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INTRODUCTION

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 ideas that will help them change the way they think about themselves. As I look back over my career, I see that just about everything I taught really can be categorized as planning, preparing, or expecting to win. Because of that, I have organized this book into three sections that track the best stories, ideas, and principles that relate to those skills. When you finish reading Born to Win, you will have the absolutely very best of the core principles and skills I have shared with people for the past forty-plus years. Let me give you a quick preview of what you will learn in Born to Win.

PART I: PLANNING TO WIN

There are lots of parts and sub-parts you have to put together when you begin to plan your success, but a few things are foundational. Planning has to be based on getting a clear vision of what you want, because without a vision you don’t know which goals to set. Without goals you have no targets, and without targets you have nothing to measure how you’re doing. So you can see how important a vision is. Getting a clear vision for your future is also important because it plays a huge role in the creation of desire! Did you know that desire is the mother of motivation? Desire is the “want to” and the motor that fuels and powers sustained success.

Desire is important and vision is critical, but there are some personal qualities you must have or acquire to get the best possible results. As a matter of fact, there are six qualities: honesty, character, faith, integrity, love, and loyalty. I have called these qualities the foundation stones in the stairway to the top. You are going to learn how these qualities are critical and how to implement them as you plan to win.

PART II: PREPARING TO WIN

At first glance, you might think planning and preparing mean the same thing. I admit they might look like they are first cousins, but I see preparation as much different from planning. Preparation is a matter of equipping yourself to win with the right tools, knowledge, and support it will take to turn your dreams into plans that will make your vision into reality. So, this section of Born to Win will be about how to equip yourself in the best possible way to ensure your planning efforts will be successful.

Equipping and preparing yourself to win requires five things:

 You need the right knowledge to win

 You must continually raise your personal performance bar

 You must acquire tools that help you work better and faster

 You have to practice your skills

 You have to surround yourself with positive influences and people

In summary, you have to train yourself to become a twenty-four-hour champion. Winning involves planning and preparing. Both are a constant-improvement, never-ending process. When you stop planning and preparing… you stop winning. Twenty-fourhour champions continually equip themselves to win!

PART III: EXPECTING TO WIN

I’ve always said that when you have planned and prepared to win, you then have the right to expect to win. This section of Born to Win is going to show you the power of expectation and what drives it! The ultimate fruit of positive expectation is hope, and it is hope that pulls you forward in all you attempt to do. I’m always hopeful and I never worry. I can say that because I expect the best possible result in all that I do. I expect the best because I planned my success, prepared myself to execute my plans, and earned the right to expect the best.

Desire is the mother of motivation because that is where your motivation is born. Properly planning and preparing heightens your expectations, which fuels your desire and drives you to become even more motivated. Through the years I’ve continually heard from individuals from all walks of life whose lives were in a downward spiral—until they heard something in my audio products or read something in my books that gave them the will and the skills they needed to change their circumstances and transform their lives. They testify that by putting my simple suggestions into practice their lives were transformed. Sometimes the transformation was mental, sometimes it was spiritual, and other times it was material. Whatever the transformation, there was a commonality to the core changes they made. These people changed the way they viewed themselves. They became willing to make significant changes, and they came to believe they were born to win! What they really did is develop the skills and take the necessary actions they needed to plan, prepare, and expect to win!

My son Tom and I are co-authors of this book. Together we chose the most effective information I have taught in twenty-nine books over the past forty years. After you’ve read this book and Tom’s contributions, I believe you will see why I have faith that the Ziglar legacy, along with our pure and simple philosophy, is in good hands for the generations to come. I’m not the kind of guy who says anything is over until it’s over, but because of my age, it’s possible that this book may be my last. This is why I have dotted every “i” and crossed every “t” in this book to make sure it contains the very best of the best of all I’ve learned and taught in my career. I do believe you were born to win. But I also know that to be the winner you were born to be, you have to plan to win and prepare to win before you can expect to win. There are a lot of things that have to happen before you can change the world!

—Zig Ziglar