Deep in the Heart of Texans

ROOF POSITIVE: Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar
___Zig Ziglar is chairman of the board of the Zig Ziglar Corp., headquartered in Carrollton, but he is best known as one of the top motivational speakers in the world, annually addressing business leaders around the globe. Described in his materials as "a people builder," he has traveled more than 5 million miles delivering "life improvement messages." He is the author of 18 books and currently is at work on his autobiography. A native of

ZIG ZIGLAR

Yazoo City, Miss., Ziglar is an active churchman, teaching the auditorium class at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano. He was first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention in l985-86. He and his wife, Jean, have been married more than 50 years

Q.
___ How long have you been "Zig"?
___Much to the surprise of many, few called me Zig when I was growing up. Most called me H.H. When I became a speaker, it kind of evolved, and I quickly realized Zig Ziglar was easier to remember and more marketable than Hilary Hinton Ziglar from Yazoo City, Miss. Since then, everyone has called me Zig and anything else sounds funny. I still get letters from high school buddies, and I know immediately when I see them that they are letters from home.

Q.
___ Speaking of home, what were the forces in your childhood that helped shape you as a person?
___Normally on my wall out there (in the Zig Ziglar Building) are pictures of 26 men and women I call my wall of gratitude. I am in the final stages of my autobiography, and we have taken them down to create a collage to show all them in the book. But the five people who have had the greatest impact on my life are all women.
___My mother, of course, heads the parade. She was widowed and left with eight children at home, six of them too small to work, in the heart of the Depression. She had a fifth-grade education, but she had incredible wisdom and marvelous faith. She was one of the hardest workers I think anybody will ever see. We survived because we had three milk cows and a big garden. All of us contributed around the house. Mom would can during those hot summer months on a wood stove, and she churned butter. I can still see her sitting on the back porch and singing "Sweet Hour of Prayer" and "The Old Rugged Cross."
___She taught us in sentence sermonettes to "Tell the truth and tell it ever, costeth what it will. For he who hides the wrong he did, does the wrong thing still." "If your word is no good, eventually you are no good." And, "When a task is once begun, you leave it not until it's done. Though it be a matter great or small, you do it well or not all." She was just loaded with those and would repeat them over and over. Her impact through her wisdom and example was remarkable.
___Number two, in Yazoo City, we had some good preachers who faithfully preached the Bible. We had a great superintendent of education who demanded academic excellence. My first-grade teacher is one of the pictures on the wall. When I was in the first grade, I had all the childhood diseases. I missed four months of school.
___Mrs. Warren twice a week would come to the house, sit in her car, blow her horn, and I would go sit in the car. For two hours, she would give me my assignments and bring me up to speed. If she hadn't done that, I would have failed the first grade. If I had failed the first grade, I would have been drafted out of high school in World War II. In my family, I was the first to graduate from high school, and college was for rich kids. She had a great impact on my life. On my wall are five teachers who had a great impact on my life.

Q.
___ How is your Christian faith connected to the positive image you present as a businessman?
___The benefits have been so incredible. I was 45 when I was saved. I was baptized when I was 12, but I was no more a Christian than the man in the moon. When I was saved, it had such an instantaneous, profound impact on my life in every conceivable way. I was broke and in debt, struggling to get ahead. The corporate world was studiously avoiding having me come and speak for them. My dream was to be a speaker, and I was working at it with some success, but it was minimal.
___People who know me will tell you I am somewhat like the Apostle Peter. In my life, nothing is either good or bad. It's either absolutely incredible, magnificent or wonderful or it's so bad I can't imagine anyone would do something like that.
___When I made the commitment, I did the whole nine yards. I immediately started tithing. About the third week, I looked at the tithe and said, "We must have had a good week." My wife said, "We did." Then I remembered I had failed to include the cost of airplane tickets and said we would have to refigure it. She said, "Let's leave it where it is; we can't outgive God." I said she was right.
___We were immediately hit with a $600 weekly obligation, and there was no way out of it. I got a letter from General Mills who said they wanted to book me for a long series of engagements and would like to put it in that year's budget and pay me in advance. Being the gracious fellow I am, I agreed. It had never happened before and has not happened since.
___I prayed as much about witnessing as I have about anything, about how I could weave it in without being offensive. God gave me a sense of humor, and the message I got was you don't preach, you teach, and if you can cast the message in humor, making the message itself serious, that is the way to do it. I have always let people know where I am coming from. One fellow told me early not to mess with religion, but God impressed me immediately that was miserable advice, so I started weaving in my witness. I have not had to solicit a speaking engagement in more than 30 years.

Q.
___ Some televangelists have been criticized for preaching a gospel of wealth--if you believe enough you will get rich. Do you believe that? Contrast that kind of gospel with what you teach.
___I emphatically do not believe in the prosperity gospel. I believe it is abomination. But I don't believe God has any objection to us becoming wealthy. I slip in some humor when I tell people that money is not the most important thing in life, but it is reasonably close to oxygen. When you need it, you really need it. David, Solomon and Abraham were wealthy. God does not object to wealth, but he tells us in Ecclesiastes that he who seeks silver will never be satisfied with silver, meaning that if money becomes your god, you will never be satisfied with whatever it is you have.
___Two-thirds of the parables Christ taught have to do with physical or financial well-being. I believe Christ wants us to put him first. If standard of living is your No. 1 priority, quality of life almost never improves; but if quality of life is your No. 1 priority, then standard of living almost invariably goes up.

Q.
___ Can a person be a committed Christian and still make the hard decisions required to be successful in business, or are they mutually exclusive?
___If he is a committed Christian, he must make the hard decisions in business. For years, we thought this (the business) was the Salvation Army. If a person didn't fit in one department, we would move him to another. They were misfits, and there was absolutely nothing we could do. Invariably, when we finally did the right thing and said we were going to have to let them go, in every case I can remember they got better jobs, made more money and were happier as a result. It's one thing to be soft-hearted; it's another to be soft-hearted and soft-headed. When we really got to the nitty-gritty, we realized we were not doing anyone any favors by trying to subsidize them, giving them jobs they were unqualified to accept. I believe Christians must make the hard decisions, because it is also the Lord's money you are dealing with.

Q.
___What is the credo you follow?
___We have a rather presumptuous mission statement. It is "to be the difference maker in the personal, family and professional lives of enough people to make a difference in the world," which is pretty presumptuous. But my works now have been translated in 38 languages and through the Internet and our affiliations our message is being delivered in at least 25 other countries. When we made that mission statement, we were not nearly in that position.
___The Great Commission is to go into all the world, and if we are going to be obedient, our mission statement should include that. In my Sunday School class, I say almost every Sunday I am there to teach an advanced course in math--you plus God equals enough. You and everybody else without God isn't nearly enough.

Q.You've mentioned those who have influenced your life, but who are your heroes?

___ I usually answer that with something from my seminars. A fellow walked into a bookstore and said to the lady manager, "Ma'am, can you tell me where to find the book, 'Man, the Superior Sex?'" She replied, "Yes, it's upstairs in the science fiction department." As soon as we all learn there is no superior sex or race, we will have laid the foundation for building good relations in the global world of ours.
___ The Department of Labor says 46 persons who leave their jobs voluntarily do so because they do not feel appreciated or respected. If you don't think they can tell it when you think you are better than they are, you are sadly mistaken. And it's incredibly expensive to replace a productive employee.
___ Then I point out that the five people who had the most impact on my life were all women, and would they have had the same interest in me if I had been sexist? Three American Indians had tremendous influence on me, one in my sales career, one in my speaking career and one in my spiritual walk. An elderly black lady is the reason I am a Christian today. Our director of international operations and the one in charge of product development is from India. Our daughter-in-law is from Campeche, Mexico. My closest friend for the last 36 years is a Jew. My favorite writers are all Jews--Mattthew, Abraham, David, etc. I have a major affiliation with a Japanese company with a Korean president. My son-in-law just got a liver transplant and we think the donor was a Spanish-American man.
___ God, for whatever reason, has put minorities in my life big time. Now, suppose I had been racist, would God have done that? No way. But I believe God was doing all of that as part of our mission statement, so I can reach out. Though I was raised in what was probably the most racially prejudiced state in the nation, my mother said, "One of these days you will stand before a color-blind Lord and you will treat them with kindness and courtesy." I believe the Lord was honoring my mother when he used that black lady to bring me into the kindom.

Q. What do you do for fun?
___ My wife will tell you I have fun reading the dictionary. That is an overstatement, but God has given me a joy. Even when our daughter died. You can't be happy and grieve, but you can grieve and have joy. I have so much fun teaching my Sunday School class that I often say I am afraid my church will hear about it and start charging me for it, because they don't believe anyone should have that much fun for free.
___I play golf; I have a passion for it. Others play better than I do, but no one has more fun. My family is a joy to me. We have two occasions a year that are really spectacular. First, we go to the Bill Gaither Familyfest in Gatlinburg every year and overdose on good Southern Gospel music for three days. My wife and our two daughters go to that. And then the other one is the father/son golf tournament where our wives and Tom's daughter go with us. We have a wonderful time.

Q.
___ What books do you read?
___One I am currently reading is "Hidden Treasures" by Rabbi Daniel Lapin. The best book I have read in the last 30 years is "The Light and the Glory" by David Manuel and Peter Marshall. It is the true history of America. I read a lot of Max Lucado books and a lot of John Maxwell books. I also read the small books, little publications that give me little things, trivia I can use. I like the book "In Other Words," a compilation of things out of newspapers compiled by a pastor in the Houston area. I recommend it for every preacher and Sunday School teacher.

Q. What would be an ideal day for you?

___ I am an early riser. I wake up every day within five minutes of 5 o'clock. The Bible says, "This is the day the Lord has made." If you don't think every day is an ideal day, just try missing one. First thing I do is make the coffee and do my praying while it is brewing. Then I go to my study, where I do 99 percent of all I do, and do my Bible study.
___ And I am doing my Bible study in a different way. I used to be very impressed with people who said they read the Bible from cover to cover every year. I am now convinced they aren't learning much about the Bible. My wife and I did it one year. But what I have started doing is I take my Criswell Study Bible and read it first and then get out my New Living Translation and write out all the verses I am studying, print them out. I am getting more insights by far.
___ When I finish my Bible study, which takes 30 to 45 minutes, I do my dictation. Then my wife gets up, and before she goes to the church to help count money, we will spend an hour at least at breakfast. We read the paper and talk. After that, she goes to get dressed and I go back to my office and work until about ll o'clock, when we go to lunch. We come back about 12:30 to 1 and I go back to the office and do my telephoning and writing.

Q. How much time do you devote to studying for your class?
___Almost all day Saturday. There may be some shopping or a trip to the grocery story, but most of the day.

Q.
___ You have had some personal tragedies in recent years. Did you blame God in any of those trials?
___One of the great beauties of trusting Christ is the fact that we are so completely at peace with where (our daughter) is and have the assurance of seeing her again. As far as I know, with the exception of her daughter who was 15 at the time and it took her awhile to get over it, no member of our family was mad at God.
___Psalm 139:16 is so comforting. Not one time have I heard a member of our family say, "We should of," or "I wish we had" or "We could."
___We loved our daughter as much as a child could be loved and repeatedly told her all of her life. Perhaps as many as a million people were praying for her. Because of the speaking I have done and the Internet, we know there were prayer meetings for her in India, Israel and all around the world. We certainly prayed for her. But God had her days measured. So there was no feeling of guilt.
___Isaiah 57:1-2 says the godly die young; the world knows not why. But God sees what lies ahead of them. As our daughter lay dying, we didn't realize in any way that she was that sick. She had pulmonary fibrosis. God saw what lay ahead, and her faith was so beautiful and so strong. I had written "Confessions of a Happy Christian," which God used to bring her into the kingdom. Then I wrote "Confessions of a Grieving Christian" to tell her goodbye.
___You used the word "tragedy," but in many ways it was not a tragedy. She is infinitely better off now than she ever was with us. But I cannot imagine how anyone could deal with the loss of a child or anyone they dearly loved without that assurance that God was in control.

Q. What advice would you give to Christians or to any men and women getting started in a profession today?
___Without hesitation, I would say commit it to prayer. There is an acronym for goals, "Godly Objectives Assure Lasting Success." Commit it to prayer and make sure it is what you want to do. And then start the career with a foundation that includes faith and character.
___The same qualities that would make you a good executive will make you a good husband or wife or parent--honesty, character, integrity, faith, love, loyalty, dedication, commitment--all those things. The qualities remain the same.
___There are some things that are right and wrong, and when you do the right thing, have the character base, the evidence is overwhelming that you will succeed. With integrity you do the right thing. With integrity there is no guilt. When you have fear and guilt taken away and bathe whatever you are doing in prayer, you are free to do your best.

___----Interview by Toby Druin

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