Today, I want to share thoughts from an important mentor who I never met: Zig Ziglar. I will give you two quotations that changed my thinking and changed my approach to life. I never knew Mr. Ziglar, but I have had him in my head for years helping me to buy into me.
About five years ago, I started down the “self awareness journey.” I come from the education world. I spent 10 years teaching high school World History, US History, World Religions, and American Problems. It was about that time that I stumbled across a guy named Zig Ziglar. (I know. What took my so long?) I had a chance to purchase something on Audible, and I decided on Born to Win by Zig Ziglar. If you’ve never heard about Born to Win, it’s about a 15 hour live seminar that Zig Ziglar recorded. The two quotes for today became lodged in my life, would not leave me alone, and continue to this day to stew in my thoughts.
The first quote that embedded itself in my life says, “If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find that they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.”
Initially, that struck a cord because I am always looking for friends. Or at least, always open to the idea that I can make a friend. But as I dug in deeper to the “if, then” play on his words, an important business idea emerged for me. See, if you play around with this just a little bit, you could say, “If you go looking for good customers, you may find them very scarce. If you go out to be a good customer, you may find good customers around you as well”.
If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find that they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere
Zig Ziglar
It’s kind of interesting to play around with.
So, if I want to find good clients and good customers, then what am I doing to practice myself to be a good client and a good customer? Am I even doing that? Am I practicing what I preach? Am I investing in myself if I ask others to invest in themselves, to learn, and to grow? That answer, by the way, is YES! I invest heavily, through time and moentarily, in my own development.
What about my parenting? If I want my kids to be good kids and good children, am I practicing being a good child, a good son or a good daughter? This has been something I have found myself mulling over for some time.
I love that idea.
It has changed how I view my approach in many instances in my life. If I’m looking to go out and try and find new friends, how about I try and be a friend and see what that looks like, sounds like, feels like. And to be quite frank with you, I’ve had several instances where I was hoping to be a friend and it didn’t turn out so well. So, I continue to try and be a friend and continue to work on my own relations as a friend. I have found that as I do that, there are those “law of magnetism” moments where close friendships have developed in my life.
The second quotation is much more defining for me as a coach and trainer. Mr. Ziglar says this one inside Born to Win over and over and over and over again. I love this one. This is something that I decided, since hearing it, that I was just going to try and prove in my life.
You can have anything in this life that you want, if you just help enough other people get what they want.
Zig Ziglar
That’s such a fascinating sentence to me. It’s something that you could tell Zig Ziglar believed strongly and passionately in. If you ever heard him speak, you probably heard some sort of mix of this phrase. In fact, I’ve heard a lot of my other mentors use this quote in various forms. This sentence is quite fascinating in our lives, because this one is about helping others…first. This is about going out, and finding ways that you can help and uplift and strengthen others, and then, AFTER you have helped, they’ll find ways to come and strengthen and help you.
What an amazing principle of power in my life. Whenever I have found myself wanting to be served, I try to remember that I may find that service only after I have first served others. I’ve worked very hard to try and be a value add to people. This blog is one of those ways I’m trying to do that, whether it’s reaching anybody or not, I don’t know, but I’m going to post it anyway.
As I’ve worked with clients, as I’ve continued to coach clients, as I’ve continued to help businesses to grow, and as I’ve worked with families developing their family legacies, or go on retreats with them I have found that the principle holds true over and over. If I become a value add to enough other people, then it ultimately comes around and becomes a value add in my life, and I can take care of the things that I want to do in my life.
Whether you are on the hunt for better clients, customers, friends, or maybe you are just trying to figure out how to have more in your life. These two quotations can remind you to add value to others, serve them, and ultimately be the person you want to do business with. Doing so can ofter result in a greater abundance in your own life.
Be the best version of you.
Find others that need the best version of you, and you will find that their best version of them fits nicely into your life as well.
To find a friend, be a friend.
To have what you want, help others get what they want, and help them FIRST.
Those are the thoughts that swim in my head from Zig Ziglar.
Thank you for the abundance, Mr. Ziglar!
Stew on these thoughts a bit and remember, One Step Up makes all the difference!
When you are ready to take that one step up, click here to get on my calendar and let’s discuss the power of what the coaching relationship can be in your life.