Hilary Hinton Ziglar, better known as Zig Ziglar, was an American motivational speaker, author, and salesperson.
Between 1943 and 1945, Zig Ziglar was a member of the United States Navy and attended the V-12 Navy College Training Program at the University of South Carolina. After that, in 1963, Ziglar became a founding member of American Salesmasters.
With his associates Richard “Dick” Gardner and Hal Krause, he led instructional seminars for insurance agents, car salesmen, financial advisers, entrepreneurs, and small company owners in order to increase the profile of salespeople in America.
Ziglar overcame many obstacles and rejections on his way to success and is today known for his powerful speeches and inspiring books.
Ziglar, the man behind some of the world’s most inspiring phrases, used his own mistakes, triumphs, objectives, and lessons to inspire and drive others.
Here are some of the top Zig Ziglar quotes to motivate and inspire you to achieve your goals.
About Happiness and Positivity
Ziglar pursued and established a happy and rewarding life despite the pain of losing his father and sister early in his youth.
Moving forward, remaining hopeful, and continuing to grow were all important to him.
Many of his quotations remind us that, even in the face of doubters and mistakes, we can always find a source of happiness and positivity.
Happiness is the ability to move forward knowing the future will be better than the past.
The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now.
It makes no difference where you go, there you are. And it makes no difference what you have, there’s always more to want. Until you are happy with who you are, you will never be happy because of what you have.
Don’t let others be your judge and jury with their pity and negative thoughts or feeling. Know that you are here for a reason. Recognize, develop, and use the resources you do have. Others see the surface; you know your heart.
The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you think you can only do a little.
If you don’t like who you are and where you are, don’t worry about it because you’re not stuck either with who you are or where you are. You can grow. You can change. You can be more than you are.
Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others.
Outside of your relationship with God, the most important relationship you can have is with yourself. I don’t mean that we are to spend all our time focused on me, me, me to the exclusion of others. Instead, I mean that we must be healthy internally, emotionally and spiritually – in order to create healthy relationships with others.
When your image improves, your performance improves.
Don’t let someone who gave up on their dreams talk you out of going after yours.
Hope is the power that gives a person the confidence to step out and try.
Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
If you don’t see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner.
Ziglar’s Views on Failure
But Ziglar’s narrative is more than just a success story.
He relocated to Dallas, Texas, in 1968 to become a vice president and training director for the Automotive Performance firm. Despite the company’s promising future, it fell bankrupt barely two years later.
Ziglar wrote a lot when he wasn’t speaking at training courses or attending meetings.
Over the course of his career, he published more than 30 books, beginning with See You At The Top.
Ziglar’s first book was rejected 39 times before being published in 1975, despite the fact that it is still in print today. His tenacity and refusal to give up continue to inspire us now.
Don’t let the mistakes and disappointments of the past control and direct your future.
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Failure is an event, it is not a person—yesterday ended last night—today is a brand new day and it’s yours.
When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.
If you don’t plan your time, someone else will help you waste it.
Most people who fail in their dream fail not from lack of ability but from lack of commitment.
There is little you can learn from doing nothing.
Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker.
You don’t drown by falling in water; you only drown if you stay there.
Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street. – Zig Ziglar
One of the main reasons people fail to reach their full potential is because they are unwilling to risk anything.
Try to look at your weakness and convert it into your strength.
Quotes about Goal Setting
To accomplish that much, you’ll need outstanding time management, organization, and effort.
GOALS: How to Get the Most Out of Your Life, his most recent book, is a testimonial to his efficiency and insight.
It is a must-read for entrepreneurs and salespeople who want to create and achieve goals without “confusing action with accomplishment.”
Many Zig Ziglar quotations concentrate on goal planning and the significance of being organized in achieving success, which is unexpected.
These quotes remember us that we all have the same period of time in the day; it’s what we do with it that counts. Whether our goals are huge or small, life-changing and just another step on the way to success, these quotes remember us that we all have the same amount of time in the day.
To begin, you must set some lofty goals, as thinking large generates the enthusiasm required for success. Second, you must have some long-term goals in order to avoid being stopped in your tracks by short-term difficulties. Third, you must set daily goals, because making it big requires you to strive toward your long-term objectives every day. Fourth, your objectives must be explicit rather than vague or general.
Anyone with a purpose can make a difference.
You need a plan to build a house. To build a life, it is even more important to have a plan or goal.
Identify your goals, and set a deadline for reaching them. Make a list of obstacles you have to overcome to reach your goals, identify the people who can help you overcome those obstacles, and make a list of skills you have and those you need to achieve your goals and then develop a plan.
A goal properly set is halfway reached.
The real benefit of having goals is what you become by reaching them.
You got to have long range goals. You go as far as you can see, and when you get there, you will always be able to see further.
To reach your full potential, you have to set goals that will stretch you.
When you stop planning and preparing, you stop winning.
Desire is born with vision.
People do not wander around and then find themselves at the top of Mount Everest.
A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. But a vision and a task are the hope of the world.
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
In order for a goal is to be effective, it must effect change.
Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.
You can’t hit a target you cannot see, and you cannot see a target you do not have.
Zig Ziglar on Relationships
In 1944, Ziglar met his future wife Jean in Jackson, Mississippi. He was 17 years old, and she was 16 years old. The couple married in late 1946 and had four children together.
They were together for 66 years, till he passed away in 2012 at the age of 86. In 2004, he published Courtship After Marriage: Love Can Last a Lifetime, a book that contained the lessons he had learned about the value of devoting time and effort to your marriage and spouse.
These Zig Ziglar love quotes and writings provide witness to the incredible love that existed between Jean and Hilary, as well as his passion for other people and their dreams.
“You may have anything in life you desire if you will just assist other people obtain what they want,” he said, emphasising the significance of love and compassion in our personal and professional interactions.
To a child love is spelled T-I-M-E.
Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.
The best way to make your spouse and children feel secure is not with big deposits in bank accounts, but with little deposits of thoughtfulness and affection in the “love” account.
When you encourage others, you in the process are encouraged because you’re making a commitment and difference in that person’s life. Encouragement really does make a difference.
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they’ve never failed to imitate them.
Look back in forgiveness, forward in hope, down in compassion, and up with gratitude.
How happy a person is depends upon the depth of his gratitude. You will notice at once that the unhappy person has little gratitude toward life, other people and God.
The healthiest of all human emotions is gratitude.
You become part of what you are around.
The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.
You don’t build a business – you build people – and people build the business.
You cannot fly with the eagles if you continue to scratch with the turkeys.
You don’t climb the high mountain all by yourself, it is in conjunction with others that we really accomplish the major things in life.
Surround yourself with people who want the best for you and the people you love!
The greatest cause of a poor image is the absence of unconditional love.
The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.
Like sterling silver, love will tarnish unless it is polished with daily applications of interest, involvement, and expressions of love.
Many marriages would be better if the husband and wife clearly understood that they’re on the same side.
Quotes to Build Your Confidence
Zig Ziglar’s legacy is one of inspiration, knowledge, and motivation. Whether spoken aloud or written down, his words have the power to inspire us even now.
We can all benefit from his devotion to live a happy and positive life, supporting others to achieve their goals, and having a single-minded concentration on attaining success in your personal and professional life.
I recognize that winning is not everything, but the effort to win is.
It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.
When you’ve got a strong enough why, you can always find the how.
We do not stop working and playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop working and playing.
You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.
Peak performance is dependent on passion, grit, determination, and a willingness to do something poorly until you can do it well.
You cannot solve a problem until you acknowledge that you have one and accept responsibility for solving it.
You are the most influential person you will talk to all day.
Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember ~ the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.
Make today worth remembering.
Put all excuses aside and remember this: YOU are capable.
You can start from where you are with what you’ve got and go to where it is you want to go.
Ziglar on Achievement
Without a doubt, Ziglar was able to put his abilities and skills to good use and achieve great success.
From his early days as a founding member of the American Salesmasters, when he was just one of many speakers in local auditoriums across the South and Midwest, Ziglar went on to speak extensively for the National Association of Sales Education (NASE) audiences, as well as becoming a major sales trainer for Mary Kay Cosmetics.
Ziglar went from aiming to elevate the profile of salesmen in America to genuinely training them for success with time and hard work. Working with larger brands allowed him to gain more notoriety and reach a larger audience.
You can start where you are with what you’ve got and go to wherever it is you want to go.
If you are going to be successful, you must develop persistence. How do you do that? It is not easily condensed in one simple statement, but one thing you can be sure of is that your must define your purpose.
You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.
We cannot start over, but we can begin now and make a new ending.
Your attitude, not your aptitude, determines your altitude.
If you have the character to hang in there when it’s tough, you will develop or acquire every other characteristic necessary to WIN in the game of life.
You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.
You can change everything about your business by changing your thinking about your business.
Fear has two meaning; ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours.
Money is not everything but it ranks right up there with oxygen.
Success is dependent upon the glands – sweat glands.
If you aim at nothing, you will hit every time.
If you do not think you deserve success, then you will do things that will keep you from getting success.
You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.
Moving from survival to stability, from stability to success, from success to significance.
Success comes when opportunity meets preparation.
A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.
You already have every characteristic necessary for success if you recognize, claim, develop and use them.
You are the only person on Earth who can use your ability.
Getting up and moving forward is a choice.
Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.
When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.
When you do more than you’re paid for. Eventually, you’ll be paid for more than you do.
Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.
Motivation is the fuel necessary to keep the human engine running.
Where you start is not as important as where you finish.
There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.
Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the ‘gotta have it’ scale.
Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.