Motivational Quotes of Zig Ziglar on Success, Business, Selling, Money, and Family

Timid salesmen have skinny kids.
When you make a promise, keep it.
Only men of character are trusted.
If you want to earn more, learn more.
Every obnoxious act is a cry for help.
A goal properly set is halfway reached.
He climbs highest who helps another up.
Every choice you make has an end result.
Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.
There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.
Take time to be kind and to say ‘thank you.’
If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.
A plan is always successful if the plan is good.
Remember that failure is an event, not a person.
If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.
New information makes new and fresh ideas possible.
I’ve got to confess I’m a pragmatic optimist myself.
Success is dependent upon the glands – sweat glands.
I once dieted so religiously I quit eating in church.
Yesterday ended last night. Today is a brand-new day.
The right quote can inspire people to change their ways.
Goals enable you to do more for yourself and others, too.
Now’s the best time you’ll ever have in life to get ahead!
Success must never be measured by how much money you have.
Some people do really find fault like there’s a reward for it.
The problem is not getting rid of fear, but using it properly.
You’ve got to be before you can do and do before you can have.
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
Selling is something we do for our clients – not to our clients.
I was in that part of the class that made the top half possible.
Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have.
A lot of people quit looking for work as soon as they find a job.
Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.
You do not pay the price of success, you enjoy the price of success.
It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you use that makes a difference.
Isn’t it amazing how much stuff we get done the day before vacation?
Building a better you is the first step to building a better America.
People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons.
Be careful not to compromise what you want most for what you want now.
New research shows that you will be dead longer than you will be alive.
The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.
You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.
True success has more components than one sentence or idea can contain.
When I became proficient as a salesman I was invited to teach new hires.
You don’t drown by falling into water. You only drown if you stay there.
When you catch a glimpse of your potential, that’s when passion is born.
You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure.
You cannot perform in a manner inconsistent with the way you see yourself.
Outstanding people have one thing in common: An absolute sense of mission.
If you treat your wife like a thoroughbred, you’ll never end up with a nag.
If you don’t see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner.
Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful.
Be there for your kids. Later, when you need them, they’ll be there for you.
In the game of life, before you get anything out, you must put something in!
Money won’t make you happy… but everybody wants to find out for themselves.
When you are tough on yourself, life is going to be infinitely easier on you.
Honesty and integrity are by far the most important assets of an entrepreneur.
Try to look at your weakness and convert it into your strength. That’s success.
Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
People who have good relationships at home are more effective in the marketplace.
I took up an offer for me to lose 30 pounds in 30 days. It worked. I lost 30 days!
You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life.
Many people who want to be great aren’t willing to do the work to make it possible!
Positive thinking will let you use the ability which you have, and that is awesome.
Courage is on display every day, and only the courageous wring the most out of life.
Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.
Until you are happy with who you are, you will never be happy because of what you have.
I’m so optimistic, I’d go after Moby Dick in a rowboat and take the tartar sauce with me.
Many people spend more time in planning the wedding than they do in planning the marriage.
Do more than you are being paid to do, and you’ll eventually be paid more for what you do.
The relationships we have with people are extremely important to success on and off the job.
My favorite writers are all Jews – David, Solomon, Matthew, Mark – well, you get the picture.
Being productive gives people a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that loafing never can.
The problem with pity parties is very few people come, and those who do don’t bring presents.
I read the paper every day and the Bible every day; that way I know what both sides are up to.
Time well spent results in more money to spend, more money to save, and more time to vacation.
Athletic skills are acquired over a long period of time and after countless hours of practice.
If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.
Profitability comes from loyalty, productivity, and having a character base from which to work.
You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.
The successful business executive can handle challenges and solve problems at a remarkable clip.
You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.
If you’re going to have to swallow a frog, you don’t want to have to look at that sucker too long!
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
Husbands and wives, have fun with each other. I’m convinced it makes all the difference in the world.
It is true that integrity alone won’t make you a leader, but without integrity you will never be one.
You were designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.
When you give directives to a child, especially a teenager, you must consider the nature of your child.
When there is no job related stress, you are more aware of your mate and children, if you are a parent.
The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
You cannot tailor-make the situations in life but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations.
Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.
It’s not the situation, but whether we react negative or respond positive to the situation that is important.
Yes, it’s absolutely true that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly – until you can learn to do it well.
Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the ‘gotta have it’ scale.
It’s absolutely true that unless you can instill discipline upon yourself, you will never be able to lead others.
If you want to reach a goal, you must ‘see the reaching’ in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.
I believe it’s important that we use names of endearment that reflect a special feeling for the individual involved.
Problem-solving becomes a very important part of our makeup as we grow into maturity or move up the corporate ladder.
I’m convinced that what kids need today are parents – not buddies. They need someone who will exercise mature judgement.
Champions invariably have fervent philosophical beliefs. Philosophy, in its simplest terms, means ‘the love of wisdom.’
Most people consider me an optimist because I laughingly state that I would take my last two dollars and buy a money belt.
If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.
Be grateful for what you have and stop complaining – it bores everybody else, does you no good, and doesn’t solve any problems.
It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action and discipline that enabled us to follow through.
There is a certain amount of dissatisfaction that goes with knowing your time, talent and abilities are not being properly used.
Fortunately, problems are an everyday part of our life. Consider this: If there were no problems, most of us would be unemployed.
If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.
If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.
The six people who had the biggest impact on my life were all women. Had I been sexist, my life would have been far less fulfilling.
Husbands and wives, first be faithful to each other. Second, keep the romance going all of your life by courting each other every day.
Your understanding of what you read and hear is, to a very large degree, determined by your vocabulary, so improve your vocabulary daily.
Personal discipline, when it becomes a way of life in our personal, family, and career lives, will enable us to do some incredible things.
Whether it’s eight o’clock in the morning or eight o’clock at night, I always try to greet others before they have a chance to speak to me.
It will be disastrous when a leader or manager shows up with one attitude one day and treats people with a different attitude the next day.
Time can be an ally or an enemy. What it becomes depends entirely upon you, your goals, and your determination to use every available minute.
I’m a constant learner. You need to be a constant student because things change and you have to change and grow. And I emphasize the word ‘grow.’
With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity, you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt.
If my life has had a theme, I suppose it has been a typical American theme in that, for most of it, I have been looking for happiness and success.
We hear tears loudly on this side of Heaven. What we don’t take time to contemplate are the even louder cheers on the other side of death’s valley.
We need to understand the difference between discipline and punishment. Punishment is what you do to someone; discipline is what you do for someone.
Little men with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds.
As youngsters, my mother taught her children that while we might not be the smartest people around, we could be courteous, polite and considerate of others.
Kids instinctively know – although they will argue to the contrary – that they really are not mature enough to make good decisions on some important issues.
The one thing coaches cannot tolerate… is the individual who grows arrogant because he excelled at a lower level and believes he has nothing else to learn.
A productive employee who is kept busy working at his or her job is far more likely to be happy at that job and less likely to look for employment elsewhere.
Authors by the hundreds can tell you stories by the thousands of those rejection slips before they found a publisher who was willing to ‘gamble’ on an unknown.
You are who you are and what you are because of what has gone into your mind. You can change who you are and what you are by changing what goes into your mind.
The top salesperson in the organization probably missed more sales than 90% of the sales people on the team, but they also made more calls than the others made.
Honesty and integrity are absolutely essential for success in life – all areas of life. The really good news is that anyone can develop both honesty and integrity.
Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.
Research indicates that employees have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.
There’s never been a doctor who served many patients who, despite their best efforts, did not lose some of them to death. But they understood that was part of life itself.
I am convinced after more than 50 years in the field of motivation that anyone who wants to learn to look at life and/or their circumstances in a positive light can do so.
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.
Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.
I have always said that everyone is in sales. Maybe you don’t hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend, are in sales.
Fact: If standard of living is your number one objective, quality of life almost never improves. But if quality of life is your number one objective, standard of living invariably improves.
You can make positive deposits in your own economy every day by reading and listening to powerful, positive, life-changing content and by associating with encouraging and hope-building people.
Reading has been the fuel of my motivation: it has changed the direction in which I have travelled, and it has enhanced my creative imagination more than any other activity I have ever pursued.
If your watch is slow by just four minutes, that’s not much – unless you’ve been warned that if you’re even one minute late ever again you will be fired. Then four minutes make a big difference.
Just saying you are better than good won’t make it so. But, when you understand what it takes to live the better than good life, and you apply yourself, your life will truly be better than good.
I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.
For 24 years of my adult life, by choice I weighed well over 200 pounds. I say ‘by choice’ because I have never ‘accidentally’ eaten anything, so when I choose to eat too much, I have chosen to weigh too much.
Send out a cheerful, positive greeting, and most of the time you will get back a cheerful, positive greeting. It’s also true that if you send out a negative greeting, you will, in most cases, get back a negative greeting.
The person who dumps garbage into your mind will do you considerably more harm than the person who dumps garbage on your floor, because each load of mind garbage negatively impacts your possibilities and lowers your expectations.
We all prospect, and don’t even know we’re doing it. When you start the dating process, you are actually prospecting for the person you want to marry. When you’re interviewing employees, you are prospecting for someone who will best fit your needs.
To be candid, some people have given positive thinking a bad name. I can’t stand to hear some gung-ho individual say that with positive thinking you can just do ‘anything.’ If you think about that one for a moment, you recognize the absurdity of it.
I read for the ‘ah-ha’s,’ the information that makes a light bulb go off in my mind. I want to put information in my mind that is going to be the most beneficial to me, my family and my fellow man – financially, morally, spiritually, and emotionally.
I’m constantly amazed that owners and managers of all businesses don’t train their people to call the person who pays by credit card by name. It definitely makes the customer feel good and will be a factor in bringing them back to your place of business.
Money is not the most important thing, but when you need it, there are few substitutes. So while I like the things money can buy, I love what money won’t buy. It bought me a house but it won’t buy me a home. It would buy me a companion but it won’t buy me a friend.
All one needs to do is read – books, magazines, research the Internet – and pay attention to the influencers in their lives to discover the myriad people of strong moral character who have and still are making positive, meaningful contributions and differences in our world.
The young athlete who aspires to greatness, generally speaking, learns a number of things from several different coaches. The first one taught him the fundamentals; the second one instilled discipline in him and taught him more of the techniques that must be mastered to excel.
It might interest you to know that the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary identifies the optimist in complimentary terms, but says nothing about the pessimist. The word ‘pessimist’ was not in our vocabulary at that time. It’s a modern ‘invention’ which I believe we should ‘dis-invent.’
People are basically the same the world over. Everybody wants the same things – to be happy, to be healthy, to be at least reasonably prosperous, and to be secure. They want friends, peace of mind, good family relationships, and hope that tomorrow is going to be even better than today.
I’ve always taught that a poor economy is the best opportunity for salespeople because the naysayers and grumblers have already given up, leaving more territory, more opportunities to be successful than in a good economy when virtually all salespeople are out there, giving it their best.
When you are truly interested in other people, you will learn what they are interested in and if they have a need for your product. If they like you, and most people like folks who take an interest in them, they’ll help you find people who do need what you have to sell, even if they don’t.
I seldom read anything that is not of a factual nature because I want to invest my time wisely in the things that will improve my life. Don’t misunderstand; there is nothing wrong with reading purely for the joy of it. Novels have their place, but biographies of famous men and women contain information that can change lives.

Hilary Hinton “Zig” Ziglar (November 6, 1926 – November 28, 2012) was anAmerican author, salesman, and motivational speaker. He was born in Coffee County in southeastern Alabama.

Ziglar served in the United States Navy during World War II, from 1943 to 1945. He later worked as a salesman in a succession of companies. In 1968, he became a vice president and training director for the Automotive Performance company,moving to Dallas, Texas.

By 2010, Ziglar still travelled around taking part in motivational seminars, despite a fall down a flight of stairs in 2007 that left him with short-term memory problems.

Ziglar integrated Christianity into his motivational work. He was also a Republican who endorsed former Governor Mike Huckabee for his party’s presidential nomination in 2008. On November 28, 2012, Ziglar died from pneumonia at a hospital in Plano, Texas. (from Wikipedia)