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FOREWORD

I MET LARRY Carpenter for the first time in 1981 when he attended my Born to Win seminar in Dallas, Texas. Following that seminar, Larry moved to Dallas to attend Dallas Baptist University, where I served on the Board of Directors. Every Sunday, Larry was on the front row of my Sunday school class, usually with three or four of his college buddies. Little did I realize what a fixture Larry would become and how significant my friendship with him would be through the years. From 1981 to 2007, Larry attended my Born to Win seminar at least once a year (many times with his wife, Lisa, and their three sons, plus more than one hundred of his employees and friends).

At the final Born to Win seminar, which was held in 2007, I presented Larry with my chrome-handled pump, which I had used at my live presentations for more than thirty years. The story of the pump signifies persistence and dedication to hard work and specific goals, which Larry had personified throughout our thirty-year friendship. When I considered whom to ask to write the foreword to this book, there was only one name that came to mind: my student and my friend, Larry Carpenter.

The first year I met Zig Ziglar was in 1981. I had been given a copy of his book See You at the Top by one of my best friends, Bobby Spain. Bobby had watched me struggle in an attempt to break away from a blue-collar work and home environment and suggested my solution would lie in the hands and philosophy of Zig’s Born to Win seminar, taking place in Dallas, Texas. So, I signed up! I realized I needed help, but had no idea my entire perspective on life would change in just four days.

Zig had studied and learned from many of the great ones, like Earl Nightingale, Dale Carnegie, and many others. Zig often told me his research always included a thorough physiological, psychological, and theological review before he felt comfortable sharing his own principles of success. This statement provided me, as it should you, an additional level of comfort and trust—a trust he has never broken in our thirty-year relationship.

Zig Ziglar is the most skilled professional in communications I have ever read, heard, or met, and today he is my friend as well as my mentor. Within hours of my first encounter with Zig, he began challenging me. Zig told me I was “designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.” Right from the very beginning, I hit it off with him. The special moments of personal attention at that first Born to Win seminar seemed to be a divine destiny, and his messages on CDs forever changed my life. It was later that I learned he’d often speak to twenty-five to thirty thousand people at huge events, but at that time the only one I was aware of… was me!

Zig told me there are three things you simply can’t do: you can’t push a rope, you can’t put toothpaste back in a tube, and you can’t saw sawdust. The first thing I had to learn was a willingness to let go of the past. Zig taught me that the key to success was centered in the pursuit of action-oriented goals, and I totally bought into Zig’s goal-setting philosophy. His seven-step process is incredibly designed with pinpoint accuracy for you, the fortunate reader of this book. I slept with Zig’s Performance Planner under my pillow for three years, accomplished more than two hundred major goals, and accumulated substantial wealth as the result of taking his advice and implementing his principles.

I can assure you that Zig’s Born to Win philosophy really does work, and I especially appreciate the balanced approach to life that Born to Win teaches. Along with financial wealth, I enjoy good health, a terrific love of my family, and the spiritual peace of mind that only a life of no regrets can offer. I have a deep sense of joy living with Lisa, my beautiful, creative wife of twenty-five years, and my three handsome, energetic sons round out my family heritage.

I read this book as it was a work in progress, and I’ve lived and breathed Zig’s philosophy: “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” This process works! This philosophy is true! And the legend and legacy of Zig Ziglar continues. As you pick up this book, within the first forty pages the magic, inspiration, and dream of living a life that is simply awesome will suddenly manifest itself through your own personality. Good luck, and buckle in for a 7,500-horsepower “fast read” that is totally worth the scare of the ride.

—Larry R. Carpenter President and CEO

Carpenter Hotel Group, LLC