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Chapter 2

Taking the First Step to a Brighter Future

I want to share something written by Dr. Joseph Sizoo, and the title of it is Unsung Heroes.

Let it never be forgotten that glamour is not greatness, applause is not fame, prominence is not eminence, the man of the hour is not apt to be the man of the ages. A stone may sparkle, but that does not make it a diamond. A man may have money, but that does not make him a success. It is what the unimportant do that really counts and determines the course of history. The greatest forces in the universe are never spectacular. Summer showers are more effective than hurricanes, but they get no publicity. The world would soon die but for the fidelity, loyalty and consecration of those whose names are un-honored and unsung.

If you’re a golf fan you know that John Daly won the British Open in 1995. What you might not know is that there were some unsung heroes involved there. Corey Pavin, Brad Faxon, Bob Estes, Mark Brooks and the caddy. The first four names were professionals who had also been in the tournament, and when Constantino Rocca sank that 65-foot putt to send it into the playoff, a lot of people thought, ‘Well, you know, he snatched it right out of John Daly’s hands’, and they wondered if John Daly would be able to recuperate, recover and respond to what had happened. And these four guys—Pavin, Faxon, Estes and Brooks—came over to Daly. Mark Brooks supplied Daly with a distance card because Daly had misplaced his, and measured the exact distances from every spot on the course. Later, John Daly said that meant everything in the world to him and the caddy who helped him read those tricky British greens, which was what made the difference. Oh, Daly got the publicity, but the question is, had those people not been behind the scenes, would he have won the British Open? I think not.

You’ve got to look at the physical, the mental and the spiritual. Just as a matter of curiosity, is there anybody reading this who has a race horse worth over a million dollars? If you did have one, let me ask you a question: Would you keep him up half the night, letting him drink coffee and booze and smoke cigarettes and eat junk food? And if you did, how many races would he win? I think you’d probably agree he wouldn’t win very many races. Would you treat a ten-dollar dog that way? Five-dollar cat? What about a billion-dollar body? Ohhhh, but that’s mine! I’m doing it for me. Well, what have you got against you?

In the last twenty-three years, I’ve read an average of three hours a day. I read a little bit of everything. I try to read my Bible and the daily newspaper every day. That way I know what both sides are up to! We need to get balanced information. And then you’ve got to look at the spiritual side of life. Among other things, you’re going to be dead lots longer than you’re going to be alive.

The April 28, 1986, issue of Fortune magazine did a study of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies. Over fifty percent of them came from lower middle class or poor families. Ninety-one percent of them were either Catholic, Jewish or Protestant. There was evidence that they were at least semi-active in their faith, meaning they got their ethics, their morals, their judgment, their values, and their wisdom out of the Bible. Now, as the great LBJ would say, “Come, let us reason together…” though that was not an original quote! What I would like for you to think about is this; if Steven Covey or Tom Peters or Zig Ziglar or anybody else were to write a book, and ninety-one percent of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies said, “That’s the one I read, right there!” We all know what would happen, don’t we? We know everybody would go down and get a copy of that book.

You ever wonder why sixty-five percent of college graduates, seventy-two percent of Rhodes Scholars, seventy-five percent of military academy graduates, sixty-five percent of US congressmen, eighty-five percent of airline pilots, eighty-five percent of FBI agents, and eleven of the twelve astronauts who walked on the moon were all Boy Scouts, according to The American Scholar in the autumn 1992 issue? Well, let me see if I can explain to you why that is. First of all, Boy Scouts talk to themselves. I was a Boy Scout. Now all of us talk to ourselves. I’m going to do a lot of talking about self-talking because that is one of the keys to success. Every Thursday night in Yazoo City, Mississippi, I used to stand up there as a Boy Scout and say, “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” Boy! That is good stuff! And when you look at the Scout Law, it says, “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.”

Let me tell you something else the Scouts did. Every Thursday night in Yazoo City—I say every Thursday night—one Thursday night a month we had Court of Honor, and that was when we were given merit badges for what we had been doing all during the last go-around. That was a goal we had. We knew exactly what it took to be a first-class Scout. We had the merit badges all laid out. That’s goal setting! We knew what it took to be an Eagle Scout. And Eagle Scouts are successful in all facets of life that go far, far beyond the numbers of them. I tell you, if I were raising a young boy or a young girl today, I’d have them in the Boy Scouts, the Cub Scouts, the Girl Scouts—I would have them taking that training. You know their motto is Be Prepared. And you know what they say? Do a good deed every day. Understand now, you can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. They teach leadership. I spoke with Scout executives just this week and they explained to me at that the first camp they have somebody teaching the young Scouts how to drive the stakes and set the tent up. At the next Scout camp, this kid who was learning is now teaching! That’s the way you learn things. You hear/you forget; you see/you remember. But if you see it and hear it and do it, you understand. And you are successful at it. Do a good deed every day.

Now, what’s all this self-talk about? Well, here’s what it’s about. The most important opinion you have is the opinion you have of yourself. And the most important conversation you will have today is the conversation that you will have with yourself. These are values that make such a difference. But before we’re through, we’re going to have you talking to yourself.

In the March 1990 issue of US AIR magazine they had this study that validated that what you say to yourself has a direct bearing on your performance. Dr. Joyce Brothers says you cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself. A lot of people say, “Well, I don’t talk to myself,” but, interestingly enough, the same person talks to the driver of another car three blocks away…with considerable feeling, I hasten to add. You’re not going to believe it, but some people even talk to golf balls…”Go in the hole,” “Stay in there.” You know exactly what I’m talking about there, don’t you?

There was a sixty-five year old lady in Dallas who watched an exercise video. She got all motivated. She went home, she told everybody, “Now, I’m gonna start an exercise program. Gonna start walkin’. Gonna walk five miles a day every day the rest of my life, startin’ today.”

Well, her family tried to talk her out of it. They said, “Now, you know, that’s too much! You don’t start with five miles! Start with one mile.”

“Nope, gonna walk five miles a day every day for the rest of my life.” She is now eighty-three years old and her family doesn’t have a clue as to where she is.

Now, we’re going to talk about change.

Change is stressful—but so is unemployment. And bankruptcy. One of the old statements from AA simply says that one definition of insanity is to think you can keep on doing the same thing and somehow or another get different results. The truth is if you keep on doing what you’ve been doing, you’re going to keep on getting what you’ve been getting! If you like what you’ve been getting, that’s fine, but if you don’t like what you’re getting, maybe you need to explore some change.

I want you to think big. Let me share with you our mission statement at The Zig Ziglar Corporation: Be the difference-maker in the personal, family and business lives of enough people to make a positive difference in America and the world. Now, I know that’s pretentious. Small company. But that’s our mission. And let me tell you why it’s not impossible.

I love the story of the grandfather walking the beach with his grandson. And every step or two the grandfather would reach down, pick up a sand dollar and throw it out to sea. He’d take a couple more steps, pick up another one and throw it out, and another one, and finally the grandson said, “Granddaddy, what are you doin’?”

And the grandfather said, “Son, these sand dollars are living organisms. If I don’t throw them out to sea they’ll die in the hot sun. They’ve been washed ashore by the tide.”

The grandson said, “But, Granddaddy, there are thousands of them. What possible difference can it make?”

And the grandfather reached down, picked up another one, threw it out to sea and said, “To this one, it makes all the difference in the world.”

We’re going to be talking about significant things. We’re going to explore why it is that legal immigrants are four times as likely to become millionaires in America as are the people who are born here. It was explained to me in minute detail by a four-year-old girl. Three or four years ago, I got aboard an aircraft in Dallas headed for Norfolk, Virginia. I was the first passenger aboard. I was seated in seat 2C. A mother and her three little ones got aboard right behind me. She was carrying the infant, leading the toddler, and the four-year-old was following behind. The four-year-old got aboard and she looked left into the cockpit and saw those three impressive figures with all the boards and she saw the electronic gadgetry there, probably more than she’d ever seen in her lifetime. When she turned around those little eyes were as big as the proverbial saucers. I don’t know why this child did it, but she put her hands on her legs just above her knees and she bent down and she looked down that long fuselage and said it all with one word: GOSH!

Gosh! That’s what immigrants say when they get to America. They’ve left it all behind them—friends and family and support group, climate and culture and language. They come into this land without the things that so many of us have. One of our key people at our company, Krish Dhanam, got here with nine dollars in his pocket ten years ago, but he came with that dream that we’re going to talk about so much more.

The first thing they do when they land in America is get the daily paper and look at the jobs that are available and say, “There’s two hundred and ninety-one jobs advertised today! Some of them paying over five dollars an hour! Now, I know that doesn’t sound like a whole lot of money to you folks, but where I come from that’s three days’ wages! I’ll work not just eight hours a day, I’ll work twelve hours. I’ll get my education at a little community college. I will live cheaply. I will save my money. I will take advantage of the opportunities that are here,” and by the time they find out we’ve got problems, it’s too late. They’ve already made it. It’s GOSH when they see it.

In 1990 the number one-selling tee-shirt in Japan was, “We’re Number One.” The number one-selling tee-shirt in America was “Underachiever—and proud of it!” Too many people born in America get up every morning and say, “Big deal.” The immigrant gets up and says, “Wow! What a deal!” What a difference it makes. They come here with a vision, with a mission. A vision is a clearly articulated, results-oriented picture of a future you intend to create.

Let me say it again. I will not tell you this is easy; it’s not. Life is tough. But I also know that when you are tough on yourself, life is going to be infinitely easier on you. In a church in Sussex, England, on the wall, here’s what they have: “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.” I believe that is absolutely true. Not easy, but it’s worth it.

All of my life I have thought I was an optimist until I heard about this lady who had moved into a retirement home. On the very first day at lunch, she was seated across the table from a gentleman who was there, and after a moment or two he became concerned about the fact that she was really eyeballing him. I mean, she was staring a hole through him! He grew uncomfortable and finally he said, “Ma’am, I don’t understand. Why are you staring at me?”

She said, “I can’t believe it.”

“You can’t believe what?”

”I can’t believe that you look exactly like my third husband. The color of your eyes, your mannerisms, the way you talk, your age, your size! I mean, you look exactly like my third husband!”

“Third husband! How many times have you been married?”

”Twice.”

I want you to know that people can change. I want you to know even animals can change. This past week the Redhead and I were down at our home at Holly Lake, Sugarville. We were out walking our little dog, we have a little Welsh Corgi, and his name is Taffy. We were out walking and we met this other couple and they had a dog; he was about three times as big as our dog. He was beautiful with gorgeous fur, healthy-looking and the whole bit, and we got talking as dog owners always do. I said, “Well, you know, that’s such a beautiful dog. Looks so healthy. What’re you feeding that dog?”

The man said, “Turnip greens.”

I said, “I never heard of anyone feeding a dog turnip greens. My dog wouldn’t eat turnip greens.”

He said, “Mine wouldn’t either the first three weeks!”

Too many times we forget that we are measured by far more than just our intellect. For example, Mike Singletary played linebacker for the Chicago Bears. He was all-pro. He was drafted as late as he was because his time in the forty-yard dash was not really that good. Not only that, but he was too short. What they could not measure, though, was just how badly he wanted to be the best at what he was doing. Nor did they know, at that point, that there was a shorter distance that for linebackers was even more important, and that’s the way you get off of the ball. And so when he was playing linebacker for the Chicago Bears, when a running back would break through the line of scrimmage, the typical linebacker would cut him off about seven or eight yards down the field. Singletary started so fast that he caught them many times at the line of scrimmage. He held them to two-yard gains where the others were permitting five, six, seven and eight-yard gains. They couldn’t measure that.

This is what I really want to talk about to you. See, this man had tremendous pride in what he did. Now again, Bible students occasionally say, “Well, pride is kind of a dirty word.” Let me tell you something about words. They change meaning. For example, if I were to look at any one of you and say, “Why, you’re silly!” you’d be offended. Unless you knew that the word silly comes from the word selje, an old English word which means blessed, happy, healthy and prosperous. So if anybody ever calls you silly again, you ought to just grin and say, “Man, you don’t know how right you are! You got it right on the button!”

Now what’s this got to do with pride? The Bible speaks of false pride or vanity. Pride is an honest evaluation of that which is good.

Think with me as you read this book. Could it possibly be wrong for me to say to my children, “I am proud of the values you have”? Could it be wrong for me to say to my staff, “I am so proud of the job you do”? See, pride—I love the acrostic it forms. It is Personal Responsibility In Daily Endeavors. Pride’s important.

For the first fifteen years of my career I was in direct sales. I’ve knocked on tens of thousands of doors in my lifetime. I don’t ever remember getting excited about going out and knocking on doors. I did it because that was one of the things I had to do to make sales. After a period of time I started putting on cooking demonstrations where the hostess would invite in several couples and we’d cook up the meal and make the sales. I finally got semi-smart and realized I couldn’t do it all myself; ran an ad in Columbia, South Carolina, for a lady to help me. A lady named Gerry Arrowood responded.

Now, to give you an idea of what her personality was like; she baked cakes and took in sewing to help support her three daughters. Does that tell you something about her? Very quiet, very shy. But also very neat. I told her what I wanted and, in essence, I wanted her to do the cooking, wash the dishes, clean the cookware and clean the kitchen. I mean, a real top-level job! And we talked about it a little bit and she said, “Oh, Zig you know, I’d love to have that job. I love to cook. Don’t mind washing dishes. Don’t even mind cleaning the kitchen. But, as you can tell, I’m very shy. I gotta get a promise from you that you will never call on me to participate in the actual demonstration itself.”

I could instantly tell that Gerry and I were gonna get along real good! Well, we did for a couple of months and then one night my mouth overloaded my back. I made too many promises. I said, “Gerry, you gotta help me.”

“Whatchawanmetodo?”

“I want you to deliver these six sets of cookware I sold and teach the husband and wife how to use it on their own stove.”

Now, virtually everybody who will ever read this is not going to be able to relate to my next statement. Sheer terror filled her eyes. She literally, physically started shaking instantly. “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!”

“You can’t do what, Gerry?”

“I can’t deliver that cookware and teach those people how to use it on their stoves.”

I said, “Gerry, every night for the last two months, that’s what you’ve been doing to the host and hostess!”

“Yeah, but you’re always here. If I foul up I know you’ll bail me out!”

“Gerry, it’s not that big a deal!”

I didn’t even come close to making that sale. I mean, she just wasn’t buying any of it.

We had a twenty-five to thirty mile drive back home. It was very quiet.

Then, just as she started to get out of the car, she’d been thinking about it, obviously, she turned to me and said, “All right! I’ll do it. I’m not gonna sleep a wink tonight. I’ll probably foul up the deal tomorrow. But you stuck your neck out. You got the people’s money and you told ‘em it’d be delivered tomorrow. I don’t want to hurt your reputation, so I’ll do it. But I’m gonna tell you something, Zig. If you ever do this again, then it’s gonna be your neck, it ain’t gonna be mine! I’m not gonna EVER do this again!”

She got out of the car and I don’t know if she slept that night or not. I know I didn’t!

The next night I got one of the most exciting telephone calls I have ever gotten in my life. Came in about nine o’clock. It took me about forty minutes to get that introvert off the telephone. I mean, she, word by word, step by step, blow by blow, gave me minute details in everything that took place.

She said, “When I got to the first family, Zig, they had the coffee made and the dessert on and we had a wonderful time! They told me how personable I was, what a great personality I had and how professional I was! Zig, I had a wonderful time there and three of the six couples had the coffee on and the dessert ready and they all bragged on me. I’m tellin’ you I had the time of my life! I’ll do this any time you want me to do it.”

Didn’t happen that year or the next or the next or the next. But a little less than five years later, Gerry Arrowood was the vice president in charge of sales training internationally for a multi-million-dollar cosmetic company. You know what I believe? I believe with all of my heart there will be tens of thousands of Gerry Arrowoods who will read this book and they will rationalize, accurately so, “If she can do it, I can do it, too!”

Now I’ve got one major regret in this whole episode and that is I did not retain the name and address of the first couple she delivered that set of cookware to. I’m here to tell you that she approached that first home with fear and trembling. She was in a mad dash—she couldn’t wait to get to the second one. It’s amazing what a word of encouragement will do. Somebody once said there are a lot of people who have gone a lot further than they thought they could because somebody else thought they could. That first couple had a profound impact; they are unsung heroes. They really did something for Gerry Arrowood.

Have you ever noticed, normally speaking, that when somebody says, “I’m gonna tell you something for your own good,” then they tell you something bad? Did it ever occur to us that if we’re going to tell somebody something for their own good that we ought to tell them something good for their own good? It’s an old principle. Andrew Carnegie, a hundred years ago, had forth-three millionaires working for him. He was the first great industrialist our society produced. A reporter got wind of it and asked him, “Mr. Carnegie, how on earth did you hire forty-three millionaires?”

Mr. Carnegie said, “Well, none of them were millionaires when I hired them.”

“Then what did you do to develop them to the degree that they became so valuable to you that you could pay them so much money they became millionaires?”

Carnegie taught us a great lesson when he said, “You develop people in the same way you mine gold. When you go into a gold mine you expect to move tons of dirt to get an ounce of gold. But you don’t go in there looking for the dirt; you go in there lookin’ for the gold.”

See, I happen to believe there’s a gold mine inside of everybody we deal with. I believe people have got a great deal more inside of them than they realize. The Gerry Arrowood story—you see, it took an awful lot of courage for her to take that first step. Courage is not the absence of fear; it’s going ahead despite the fear. Shakespeare said, “The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.” When Gerry got that, she liked it so much she started doing other things. She became a student, she started learning, she became excited about growing in life, and when people are growing then they are generally excited. When you are learning things, that’s what creates the excitement. She was a very humble person.

Humility is one of the great qualities of leadership. That doesn’t mean that when a person is humble that they think less of themselves, it simply means they think of themselves less. Over a period of time Gerry’s confidence grew, but it never turned to arrogance. You see, when you get arrogant, that’s when Buster Douglas knocks out Mike Tyson. And for the benefit of those of you who are not fight fans, that’s when Mike was the unbeatable heavyweight champion of the world and Buster Douglas was almost a nobody. They weren’t even betting on it because he was such a prohibitive favorite, and that was the last fight Buster Douglas ever won, right there.

Gerry Arrowood retained her humility; she built her confidence, she worked very, very hard. She became that student. But she took what she had and developed it. That’s one of the reasons I will say so many times to you that you need to listen to your audios over and over. You see, they keep hope alive. When you hear these things in your mind over and over, you’re going to get a lift.

Now, I’m certain that when Gerry Arrowood got out of the car that night to deliver that cookware, she wasn’t thinking, “Well, you know, Zig’s been tellin’ me I can have everything in life I want if I’ll just help enough other people get what they want, and what I want to be is vice president in charge of sales training for that big ol’ cosmetic company, and if I deliver these cookware sets, then I’ll get to be the vice president in charge.” Now, isn’t that insane? She did it because it was the right thing to do. I was in a jam. She felt a loyalty to me and a concern for me as a friend and as her employer. It’s a philosophy I’m talking about. I’m not talking about a tactic.

Now let me ask you a question: How many of you consider yourself to be honest and at least reasonably intelligent? Let me ask you honest and intelligent people a question. How many of you, as a general rule, get more work done on the day before you go on vacation than you normally get done in two, three, even four days? Now, if we can figure out why and how and repeat it every day, without working any harder, does it make sense that you’d be more valuable to yourself, your company, your family and your community? The answer is yes. No question about it. Yes, it does make a whole lot of sense.

So let’s see if we can do a little exploring and find out why, and here’s the first thing: First of all, you’ve already said that you are honest and intelligent. Now, I want to make another profound statement. What you do off the job determines how far you go on the job. Every athlete knows that. Every entertainer knows that. Every public speaker ought to know that. If every other worker, doing anything, would learn that, then they would be getting ahead much faster in life.

They did a study on the typical American plant and the person working the line on an hourly basis watched an average of thirty hours of television a week. The person in charge of that line watched an average of twenty-five hours of television a week. The foreman watched an average of twenty hours of television a week—are you noticing a little trend here? The plant superintendent watched an average of fifteen hours of television a week. The vice president of the plant watched an average of twelve to fifteen hours of television a week. The president watched an average of eight to twelve hours of television a week; the chairman of the board watched an average of four to eight hours of television a week and fifty percent of that time they were watching training videos.

What do you think would happen to that person who’s watching thirty hours of television a week if they were to take ten of those hours and get involved in doing what you’re doing right now; reading good books, attending valuable seminars, getting that education? Is there a chance that they are a victim of circumstances or is it because they are a victim of inertia? It’s easy to go home and sit down in front of the television and let it dominate or run their life. See, the television doesn’t have that much good information. It does some things to you but the biggest damage television does is what it keeps you from doing. It keeps you from talking to folks, keeps you from exercising, keeps you from reading, keeps you from learning, keeps you from associating with other people, developing friendships and a hundred and one other things.

What all this leads up to is, on the night before vacation, how many of you get out a little sheet of paper and say to yourself, “Now, Self, tomorrow you gotta do this and this and this…”? How many of you do that? Now, in its simplest form that is goal-setting. I do a lot of public seminars where I’m fortunate enough to be on the program with some real celebrities; I mean, President Ford, President Bush, Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell.

Now, I don’t classify them as buddies. I’d love to, but don’t misunderstand. I am proud of the fact that the last time I saw Colin Powell he did give me a big ol’ hug and, since he’s one of my heroes I liked that, But anyhow…I do a lot of public seminars. Now, they did a study—and who is they? They is David Jensen, the Chief Administrative Officer for the Crump Institute for Biological Imaging, Department of Pharmacology, UCLA School of Medicine. Now, with a title like that, you know he is somebody, don’t you? Well, he’s a good friend of mine, too. They did a study on the people who came to the seminars. It represents a broad section of American industry, everybody from psychiatrists and truck drivers to school teachers and household executives, salespeople, entrepreneurs, business owners—all kinds of people. And those who set goals and developed a plan of action to get there earned an average of $7,401 a month. Those who did not set goals earned an average of $3,397 a month. Over four thousand dollars a month difference.

Do you have time to invest another ten minutes a day to pick up another four thousand bucks a month? The survey also showed that not only did they earn the additional money, but they were happier and healthier and got along better with the folks at home. People who know where they’re going and have a plan to get there are easier to get along with, that’s what this really does boil down to. You set those goals and then you got organized. Organization is important. Our controller at our company is well-organized. She even proofreads the Xerox copies she sends out. And then, once you’ve got it organized you’ve accepted responsibility. Now, that’s something a lot of us don’t like to do. And it goes back to Adam and Eve; you remember the story. They were in the Garden of Eden. God gave it all to them. He said, “You can have everything you want, and there’s a tree right in the middle of the garden, leave it alone. Don’t eat it.”

Well, you know what happened. They ate the fruit on the tree. To this day a lot of people say it was the apple in the tree that caused man’s problems. Not so. It was the pair on the ground that created the problem. And you know what happened. God came walking in the garden that evening and He said, “Adam! Where are you?”

Now, God knew were Adam was, but He wanted Adam to say, “Over here, Lord.”

“Adam, did you eat that fruit?”

Now, God knew the answer, but He wanted Adam to confess, but Adam did “the manly thing,” and has passed it on to every generation since. He said, “Lord, let me tell you about that woman!”

The Lord said, “Eve! Did you eat that fruit?” She kept the ball rolling.

She said, “Lord, lemme tell you about that snake!” And, of course, the snake didn’t have a leg to stand on!

Now, for the benefit of you Bible students, I know theologically I don’t have a leg to stand on with that last statement, either, but here’s the point I’m making. You don’t have a leg to stand on, I don’t have a leg to stand on, when we constantly blame other people and the past. Now, realistically, if somebody fouled up your past—come on, you’re not going to give them permission to ruin your future, are you? What we have to do is get serious about doing something about our future. We have to get serious about doing things with our lives.

I speak and write at the seventh grade, ninth month level. Now, the reason I do that deliberately is because I learned a few years ago if you kept it there that even the college professors would be able to follow right along with you and understand what you’re saying. And see, college professors are people. But, like my good friend, Dr. Steve Franklin, a college professor at Emory University, says, “You know, Zig, the great truths in life are simple. You don’t need three moving parts and four syllables for it to be significant. Think about it for a moment. There are only three pure colors on the face of this Earth, but look at what Michelangelo did with those colors. There are only ten mathematical digits, but look at what Einstein did with them. Only seven notes but look what Chopin and Beethoven and Vivaldi did with those seven notes! Look at what Elvis did with two!”

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered after the Battle of Gettysburg, which, as you know, took place during the war of northern aggression. Two hundred and sixty-two words, that’s all there are in that address. Two hundred and two of them… one syllable. Simple. Direct. John 3:16. Twenty-five words; twenty-one of them one syllable. I believe in keeping it simple. I believe in making it so plain that nobody can miss what is being said.

Now, you’ve gotten organized and accepted the responsibility and made the commitment. Most people are about as committed as a Kamikaze pilot on his 39^th mission—I mean, they just don’t really take it seriously. I remember January 7, 1992, I rode past the Plano, Texas, recreation center— that’s where I do my exercises and weight-lifting. The reason I rode past was because there wasn’t a parking space. I was back over there the next day and this time I squeezed in, but in the Nautilus room they had lines behind every machine—three, four, five, six deep. Well, you can’t exercise three minutes and rest fifteen, so I went back outside to the desk and I asked the young man, “Shawn, what on earth’s goin’ on?” Shawn laughed and said, “Oh, Zig, don’t give it a thought. Give us about three weeks. This’ll be back to normal. These are our New Year’s resolution people.”