painter Pierre Renoir, who was crippled with arthritis. And in his old age, as he would paint It would take him an awful long time to make even one stroke, and it was done with excruciating pain. And one day, his buddy Henri Matisse came to him and he says, "Pierre, why is it, since the pain is so intense and it takes you such a long time to do your painting, why do you persist in painting?" And his answer? Beautiful, classic, when he said, "Ah, my friend, the pain, she passes, but the beauty remains forever." Somebody once said that the reward of a job well done is to have done it. You see, I believe that's a concept we need to sell to our young people in America today. That there's nothing as rewarding and as exciting as completing a project which was difficult. If it was easy, there's no real satisfaction in doing it. You know, one of the things that I neglected to mention when I told my own story in the Born to Win series was the fact that when I went from oblivion to number 2 in the nation the next year out of over 7,000 people, I neglected to mention the fact that one of the changes I made was the fact that I made I made an appointment with myself to be knocking on somebody's door every morning at exactly 9 o'clock, regardless of what time I had completed my demonstrations the night before. And sometimes it was 12 and 1 o'clock when I got in, because sometimes they were some little distance away. But the next morning at 9 o'clock, regardless of what time I had completed the night before, I was knocking on somebody's door to conduct some business that day. Now, for that year, I never finished in the top 20 a single week. I never finished in the top 20 a single month, but at the end of the year, I was number 2 in the country out of over 7,000 because during that entire year, I never shot a single blank. Every single week, I got the business because every single week, I followed a schedule. I'm not going to tell you it's easy. You notice I've said that about umpteen times all through the Born to Win course. I don't think life is easy. I believe that it is tough, but I believe in America today that we have got so many exciting possibilities that if we understand some basic concepts, it will enrich our lives remarkably. As some of you know, I was raised down in that grocery store in Yazoo City, Mississippi. and it was there that I learned some of the principles of work which have meant so much to me in my lifetime. In those days, during the Depression, inventories were relatively small, and we often would run out of items, and, and we'd go across the street and borrow from the store over there, and they would often come and borrow things from us. There was a young fellow named Charlie Scott. Never forget old Charlie. Charlie was the runner for the other store, and every time he came to borrow something, he'd come running in the store, he'd hit the front door and say, Mr. Anderson, I need to borrow 6 cans of tomatoes. Mr. Anderson would say, "Charlie, you know where they are. Go get them." And old Charlie would take off in a dead run, you know, back where the tomatoes were. He'd snatch them up off the shelf and he'd run up and he'd throw them down on the counter and Mr. Anderson would have filled out, you know, the little chit for him to sign and he'd scribble his name on it and he would take off in a dead run. And he always did that. One day I said, "Mr. Anderson, why does Charlie Scott always run everywhere he goes?" And Mr. Anderson kind of grinned and said, "Well, old Charlie's working for raise." And he's going to get it too. I said, Mr. Anderson, how do you know Charlie Scott's going to get a raise? Mr. Anderson looked right at me and said, I know he's going to get a raise because if the man he's working for doesn't give it to him, I am. But you know what's exciting? Charlie Scott had a ball doing his job. He was excited. He was enthusiastic about it. A few years ago, I guess it was about 5 years ago, I was speaking up at Mississippi State, and I told the Charlie Scott story, and when it was over, a tall red-headed guy came up to me and he said, "By the way," he said, "when you been to Yazoo City?" And I said, "Oh, left there in 1944, go back once or twice a year." He said, "Have you seen Charlie since he was a boy?" I said, "No, I haven't." He said, "You probably wouldn't even recognize him, would you?" I said, "No, I'm sure I wouldn't." He said, "Didn't think so." I'm Charlie Scott. Now, Charlie didn't tell me this, but his friends did. Charlie took the same principles he was practicing as a very young boy in that grocery store and applied them all through his adult life. And at slightly over 50 years of age, he was able to retire an extraordinarily wealthy man, an enormously healthy man, a very successful man. He had taken care of everything. He had touched all the bases, physical and mental and spiritual. He had done it all, and the net result is because of the excitement and enthusiasm and plain hard work, he was an enormously successful man. That's the message I attempt to deliver throughout Born to Win. You see, the law is clear. When you do more than you're paid to do, ultimately you're going to be paid more for what you do. Now, that's kind of earth-shattering in its simplicity. There's nothing dramatic about it except that it is total truth, and total truth is absolutely always effective. You see, one of the messages we try to communicate and do communicate in the I Can course, which as you know is taught in thousands of schools all across America, is we teach the youngsters that, look, If you get a job, if you show up on time, do what you're paid to do, and leave on time, and the boss pays you, everybody's even. You were hired out and you were paid off. Nobody owes anybody anything. Now, if you want to get a raise, if you want to get ahead in that job, if you want to get ahead in life, what you got to do is you got to get there a little bit early and you got to stay a little bit late. You got to look for things to get into and to do instead of things to avoid. You have got to do more than you're being paid to do. You must make yourself indispensable, and when you do that, you are going to go up, either in the company you're in or with another company. I often say to, uh, youngsters, and I'll say it to you, uh, adults in this live audience and any other audience, you ought to never have to look for but one job. and you ought to do that job so exceptionally well that the man or woman you're working for recognizes such incredible talent there that you will move right on up in the structure, or else somebody else will say, "Hey, that's the kind of person I want." What I'm really saying is that your future is primarily in your hands, and if you give it everything you got, then you have a beautiful future. Now I got to admit that maybe one of the reasons I feel as strongly about the subject of work as I do is because I'm a product of the Depression. My dad died, as I've told you earlier, during the Depression. There were 5 of us too young to work. We moved into the little town of Yazoo City, Mississippi, so that my older brothers might have a better chance to get a job. I have seen grown men, husbands and fathers, many, many times, every day they would leave home desperately looking for work, any kind of work, doing anything at any price. The only requirement, that it be an honest effort. They'd hear of jobs in other towns, and they would leave to go to those other towns. And I can well remember the parting phrase which was always there: "Be sure and write if you get work." If you get work. You see, that is so critically important. This concept of working that I'm talking about here is something we simply must to understand, and the excitement, the joy, the enthusiasm, the motivation. Listen, when somebody got a job, they were really excited about getting that job. You see, again, our job should give us more than our life, our living. It should actually give us a preparation for life. This, this story indicates exactly what I want to say. A farmer had a large number of boys. I think he probably had 7 that he was raising, and, and he worked them unusually hard as a As a matter of fact, one of the neighbors came to him and said, "John, you just don't have to work those boys that hard to raise a crop." And the farmer looked at him and said, "You don't understand." He said, "I'm not raising crops." He said, "I'm raising boys." You see, that's the message. That's what I want to communicate. As parents, as employers, as responsible people, I believe that's a message that we need to communicate over and over and over. We need to teach the responsibility of the job. The joy and the excitement about the job because, you see, there are too many people who are thinking too much along the lines of something for nothing. I love the story of the old man up in the Smoky Mountains which I read several years ago. It seems that in the upper Smoky Mountains, some hogs had gotten loose and they had bred prolifically, and because they were in the wilds, they grew progressively wilder and wilder until they became a literal menace to the population around there. and so the hunters went out to try to kill some of them and, you know, put an end to the menace. But the hogs by then were enormously smart. They weren't having any success at all. And one day an old man showed up in the village closest to where the hogs were staying. He had a little horse-drawn cart, and he had some lumber and some nails and some rope in there. And somebody asked him where he was going. He said he was going to catch those hogs, and he had a couple of sacks of grain there. They said, "Man, how are you going to catch those hogs?" They said, "The best hunters in the area have missed them." He said, "No problem, I'll bring them back." He was very confident. Well, a few weeks later, he came back down to the village and he said, "If you'll go to the bald spot on top of the mountain, you will find every one of them in a large pen up there." They said, "Man, are you serious?" He said, "I sure am." They said, "How in the world did you do it?" He said, "Well, it was pretty simple." He said, "I found a clear area and I went out into the clear area and I sprinkled some grain." around it. And he said the very next day, said the group of hogs, and the old boar, you know, was in the front of it, came sniffing around. And as soon as he sniffed that grain just laying out there, it was a little suspicious, and he backed off. But he said, you know, the temptation of something for nothing was more than he could stand. So after a few minutes, he went back at it, and he ate some of the grain. And of course, the rest of the hogs gather around, and they ate some of the grain. Well, he said, I did that for a couple of days, and then he said, I laid out a couple of pieces of lumber close by, and that made them a little jumpy and suspicious, but there seemed to be no danger, and so they went back and they ate some more of the grain. He said, a couple of days later, he said, I dug a couple of corner holes, and I put the post there, and they followed the same procedure. And he said, then I started building the boards up, and each time they'd be suspicious, but the lure of something for nothing was more than they could take. And finally the enclosure was there, the trapdoor was in place, and that final day, getting that free lunch, they gave up their freedom and their very lives for it. Folks, there ain't no free lunch. You see, man is the same way. When you give a man a dole, you deny him his dignity. The story of the old man really says exactly what I want to say over and over. If you want to create a cripple, All you've got to do is give him a pair of crutches. And if you want to create a cripple in our society, you just give to them some of the things they ought to be providing for themselves. Abraham Lincoln, and I'll paraphrase him, expressed it so well when he said, "You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong." And he says, "Government does nobody a favor when they do something for that individual which that individual should be doing for himself." for themselves. Oh, that's a message that Born to Win teaches from hello to goodbye. It's a message which I believe we got to get over and over and over because when you give somebody something for nothing, generally speaking, the benefits are nothing. How many of you remember the giant quiz shows way back in the 1960s? You remember those? How they, the $64,000 question and the $128,000 question and the quarter of a million. Oh, they got like, you remember how they'd get so excited they'd jump up and down and whoop and shout and snort and scream and holler. About winning. You remember how they used to react to winning all of that stuff. They did a study on those who had won over $75,000, and 7 years later, not a single family which had won as much as $75,000 had any more than they had had before they won the money. The state lotteries of today are classic cases. You check up on even those who get those large monthly incomes Somehow or another managed to spend even more than they've got coming in, and I've read case after case after case where families were destroyed, lifestyles were dramatically changed, and they literally ended up being far more miserable than they were before they won the money. There's just a difference, folks, in doing it for yourself. I believe that's a concept we need to be teaching over and over and over. Now the Swedish people and the Swedish government, I think, provides us with a classic example of what I'm talking about. You know, that's a utopian society if you read the press releases of just 25 years ago. You see here, when a girl becomes pregnant, then the government says, "Don't worry about it, we'll take care of all your bills." When the baby is born, whether they're married or not, they say, "Don't worry about it, we will pay everything, and if you can't earn enough money, we will guarantee you an income which will provide for you and the child." Now, if you have a— anybody, they say, if you have a doctor bill, no problem, we'll pay it. If you have a dental bill, no problem, we'll pay it. If you go to the hospital, no problem, we'll pay it. They guarantee them, they insure them, they take care of them literally from birth to death. It sounds like the utopian society on the surface, doesn't it? But let's explore the facts as they now have developed after this utopia which they described in such glowing terms. Well, there are a lot of things which you need to look at. First of all, the highest rate of illegitimate births in the country, in the world, Western world, the highest number of abortions. They have the largest number of people who are not working on a steady basis, one of the highest tax rates in the entire Western world, divorces the highest of any of them, and over and over we see disaster in that economy. A lot of people say, well, Okay, that takes care of the young folks and the middle-aged folks. Now, what about the old people where they're guaranteed something until the very day they die? Incredibly enough, the highest rate of suicide in the Western world among the elderly. Folks, there's just some things you absolutely cannot give away. There's a vast difference between building from your own, building your own security, as a result of your own effort, as versus having somebody else provide it for you. There will always, or there will be some, of course, at this point who are watching this presentation who might not be even working. They might say, well, Zig, you got me sold on working and all, but man alive, I don't even have a job. Why don't you help me get a job? Okay, tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you a sales talk. I'm going to give you the same thing we teach the youngsters in the I Can course. And we're going to look at how you get a job. Now, I want you to back up with me just a little bit before I give you the sales talk, and I want you to think with me about the concepts we've been talking about from the very beginning of Born to Win. As you recall, we talked about building your life on honesty and character and integrity and on loyalty and love and trust. That's what we've talked about as a foundation. We've told you, as you know, that not only must you have a healthy self-image, but we told you how to build it. We've told you you got to get along with people and told you how to do it. We've told you you got to have goals and then we taught you how to set them. We've told you got to have a winning attitude and then taught you how to build it. We are now talking about this thing called work. Now visualize, if you will, raising every American child on these principles I'm talking about. Now we've got a 16-year-old who goes down to get a job. Now at the present time, we know that teenage unemployment Among the whites is roughly 18%. Among our black brothers, it's roughly 40%. Yes, shame to say it, but prejudice, despite all the talk about it, still exists in our America today. One of the things we've really got to work at eliminating. Let me point this out, that these youngsters, the 16-year-old goes down now to get a job, and the employer says, what's your experience? Boss at the present time, he's got to say, "Well, I don't have any experience." Now you tell me, what are his chances of getting a job? I believe you'll agree they're slim and none. He just about is not going to be able to get that job. But suppose we've raised him on the concepts of Born to Win from the very beginning. Suppose we've taught him this in the schools. Now he goes down with this little sales talk and the boss asks what you experience. Youngster, and you can do this too if you're unemployed, you can look at that employer and say, "Well, I've had 16 years' experience at telling the truth. I've had 16 years' experience of knowing that if I'm going to get a job and keep the job, I got to get here on time and do what needs to be done and stay until the work is completed." I've had 16 years' experience of knowing that if I'm going to work for a big company or even a small company, that I'll be working with other people and I need to become a team player and get along with them. I've been learning how to do that and practicing that all of my life. I've had 16 years' experience of knowing that the only way you're going to be able to give me a job and keep me on the payroll is for you to make a profit. And, sir, I'm going to work awfully hard so you can make a profit, so I can keep my job. And sir, I believe that's the kind of experience that you need in your company. I'll only make you one promise. If you'll give me this opportunity, I'm going to work so hard and do so good that the day is going to come when you're going to point at me and say, I was the man, or I was the woman that gave that young person their first chance in life. "Sir, I can start to work either this afternoon or would Monday morning suit you better?" And I still haven't told you it was easy. Because there's not. But it's so much fun, it's so much more exciting, it's so much rewarding if you look at it in the right light. I think of a classic case of Thomas Edison. Everybody talks about the genius of Thomas Edison. Well, did you know there was one series of experiments he did, over 10,000 in his process of inventing the incandescent light? And one day a young reporter came to him and said, Mr. Edison, how does it feel to have failed 10,000 times in seeking this invention? And Thomas Edison looked at him and he said, young man, You're young and just getting started in life, so let me tell you something. I have not failed 10,000 times. He said, I have successfully found 10,000 ways which will not work. And he went on over 14,000 experiments before he finally perfected it. And let me tell you something, you know there were a lot of days when he didn't feel like going on and doing the work, but he sucked it up, he toughed it out, he literally stayed with it. You see, I'm talking about a commitment to excellence. You see, he had successfully found all of those ways because patience and persistence and perspiration ultimately will always pay off. It's a story of the little shot and the big shot. You see, the only difference between the big shot and the little shot is that the big shot is just a little shot that kept on shooting. We need to teach our kids, you see, we gotta keep on shooting and know It's not always going to be easy. I think of Demosthenes, you know, who was probably recognized as the greatest orator of all time. Well, when Demosthenes was a young man, his father died, and under Greek law in those days, before you could claim your inheritance, you had to defend it in public debate. Well, Demosthenes had a serious speech impediment, and so he was so humiliated and so embarrassed that the other man won Demosthenes' inheritance. What did Demosthenes do? Did he cry and moan and groan and say, "Poor little me"? No siree! He went to work. He went down to the seashore, put some pebbles in his mouth, and as you well know the story, day after day, month after month, year after year, he spoke with those pebbles in his mouth, overcoming even the noise of the ocean, or attempting to, as he spoke, and he became recognized by sheer persistent dogged staying with it as probably the greatest orator who ever lived. Incidentally, history does not record the name of the man who took his inheritance. Stay with it, folks, is what I'm really saying. In 1975, Deborah Sue Maffitt was crowned Miss America. Oh, wait a minute, I said she was crowned Miss America. That's not quite true. She was not crowned Miss America until 1982. Won the crown, however, in 1975, because in 1975 is when she made the decision, someday I'm going to be Miss America. She set her goals on it. She built a solid foundation. She started working on self-image. She set those goals and attitudes. She worked. She entered every contest that you could possibly imagine. She got all the experience she could. She even opened an agency to teach other girls how to win pageants because she knew the teacher would always benefit more than this student. And yes, after 7 years, she even moved to California after placing in runner-up positions in the Miss Texas pageant for 3 different occasions. She moved to California because there you only have half as many contestants who enter the contest. She knew her chances would be great, but she worked, she studied, and in 1972— or '82 rather— she became Miss America. You might say, "Yeah, but she's such a pretty girl." Listen, there are millions of pretty girls. This one worked at it. I think of Jack Nicklaus as an example. Jack Nicklaus, they say, is one of the greatest natural golfers who ever played the game, but those who know him will tell you that there's never been but maybe one other golfer, and that was Ben Hogan, who worked as hard at perfecting his game as the great Jack Nicklaus, who is undoubtedly the greatest golfer to ever play the game. And all you got to do is look at the titles he's won to verify that. I think of Jerry West, you know, one of the all-time greats in the world of basketball. Jerry was so bad as a youngster that they wouldn't even let him play on the neighborhood basketball teams. That's right. But Jerry West practiced literally thousands of hours. He would practice as it was getting darker and darker, developing that touch. He would listen, and the swish of the net would tell him whether he had made the shot or not. Pitch darkness. You see, basically, if you look at it this way, The difference between chump and champ takes place when you put a little hump in you. It's absolutely true that regardless of how many times you're down, you're not beaten. Win until you quit, if you'll always get up one more time, then you're going to make it. And, and don't ever let failure make you a coward. I think, for example, of a friend of mine and I who were involved in a business deal over in Atlanta. Well, I got out of the deal, fortunately, before the roof caved in, but he went ahead and lost many thousands of dollars. And when the dust had settled, you know, and the smoke had cleared, we were talking about it, and he said, you know, Ziggy, he said, I obviously I really hate to lose the money, but he said, I can survive that. What he said, I've got to be careful about now is that I don't let this investment make me a coward or this venture make me a coward. You see, I can handle this loss, though I don't like to. But he said, if it makes me a coward and I don't venture forth again, taking advantage of America and the free enterprise system, then he said, I will have lost infinitely more than the few dollars that I invested and lost here. The message is still the same. Stay with it, stay with it, stay with it. You see, a lot of people fail simply because they do not have that thing called persistence. And if life gets a little tough sometimes, just remember that you don't sharpen a razor by rubbing it on velvet. You sharpen the razor by rubbing it on steel, something which is hard, a harder substance. You see, success occurs when opportunity meets preparation and you stay with it and you stay with it, and if you have enough push, as the wit says, you don't really have to worry about the pull. I love what President Calvin Coolidge said many years ago when he said that nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. He says, "Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent." He says, "Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts." He says that persistence and determination and hard work make the difference. The late Charlie Cullen, who was a good friend of mine, expressed it so eloquently when he said that the opportunity for greatness does not come cascading down like a torrential Niagara Falls, but rather it comes slowly, one drop at a time. Now let me ask you a question. How many of you, by any chance, during this filming have noticed this chrome-plated pump? Pump, uh, Pierre. Well, that's an indication that you've been, uh, pretty observant while this has been going on. I've noticed that when I get aboard an aircraft with this pump, almost always I am the only passenger who has one. So apparently they must be getting, uh, kind of scarce, you know. A couple of good friends of mine, Bernard Hagood and Jimmy Glenn, from down in South Alabama, were out riding in the South Alabama foothills one day and they got lost— or not got lost, but got thirsty It was a hot August day, and as they were riding around, they passed this old abandoned farmhouse, and they decided to go behind the farmhouse to see maybe if there wasn't a pump they could get them a drink of water. Well, sure enough, they drove back and there was this pump, you know, this well. And old Bernard was the more athletic one, so he hopped out first. He ran over to the pump and he grabbed the handle and he started the pump. Now, just as a matter of curiosity, how many of you folks here in the live audience have ever used one of these? Okay, well, you'll know what I'm talking about. Well, old Bernard was just working away, you know, and after a couple of minutes he said, Jimmy, you better get that old bucket over there and dip some water out of the creek. We're going to have to prime the pump. How many of you know what I'm talking about when I say you got to prime the pump? Well, for those of you who are not pumpers, that simply means that you got to put something in here here before you can expect to get anything out here. See, there are a lot of people, according to Earl Nightingale, who stand in front of the pump of life, or the stove of life rather, and they say, 'Stove, now you give me some heat, and then I'm going to put some wood in you.' See, a lot of people come to their boss and they say, 'Boss, give me a raise, then I'll start coming to work on time.' So many times, you know, a student will go to the teacher and say, 'Teacher, now I know I've done a lousy job, uh, this semester, But if I take a failing grade home, my mama is really going to give me fits. Tell you what, give me a passing grade this time, and then next semester, I promise you, I'll be the best student you got. I'll study. Oh, I'll work. And what they're really saying is, reward me and then I'll produce. So many times the employee says, put me in charge of the department. Now, I know I haven't done too good, but you see, I have to be in charge. You put me in charge and then you just watch what I'll do. What they're saying is, reward me. Me, and then I'll produce. But it doesn't work that way. Suppose it did. Can't you just see an old farmer saying, Lord, I know it's true, I didn't plant a thing this year, but if you'll just give me a big crop, Lord, I promise next year I'll plant more than anybody else. No, it doesn't work that way. Before you can reap the rewards in life, first you got to put something in before you can expect to get something out. Well, old Bernard wanted a drink of water. I mean, in South Alabama in August, it's hot, and he was just a working away You know, and that sweat was pouring off of him just like it is me along about right now, you know. And after a few minutes, he said, "You know, Jimmy, I don't believe it's any water down there." Jimmy said, "Yes, it is, Bernard." You know, in South Alabama, the wells are deep, but we're glad they are because, you see, the deeper the well, the cooler, the cleaner, the sweeter, the purer, the better tasting the water is. And isn't that pretty much the way it is in the game of life? The things which have real value are those things we— which we must really work for. See, if you could be a medical doctor in 3 weeks or an attorney money in 6 weeks or something like that, the rewards definitely would not be there. If you could go out and shoot subpar golf the second time out, there would be no financial rewards or really any other kind of rewards attached to it. The real rewards come after persistent effort. You see, in the case of our personal relationship, the Mary, Sue, and Jane and the Tom, Dick, and Harry who are available to everybody who come down the like are not the guys, they're not the girls that we want to say, "This is the one with whom I will spend the rest of my life." Those things which have real and lasting value are those things which we really must expend a great deal of effort in order to get. Well, oh, Bernard won't drink water. I mean, it was hot, and there he was in South Alabama. But the question comes up, just how much work are you willing to do in order to get a drink of water? And finally, he just threw up his hands. He said, Jimmy, there just ain't no water down there. Jimmy said, don't stop, Bernard, don't stop. If you do, the water goes all the way back down, and then you're going to have to start all over. And isn't that pretty much the way it is in the game of life? You see, I can't look at that pump and say, yeah, just 2 more strokes is all I need. And you can't look in the head of one of your prospects and say, yeah, just 2 more sales closes, that's all I need, and then I'm going to get the sales. But I tell you what we do know, we know that if we pump long enough and hard enough and enthusiastically enough, that eventually the reward which always follows the effort will come forth. And we know that eventually The water is going to start to flow, and then all we got to do is just keep a little easy, steady effort on it, and we're going to get more water than we know what to do with. Have you ever noticed that when things are good, they get better? When they're bad, they get worse? And it has nothing whatever to do with what's going on out there. You know, the sad thing about this is that so many people in the game of life today will start on a project, you know, or they start a new business, or they'll start a new venture, and they will simply say, well, I think I'll give it a try. It works out, you know, that'd be good. If it doesn't work out, nothing really lost. I mean, you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And so I'll just kind of fiddle around with it. If it works out, that'll be fine. Well, let me tell you something, you're gonna, you're gonna have to pump about 10 years like this before you ever get anything out. When you get involved in a new project, you gotta really get after that. And then once you really get it to flowing, then just keep that little easy, steady pressure on it. You know, us folks kind of weird in a lot of ways. You know, one thing, let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. We see a bunch of parents and a bunch of business folks at a high school football game or a college game or professional game, and it's third down and 3 to go, and they make the 3 yards, and everybody jumps up and down. Look at that! I mean, they, they really go stark raving mad about them making 3 yards on a football field. And the same people think it's corny about us getting so tremendously excited about our jobs and about our lives and about our careers. Isn't that sad? You know why I like the story of the pump? I like the story of the pump because, you see, this has nothing to do with your race or creed or color. It has nothing to do with your age or education. It has nothing to do with whether you're black or white or old or young or male or female or extrovert or introvert. This has everything to do with your God-given right rights as free people to work as long as you wish, as hard as you wish, and as enthusiastically as you wish to get everything in life you really want. Yes, I do believe that life is so magnificent. I'm going to tell you one more time though, it ain't easy. Oh, but it's so much fun. It's so exciting. It's so rewarding. And all you got to do is really listen to what we've been saying here. If you will keep putting the good stuff in, in, you're going to get the good stuff out. Patience, persistence, and perspiration make a marvelous winning combination. You've been such a magnificent audience for this live filming, but as I warned you a little bit earlier, those of you who are watching the film, you've now got some hard questions in front of you that you're going to have to deal with because this is not just fun and games. This is a learning experience to remind you, you see, You see, a long time ago somebody said, "If you hear something, you'll forget it. If you see it, you'll remember it. But if you see it and you hear it and you do it, you'll understand, and hence you'll succeed." We want you to succeed. Hey, I'm glad to see you excited because by the time we get through, you're really going to be excited. You know, of all of the presentations I have done for Born to Win, this to me is the most unique, easily the most difficult of the entire series, and perhaps the most important. As we look at the steps and procedures we use in eliminating those destructive habits and building winning habits, I believe it's going to have an impact in your life and an impact in all the lives of the people who see this. Now some of you don't have bad habits, but most of us do have an occasional one that come along. I'm going to be dealing today essentially with breaking the smoking habit. Habit. But let me stress a point as we go into this. I will be giving information which is valid and usable in any habit which you wish to break. Now please understand, as I really get involved in the breaking the smoking habit, that I'm not criticizing, I am not being judgmental. I simply am saying to you that it is important that we look at it. As a matter of fact, I have two people who are enormously close to me right now whom I deeply love, who I would give anything in the world if they would put down those cigarettes and quit smoking. I know just how difficult it is. I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that I had the misfortune, the distress, the pain of watching an older brother lay flat on his back in a hospital for 3 years, fighting for every drop of air that he took into his system. He was dying. Of emphysema. At this moment, I'm watching a younger brother who has had major surgery 7 times in the last 6 years, who has had his body opened in one form or another in excess of 20 times during the same period of time. Much of his problem has been caused by the fact that he smokes cigarettes. He has desperately, he says, tried to break the habit. He is still at this moment moment sucking away at those cigarettes. What I'm saying to you is that this really is a difficult thing to break. Now, I want to stress this for one very simple reason. I believe that when you go out hunting for bear, that you better take a bear gun. I believe that when you go after big game, a destructive habit, that what you've got to do is be armed and prepared for that. And if you're in training for a lightweight and you encounter a heavyweight, you're going to be in serious trouble. I want to get you ready to win the heavyweight championship of the world. I want you to therefore be aware of how tough the opponent is so you can get tougher so you can whip it. Now let me say it again, and I'll say it 3 or 4 times in this presentation. I'll be talking about smoking, but the same principles will apply to breaking any other habit like overeating or drinking or the use of drugs or using profanity, you know, or any of the things which are destructive.
To.
Now what I'm saying to you is this, and I want you to think about this very seriously. When an individual picks one of these up and acquires the habit of smoking, the chances are 4 to 1 that they have just made a lifetime commitment. Now that's a pretty profound statement. As a matter of fact, I'll make another profound statement. When you choose the habit, you choose the end result of that habit. Of it. Now, my question I'm going to be asking you several times is, is this something you really want to make a lifetime commitment to? I cannot believe that you do want to make a lifetime commitment to something like that. And so for that reason, I'm going to be talking a great deal about cigarettes. Now, I don't know how many of you on this live audience today smoke, but let me, let me start by saying that when I was a youngster over in Yazoo City, Mississippi, and I know I sound like I'm bragging when I claim I'm from Yazoo City, but I really am. You know, a lot of people go around the country trying to impress folks with that statement, as I've said in earlier presentations, but I am. When I was a boy in Yazoo City, Mississippi, I worked in a grocery store, and we sold cigarettes. Now, we didn't sell very many packages of cigarettes because they cost 15 cents for a package, and during the Depression days, 15 cents was a pretty good bit of money. Penny, and so we sold them individually, 1 penny each. That's right. Now this morning I bought this package of cigarettes so I could use it in this presentation, and the price was $1.15. So let's look then at what's happening. Let's just take a basic assumption. If cigarettes during the next 45 years do what they have done in the last 45 years, we're going to have a pretty big bill. And I've got to assume that, yes, they are going up. Now the reason I want to discuss this is because, you see, if a 16-year-old today decides he wants to smoke cigarettes, he or she, when they are 60 years old, like maybe when they're getting ready to retire, if they have bought cigarettes and they go up at the same rate that they have in the last 45 years, which in all probability it will be more because inflation only in the last few years has really taken hold of our lifestyle in America, but if the same thing happens in 45 years, had that youngster taken that cigarette money and put it in an investment account instead of smoking a package a day, that's all I'm talking about, one package a day, then 45 years later, he would have in his savings account $533,565. So my question I'll be asking our 16-year-olds, would you rather have this going in your system or would you rather have $533,565 in your bank account? Now let me point out something. The chances of you getting a job if you smoke, and I believe 5 years from now this is going to be true, 5 years from now if you smoke, I don't believe as a person entering the job market that you're going to be able to get a job. And the reason is very simple. It costs the employer, and incidentally, I am prepared to give the sources of all of these statistics and all of this data and all of this information to anybody who views this and wants to challenge me or question or are just curious as to where it came from. Where it came from, but it costs an employer $4,611 a year on an average more to hire a youngster or a person who smokes than one who does not smoke. For example, it takes 7 times as much ventilating equipment to clean the room to acceptable breathing levels if there are smokers in it as versus nonsmokers. The average smoker misses 2 and 2/10 days every year more than a nonsmoker because of sickness. And they steal an average of 30 minutes a day to smoke those cigarettes. Now, unless they're pipe smokers, and those people steal 90 minutes every day from their employer. If you ever watched a pipe smoker, all he does is smoke his pipe. I mean, he's filling it and stuffing and he's sucking and he's lighting and he's filling and he's stuffing and he's sucking it. I mean, it goes on and on and on. It really does. Now, what that means is, if a youngster comes to our company and wants a job, We've got to figure if he's smoking that we're going to have to pay him $90 a week more than we do a nonsmoker. You see, he misses a total of 16 days a year taking time out to smoke, 2 days per seat. That's 18 days he's already gone. His insurance is going to be substantially higher. He's going to burn over $600 worth of our furniture every year and carpets and drapes and credenzas and all that kind of stuff, and it's going to cost us over $700 a year to clean up after that smoker. We are unwilling to pay a smoker $4,611 a year more than we do a nonsmoker. He simply is not going to be able to get a job. Now let me give you a figure that'll absolutely blow your mind. It blew mine last evening when Denny Rozine, who's our executive vice president, our CPA, when Denny put all of this together, I said, Denny, tell me, how much would that amount to at 10% if a youngster at age 16 got a job, worked with the same company until he quit 45 years later, how much money would that be? And he called me back in 30 minutes. He said, Zig, you just absolutely blew my mind. It's $3,314,721 more that it would cost that corporation to have hired a smoker and kept him there throughout his entire career if they had taken that same money and put it in at 10% somewhere. And in your own business, you can certainly do that kind of thing. Thing. Now, what am I saying? I'm saying to the youngsters today, if you want to get a job later on, you just don't smoke today. As a matter of fact, today, according to the Wall Street Journal, over 10% of the corporations in America have a little application or a procedure they go through. Many of the applications have it right out there. A top line says, do you smoke? And the next line says, if the answer to the above is yes, you need not bother to fill out the remaining portion of this application. Why, here in Dallas, we have the Non-Smokers Inn, and you can't even get a room there if you smoke cigarettes. Muse Airlines won't even let you fly if you smoke cigarettes. How many offices do you go in that says, "No smoking, please"? How many times you get in a car that says, "No smoking, please"? Or do you get into a home and you see signs there, "Thank you for not smoking," this sort of thing? I'll tell you, I really want to sell this idea because I believe it is so critical, it is so important. Now as we look at what I'm actually talking about, I want to really lower you. I'm going to knock you dead center with a blockbuster. You ready for this? Now when I start to make a profound statement, I always get real serious because this is real serious. According to Dr. Forrest Tennant, in my mind the number one drug authority in the country, when Elvis Presley died, when Howard Hughes died, and they performed the autopsies, they sent them to Dr. Tennant for him to analyze and see what was there. he has the largest research staff in America. He works with over 1,400 addicts in the clinics which he serves, has more data than anybody. Dr. Forrest Tunnant says that when we solve the smoking problem, we have solved, with the exception of alcohol, the drug problem. That's right. Now here's the reason he says that. There's a very significant reason. He says 95-plus percent of all of the people who smoke pot started smoking cigarettes. And then 95% of the people who smoke pot move on— I mean, 95% of the people who do heroin were smoking pot before they did the heroin and the cocaine. I did not say— and you listen real good, whether you're in this live audience or whether you're watching this film presentation— I did not say that everybody who smokes cigarettes was going to end up smoking pot and going on to heroin. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. What I did say was this: if you see a youngster smoking pot, odds are 95 out of 100 that he started by smoking cigarettes. Now that's what I did say, and there is a serious difference. Now that's pretty heavy stuff, and I'll admit that, but when you consider that last year 360,000 people died premature deaths because they smoked cigarettes, that is heavy stuff. I want to simply make one other statement along those lines, and that is that every time you light up a cigarette, you have just swapped 16 minutes of your life for smoking that cigarette. I'm going to tell you that if you're 50 years and younger and you die suddenly, the odds are over 10 to 1 that you were a smoker. You see, I'm talking about something that is very serious. So since it is so serious, let's look at why in the world do people start this stuff anyhow? Well, there are 3 basic reasons according to the authorities. Reasons why people smoke. First of all, because their parents smoke. You, you see, they are seeing an action, and they know their parents approve of it, even though the parents might say, "Don't smoke." They are given approval by smoking themselves. That's the first reason that young people smoke. The second reason is because of the peer group pressure they're under. Their buddies are smoking, and especially if the youngster has a poor self-image, this is going to be true. And the third reason that they smoke is because of advertising. Now, they're— whatever the reason that you got started, and you remember how you started smoking, if any of you in this audience smoke, you remember how you got started, how you took that first cigarette. You know, and this always amuses me to watch beginning smokers, how they'll always take the cigarettes, you know, to flip the ashes off, and they try to be so casual about it, you know, and you'll see them doing this kind of stuff, you know, You know, and they'll take that— you can tell I haven't been handling very many of them. They'll take that drag off of the cigarettes, you know, and isn't it interesting to watch how they do it, you know? How when they first get started, the first thing you've got to do is learn how to blow a smoke ring, and how they watch that smoke ring go up, and then when they can blow a smoke ring through a smoke ring! Ah, man, that's a gala occasion, isn't it? And then, have you ever noticed how when they first learn learn how to inhale, what a big boy or what a big girl they are to inhale and be so casually talking, you know. I mean, just talking away as if nothing was going on. Oh, are they ever proud of themselves! And their friends, of course, say to them, "Hey now, you ought not to do that, uh, you know. You're going to get up the habit." "Oh no, not me. I can quit anytime I want to, you know, no problem at all." And then a little bit later on, you know, actually, when the body— when they first smoked, the body rebelled, actually rebelled, because it tries to protect us, you know. The body said, "No, no, don't do me "Go away!" And the smoker said, "Yes, I am too. I'm in charge, and you're going to smoke!" The body said, "Please don't!" "Oh, yes, I am! I'm going to make you smoke!" And a little bit later, the body adjusts, you know, and said, "Well, daggone it, it's not really that bad." And you said, "That's right, it's not bad at all." And then a little bit later on, you know, the body begins to become addicted and says, "Actually, you know, it's kind of nice. I don't mind it at all." And a little bit later on, the body says, "Hey, I actually enjoy it." And then a little bit later, the body said, "Man, I got to have it. I got to have it." Have you ever watched anybody out of cigarettes, man. I have seen a 200-pound man, a tough guy, become a quivering mess because he doesn't have one of these little dudes to suck on. Yeah, they've made a lifetime commitment. But let me make a point very clear: you choose to smoke. You chose to smoke if you are a smoker. And the beautiful thing is you can choose choose to quit. Now, it's going to be a lot harder to quit than it was to get started, but you can absolutely choose to quit. For example, for over 24 years of my lifetime, I chose to weigh over 200 pounds.
That's right.
For 24 years of my adult life, I chose to weigh over 200 pounds. And I say I chose to weigh that because, you see, I have never accidentally taken a single bite of food in my life. Every bite I've ever taken has been carefully and deliberately, with malicious forethought, planned. Listen, I look at my watch and I set aside a period of time at least 3 times every day, sometimes 4 or 5 and even 6 times a day, uh, you know, to feed my face. I chose to weigh over 200 pounds. Now, a little over 10 years ago, I chose not to weigh that anymore. I chose to have the proper way. You can choose actually what you want to do with your life. You can choose to build good habits. Now, winners acquire basically winning habits. Losers basically acquire losers' habits. Now, I'll say it one more time. When you choose the habit, you choose the end result of that habit. Actually, smiling is a habit. So is frowning. Feeling good is a habit. So is feeling bad. You know, some people just feel bad all the time. It gets to be a habit. Being positive is a habit. Being negative is a habit. Getting up, grouchy. You ever notice how some people say, well, I'm not fitting to live with till after 10 o'clock, or after I've had that second cup of coffee? Being grouchy is a habit. I mean, they wear it like a badge of courage. Hey, that's the way I am now. What about that? Kind of, you know, kind of a thing. There's so many habits that we acquire. Obesity is caused by a habit. Being considerate is a habit, and so is being rude a habit. Being early is a habit. Being late also is a habit. Being neat is a habit, and so is being sloppy and messy is a habit. There are so many things. Stealing is a habit, and so is being honest a habit. Now, across the board, I want to make one basic statement, that is, that good habits are hard to acquire but easy to live with. Bad habits basically are pretty easy to acquire, but they're very difficult result to live with. And you'll discover this, that your destructive habits, without exception, always start slowly, gradually, and before you know you've got the habit, the habit has got you. On the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, even as I speak, there lies rotting a giant sequoia. When Christ walked the earth, Earth nearly 2,000 years ago, it was a strong young sapling growing. When Columbus discovered America, it had reached its full maturity. As we came into the, this part of the 20th century, until the 1960s, it was a magnificent giant. I mean, towering way up into the heavens, people could see it for miles around. But then just a few years ago, a tiny little beetle burrowed its way under the bark and laid some eggs. And it looked like such an uneven match, a minute beetle and this monster of the forest, this magnificent forest giant. But those eggs hatched into literally millions of other little beetles, and those produced tens of millions of others, and the magnificent forest giant literally had its heart eaten away. The winds came and the lightning flashed, and in its weakened condition, down it came. The strongest man or the strongest woman, by the same token, will fall victim over a period of time to these incredibly destructive habits, and we need to eliminate those habits if we're going to achieve the greatness which we're capable of. We are born to win, but if we acquire those losing habits, then we actually are going not to be winners. Now, how do you acquire the winning habits? How do you get rid of the losing habits? Well, you need to be careful about the people you associate with, and I want to stress a couple of things here. Now, some of them you can't help it, but Parade magazine several years ago said that if both parents of a child are obese, the chances are 85% that the child is going to be obese. Is it because they inherited it? No, it's because they observe the habits, the eating habits of their parents, and they picked up some of those habits. You become part of what you're around. Remember in an earlier presentation in Born to Win, I used the example of how you can take a Southern boy or girl and send them up North, and in a matter of time, they'll pick up an accent? And how, by the same token, you could take a Northern boy or girl and send them down South, and pretty soon, we'd have them talking normally? You remember? You remember that? You know, you pick up the habits of those people that you're around. Now, a lot of times, you know, even today we watch beer and wine being advertised on television, and there are those who say, "Well, you know, that's good. That teaches the kids how to drink, how to handle it properly." Well, does it really? Let me give you some facts. You know, one of the things that people criticize me about sometimes is I have the irritating habit of using facts when I make a presentation. But in France and Italy and Chile, Italy, you have the high— the 3 highest rates of alcoholism in the world. You have the 3 highest rates of cirrhosis of liver in the world in France, Italy, and Chile. And would you believe, by coincidence, they have the 3 highest rates of wine consumption in the world? You see, when you start slowly, and that's what that really does, starting young, then you end up on a destructive path. You are affected, what I'm saying, by what goes into your system. You're affected by those people who are around you. I never will forget, when I talk about gradual habits and, and how we differentiate between what is good and what is bad, many years ago when my mother was alive, one of the wisest women, the wisest woman I've ever known, she only finished the 5th grade, but she had great wisdom. We were in Columbia, South Carolina, on the way to Charleston. and, uh, we— I just got my first air-conditioned car, so you know this is a few years ago. And we're riding down the highway about 65 miles an hour. 70 was the speed limit in those days, I hasten to add. And as we were driving along, windows rolled up rather obviously, my mother and I were talking, and I just kind of casually asked her about a certain fellow back home who had done well, you know, for himself financially. He was active locally, politically, and my mother whispered to me. I mean, she literally leaned over to whisper as if somebody was going to hear it. She said, "Oh, son, he is the worst kind of a drinker." And I kind of facetiously said, "Well, Mom, what in the world is the worst kind of a drinker?" She said, "Oh, he'll buy a bottle, just a small one, and he'll take it home and he'll close the doors, and in the privacy and quietness of his own home, He will have one drink. And I said, "Mom, that's the worst kind of a drinker." She said, "Oh yes." And I said, "Well, Mom, why in the world would you say that?" And she said, "Well, son, I say that because, you see, he never denies his family anything. He's not a drunkard. He doesn't abuse his wife. He doesn't beat his children. He's a good provider. He's honest and he's steady and he's his stable, and there he is taking that one drink. Now you see, son, he's setting an example to his children which says everything is okay. Now son, maybe this man can handle it, but there are a lot of people who can't. And if he set that kind of an example, his children might well become alcoholics. Let me say it again. Your destructive habits begin slowly. They begin gradually. When I started my research into what I'm doing, something like 15 years ago, 1 person in 14 who took an occasional drink would end up being a serious drinker with a drinking problem. Today, thanks to public acceptance, thanks to the younger age, thanks to television advertising, thanks to the fact that a lot of ex-athletes, you know, are lauding the merits of the beer and wine, today 1 person in 9 9 who takes an occasional social drink will end up with a serious drinking problem. That's the way habits do, you see. An obese person— I've never seen an overweight person who was the normal weight one day and 212 pounds overweight the next. You don't even pick up 50 pounds on a long weekend. What you do is you pick it up a bite here and a bite there and a bite somewhere else. Now let's go back to the smoking since that's mainly what we're going to be talking about today on these habits. but in looking at smoking, you see, I have 3 objectives. Now, if you don't smoke, I want to sell you on the idea of never smoking. I hope a lot of 5th graders and 4th graders have a chance to see this. And second, if you want to, or if you are a smoker and you want to break the habit, I honestly believe this is going to be very helpful to that. And number 3rd, to demonstrate that you break most destructive habits in exactly the same way. Now, I want to give I want to give you one word of warning. A lot of the companies that advertise that stop smoking simply and slowly or fast and easily and painlessly, well, I'm going to tell you in advance, this is not going to be simple and it's not going to be easy. It's going to be tough. It's going to be very tough, but at the same time, I'm going to look you dead center and say to you that if you apply all the principles that we've been studying about in Born to Win and if you will follow these specific instructions, I'm totally 100% convinced I'm convinced that yes, you, if you are a smoker, can quit smoking. Now I want to make one point very clear. If you have a really serious problem, by that I mean if you have a serious drinking problem, or if you're on hard drugs, or if you smoke pot over 3 times every day, your very life is in danger, and I encourage you to get professional help beyond what we're talking about. In short, I simply am not qualified to give to you everything that you need. You need this, and you also need a lot of additional help, and I would encourage you to do exactly that. Now let's look at some basic facts. If you want to break a destructive habit, first of all, you got to decide you want to do it, pure and simple. You've got to decide, yes indeed, I have made up my mind, it is my goal, this is exactly what I want to do. There is such a difference when you literally make make that commitment. That's the first thing. Now the second thing you need to do is you need to go see the result of destructive habits. You need to take a little tour, even though you think you know about them. This is called fear motivation, and it's a temporary thing, but it works if it will get you started, and that's what we're talking about right now, getting started. You go down to Skid Row and you see what some of the alcoholics really look like, but don't misunderstand, only 3% of the alcoholics are on Skid Row. 97% come from working middle-class America. But you need to go to Skid Row. You need to go to a hospital and visit somebody who literally is laying there dying of emphysema. Oh, I know that sounds morbid. I know it sounds cruel, but I'm talking about something involving life right here, and that's the reason I say it's important. You need to go to a mental institute and you— institution, and you need to see some youngsters who no longer are functional, who do not have their minds anymore because they got involved in drugs. Oh, I— it'll be the saddest trip you'll ever take, but it might be the most important trip you'll ever take. You see, folks, when you choose the habit, ultimately you choose the end result of that habit. And that's the reason I keep using those words over and over and over. And then you need to go to a prison. I've been in a number of prisons. Prisons, and you need to see and talk to the men and the women who are behind those bars and learn what a life of crime really leads to. You see, most crime started with somebody doing a simple little act of picking up a magazine at a newsstand and walking out with it, or snitching a package of cigarettes, or slipping something, a bottle of perfume, in their purse when nobody was looking at the counter. And then it moved on to the hardest stuff. They ways start, or 98% of the times they start slowly. Go to the Heart Association, get one of their films, and see for yourself graphically what smoking does over a period of time. Now, what you need to do is reinforce the decision you have made by talking with the people who broke those destructive habits. Now go to the winners. You've seen the losers. Now go to the winners and talk to the person who lost 50 pounds or who lost 150 pounds. Talk to the ex-smoker and let them tell you how much better food tastes, how much more exciting it is not to be a slave to a habit. Talk to the arrested alcoholic who now holds a job and has the self-respect of his family. Talk to the winners is what I am saying here. You need to also, as you do these things, and those of you who, of course, who are involved in Born to Win, and if you're watching this, chances are you're doing it, you need to get your goal planner out. This is an absolute must. You need to work with it on an everyday basis because habits, you see, are everyday things. You need to take all of the steps that we are going to be talking about right here. Now, just for a moment, let's go back and assume that the habit itself is smoking and your goal is to stop. The question is, why do you smoke? My good friend Dr. Ken Cooper— and the reason we answer this question of about why you smoke is very simple. You see, different people smoke for different reasons, and if one of the reasons that you smoke is one thing, it's easier to quit. But if you know why you smoke, that makes it always easier to quit. For example, 10% of the people smoke today because they feel that it helps energize them. It gives them that little pickup, you know. They've just done something tiring or straining or teaching, Phil, you know, and they feel like they need a little lift, and so they take that jolt from the nicotine. Nicotine. 10% do that. But now let me point something out. Dr. Tennant says that if a 10-year-old takes a drag off of a cigarette, he's actually ODing. The nicotine is that powerful to a 10-year-old's system. To show you how powerful nicotine is, did you know that if you were to take all of the nicotine from 3 packs of cigarettes and concentrate it and put it in your system at the same time, that you would probably die? Die almost instantly. Now, we can't prove that specifically because they— nobody's volunteered for the experiment, but you know, based on what they've seen on other things, they have reasons to believe that's true. Now, 10% of the people smoke because they enjoy handling or manipulating the cigarette. They got to have something in their hand, you know. I often have people talk to me as a speaker, they say, when you're speaking, what do you do with your hands? I've had young people say to me, when you're on a date, what do you do with your hands, or when you stand up and run, what do you do with your hands? And there are a lot of people, you know, who smoke because— or 10% of them smoke because they enjoy manipulating the cigarette. Now, 15% find pleasurable relaxation in smoking. Now, if one of those three reasons are why you smoke, that constitutes 35%. You can quit pretty easily. It's not going to be nearly as difficult for you to quit if those are your reasons for smoking. One out of three— in other words, a little over one out of three can quit fairly easily. 2 out of 3, though, smoke for other reasons. So look at those. The fourth reason people smoke— 30%, as a matter of fact, use cigarettes as a crutch to relax their tension or to reduce their tension. 25% are psych— are psychologically addicted, and 10%, the pure habit of smoking. Don't get any enjoyment out of it. And I've talked to a lot of people that say, well, I don't know why I smoke. I hate the things. I don't get any enjoyment out of of it, but it simply is a pure habit that they have acquired. Now, if you decide you want to quit, let's look at it this way. Number 1, and now we go into the long series of steps. Number 1, the first method I'm going to talk about is cold turkey. That's exactly what the name implies. In other words, what this says is you just quit, period. All right, but there are some steps that must take place before you even make that decision. Although I've had a lot of people who tell me, yeah, one day, you know, I just picked I picked up a cigarette and looked at it, decided I wasn't going to smoke anymore, threw my cigarettes away, and I've never lighted up since. Occasionally that does happen. If that has happened in your case, chances are you were smoking for one of those first 3 reasons. So let's look then at cold turkey. First of all, decide that it is your goal. Second, you need to make the commitment, and that's the most important thing. Make the commitment Many years ago, they were organizing an international expedition to climb the north wall of the Matterhorn, something which had never been done before, and the news media was there as always, and they asked this young fella, "Do you think you will be able to climb the north wall of the Matterhorn?" And he said, "I'm going to give it everything I got!" They asked another guy, "Do you think you can climb the north wall of the Matterhorn?" He said, "I'll give it a jolly good effort!" They asked the third one, "Do you think you can climb the north wall of the Matterhorn?" He said, "I'm going to give it everything I got! I'll die trying! I will!" And they ask a young American, "Are you going to climb the north wall of the Matterhorn?" He said, "I will climb the north wall of the Matterhorn." One man did. It was a man who said he did, he would. The people who will quit smoking are those people who say, "I will do it." It is your decision. You have made that commitment. Now, the third step that you need to do is you need to get out your goal planner and you need to write down the exact date that you are going to start to stop smoking. On. Now, it might be tomorrow, it might be a week. It should never be more than a month, but it should be a very special date. If, if it's possible, if you have a birthday coming up or an anniversary or Fourth of July or Christmas or Thanksgiving or New Year's or Easter's or your wife's birthday, whatever, an occasion which you can, uh, absolutely zero in on, but it should never be more than a month solved. And you get your goal planner out, and on your date, you simply write— let's say that it's August the 22nd, whatever the date is— and you write the big magic word, freedom date. That's the day that you're going to be free. Then what you need to do is take the next step, and that is to list the obstacles which you've got to overcome. You see, something stands between you— and I'm working right out of the goal planner now— or there's something standing between you and stopping smoking. So what are the obstacles? You— would you believe the biggest one is You know what the biggest fear that most people tell me the reason they don't quit smoking? Anybody want to guess in this audience? What is it? Gaining of weight. Absolutely. You see, you can be conditioned to believe some of the most absurd and idiotic things imaginable. The truth of the matter— would you folks be interested in the truth on whether you gain weight or not? How many of you would like to hear the truth? Okay. To begin with— hey, you answered that one right. You're doing good. Okay. To begin with, One-third of the people who quit smoking lose weight. Fact. One-third of the people stay exactly the same, and one-third of the people gain weight. Now that means that two-thirds either lose weight or don't gain any weight at all. But here's an interesting fact. Dr. Ken Cooper told me that one package of cigarettes a day will do your body more damage than carrying an extra 100 100 pounds of weight. So you see the choice. Let's eliminate that fear. You know what fear is? We discussed it in an earlier segment of Born to Win. Fear is spelled F-E-A-R, and it's false evidence appearing real. Well, that's an obstacle we've got to overcome. You need to look basically at all of the obstacles. You might be associating with some, uh, friends and relatives. You know, all of them are smoking. Smokers, and you have a tendency to smoke. You might be in the habit, when you're having that extra cup of coffee, of smoking an extra cigarette. If you stop by the bar and have a drink, drinking and smoking go hand in hand. You need to look at all of those obstacles. Then you need to look at your goal plan and find out what is it that you need to know in order to quit smoking? What are the— what skill or knowledge is required? Well, first of all, we need to look at what smoking does to you. Point of view. We've already looked at the financial involvement in smoking from the corporate point of view and the personal point of view. It is expensive for you to smoke. First of all, what does it do to you financially? Second is social cost. For example, we have some close friends, people who are very dear to us, that we don't visit. You know why we don't visit? Because husband, wife, daughter, son, and, uh, and son-in-law all smoke. And when you go in the house, it absolutely is stifling, and we simply cannot stand all of that smoke. Socially, it is expensive. The job cost is enormous. Self-respect is another cost. Now, individuals or companies, what is one of the things— where do you get this information from, the individuals or companies? Well, first of all, the Heart Association will give you all the information you as far as smoking is concerned. Your family and your friends and your associates, you're going to need to work with them if you're going to quit smoking. But there's one special person, and that's a fellow quitter. You need to find somebody else who says, I'm a winner, I want to quit smoking too. And you need to work with this individual. Now, you need to look at also, why do you want to quit? What's in it for me? There are 10 specific benefits for those who quit smoking. Number 1, Number 1, you're going to live 5 to 10 years longer. Fact. That's a long time, folks. That's a lot of life, and it includes a lot of living. Number 2, it'll save you lots of money, as we've already talked about. Number 3, you'll have more energy. Your, your health will be so much greater. Number 4, you will enjoy the taste of food a great deal more. People who used to smoke and then quit smoking smoking tell me that it's a whole different ball game. Foods that they no longer had been eating and enjoying earlier, they now really enjoy it a lot more. You're going to set a much better example. You'll be a role model, not only for your children, but for other people as well. The people you work with and around, when they see that you're no longer smoking, they'll say, "Hey, if she can, I can. If he can, I can." Number 6, you're going to have much better social acceptance. Acceptance. Let's face it, there are a lot of companies, there are a lot of people, there are a lot of homes, a lot of offices where you simply are not welcome if you walk in there smoking. That includes, uh, ours. Now, it's not that you're not welcome, we just have a little sign up there that says, "Thank you for not smoking." And if you ask if it's all right for you to smoke, I'm going to very pleasantly smile, I'm going to say, "No, that's the reason we have the sign there asking you I'm going to be as gracious as I know how to be. I'm going to be pleasant, highly motivated, very courteous, even enthusiastic, but the answer is still no. I do not want you smoking in my house or in my car or in my office. As a matter of fact, if you smoke, you're not going to work for us, that's for sure. And why do we go to such an extent? Because simply we have an obligation to the other people who are there. You see, the nonsmoker in a smoking environment receives the same damage from other people's smoke as he would have received, uh, from smoking 11 cigarettes every day himself. We're responsible to those people, not just to the casual visitor who drops in, not to that one individual who wants to smoke. The seventh thing is that it improves your confidence. It builds your self-image. When you get rid of one habit, it, then you, you know, say, "Hey, I did it. I can do something else." The next thing is the fact that it improves your job security. You see, your boss knows you're going to be there more often. You're not going to have those 30 minutes every day that's going to be gone. Listen, that is an ultra, ultra-conservative estimate. Most smokers will tell you the truth is more like an hour instead of 30 minutes. You'll be more productive in your job, and the 10th thing, you'll have more time for others. Other activities. So what's your plan of action? Now you've decided you're going to make the step. You've drawn out the benefits. You know why you want to quit. So what are the steps that you take? Well, first of all, you need to tell everybody, "I'm going to quit smoking. As a matter of fact, next Thursday morning I smoked my— I will smoke my last cigarette." You need to get them involved. People, by and large, will wish you well and give you encouragement. The second step you need you need to never buy more than one pack at a time, and you need to change the brand instantly when you decide that you are going to quit. Number 3, you need to recruit one or more buddies that you contact every single day. You see, there's something about at the end of the day having a buddy who has made the same commitment, not to please you, but who's been saying, "Hey, I'm going to quit." All they were looking for was an excuse, and so you decide together, "Hey, we are going to quit smoking." smoking, and then every night you call your buddy and say, "Hey, how'd you do today? Were you smoke-free? Are you staying healthy, man?" And when you know that you're going to be talking to your buddy and he's going to be asking you, "Did you smoke today?" Your tendency to leave that cigarette alone is much, much greater. And during the day or during the evening, if you have that uncontrollable urge, do like they do in AA A, do like they do in other organizations, get on the telephone, call your buddy at midnight and say, "Man, talk to me. I've got to not smoke." Now you might think that's very serious, you know, a very drastic step to take. Would you believe that living another 5 or 10 years is pretty serious too? Would you believe all the other things also are very serious? Number 4, you need to read a book. It's entitled Subliminal Seduction. So that you can understand exactly what the advertising industry is doing to you in their cigarette ads, which you see in all the magazines and all the billboards and everywhere else. You need to understand it so you can be prepared and fight it. You need to have that freedom date so clearly in your mind, that's the day, never again am I going to smoke, it should be plastered everywhere. And then number 6, you should avoid the people, the places, places where smoking is so common. You need to change your patterns in the process. For example, if you enjoy smoking after a meal, instead of sitting there, you instantly get up, you go brush your teeth, you take a walk, you do whatever is necessary, uh, to, you know, to do to get away from the environment that is conducive to smoking. And number 7, you need to remember that the urge to smoke only last, from 60 to 180 seconds. That's when it's most intense. And what you need to do during that 60 to 180 seconds, you need to stand up, take a real deep breath of air, and say, "I can do anything 60 seconds. I can even hold my breath. And if I can hold it 60 seconds, then I can take another breath and hold it another 60 seconds." You need to take a lot of drinks of water, And in the process of taking a lot of those drinks of water, you're flushing the nicotine out of your system much more quickly, and the average American only drinks 1/4 as much water as he ought to drink anyhow, and so you've now got an added health benefit. And if it still gets to you, get on that telephone to your buddy or to somebody else. Get physically busy. Put your mind somewhere else, and that's the way that you can help break the habit. It. You need to get involved in a daily exercise program. That's step number 8 if you're going to break this habit. You see, it's ridiculous to exercise for your health and then smoke to destroy it. You need to pick up a book, and the, the book I highly recommend because it involves something else along the way is Dr. Ken Cooper's book, The Aerobics Program for Total Well-Being. Not only does this involve, you see, exercise, but he also gets into diet and nutrition, and they are equally important subjects. And when you get involved in an exercise program, for example, if you're running or playing tennis or jogging or bouncing up and down on one of the rebounders or swimming or playing racquetball or fast walking, what you do is very simple. You activate— and I talked about this in the goal segment, uh, you know, the last segment that you finished. I talked about the fact that in running eating or exercising, you activate the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland floods the system with endorphins. Endorphins are 200 times more powerful than morphine. And when you exercise, you literally flood the system with those endorphins, and they are the natural chemicals. And those are the chemicals that will be replacing the chemicals which are there in cigarettes. Incidentally, one of the things that puzzles and frightens me, even disgusts me is that we now know there are over 400 unidentified chemicals in this cigarette, and nobody is doing anything at all about it. We don't know all of the things that is happening to our body because of those 400-plus identified chemicals or unidentified chemicals in there, put there to keep you hooked primarily on tobacco and to increase the enjoyment of the taste of that tobacco. And those endorphins have a very profound effect on that. Now, you might say, well, Zig, suppose I do all of those things. Suppose after I followed all of those procedures, I still fail, and I pick up that one more cigarette, and I smoke it again. Well, let me say, according to an article I read 2 years ago in Psychology Today, which was well documented, most people who ultimately quit had to try it 2 or 3 or 4 times. So don't be discouraged, because you didn't fail. What you did succeed in doing was you succeeded in being tobacco-free for an hour, a day, a week, a month, whatever it is. You did not fail. You did succeed. I'm going to suggest that if you fail once on the cold turkey method, give it one more honest shot, cold turkey. Try it that way. We need to find out for sure that you are unable to quit on a cold turkey method. But you remember I told you that it was a tough thing to do. I've been working in the drug war for about 12 years. I've been into literally dozens of the centers and hospitals and talked to hundreds of thousands, literally, of addicts. I almost never see a former addict who's not still smoking. Smoking. That's right. They got off a lot of the hard stuff. They got off of the tough things. They quit drinking, but they're still smoking those cigarettes. I'm just saying again, you got a tough opponent, but I'm going to tell you again and again and yet again, you deserve to be chemical free. Go back to the self-image segment of Born to Win. Look at all of the marvelous qualities you have. Look at the foundation of your life. Life. Look at the attitudes, which we get into so strongly into the next segment of Born to Win. Look at all the things you've done and all the reasons you have to be proud of yourself and what you've been able to do and how much further you can go in your life. We're going to whip the smoking bit, I can absolutely guarantee you. But if you were unable to do it on a cold turkey, let's look at the next method. This is the one, uh, that you really are going to get excited because we are going to be able to work it out. As I mentioned a moment ago, in Psychology Today they said that sometimes it takes 2 or 3 times. This is the 3rd time. And how many of you have ever heard it said, "The 3rd time is a charm"? Can I see your hands? Okay. So if you've tried it cold turkey twice and haven't made it, 3rd time is going to be the charm. First of all, we're going to repeat some of the things. Number 1, your plan of action is going to be different and you need to get a buddy to quit at the same time. Number 2, if you're a social drinker or a coffee drinker, this is going to shock you, quit drinking even coffee. Now why would I suggest that? Because 2 things. First of all, if you can quit drinking coffee, and you can, it's much easier than to quit smoking. Then you've got a victory behind you. Number 2, when you drink coffee, you generally often are smoking a cigarette. You eliminate the association. Is what I'm saying there. Now, drinking is a total no-no for one very simple reason. Even a sip of beer will relax your willpower, and it will remove those restraints and inhibitions. The most dangerous thing you can do is go in the bar if you're trying to break the smoking habit. And then number 3, you need to prepare an emergency pack for future use. Now, what I call an emergency pack You need to buy a package of cigarettes, your least favorite brand, and you need to unpack those cigarettes, unwrap them, and put them in some— put them like this. And then when you've gotten them unwrapped, you need to lay them up on the mantle or the top of the refrigerator where there might be a lot of grease and dust and dirt and so forth, and just put them up there for future reference. Conference. That's what you're going to have them for in case of an emergency later on. That is the emergency package of cigarettes right there. Number 4, you need to take careful inventory of just how many times a day you do smoke. You need to know whether you're smoking 20 times a day, 30 times a day, 15 times a day. And at the same time, you set that date again. Then step number 5, you need to switch to lower tar or nicotine brand. You know what, it's got lower tar or lower nicotine or both, or you need just simply to switch. Now what you're going to do, you get ready to hate me and hate you and hate everybody else because of the things I'm now going to suggest, because I'll guarantee you this is going to be a little distasteful. We're going to get into some aversion therapy now, and the reason I suggest it is this: absolutely it's going to work. Oh, you'll be mad at first, but I guarantee you, you're going to like it a little later on. On. First of all, on the first day, you reduce the number of cigarettes by 1. Now you set your date by choosing— you see, if you're smoking 25 cigarettes a day, 23 days away— I'm sorry, 24 days away, you will no longer be a smoker. Then you smoke 1 cigarette less per day, and the way you do that is you have those cigarettes wrapped in aluminum foil. Aluminum foil. Take them out of the pack, wrap them. Now this is not your emergency pack. This is another pack. You wrap them in this aluminum foil so that every time you smoke a cigarette, you've got to make a deliberate effort to do so. And on this sheet of paper in the aluminum foil, you write the word 16 minutes. Because you see, when you take the cigarette out, that reminds you that you have chosen to die 16 minutes earlier. Or to put it in a more positive frame, if you then elect to wrap the cigarette back up, you have now chosen to live 16 minutes longer. And when your friends and relatives see you unrolling all that aluminum foil every time you want a cigarette, they're going to know something is up. More importantly, you will never, you will never just inadvertently reach in and light a cigarette and then put it down and reach in and light another This is a deliberate move, and you smoke one less cigarette per day. After brushing your teeth, and this is the one where you really got to get your mate's cooperation, at night after you brush your teeth, you get on the side of the bed, you take out one cigarette, you smoke it just as fast and just as furiously as you possibly can. Now what that does, and the reason I insist or encourage you by all means to sit down, down, when all of that nicotine hits your system, you might well have a tendency to grow a little faint and fall. You want to smoke that cigarette fast and furiously, and then you want to lay down. You want to have the last thing in your mind as you lay down that night just how objectionable, just how disgusting, just how distasteful that cigarette is. And then when you wake up the next morning, you start the day the same way. You wake up, sit on the side of the bed, when your mouth already tastes like the city dump, and you, you know, and you put that cigarette, and again, you smoke it as fast and furiously as you possibly can. Step number 9 is after every meal, you want to stay seated, grab the cigarette, and smoke it as fast and furiously as you possibly can. You want to do that for one very simple reason: you're beginning to associate smoking and thinking of smoking smoking as being very disagreeable, very painful, very distasteful, not at all enjoyable as the other was. It is aversion therapy. Number 11, you need to drink a whole lot more water. We talked about that in the cold turkey method. Number 12, you need to start that exercise program. You see, the truth of the matter is you don't break habits, you exchange them. And as you get rid of the smoking habit, what you're doing is you are acquiring— you are swapping it for a much healthier habit. And then you need to do this until the last day. One less per day as you're breaking the habit. Then on the last day, you smoke that first cigarette in the morning, start the day with a disagreeable taste, and that evening, the last cigarette you smoke is that one right there. And you will go to bed, and that last thought in your mind will be just how disgusting smoking really is. And your mate's going to love you just an awful lot more if you happen to be married, as you go through and you make that last cigarette there. Then the number 14 step is on freedom day, when you wake up, you simply say, "I choose today." Make it one day at a time. "I choose today to be nicotine-free. I choose today not to smoke." And when the urge hits you, and it will, you need to remember to take those deep breaths of air, You need to remember it's only going to last less than 3 minutes. You need to take a lot of water. You need to call your buddy. You need to stay involved in motivation all the way. You need to be listening to these Born to Win recordings, and you especially need to get a copy of this tape so that you keep the method and the procedure in your mind over and over and over. Now let me simply also stress, you often acquire losing habits by associating with losers. You need to begin to associate with nonsmokers. You need to, number 16, review the benefits and keep them handy. What are the benefits? Again, you live 5 to 10 years longer. You save lots of money. You have more energy. You enjoy the food more. You set a better example. You're a better role model. You have better social acceptance. You increase confidence and you improve your self-image. You improve your job security. You are more productive and you have more time for other activities. And then, if all of that fails, you need to listen to my good friend, Bill Smelzer, medical doctor. He says, "If you still have that urge to smoke, what you need to do is put in your purse or in your pocket a copy of the New Testament, and you need to reach into your pocket when you have the urge to smoke where normally cigarettes would be, You reach in and you pick out your little Bible and you offer a little prayer, "Lord, help me." Then you need to open the Bible and turn to John 15:5, 6, and 7, or you need to read Philippians 4:13, and God's life-saving word replaces man's self-destroying weed. And if you still have that emergency, if you still have a completely broken habit, and you should have, have. But there's one final thing which absolutely will work. You go back to your emergency package of cigarettes. You make an unbreakable commitment to yourself that you will under no circumstances fall victim— you won't smoke any other cigarette except the one that was in the emergency pack, the one that's laying up on top of the refrigerator collecting the dirt and the grease and all that kind of good stuff. And you go get that cigarette. You just got to have one. And you get the cigarette and you go sit down. Now you smoke it as fast and furiously as you possibly can. Fill your lungs absolutely full of the most disgusting, distressing, meanest, nastiest, ugliest, filthiest taste you've ever had in your life. Friends, I believe you will quit smoking then and there forever. Now folks, we've been talking about a negative habit. Let me simply concentrate, or let me simply sum all of this up by to be positive about all of this, I want to again encourage you to talk to the formerly obese people, for example, who've done something about it. Remember the story of Tom Hartman? Remember what he's done with his life? Remember the story of Pam Lattis, what she's done with her life since she lost the 60 pounds extra that she was carrying? You remember those people? You talk to the, uh, the former alcoholic. You talk to the arrested drug addict. You talk to the people who were the— who are the ex-smokers. Talk to the winners. You go back to the goals and self-image segment, you see what it is to get rid of all of that excess baggage. You see, you were literally born to win, but in order to win, you've got to eliminate those destructive habits. You've got to build the winning habits. In Born to Win, you've heard me say it many, many times: you don't pay the price, you enjoy the benefits. And I can tell you the benefits of all of these things The benefits of these things that we're talking about are enormous. You enjoy the benefits of being productive, the benefits of being optimistic, the benefits of being positive, the benefits of being happy, the benefits of the habit of enthusiasm. You see, winning is a habit, and you're in a Born to Win seminar for a reason. You're a winner, and you're going to be a bigger winner. And so you buy these ideas, follow through, and I'll close as I always do by saying, if you do, I'll see you you at the top. Hello, I'm Zig Ziglar, and I'm really excited that we're able to spend this time together. In a few minutes, this empty studio will be filled with hundreds of people who, just like you, believe that to get ahead in life, you got to have goals. During this program, we'll look at why goals are important, how to set them, and how to achieve them. The hour you spend with this tape may be the most important time you'll ever spend in your life. Now join me and our studio audience as we take those first steps towards a happier and more productive life. Do this, and I'll see you at the top. Wow, what enthusiasm! My goodness alive! Read something the other day you're going to be enormously intrigued with. Read where every third person was either remarkably handsome or amazingly beautiful. Now, what I'd like to get you to do is look directly at the person on your left. No, left. Now look directly at the person on your right. And if it ain't either one of them, well, that ought to get— that ought to get us off to a good start here. Just as a matter of curiosity, how many of you have ever either heard me speak before or else this is your first time? Can I see your hands? Okay. Hey, we're with it here tonight. That's great. The name Howard Howard Hill will probably ring a bell in the minds of some of you, but not all of you. Howard Hill was a good Alabama boy. He was an archer. Many people said he was the greatest of all time. He entered 287 archery tournaments. He placed first 287 times. As a youngster, I've seen newsreels of Howard Hill. I've seen him where they were filming him killing a Cape buffalo, the toughest of all game animals to bring down with a bow and arrow. He killed a bull elephant. He killed a large shark under about 15 feet of water. As a youngster, I've seen newsreels where from 50 feet he would shoot at a bullseye and split it precisely in the center, and then he would take his second arrow, and with the second arrow he would split the first one. An amazing demonstration of Now, I have never shot the bow and arrow professionally, but I am an instructor par excellence. I think that's French, which means I'm really good, but I'm not absolutely certain of that. As a matter of fact, I am so good as an instructor of archery that I could spend 20 minutes with any man or woman in this audience this evening, and provided your eyesight is normal and your health is good, at the end of 20 minutes, I would have you hitting the bullseye more consistently than Howard Hill could have hit it the best day of his life, provided we had, of course, first blindfolded Howard Hill and then turned him around a couple of times so he would have no idea in which direction he was facing. And you kind of snicker and you say, "Well, Ziegler, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard." Why, of course, Of course, uh, we could shoot better than him, because how in the world could a man hit a target he could not even see? That's a pretty good question. Here's one even better: how can you hit a target you don't even have? The question, my friends, is, do you have your targets? Have you clearly identified what it is that you want in life? Have you set a date as to when you you expect to get it? Have you identified the obstacles you must overcome in order to get there? Have you identified the people, the groups, organizations you need to work with in order to get there? Have you spelled out what it is you need to know to reach your objective? Have you developed a plan of action, and, uh, have you written it down as to what's in it for me? Why do you want to reach the goal in the first place. You see, the problem with most people is they're what we call a wandering generality in life. But the truth is, you can never achieve greatness unless you become a meaningful specific. You see, the basic problem is most people, when they're working on their job, they get to thinking, you know, I really ought to be spending time at home with my family. And then when they're at home with the family, get to thinking, you really ought to be out there working for my family. Family. And so when they're out there working for the family, their mind is back home. And when they're back home, their mind is back out there in the field. And then they tell everybody, well, I don't ever have time to do anything. No wonder you're always traveling. You see, the basic problem is not lack of time, it is lack of direction. We all have exactly the same amount of time, whether we're a millionaire or offer. All of us have 24 hours every single day. The truth is, ladies and gentlemen, we must have goals if we're going to do anything. Goals do a lot of things. For example, they enable you to chase the blues away. I've never known anybody who was truly depressed who had specific and long-range goals. And what goals do is they create activity. And you see, activity, as you work towards reaching them creates the very excitement which you need in order to accomplish or reach your objectives. The psychologist put it this way: logic will not change an emotion, but action will. And as you get busy working towards these dreams of yours— and yes, you absolutely must have your dreams, ladies and gentlemen— and what we're going to do is look at the ways you build a foundation under is beneath those dreams. Several years ago, they did an experiment with a number of college students, and in this particular experiment, they let them go to sleep, and they hooked these brain machines up to them. With these brain machines, they could determine precisely within a matter of seconds when the student went to sleep. Then they could tell when that student started to dream, and as the student would start to dream, they would awaken him or her And then they'd let them go back to sleep, and that is no problem. But when they started to dream, they would awaken them again. And with those brainwave machines, they can tell exactly when they start to dream. At the end of one night of this kind of treatment, many of the students were nervous and fidgety. At the end of two nights of this kind of treatment, where they had a reasonable amount of sleep but no dreaming, they became very irritable and very short and very cross. At the end of just three nights complaints of a reasonable amount of sleep but no dreaming, they could tell that some of them were headed for some psychological difficulties. And so what they did was they aborted the experiment. Now, about 24 hours later, most of the students were back to normal. Within a week, all of them had returned 100%. But the experiment proved something very conclusively, and that's this: when you're asleep, ladies and gentlemen, You need your dreams. I'm here to tell you that when you're wide awake, you also need your dreams. You must have your goals. You'll never make it as a wandering generality. You must become a meaningful specific. If you're going to work tomorrow because that's what you did yesterday, you're not going to be as good tomorrow as you were yesterday because now you're 2 days older and no closer. To the goal which you do not have. You can't make it as a wandering generality. Most people understand you got to become a meaningful specific. It reminds me of an experiment done some little while ago by Jean-Henri Fabre, the great French naturalist. He took a number of processionary caterpillars, so named because they follow each other in a procession. And he lined them around a flower pot until they formed a never-ending circle. And they started going round and round 24 hours that first day, and then they went the next day and the next. And by the— about the third or the fourth day, he put some pine needles into the center of that flower pot. That's the food of the processionary caterpillar. They kept going round and round 7 full days and 7 full nights. They went round and round until they literally literally dropped dead from starvation and exhaustion. With an abundance of food less than 6 inches away, they had starved to death because they confused activity with accomplishment. You've got some friends that are in the same shape. They're busy, busy, busy all the time. They're going, going, going, going, and they're here and they're there and they're somewhere else, but they never really accomplish anything because they don't have those specific, clearly identifiable objectives. You gotta have those goals.
Now that you know why it's important to have goals, take the next few minutes to prepare a dream sheet. Write down everything you've ever wanted to do or be or have. Now, don't be judgmental. Let your mind run free. Here's a guide to help organize this dream sheet. As you write down one idea, it will trigger others. No matter how far-fetched or seemingly unrealistic, be sure to write down everything. Begin with travel and vacations— where you want to go and how you're going to get there. Your automobile— the kind, the color, all of the options. The house— the, the size of it, the style, and all of the extra The money, savings, investments, your career, the salary, the increase, the raises, and all the benefits which go with it, your promotions, uh, the children and your family, the education activities, the shared time, friendship, the respect, the helping of others, your health, your, your body weight, the exercise, your religion, your church involvement, your religious study, and your mind education, reading, recall. Now, if other things come to mind, you add them to your list. Take your time to complete this list, and when you are finished, set it aside for 24 to 48 hours. At that point, get out your dream sheet again, and after each item, write why. Now, this is If you cannot clearly articulate in one sentence why you want to be, do, or have what you included on your list, it is not something you're serious about.
So take it off. We'll get back to this later. Yet the truth of the matter is, 97% of the people in our great land never really set their goals in the proper light, in the way that you're going to be taught during the course of this program, 97%. And one of the major reasons is because of a little thing called fear. Now, you spell fear obviously F-E-A-R, and that really is an acrostic for false evidence appearing real. But if it appears real, ladies and gentlemen, it's real. For example, I could take this handkerchief handkerchief and my finger and rob the bank in your town. In all probability, all I'd have to do is put the handkerchief over my face, put my finger in my pocket, and walk up to the teller and in my meanest voice say, 'Give me your money.' And chances are superb that they would give me the money. The evidence would be false, but it would appear real. And because of had, they would give me the money. A young Cuban hijacked an airplane to Cuba with a bar of soap. He took it to the captain of the aircraft and he said, uh, let's go to Cuba. I've got a bomb in here. Though the evidence was false, it appeared real, and they went to Cuba. You see, the truth of the matter is a lot of people collect a great deal of false evidence, and the net result is they never set the goals. Now let me assure you, there's a certain amount of danger in setting goals. For example, next Monday morning I get on an aircraft in Dallas, Texas, going into Atlanta, Georgia at 8:45. Now I've got sense enough to know that when I get on that airplane, there's a certain amount of danger when I get aboard that aircraft, because some airplanes are coming down faster than they go up. And I'll tell you, when those airplanes come down faster than they go up, there's danger for me. But there's more danger for the airplane. You see, when an airplane comes down faster than it goes up, you just about can't hardly trade those dudes in at any price. I mean, their market value is gone. See, there's danger for the airplane, but there's more danger for the airplane if it stays on the ground. Did you realize that according to the engineers, an airplane will wear out faster sitting on the ground than it will wear out flying in the heavens? It'll rust out on the ground. It'll wear out in the heavens, not nearly as fast in the air as it'll rust out on the ground. Besides, airplanes are built to fly. You get on a ship, there's danger it might sink, but there's more danger for the ship if it stays at anchor in the harbor. Experts tell me that it will collect barnacles and become unseaworthy faster in the harbor than it will if sails the high seas. And besides, that's what ships are built for. Now, there's a certain amount of danger in setting your goals because, you see, you might not reach those goals. But folks, there's danger if you don't set the goals. You see, man and nature are 180 degrees apart. We use up nature's natural resources by using them up. but we use up man's natural resources by not using them at all. Oliver Wendell Holmes expressed it very eloquently when he said, the tragedy in America is truly that we waste our natural resources, but one of infinitely greater tragedy is the fact that we waste our human resources by not using what we've You got— the average person goes to their grave with their music still in them.
What a shame.
You got to have goals, ladies and gentlemen. I want to talk a little bit about goals on the line of how do you lose 37 pounds and write a book. I'm just going to kind of give you that as an example. For 24 years of my adult life, by choice, I weighed well over 200 pounds. I say by choice because you You see, I have never accidentally eaten anything. I mean, it's always been deliberate. And when I choose to eat too much today, I have chosen to weigh too much tomorrow. You can choose to set goals and realize your potential, or you can choose not to set them Now, if you choose not to set them, you got to understand that the consequences are not going to be good down the road. For 24 years, I was going to lose that weight. As a matter of fact, in 24 years, I lost several thousand pounds of weight. How many of you already know exactly what I'm talking about? But it wasn't until I wrote it down, put a date on it, listed the obstacles I had to overcome identified the people, the groups, the organizations I needed to work with, spelled out a plan of action, set that time limit in there, and identified all of the benefits to me. It was only when I did that that the goal became a reality and I lost the weight. For 10 or 15 years, I was going to write a book. You know anybody who's going to do just a whole lot of things, folks? I was going to write a book, but it wasn't until I got busy writing the book and writing the plans first before the book ever materialized. Yale University in 1953 did a study of their graduating seniors. They discovered that only 3% of them had taken all 7 of the steps you need to take in setting your goals. Another 10% had taken part of the steps, but the majority, 87%, beyond graduating from college and becoming a professor or a preacher or a doctor or whatever, very few of the only the other 87% had taken any of the steps in setting those goals. Now, 1973, 20 years later, they did another study of these graduating seniors, and in the area which you can measure, which is in your career and in your finances, the 3% who had taken all 7 steps— that is, they had written down, clearly identified exactly what they wanted, they had put the date on when they expected to get there. They had identified the obstacles they had to overcome. They had spelled out the people, the groups, organizations they had to work with. They had identified what they needed to know. They had developed a plan of action, and they had written it down. Why do I want to get there? These 3% had accomplished more than the 97% combined who had not set those goals. Now, if it sounds like I'm trying to sell you on having goals, How many of you are getting close already? How many of you are becoming convinced right quick like that you need to have those goals? There's no question about it. The immortal J.C. Penney many, many years ago said, "Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I'll give you a man who will make history. But give me a man without a goal and I'll give you a stock clerk." Now the interesting thing is goals do not care who has them. Let me give you a classic example of the way they work. In 1950, a war-torn, devastated Japan, a nation which had lost an incredibly high percentage of its young men, their cities were in ruins, they had been bombed out. But in 1950, they got together— they meaning industry and government— got together and set a goal. The goal was, we're going to be the number one nation in the world during the '50s in the production of textiles. In 1959, ladies and gentlemen, they accomplished that objective. In 1960, they set another goal: we're going to be the number one nation in the world in the production of steel. Now, when you understand there's no iron ore in Japan of any significance, there's no coal of any significance there, we're going to be the number one nation in the world in the production of steel. It seemed like an absurd goal, and yet they reached their objectives. They had taken all of the steps. In 1970, the Japanese set another goal. They said, during the '70s, we'll be the number one nation in the world in the production of automobiles. They missed it, folks, one year. It took them until 1980. In 1980, they set another goal, and this time their goal was, we're going to be the number one nation in the world in the production of computers and electronics. Tonics, and they're working very, very hard to reach their goals. Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, you absolutely must have those goals. You got to write them down. You got to put a date on it. You got to identify those obstacles. You've got to identify the people, the groups you need to work with. You got to find out what it is you need to know. You got to develop a plan of action, and you got to write it down. What's in it for me. Now, that's a formula that I have just given you, pure and simple. Now, if I were to ask you what 3 times 3 was, there isn't a person here who could not instantly answer it. But if I were to ask you, what is 5,128 times 2,165, odds are enormous that very few of you could pop out the answer that quickly. But if I were to say to you, get your pencil and paper out, figure it out than all of you could figure it out. Why? You know the formula. Now you see, if you know the formula, it really doesn't make any difference, ladies and gentlemen, what the goal really is. When I started to write the book, I took precisely the same steps that I'm talking about. I wrote down the objective. I wrote down the time I completed or expected to complete the book, identified the obstacles there. And yes, I know this is repetitious— it's the mother of learning. I wrote out and identified the people, the groups, organizations I needed to work with. I devised a plan of action to do it. I spelled out what I needed to know, and I wrote it all down. What's in it for me?
I think most of us would like to be part of that successful group of people with goals. Goals, but few of us take the time to sit down and write out our plan for life. The truth is, most of us just don't know how to go about doing it. So here are 7 steps to help you start setting goals. First, you've got to identify the goal. Next, you need to set a deadline for achievement. Number 3, you need to list the obstacles to overcome.
Number 4, you need to identify the people and groups to work with.
Number 5, you need to list the skills and the knowledge required to reach your goal. Number 6, you need to develop a plan of action. And number 7, you need to list the benefits— what's in it for me? These are the 7 steps you must take to set your goals.
The truth of the matter is, you see, there are 7 types of goals, but the formula works exactly the same whether it's a social goal a mental goal, a physical goal. Doesn't make any difference what kind of goal it is. Let me kind of alert you and give you a simple example of why we need to be alerted to why we need some of our goals. For example, is there anybody here who has a racehorse worth in excess of $1 million? Can I see your hands? Okay. Now, if you did have a thoroughbred horse worth in excess of $1 million, would you keep him up half the night letting him drink coffee and booze and smoke cigarettes and eat junk food. Now chances are you'd say, "Ziglar, that's crazy, of course not." How about a $10 dog? Would you treat him that way? $5 cat? What about a billion-dollar body? See, we need goals identified to take care of our physical body. We need family goals, we need career goals, we need spiritual goals, and And yes, we also, ladies and gentlemen, need financial goals.
Before going any further, it's time to take a personal inventory, kind of a checkup from the neck up, to see how you're performing in various areas of your life. As each area appears on the screen, evaluate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being excellent. Begin with the physical area of your life. Rate yourself on appearance, medical checkups, exercise programs, weight control, and nutrition. The next area is the family. Your listening habits, your forgiving attitude, of being a good role model, time together, supportive of others, respectful and loving. Financial earnings, your savings and investments, budget, adequate insurance, charge account, Social: your sense of humor, your listening habits, your self-confidence, your manners and caring. The spiritual: the inner peace, the sense of purpose, prayer, religious study, belief in God. Mental: imagination, attitude, continuing education, reading, and curiosity. Career: job satisfaction, effectiveness, job training, meaning understanding the job, the purpose, and your competence. Now review your performance in all 7 areas and determine which areas need improvement. We will use this evaluation later in the program to help you set your goals.
Now, goals have certain characteristics. For example, we need some big goals and some multiple goals. We need more than one goal. If you just have one goal, goal, you'll end up being a warped individual. Now, if you only have one goal, chances are good you're going to reach it if you really work at it, as we've been talking about. But you don't want to be warped. You need the balance that we're talking about. I'd set the goal of losing the 37 pounds. Now, that is a big goal. You need big goals because big goals force you to reach in and utilize the potential which is there. I love the story of old gentleman Jim Corbett, the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Corbett was out doing his road work one morning, and he saw a fisherman who was just having a field day. I mean, he was pulling in the big ones, and he was pulling in the little ones. And Corbett noticed that as he was running past, the fisherman was putting the little fish in his creel, and he was throwing the big ones back in. He couldn't resist it. He walked over to him, ran over to him, and said, "Mister," he said, "I've seen a lot of fishermen in my lifetime, but I believe you're the first one I've ever seen who threw the big fish back and who kept the little ones. Now why in the world would you do a thing like that?" And the fisherman sadly shook his head and he said, "Man, I hate to do it," but he said, "I don't really have any choice. I have to throw the big ones back because you see, all I've got is just this little old bitty frying pan." 'Now before you laugh too broadly, let me point out he's talking to you and about you, and he's talking about me. So many times we get the big goal, the big idea, the big dream, something that would make a big difference not only in our lives but other lives, and no sooner do we get this big goal and we say, oh no, Lord, don't give me such a big one. All I got is just this little old bitty frying pan.' Give me a little one, just a little one. Don't make me stretch. Besides, you know, if the goal was any good, if the idea was any good, somebody else would already have thought about it. Just give me a little one. Folks, you got to have some big goals in life because it's the big goals which really make you reach in and, uh, and use the resources which are at your disposal. And the resources you have are awesome. Emerson was absolutely right when he said, "What lies behind us and what lies in front of us pales in significance when compared to what lies within us." You've got within you the capacity to reach some of those big goals. Now, you need to follow the steps we're talking about because that makes them sensible and sound and logical, but we need some dreams, we need some big goals, Goals. One of my goals was to lose 37 pounds because I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, in a nutshell. And one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life was to discipline myself to get on that exercise program requiring the jogging and requiring the dieting. Up until then, you see, my idea of exercise had been simply to fill the tub, take a bath, pull the plug, and fight the current. I mean, uh, you know, that was That was it. And anyway you cut it, folks, that really is not much of an exercise program. And I finally got on it, and I went to work to lose that weight. Now, it took 10 months. That was a big goal. It was a goal which made a definite difference in my life. Writing the book was a big goal. It made a definite difference in my life. Now, you got to Set some long-range goals as well, ladies and gentlemen. Now, I don't want to be negative. Matter of fact, I'll be like the little boy who came home from school one day and said, Dad, I'm afraid I flunked the arithmetic test. His dad said, Son, that's negative. Be positive. He said, Dad, I'm positive I flunked my arithmetic test. Now, I'm absolutely positive, folks, that you're going to have some difficulties in your life. In front of you, ladies and gentlemen, there is trouble. Some friends of yours are going to disappoint disappoint you. Your employer or employees are going to disappoint you. There's going to be some setbacks and reversals that you absolutely cannot understand. There are going to be things happen in your future that will frustrate you, flabbergast you, amaze you, disgust you, and everything else. And that's the reason you've got to have long-range goals. You see, if you've got those specific long-range goals, ladies and gentlemen, and then when things don't go exactly your way, you will treat the setbacks as a pebble on the beach. If you don't have those goals, you'll treat it as if it were the whole ocean front. You got to have long-range goals. And the reason you need long-range goals is because the long-range goals help you to deal with and overcome those short-range failures. The rule is very simple: you go as far as you can and then when you get there, you'll always be able to see further. I set my goal to lose 37 pounds in 10 months. That was my objective. And as I looked at it, 37 pounds in 10 months, I knew, and I knew in my own mind that I could reach that goal of losing 37 pounds in the 10 months. But we got to break things down. Like when I get aboard that aircraft in Dallas going to Atlanta, Atlanta. You see, for the first 20 minutes, we'll be headed straight towards Atlanta, but after 20 minutes, we'll no longer be going to Atlanta. Don't know where we'll be going, but it won't be Atlanta, Georgia, because the direction of the wind will change, the velocity will change, the gravitational pull of the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, and the stars will all blow that airplane off the course. And so the captain of the aircraft will turn the aircraft around, fly back to Dallas, land, and start over. Just saying, if you're paying attention, how many of you, how many of you know perfectly good and well he's not going to do that? He's going to make a different heading, is he not? He's going to change the course. You see, when you have those long-range goals, a lot of things, times things happen to you, well, you don't abandon the goal. As my younger brother Judge Ziglar says, you don't change your decision to go. You simply change your direction in order to get there. See, we can't always predict what's going to be out there. When I set the goal of losing the 37 pounds in 10 months, I broke it into 10 parts. 10 months I was going to do it. That's 3 and 7/10 pounds per month. Now folks, I knew I could lose 3 and 7/10 pounds a month. You see, that's less than a pound a week. I knew, and I knew that I knew, oh, that I I could lose 3 7/10 pounds a month. As a matter of fact, I was so certain that I could that I didn't even bother to get started the first 28 days. How many of you know exactly what I'm talking about? I mean, listen, man, the contest is 6 months. Why get all exercised about it the first week? Or, but Mom, school just started. We've got 9 more months. Why should I knuckle down and study now. Oh look, I've got all week to get the correspondence out, boss man or boss lady. Why should I hustle so hard today? But you know, time marches on. 28 days, and then I realized what was happening. I was raised in a little town of Yazoo City, Mississippi. Now I know a lot of folks go around the country trying to impress people by claiming to be from Yazoo City, but I really am. Now when I was a boy Anyway, during the Depression, we lived next door to some rich folks. I knew they were rich for two reasons. Number one, they had a cook. Number two, the cook had something to cook. And during the Depression, that was a sure sign of wealth. I was over there for lunch one day, as I tried to be every day. And now don't misunderstand that. Even though there was a depression on, we certainly had plenty to eat at my house. I know we had plenty because if they ever passed my place for seconds, they'd always tell me. No, you've had plenty. So I know we had plenty. Now the cook brought the biscuits out, and this is not an exaggeration, those biscuits were not as thick as my wrist was. And I looked at her for a moment. I said, Maud, what in the world happened to your biscuits? She reared back, gave a big old tummy laugh, and said, well, I'll tell you about those biscuits. She said, they squatted to rise, but she said they just got cooked in the squat squat. You know anybody that's getting cooked in the squat? You know anybody who's going to do something just as soon as, or they're half of mine to do such and such a thing? You ever have anybody say, well, you know, wait till the kids get out of school and then I'll really get involved in this project. We got so many things going on right now. Wait till they're out of school. Wait till summertime comes and then I'll really get busy. The kids get out of school, you know what they say then? Well, you know, I didn't realize it, but I got to take the kids somewhere every I had more time when they were in school. Wait till they get back in school and then I'll really get busy. Kids get back in school, you know what they say then? Well, you know, for the first time in 19 years, dear old Central High has finally got a winning football team and you got to support the kids there. Wait after the football season is over, then I'll really get busy. Football season ends, you know what they say then? Well, here it is, Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's and people don't want to be bothered with this sort of thing this time of year. Wait after the first of the year, man, then I'll really get busy. After the first year, you know what they say? Well, it's the weather. Did you ever see weather like this in Chicago or San Francisco or Dallas or wherever? Wait till the weather settles down, and then I'll really get busy. Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I've lost interest in it, but that's not the way I do things. Let me tell you the way I do things. Now, here's the way I am, see. This is just the way I do it. See, the way I do things is I get everything organized. I get it lined up. I have everything in just such and such order, and then, man, once I get it all put together, that's when I really get after it. I mean, that's just the way I've always been that way, do things that way. I know some of these other folks are ahead of me right now, but you just wait, I'll catch them. But this weather, it is just so horrible. Wait till it clears up. And the weather clears up, you know what they say then? Well, here it is. Is, it's Easter time. And Easter time, you know, that's a family time, and we always spend a lot of time together. And you said so yourself, the family is extremely important to you. You do the work for the family, and if you can't spend some time with them, you might as well not do all the work. I mean, wait till after Easter's over, then I'll really get busy. And then after Easter, you know what they say? At long last, we've got some beautiful weather, and I haven't hit a golf ball or wet a hook in I don't know when. Man, I got to have some R&R. I got to have some rest and relaxation. And you know, you said you can't work all the time. I mean, an individual needs some time with themselves. Wait till I relax a little bit, and man, then I'll really get after it. And finally they get after a little bit, you know, or when they have the fun and relaxation, then they say, well, it's almost time for the kids to get out of school. And that's where we came in. As we'd say down home, folks, you can put this in your pipe and smoke it Lord, it's the truth. The people who wait for Aunt Matilda to move out, or John to get on the day shift, or the new models to come out, or the new mayor to come in, or for the new advertising campaign to get started, the people who wait on the new senator in Washington, or until inflation slows, or the rate of interest come down, the people who wait for changes to take place out there before they do the changing in here are flat going to end up getting cooked in the squat. The rule is simple: you do it now. You do it now. When I analyzed what I had to do, when I wrote it down and understood my objective, that all I had to do was lose 1 and 29— 1 and 29 hundredths ounces per day, then 10 months A year later, to the inch, to the ounce, and to the day, I had lost the weight. The truth of the matter is, in writing the book— it's a 384-page book, it's entitled See You at the Top, we've sold in excess of 1,500,000 copies— I wrote 1.26 pages a day for 10 months. You see, to reach your goals, ladies and gentlemen, it does not involve monumental undertakings every day of your life.
Your life.
But what it does involve is a lot of commitment, a lot of decision, and working on it in a relentless, steady, committed basis. You got to do something every day. When I broke it down into that specific thing— you see, goals have got to be specific. You can't make it as a wandering generality. You absolutely must become a meaningful specific. You can take the hottest day the world has ever seen, take the most powerful magnifying glass you can you can buy in any store and hold that magnifying glass over a pile of newspaper clippings on that hottest day and you'll never start a fire. You keep the glass moving. But the moment you hold that glass still, harness the power of the sun, multiply it through the glass, and boom, you got a fire. You got to have specific goals. My goal was specific: write the book by July 4th, lose weight at the same time, to the inch, to the ounce, and to the day. It all came to pass. You've got to have those specific goals.
During this program, we've asked you to prepare a dream sheet and a self-evaluation sheet. Look at your self-evaluation sheet and determine which areas need improvement. Set some specific goals for these areas. Now take your dream sheet and itemize only those things which you truly want to achieve. Combine these items with those from the self-evaluation sheet, and you will have a comprehensive list of your major goals. From this new list, select at least 2 goals you will work on every day. It will be easier to select these goals if you remember that for each goal, you must answer yes to these 5 questions: Questions: Number 1, is it really my goal? Number 2, is it morally right and fair? Number 3, are my short-range goals consistent with my long-range goals? Number 4, can I commit myself emotionally to complete the project? And number 5, can I visualize myself reaching this goal?
For each goal you plan to work on daily, Set a deadline for achievement.
List the obstacles you need to overcome. Identify the people and groups you need to work with.
List the necessary skills and knowledge.
Develop a plan of action and list the benefits you will receive.
Then periodically reevaluate each of your goals.
When one goal is reached, replace it immediately with another. Your emphasis on certain goals may change means. So it is critical to review your goals list regularly.
Now, the question often comes with all of us: if we want to reach our goals, how do you go about it? Do you share your goals with other people? That possibly is the most often asked question of all to me. How and who do you share your goals with? And the rule is basically fairly simple. If it's a give-up goal, you share share it with everybody. If it's a go-up goal, you share it only with those people whom you love and trust and whom you know are going to be supportive of you. Now, for example, a give-up goal— if I'm going to give up eating too much or drinking too much, if I'm going to give up smoking, if I'm going to give up cussing, if I'm going to give up being mean and nasty and ornery, any of the go— give-up goals like that, I You want to share it with other people because others are supportive and they will encourage you in that. But for example, if you're a salesperson and your goal is to be the number one saleslady in the organization, or the number one salesman in the organization, and you go to another one of the sales ladies and say, hey, I'm going to be number one saleslady in this whole organization this whole year, and that lady's objective was to do the same thing, do you think she's is going to say to you, yeah, you can sure do it, when all the time she's wanting to do it.
Uh-uh.
But if you go home and tell your husband or your wife, yes indeed, I'm going to be number one this year, you'll get the encouragement and the support there, which is so extremely important. Yes, you really have to have that understanding of goals. If they're give-up goals, share them with everybody. If they're go-up goals, share them only with the people whom you know will give you the support. Want to reach your goals? You got to make a commitment. Now, one of the basic problems in life is so many people do not make commitments. When I was losing that weight, one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life was continue to deny myself the food which I so dearly love, especially the sweets. And it was really tough to get involved in all of that job stugging, but I had made a commitment, and because the commitment was made, I really decided I was going to stay with it. I had another commitment. When I wrote the book, one of the first things I put in there was that I weighed 165 pounds and that I had a 34-inch waistline. I had it typeset. Now, at the time I put that in there, I weighed 202 pounds and had a 41-inch waistline. Now, the reason that's important is very simply I could not get a publisher to publish the book initially for me. Later, it was no trouble, but initially I could not. I had to publish the book myself, and in there I decided to order 25,000 copies. A friend said, if you sell 25,000 copies, you got yourself a bestseller. So I ordered 25,000 copies of the book. Now let me tell you something about books. The first copy costs you more than the next 24,999, and those 24,999 and ain't cheap. I'm talking about a whole bunch of money. Now, I made a financial commitment to buy those books. I also had written in there that I weighed 165 pounds. Now let me tell you something about human nature. If I tell you one lie and you catch me in it, from here on in, everything I say, you're going to put a question mark after it. If you tell me a lie and I catch you in it, from here on in, everything you say to me, I'm going to put a question mark in commitment. In my book I wrote I weighed 165 pounds. I had 25,000 copies of the book. Now you can imagine what would happen if I had not lost the weight. Now I got a warehouse full of books, sent away 165, and I come waddling out at 202. And your next question would be, I wonder what else he lied to me about. Friends, I made a commitment. There is no question about it. You got to make a commitment, and you got to understand something which is extremely important, and that is that your vocabulary makes a great deal of difference in your success in life. I got to apologize for those people who've heard me do this, but for years I went around the country, and with a strained expression on my face and pain in my voice, I'd say, "You gotta pay the price." Sound like a dying calf in a snowstorm. And what a bunch of baloney that was. I'll never forget 9 months of hating jogging and hating joggers. How many of you hate joggers? Can I see your hand? Okay. For 9 months, I really hated those joggers. You know, every time I saw one, he's jumping up and down and said, man, it makes you feel so good, it gives you so much energy. And there I was, hating and hurting every step I was taking and fussing about it too. And then that day in Portland, Oregon, never forget it if I live to be 150. Beautiful spring day, temperature about 78 degrees. It was high noon. I was running on Portland State University campus, had a seminar at 4:00. This was high noon, and as I was running out there that day, I noticed a lot of the students were laying on blankets. Some were reading, some were studying, some were courting, some were snoozing. And here comes old Ziglar running by, sweat running down my back, sweat running down down my legs, and all of a sudden it hit me that for the first time I was really enjoying running. I was having a ball. And that day I changed my vocabulary. The truth is, folks, you don't pay the price for good health. You enjoy the benefits of good health. You don't pay the price for setting goals. You pay the price for not setting those goals. Goals. You enjoy the benefits of reaching those goals. You don't pay the price for a good marriage, you pay the price for a poor one. You enjoy the benefits of the good one. You don't pay the price for good health, you pay the price for poor health. You enjoy the benefits of good health. Yes, your vocabulary really does make a great deal of difference as to whether or not you reach your goals or not. We definitely need to keep it positive because, you see, the mind takes whatever picture you paint in it and goes to work to complete that picture.
I want to emphasize that what you get by reaching your goals is not nearly as important as what you become by reaching them. The attitudes, knowledge, and skills and habits developed by people with goals are of infinite value in the tomorrows of lives. With goals, you can more fully realize your maximum potential because goals enable you to know, be, do, and have more. Use your mind and talents fully. Have more purpose and direction in life.
Make better decisions.
Be more organized and effective. Do more for yourself and others. Have greater confidence and self-worth. Worth, feel more fulfilled, be more enthusiastic and motivated, and yes, accomplish some uncommon projects.
Want to reach your goals? You got to know how to train fleas. Now, just as a matter of curiosity, how many of you in this audience do not know how to train fleas? Can I see your hands, please? Boy, it looks like I got to you just in time. And I know you heard the one about the two fleas at the bottom of the hill. And one of them said, well, do we walk or take a dog? Well, anyhow, you train fleas by putting them in a jar. And you put the top on the jar and those fleas will jump up and they'll hit that top over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And you watch them jump for a long period of time and they'll keep on jumping and hitting and jumping and hitting, and you watch them, and then all of a sudden you'll notice that even though And so they continue to jump. They will no longer be hitting the top. Literal truth. Then you can take the top off, and they'll jump and jump and jump and jump and jump and jump, but they cannot— I repeat, they cannot jump out. And the reason they cannot jump out is because they've been conditioned to jump just so high. And once they've conditioned themselves to jump just so high, that's all there is. There ain't no more. Man is man is precisely the same way. He starts out in life to climb the mountain, to write the book, to break the record, to do something with his life. And along the way, he bumps his head, he stubs his toe, and he becomes what I call a SNIOP. Now, a SNIOP— and that is spelled S-N-I-O-P— is a person who is susceptible to the negative influence of other people. Classic example that everybody will instantly recognize is the 4-minute mile. For years and years and years, athletes the world over had tried to run a mile in 4 minutes, but because they were snobs, they could not do it. The coach had taken his watch out and said, man, there ain't no way you can do it in 4 minutes. Maybe 4:02, maybe 4:05, but not 4 minutes. The doctors had put the stethoscope on the athlete's heart and said, a 4-minute mile? You got to be kidding, man. Nobody will ever do that. Your heart will come right out of body. It is impossible. And nobody could run a 4-minute mile until a fleet trainer named Roger Bannister came along and ran a mile in less than 4 minutes. When Bannister ran the mile in less than 4 minutes, athletes the world over started running miles in less than 4 minutes. Landy of Australia did it less than 6 weeks later. I was in New Zealand last year, and the man over there— Thompson, I believe, is his name, though please don't hold me to that that had just run his 100th 4-minute or sub-4-minute mile. A 37-year-old man ran a mile in less than 4 minutes. There have been 4 or 5 races where 8 young men all broke the 4-minute barrier in the same race. Now, what am I saying with all this? I'm saying that Roger Bannister got something started, and I'm also going to tell you that Roger Bannister understood more about goal setting than just about anybody you will ever you ever know. He didn't just train superbly and go run a sub-4-minute mile. Yes, he trained extraordinarily hard, but he measured his stride. He timed himself for the 100, the 220, the 440. He had pacers who paced him for the first quarter, the second quarter, the third quarter, and the fourth quarter. He did it as scientifically and as carefully as any goal setter I've ever seen in my life. Yes, Roger Bannister is a a flea trainer. What's a flea trainer? A flea trainer is a person who's driven from within. They're not influenced by the sniops and the negative people in life. A flea trainer is an individual who jumps out of the jar. A flea trainer understands that you can get everything in life you want if you'll just help enough other people get what they want. Flea trainers don't tell others where to get off. Flea trainers show them how to get home. Fleet trainers don't try to see through other people. Fleet trainers see other people through. Want to reach your goals, ladies and gentlemen? You absolutely must become a fleet trainer. And you've got to build a winning attitude. We could talk 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months about building winning attitudes. Harvard University did an exhaustive study on it, discovered that 85% of the reason reason that people get jobs and get ahead in those jobs is because they have the right mental attitude. The Cox Report, involving well over 1,000 corporate executives— these men and women were asked the question, how important do you think your attitude is in accomplishing your objectives of becoming corporate executives? 49% of these men and women said that their attitudes were extremely significant. 46.5% said they were significant. In other words, 95.5% of these more than 1,000 executives said their attitudes were significant or extremely significant. To reach your goals, yes indeed, you absolutely must have the right mental attitude. And ladies and gentlemen, let me say without any hesitation at If you're going to reach your goals, you got to get other people involved. You simply cannot reach major objectives entirely on your own. You got to understand that the influence other people have and the help they can give you will play a major role in what you do. When I was a small boy down in Yazoo City, Mississippi, Mississippi. I never shall forget there was an abandoned section of the railroad track, and as boys will do, we often went down there. And one of our little games was to see how far we could walk on that railroad track without falling off. And we'd take a few steps and we'd fall, and we'd take a few steps and we would fall. Had we only understood that two of us could simply have gotten parallel with each other, reached crossed the rails and held hands that we could have literally gone indefinitely without falling off. When business— when management and labor understand that they're on the same side, when husbands and wives and children understand that they're on the same side, when employer and employee understand that they both have the same objectives, when they begin to work together That's when everybody really benefits the most. You look at the Super Bowl teams every year, and by and large, you're going to have the Super Bowl team, the number one had major objectives, that was it. And incidentally, did you realize that they spend over 3,000 hours each team preparing for that specific event? Did you realize that the average American spends infinitely more time planning a vacation than they do planning their lives? Did you realize that more people spend more time planning the wedding than they do the marriage? You see, we need, ladies and gentlemen, we need those specific objectives, and we need to work together on these things if we really are going to work at our maximum and the most people benefit the most. You need to work together. As a matter of curiosity, how many of you have ever seen a flock of Canadian geese flying overhead? Can I see your hands? Okay. If you have, you will notice 3 things about those Canadian geese. Number 1, they always fly in a V formation. Number 2, if you will notice them, one leg of the V is always longer than the other leg of the V. And number 3, if you follow them them carefully enough and long enough, you'll notice there's a considerable amount of confusion in the flock. Now, just as a matter of curiosity, how many of you have ever wondered why one leg of the V is always longer than the other one? Can I see your hands, please? Well, let me explain that the longer leg is longer because it has more geese in it. You know, I don't know why, but that silly thing just really grabs me. I can't wait, I can't wait to get to that particular one. Okay, now the reason there's confusion in the flock is that periodically they change the leadership of the flock of geese. Now the reason they fly in a V formation is because in wind tunnel They've discovered that the flock of geese can fly 63% further than the individual goose could fly. What they do, the lead goose in fighting the headwind creates a partial vacuum off either wing, and those other geese are flying in a partial vacuum. He grows tired very easily or more quickly than the others, and so they replace leadership real often. To give the leader a rest. But by working together, they can fly 63% further. In reaching your objectives, yes indeed, you really do need to work with other people. You're going to reach your goals, ladies and gentlemen, you got to get in shape. Now I want to emphasize something here which I believe is enormously important. In order to reach all of our goals, we need to get in shape spiritually, because that is a very definite factor in our life. We have spiritual goals, but we need spiritual help a lot of times to reach all of the other goals. It requires study, it requires prayer, it requires involvement there. We need to get in shape physically, ladies and gentlemen, because I don't care what your objective is, I can share this with you without any reservation observation, when I got in shape physically, I was able to do a lot more things with my career because the energy level increased rather dramatically. I have far more energy now than I had when I was 25 years old. They tell me, the psychologists do, for example, that when I make a 1-hour presentation, that I burn more raw energy than a laboring man does in a 10-hour day. You. So when I do 6 and 8 hours a day, or even 3 or 4 hours in a day, or even 1 hour in a day, I have burned some energy. As you can tell, I speak at about 280 words a minute with gusts up to about 550. I mean, you know, I burn some energy. I move it on out. Now, you also need to understand that if you're going to reach your goals, you got to become attentive to the details in your A lot of little things that many people overlook, and you need to become aware on a daily basis of what you're doing towards those goals. Now, I'm not trying to get you to be as detail-oriented as the executive vice president of our company. I mean, he proofreads the Xerox copies. I, I don't think, uh, you know, that's what we're talking about. But it is the little things that make the big difference. You call a girl a kitten, for example, and she'll love I love you. Call her a cat, you see, you got a problem there. You can say she's a vision, you score all kind of points. Call her a saint, you're in bad trouble. It's one thing to tell a young lady that she looks like the first day of spring. It's another thing to tell her she looks like the last day of a long, hard winter. I mean, there is a difference. It's the little things. It's the little things. Fellas, if you look at your wife and say, "You know, honey, when I look into your eyes, the wheels of time just stand still," that's beautiful, that's poetry, that's motivating, that's exciting. But can you imagine what would happen if you were to look at her and say, "You know, honey, you got a face that'd stop a clock." I mean, it's the little things. If this watch of mine were 4 hours wrong, I wouldn't have any trouble with it. I can tell you instantly if my watch is 4 hours wrong, but if it's 4 minutes wrong, I'm in trouble. For example, tomorrow morning I catch a flight at 8:20. Now, if my watch is 4 minutes wrong and I get there at 8:24, see what the problem is? I made a deal with the airlines that, you know, if I was not there when they got ready to go, that they were just to go ahead without me. And I found out last year that they live up to their end of the agreement. I found out also it's easier to catch those dudes before they leave the ground. All of that to say, it's the little things that make a big difference. If you want to reach your goals, ladies and gentlemen, not only must you be detail-oriented, looking after the little things, but you also must literally be able to see the reaching. I had my physical examination at the Cooper Clinic preparatory story to losing the weight and getting on the exercise program. One of the things I did over there, and this is kind of ugly, but I had not read Ann Landers at the time, and I'll use it as my excuse, although I really knew better. You know, Ann says you're not supposed to steal pages out of other folks' magazines. Now, there was a magazine at Dr. Cooper's office. It was an old magazine now, and there was a picture in it advertising jockey shorts. Now, I don't know if you folks read the jockey short ads time. But if you don't read the jockey short ads, the next time you see one, you ought to at least look at a picture. Uh, you'll find out in a hurry they don't put jockey shorts on fat boys. I mean, they just don't. At least they don't have a Goodyear. Now, I took that picture of that fella in those jockey shorts, and I hung it up in my bathroom, and I said, now there's my hero. That's the way I'm going to be. That's the way I I am going to look. Well, the next morning at 5:30, the opportunity clock sounded off. Negative people call them alarm clocks, uh, you know, the opportunity. I mean, if you can hear it, that gives you an opportunity to get up and go, you know what I mean? Opportunity clock sounded off. I rolled out of bed, put on my fancy running outfit I just got, and hit the front door and ran a block. Literally. Did better the next day. I ran a block and a mailbox. Did better than that the next day. I ran a block and 2 mailboxes. I'll never forget —what happened? And finally, one day I ran a half a mile, then a mile, then 2 miles, and 3, then 4, then 5. But every time I went in the bathroom, ladies and gentlemen, I saw the picture of that guy in the jockey shorts. That became my goal right there. I visualized myself as looking just like that guy right there. I'm going to look like this man in the jockey The truth of the matter is, we really do need to have a clearly defined target. We need to be able to literally see ourselves as reaching that objective. For many, many years before I ever succeeded, quote, on the platform as a speaker, it was my dream to do exactly that. I cannot begin to tell you the tens of thousands of speeches I made in my mind in order to reach that particular goal. I visualized every speech imaginable. And the beautiful thing about imagination, you see, is you can visualize any kind of speech and any kind of response you want. In these speeches which I made in my mind— and boy, do I ever wish we could have recorded just one of them. You're talking about speeches. You've heard about speakers having folks rolling in the aisles. I had them rolling up and down the steps. You heard, you know, about standing ovation. My average standing The ovation was 11 minutes in my dreams. I mean, listen, I never made a mistake in the speech I had in mind. The audience sat there with incredible rapture and attention. I mean, as if they could not believe that a mere mortal could utter such incredible words of wisdom. I mean, the beautiful thing about the imagination is, you see, you can make it absolutely just right. You gotta have your dreams. But let me tell you something, Folks, be careful about your dreams. Be very careful. Because you see, when you dream those dreams, when you write them down, when you put a date on it, when you list the obstacles which you have to overcome in order to get there, when you identify the people, the groups, and the organizations you need to work with in order to get there, when you spell out what you've got to know in order to reach your objectives, when you devise that plan of action, that game plan to get there, And when you write it down, what's in it for me? When you do all of those things, ladies and gentlemen, and follow some of these other steps that we're talking about and are still talking about, you're going to be reaching some of those objectives. I can honestly look you in the eye and say that virtually every major objective I've ever set in my life has been reached, and I honestly believe that the rest of them will be reached. When you follow the steps with firm conviction, when you've made your commitment, commitment, when you do all the things we're talking about, things are going to happen in your life. If you'll notice, I've not even hinted throughout this entire presentation that it is easy, because it is not. As a matter of fact, I'm absolutely convinced that life is tough. But the point is, you got to be tough on yourself. And when you're tough on yourself, then life is going to be infinitely easier on you. I can tell you it's I can tell you it's exciting. I can tell you it's rewarding. And I can tell you that when you follow all of the steps we're talking about, that all the goals we've been talking about—the physical, the mental, the spiritual, the social, the career goals, the financial goals—they all come to pass. You see, the interesting thing is, as we look at our goals, there's no such thing as an individual goal. When I set the goal, for example, of writing that book, only about 1 in 2,600 pages a day, little did I realize that it would have such a bearing on my social goals. You'll be amazed at the people that invite me to a free dinner now since I wrote a book. I mean, it affected my social life. But you know what? It also affected my family life because I had to do a lot of research to put it together. It improved our relationship. It improved my spiritual life because, again, Again, I had to do some research there. It definitely improved, improved my physical life because I tied it in. Had a dramatic impact on my career. Had an impact in every phase of my life. Your goals are going to do the same thing. There's no such thing as an isolated goal. They're all tied into so many of your other goals. In order to reach your We need to be able to visualize all of them. Many years ago, in the days of the sailing ship, there was a young sailor who was out at sea for the first time, and he was ordered aloft to trim the sails because a squall was coming up. And as he started to climb up, he made the mistake of looking down, and the roll of the ship and the turbulence of the sea combined to cause him to become nauseated, and he started to begin to lose his balance and fall. An older sailor underneath shouted up at the young man, "Look up, son, look up!" And the young sailor looked up and immediately regained his balance. You see, the message is very clear. When the outlook isn't good, try the uplook. It's always good. And when things don't look good, look to make absolutely certain that you're not facing facing in the wrong direction. As Helen Keller so eloquently put it, when you're looking at the sun, you won't see the shadows. And when you're looking towards your objectives which you've set, you won't be seeing so many of the obstacles as you reach towards those goals. Many years ago, as some of you know, the great Houdini was in his heyday. Some people said that Houdini was the greatest magician man who ever lived. He was also the master locksmith. He made the boast that he could get out of any jail cell in the world if you'd let him walk in that jail cell with street clothes on. He would be out in less than an hour. A small town in the British Isles built a new jail. They were tremendously proud of it. They didn't believe Houdini or anybody else could get out of their jail, and so they challenged him to come give it a try. There's a lot of publicity, a lot of money involved. Houdini liked both of those things, so he accepted the challenge. There was a lot of publicity going in. The drums were beating, the bugles were blaring, and Houdini strode triumphantly into the jail cell. They closed the door behind him. Houdini took his coat off, and secreted in his belt was a 10-inch piece of steel— very tough, very flexible, very durable— and he went to work on the lock. At the end of 30 minutes, the confident, even arrogant expression on Houdini's his face had disappeared. At the end of an hour, he was absolutely bathed in perspiration. At the end of 2 hours, he actually collapsed and fell against the door, which opened because it had never been locked anywhere except in Houdini's own mind, which meant very simply that it was locked more secure more securely than if every locksmith in Britain had put their best locks on the door. I got to tell you, folks, there are a lot of people who can stop you temporarily, but I'm also going to look you right in the eye and tell you that you are the only one who can stop you on a permanent basis. And I've got an idea, as you digest what we've been in this hour together, that you're not going to let anybody else stop you on reaching those worthwhile goals, and you're certainly not going to stop yourself. But let me say this: what you get by reaching your goals is not nearly as important as what you will become by reaching the goal that many people said you would not make when you started out. I close with this: buy these ideas, follow these suggestions, adopt these procedures as your very own, follow them right through to completion, and I'll definitely see you— and yes, I really do mean you— at the top.
Thank you very much.
Yes, life can be fun.
It certainly can be exciting. As a matter of fact, I believe that you were born to win. Unfortunately, too many people have been conditioned to lose. The truth of the matter though is the fact that I believe you can be number one. Now, that doesn't mean I believe that everybody can be the biggest and the fastest and the strongest and the smartest, but I believe when you get up in the morning and look in that mirror and say, today I'm going to do my very best, and then that day you do your and that evening you look back in the mirror and say, today I did my best, I believe you are number one. Our basic problem in our society today is the tremendous amount of negative input in our minds.
You see, the truth of the matter is you are what you are and you're where you are because of what has gone into your mind.
And you can change what you are and change where you are by changing what goes into your mind. The problem is, as I indicated, we have too much of the negative input. For example, we talk about the terrible twos, when in reality they're the terrific twos, the tremendous threes, the fantastic fours, the fabulous fives, the super sixes, the sensational sevens. Actually, you could take three babies, one born in Chicago, Illinois, one born in Shanghai, China, the other born in the upper Amazon, and you raise those babies there. And the baby born in China, because of the input, will grow up to be a communist. The baby born in the upper Amazon and raised there, because of the input, will believe in headhunters and witchcraft and voodoo and that sort of thing. Now, the baby born in Chicago and raised there is obviously going to grow up believing in the Chicago Bears. That's right, that input does make such a tremendous difference. But the input too often is said, is negative. I was in a cafeteria and a little girl in front of us was crying. A grandmother-type lady leaned down and said, what's the matter, honey? And her daddy spoke up and said, she's mean, that's what, she just plain mean. I was up in Nashville, Tennessee, on the way down to the gate to catch a plane, passed a lady and a little 5-year-old boy. And as I was walking past, the little guy was dragging his heels, and the mother turned to him and said, come on, stupid, We're going to miss the plane.
Now, what does that do to that child?
What does it do to the image of the child and the optimism and enthusiasm of the child? I think you know the answer. My friend Bill Glass tells me that over 90% of the people in our prisons today and jails were repeatedly told by their parents, one of these days you're going to grow up and go to jail. He was sharing with me that at one of their association meetings, or revivals actually, there in a prison, he and Jim Glass, the champion catcher for the world's champion Kansas City Royals, were talking. And as they were chatting, Jim Sundberg, who had been told when he was 3 years old down in Stockton, California, by his dad, "One of these days, son, you're going to grow up and be a great a great major league catcher. He told him that over and over. And Bill and Jim were talking, and Jim just shared with Bill, you know, I'm sure glad that when I was a child that my dad told me that when I grew up I was going to be a world's champion catcher, because I am exactly where he said I was going to be. And an incarcerated man standing close I quietly but rather sadly said, well, you know, I'm exactly where my dad told me I was going to be. You see, that input does make a dramatic difference. The good news is very simple: you do have some of every single quality which we've identified. But let me tell you something to think about. If you had a million dollars in bank, you would never write a check on it if you did not know the money was in the bank. But the moment you discovered it was there, that's when the local economy would take a giant leap forward. And I've discovered that everybody everywhere seems to want exactly the same thing. Everybody wants to be happy. Everybody wants to be healthy. They want to be at least reasonably prosperous. They want to be secure. They want to have friends, and they want to have peace of mind. Now think with me on this, please. If those are the things that you want, doesn't it make sense to take an inventory and see what you've got? And when you take that inventory and discover what you've got, if you discover that it's short of what you want, then surely it makes sense to you to discover and explore how you got what you got. And what you're going to discover is this: you've gotten the things you've gotten based on your performance. Now, the possible exception to that is money. Occasionally someone inherits that. Don't depend on it, but it, it can happen. All of the other things are based on your performance. So logically, if you want to change what you've got, doesn't it make sense that you've got to change your performance? Because you see, in the simplest terms possible, if you keep on doing what you've been doing, you're going to keep on getting what you've been getting. You got to change performance. Now, before you can change performance, you got to change your thinking, because you see, your thinking, regardless of what you do, has a dramatic impact on that performance. But before you can change your thinking, you've got to change what goes into your mind. And now we're back where we started. You're what you are and where you are because of what's gone into your mind. And you can change what you are, you can change where you are by changing what goes into your mind. Now I have in my hands a most unusual coin here. It is a piece of gold. It's a gold coin, therefore custom-made especially for me by a close friend. As you can see on this side, there's the arrow going up. See you at the top is what it's really saying. If you'll also notice, I have in my other hand another coin. It's a dime. Now, these two coins, if they're placed at the bottom of the ocean, have exactly the same value— that is, nothing— because they're not being used. When you bring them to the surface, however, this gold coin is worth several hundred dollars, whereas this one one is still worth the dime. Now, the difference really is what's in the coins, but the fact that we've now brought them to the surface to use them. In your own life, all of the qualities and values you have, unless you bring them to the surface and use them, they really won't have that value. Now, on the other side of this custom-built coin, we have a rather unique, uh, little thing. If you If you look very carefully, you can read it says T-U-I-T. And since the coin itself is round, and since this is a tuet, this means this literally is a round tuet. Many times I've had people say to me, well, I'm going to do something just as soon as I get around to it.
Zig, you've stressed the importance of input, and it really makes sense, but where do we get the right kind of positive input?
Basically, Jim, we have a number of sources. The associates, the people we're with and around, certainly have an input. The people we work with, our families, all of these have inputs. Now the question is, is it the correct input? A lot of times, unfortunately, the answer to that is no. So to compensate for the negative input, we have to deliberately seek the positive positive input. By that I mean we simply need to read the good books, the optimistic, positive thinking, powerful inputs into our mind. We need to listen to those recordings as we are driving to and from. The car can make a marvelous traveling educational institution. We need to listen while we are washing dishes or weeding the flower bed. We can do those things when while shaving or applying makeup. That's where we need to have that positive input. Who are some of the people or kinds of people that have used the input you're talking about? Well, I once made the statement that I had never known a self-made millionaire in the world of selling who did not have and use motivational input and have his own cassette recorder. I'm certain that that might not be true today because of the change in the economy, but by and large, successful people listen. I know H.L. Hunt, for example, listened until after he was 80 years old. Mary Kay Ash told me that she never started her car until she first made certain that she had a motivational or educational recording in the car. Alan Bean, one of the astronauts who walked on the moon, told me that the astronauts were listening to motivational recordings going back and forth from the moon. And I'm obviously pleased to be able to say that at least some of the recordings they were listening to were fantastic.
Zig, I heard you relate a story that I thought was really fascinating about a man by the name of Tom Hartman. Why don't you tell us about Tom?
That's probably the most remarkable story in many ways because in every area area of his life Tom needed help. He was financially bankrupt, he was spiritually bankrupt, he was physically bankrupt, he was socially bankrupt, and that might sound like a harsh word, but when I say bankrupt I at least mean he was in short supply. Tom had a 63.5-inch waistline, weighed 406 pounds, by his own admission, kind of had to maneuver in order to get eating money each week. He was coming off a devastating divorce, had not been in church in a number of years, educationally was stymied. He was going to college part-time, but it was just to fill his time. He got involved in listening to my set of tapes, and as Tom said, he said, "Zig, I have listened to them so many times, particularly the one on self-image that I can quote you verbatim. He said, I bet I've listened to that one over 500 times and the other tapes over 100 times. Well, it didn't happen overnight, but repetition is the mother of learning, and we need to be convinced that yes, we can do these things. So to kind of round up the story, Tom Hartman today weighs in the vicinity of 200 pounds, which is acceptable because he's over 6 feet tall. He went back to college, got his degree in psychology, graduated magna cum laude, and is working on his doctorate. He has his own business and is happier, actually, than I've ever seen Tom before. He's teaching a Sunday school class. His personal life, his family life, his business life, his spiritual life, they've all come together. Now I want to stress, this was not an easy thing. It involved many, many, many too much for Tom to do all of these things. And I'll be the first to admit that this is an extreme example, but we have literally hundreds, even thousands of examples where when people change the input in their mind, they dramatically altered all facets of their life.
Wow, Zig, that is really motivating, but I guess the question that follows is, is motivation Is motivation permanent?
Well, the answer to that, Jim, is no, motivation is not permanent, but then neither is bathing. But it is something which we should do very regularly. For that matter, eating is not permanent, but it's something we've got to do every day. Now, it'd be absurd to think that you could hear one positive speech or read one positive book and go through the rest of your life life completely motivated. It's something you work at every day.
Zig, some people say that it's easy. I've heard speakers say that with a positive attitude, you can do anything. How do you respond to that? I'd say right off the top of my head, that's insane.
I don't care how positive I got, for example, I could not whip a boxing champion or play basketball for an NBA basketball team or football for an NFL NFL team. I don't care how positive I got, I couldn't run General Motors with just positive thinking. I couldn't even take your appendix out with just positive thinking. Now, positive thinking won't let you do anything, but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will. I'll tell you exactly what positive thinking will let you do. It will let you use the ability which you have. And when you use what you've got, my friend, that is sufficient to improve dramatically every phase of your life.
Now, Zig, you and the audience went on to list 27 success qualities, but in the interest of time, how about summarizing what you're getting at with that activity?
Well, what we were doing there is finding out from them, obviously, what's necessary in their opinion, to be successful. And we then asked a question after we listed all 27 of those qualities, and that question was, are these attitudes or are they skills? And we discovered that all 27 of them actually involved attitude. Then I asked the question, well, how many of you had a course in school which taught you how to develop these attitudes? And as is my custom, all over the country when I asked that question, less than 1% of them held up their hands. And that kind of sounds like an indictment on the educational system, but I went ahead to point out to them that the average student in America goes to school 5 days a week, 180 days a year, 6 hours a day. That means they're in school 1,080 hours, but there are 8,760 hours in a year. So what that means is that they're at home a little over 1,000 hours, they're in— what that really means then is that they're in school a little over 1,000 hours, they're at home over 7,600 hours, and mom and dad have had the child over 40,000 hours before the teachers ever see them. Then I asked the audience if they didn't think that parents should accept Jesus just a little bit of the responsibility. So I'm not indicting the educational system. What I'm saying is we've got a societal problem and all of us, therefore, as part of society must accept our share of the responsibility. And then I kind of ask them the question, how many of you believe that if these qualities were taught at home and then reinforced in school that we'd have a better America. And you can well imagine they all responded enthusiastically to that. Because you see, when a child or an individual develops honesty, character, and integrity, and faith, and love, and loyalty, and dependability, and enthusiasm, and a positive mental attitude— when they develop all of those, including trust and loyalty and what have you, that individual will be accepted in any society. Anywhere they can get in, in school, any college, any job market will be open to them. In other words, here is a rare individual. Then the exciting part came when I pointed out that actually every single person has some of all of these qualities.
To watch another amazing Zig Ziglar video, check it out right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to Believe, and I'll see you there. Want to emphatically say that if you're going to reach your goals, whatever the goal is, you must start from a solid foundation. You must build your life on honesty.
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