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Here is how you do it. On a daily basis, even if it is only for five or ten minutes a day, Refill your mind with material that helps you build your Will, or your Skill, or both. You can read or listen to great material. This book is a great place to start, and as you are reading this very sentence you are practicing Will, Skill, and Refill. Dad’s favorite example of Will, Skill, and Refill was Automobile University. When you are driving, pop in a powerful CD that builds you up.
Personally, I have loaded my iPod with hundreds of hours of life-building material (of course my favorite is Dad), and I listen almost every time I work out.
There is no such thing as the “status quo.” Coasting in life, in business, or in your family relationships is not an option. All are either improving or getting worse. The same is true for success. You are either moving closer to success, or further from it. This is why Will, Skill, and Refill are so critical on a daily basis.
“Encouragement is the fuel on which hope runs.”
—Zig Ziglar
As you plan, prepare, and expect to win in life because you are born to win, never forget that hope is the catalyst that will get you started, and that encouragement keeps hope alive. The daily dose of Will, Skill, and Refill is where you will find encouragement. Remember, you were Born to Win! Prepare Yourself! Expect Success! Change the World!
—Tom Ziglar
THANK YOU, JEAN Abernathy Ziglar (Sugar Baby), for being the only girl I’ve ever loved and for believing I was born to win even when I hadn’t yet realized it for myself.
Thank you to my children, Tom Ziglar, Cindy Ziglar, and Julie Ziglar Norman, my granddaughter Katherine Lemons, and my sonin-law Jim Norman for helping me bring this book to press. It is my joy to work with my family.
Thank you, Laurie Magers, my executive assistant for over thirty-four years, for being dedicated to making this book the best it can be and for always doing everything with great care and professionalism.
Thank you, Billy Cox, my longtime friend, Ziglar, Inc., board member, and exceptional business entrepreneur, for the incredible amount of time and effort you put into helping me make the content of this book all that it needed to be.
Thank you, my friend Larry Carpenter, for writing the foreword of this book, for serving on the Ziglar, Inc., Advisory Board, and for being the person who attended my Born to Win course more often than any other! You have always championed the Born to Win philosophy, and you live the philosophy more completely than anyone I have ever met. Your success in life and in business are proof that you were born to win!
Thank you, Milli Brown, CEO of Brown Books Publishing Group, and David Leach for your belief in and contributions to this project. Thank you, Michael Levin, my new friend, for editing my book with a heart of true understanding about my goals for my reader. Your insight was spot-on and your input added untold value to the content.
Thank you to my Ziglar, Inc., team! You make my work sustainable and I am happily indebted to you!
Many thanks to all of you who have read one of my books or heard me speak, applied what you learned, and discovered that you, too, were born to win! This book is a result of your success in applying these principles.
My deepest gratitude is for the One who has directed my life since July 4, 1972: my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Because of my relationship with Him, my mind and heart are free of fear and worry, and I can look forward in excited anticipation for what is yet to come.
IN NOVEMBER OF 2011, I celebrated the sixty-fourth anniversary of my twenty-first birthday, and I’m still busier than a one-armed man calling on twin sisters! I’m still working on new books and encouraging people everywhere I go. I love every minute of it. Lots of people say they heard I have retired! I always exclaim, “You heard wrong! You should have heard I was ‘re-fired.’ I’m not going to ease up, let up, shut up, or give up until I’m taken up. As a matter of fact, I’m just getting warmed up.”
However, when you get to be my age, you think back over your life and consider how effective you may have been and what you did that made the biggest difference in people’s lives. For me, that is an easy answer. In my own life, my conversion to Christ and my marriage made the biggest difference for me. As for the things I did that had the greatest impact on the lives of others, the first is providing audio products for people to listen to in their cars. I’ve always been an advocate of “Automobile University,” and through the years I’ve received hundreds of pounds of mail from people telling me how they take me with them every day on their daily commute and business trips. I’m always tickled that I can go just about anywhere and very few people recognize my face, but when I open my mouth and start talking, heads turn, and often I’m asked if I am Zig Ziglar. My voice is distinctive, and when you combine it with my Yazoo City, Mississippi, accent, well, it’s not really stepping out on a limb when folks guess that it’s me.
The second effective thing I’ve done is a three-day seminar I offered several times a year for more than thirty years. Originally, the seminar was called “The Richer Life Course,” but eventually it became known as simply “Born to Win.” Through the years I’ve come to know thousands of people whose lives were transformed materially and spiritually as a result of participating in the Born to Win experience.
Possibly you, my friend, have contributed to the stack of mail I’ve gotten these past forty-plus years. I am so grateful for folks like you who have shared what has been most important and significant to them. As I previously mentioned, the Born to Win seminar and my audio products head the lists, but why have they been so effective? What was being taught in those activities that has had such a powerful impact on people’s lives? The answer to that question is in the words I’ve used to describe the Born to Win experience: “You were born to win, but to be the winner you were born to be, you have to plan to win and prepare to win. Then and only then can you expect to win.” The “Ziglar Gold” is found in principles and techniques I have taught people that show them how to plan, prepare, and expect to win. This may not sound earth-shaking, but you must understand that these skills and attitudes have the power to transform your life.
My own life was transformed by these principles more than fifty years ago by some tough comments made by one of my mentors, my area sales supervisor, Mr. P. Merrell. I will share more of my experience with Mr. Merrell later in the book. However, through his instruction and lots of mentoring from others, I learned the power of planning, preparing, and expecting to win. When I learned how to plan each day and set specific goals, I became more focused on the things that really make a difference. When I learned how to prepare myself and equip myself with the tools and skills I needed to be successful, I was able to execute my plans and turn them into winning results. Finally, when I learned how to expect success, it all came together and transformed my life and the life of my family. All this to say that Ziglar Gold is captured when you acquire the skill set needed to plan, prepare, and expect to win.
I’ve always considered myself to be a professional “encourager,” and my mission was to help people find hope when there didn’t seem to be any. To fulfill that role, I’ve always tried to give people lots of simple
