Build Leaders, Build the Business: Zig Ziglar's Legacy Principles

Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And this week we are really talking about clarity, discipline, and focus. And I can't think of a better guest to have on than Tom Ziegler. Thank you so much for being here, Tom. Awesome to be here, George. You know, So we had a little pre-meeting and the energy, it just kind of builds. And I'm excited for this time because we've walked a similar path and believe similar things. And so I'm just grateful you have me on. Yeah, listen, it's a credit to you because like we both said, it's been a long week. We have a lot of things going on. But when you get on with, you know, kindred spirit and somebody that really resonates with the same thing you're trying to do. And our listeners, they are all about, most of them probably have a very good understanding of what you're about just because your father has a legacy in the industry, a founding father in a lot of things. So I want to give them an intro for you, though. So for those of you listening, make sure that you really do me a favor and follow the show and share it because we're going to share some great concepts. But Tom is the CEO of Ziegler Incorporated, and he's really continuing the legacy of Zig Ziegler, but he's the author of 10 Leadership Virtues for Disruptive Times. He's a global leadership coach. He works with organizations and entrepreneurs to build high-performance, coaching-based, leadership-based culture. But overall, as a speaker, entrepreneur, coach, mentor, visionary, we're just very fortunate to have him here. So once again, Tom, I'm very grateful that you took some time out. You have a lot of things going on. I do. And it's awesome. You know, it's somebody said, how are you doing today? And I'm like, overwhelmed in a good way. Yeah. Well, and let's start by just hitting this topic. You have a 100 year birthday of what would have been your father's 100 year birthday that you're doing an event for that's coming up. And it may be a good opportunity for us to just talk for a second about growing up with your dad and and and, you know, what what that was for you leading up to this hundred anniversary celebration. Yeah, you know, dad was even better off the stage than he was on the stage. We estimate that he impacted over 250 million people in his life. 45 books were written, millions of downloads on our millions and millions on our podcast. The audio programs that are out there. I started work at the company in the cassette tape duplication department. I was actually, if you're listening, you got a Zig Ziglar cassette tape. My fingerprints might actually be on that. I started doing that about 40 years ago. I've been, you know, I tell people 61, I've been doing this business for 61 years because I was born into it. I love it. Yeah, you did. I love it. But everywhere I go, I was in Vietnam earlier this year speaking there to a leading company and I walk into their company. They got, at this one location, they had 400 employees. and Zig Ziglar quotes are all over the walls in Vietnam. Wow. So how cool is that? I mean, everywhere I go, I meet friends and family I didn't know I had. You know, these core principles that your father taught, which you've now continued on and we'll dig deep into, but tell the listeners what you, from your perspective, what are the core principles that your father taught that still hold true today that are these legacy principles that make people want to just continue the legacy. Yeah, I'll give you three just right out of the gate. Dad said the number one reason for his success was his character and integrity. That's always true. It doesn't matter where you live, what you do. When you live with character and integrity, you don't have the— you might have life happen to you, but you're not happening to yourself. Yes. Right? And that's what we're missing right now. We don't see people act consistently with integrity and character. Number one reason. Number two, my favorite Zig Ziglar quote, personal, is you are what you are and where you are because of what's gone into your mind. You can change what you are and you can change where you are by changing what goes into your mind. I love that one because so many people are trying to look outside to make a difference and influence. And yet it all starts in this inner game, right? Right. And so what a powerful idea. We have the choice to put the good stuff into our mind. And so I have my own version of that quote. My quote is, what you feed your mind determines your appetite. So decide what you want to eat. Decide who you want to become. Decide what you want to do. Decide what your reputation should be. and then put the stuff in your mind that automatically creates that. So when your mind is in alignment with the truth, you know you're going in the right direction. That's just a powerful thing. And then the third one, and this is a great kind of leadership concept. Dad said, you don't build a business, you build people, and people build a business. and then Gallup, they do studies all the time. So the Gallup organization at the beginning of this year, they came out and they asked tens of thousands of employees, team members all around the world, what qualities do you want from your leaders? And the top two, number one was hope and number two was trust. So that's interesting. When I was a little boy, I asked dad, what do we do. He said, son, we sell hope and encouragement. And so as a leader, when you know your people want hope, what does that look like? What they want is your vision. They want to know the difference you make, the problem you solve, you know, the higher purpose or calling. And the more you share your vision with your team, no matter what level of leadership you are, the more you share that vision, hey, this is why we're here, this is the difference we make, the more hope rises. And internally, psychologically what happens is that person says they keep sharing the vision with me of where we're going that means i must be a part of it that means there must be a future for me and so that's when people get engaged and engage people outperform everybody right because they got ownership and so we give them that hope and vision and then we tag in their trust which is the byproduct of integrity and dad said character and integrity is number one reason for success. So we got to do what we say we're going to do, you know, all these principles and values. Yes. And then ultimately my favorite Zig quote that not many people know is never give a promise without a plan. And so that's a great one. Yeah. So as a leader, what is hope? What is vision? That's a promise. And then what's the plan? It's how we're going to get there. It's how I'm going to develop you as a person on my team and your personal and professional life? How am I going to help develop you so that you can buy into this vision, excel, and then you get the things in life that you want by helping me get the things I want? Right. So you can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want. So that's, that's a, that's a lot in a little bit, but it's, that is a lot of iterations to make that so simple. Well, you know, No, but it's refreshing, and I'll tell you why. Because very few people, I'm just listening to you talk, it's clear that you grew up around your father, right? But very few people start with character and integrity. You could have started with all kinds of leadership and positive attitude and mindset, but starting with leadership and character, talking about mindset, talking about building people and ending your encapsulation of your father's message with vision and hope, that is a message that rings true today. but very few people have because they're so busy trying to impress other people. So I love that you said that because on a day-to-day level, you are an executor, you're a leadership, you're a coach, you're a mentor. So I appreciate you saying that. I'm curious, how have you personally taken the Ziegler legacy and kind of made it your own? And maybe that'll lead us also into what you're putting together for this 100-year birthday, but how have you been able to take that from, you know, being able to understand what's going on to 60 years later, like, how do you make it your own? Have you done that? Yeah, George, that's a big one. I was one of our speakers and friends of mine who's going to be speaking at that event, Todd Duncan. He's like unbelievable, like a legend in his, in the world of mortgage and what he's done. We were talking and he's, wow, a hundred years of legacy. And I didn't realize it, but I told him, I said, did you know, I started getting legacy focused 35 years ago. So when dad turned 65, 35 years ago, we were like, you know what? He is the biggest personality, has the most loyal following. I mean, he was speaking 30 or 40 times a year to average crowds of 15,000 people. I mean, that'll never happen again. The world has changed since then. Right. How do we live this? How do we extend this legacy? How do we build on it? And that's a personality brand. And so can I be Zig Ziglar? No, nobody can be Zig Ziglar. So what does that mean? It means, and this is what dad always told us, my sisters included. He said, I don't care what you do. Just do it with character and integrity and do it with a hundred percent effort and I'll support you. And so what he was really saying is, Tom, go do, you know, whatever your gifts and talents are, whatever God calls you, whatever you're, whatever you want to go all in, you know, give it all you got and do it with integrity and I'll support you. And so now I love the business. The difference it makes in people's lives is incredible. Like when I get testimonial letters, it's not, hey, my sales went up 23% because of your training. It's, you know, I lost 30 pounds. I'm no longer on diabetic medication. My marriage is better. My business is thriving. My kids were talking again. I mean, it's like, you just can't make this stuff up because it's foundational. And so what I had to do was figure out, okay, how did God make me? How do I maximize that and lead in my own way? And so what we've done as a company is the biggest foundation is we've equipped speakers, trainers, and coaches to carry on the Ziggler legacy by teaching our programs. And so that is a huge part of it. And then when coaching became kind of an anchor and I started looking at leadership and I'm like, you know, servant leadership is fantastic. But how you do servant leadership is just as important. And so we applied the coaching model to that. And so now our biggest programs that we do are large corporate trainings around leadership, around coaching their leaders, how to coach their people. A great coach creates ownership and the person they're coaching. And so if I'm leading somebody on my team, the most draining thing in the world is to be responsible for the energy and motivation of my people. You know, like that's a given, but really you'd like for them to show up excited. Right. Right. And so what do coaches do? We draw out the more capable person that's inside of them. And we get them excited about the things they want to achieve in their life and then show them how the better they do in their work, the faster they get their dreams. And so now they're working for a dream instead of a paycheck. And we have a very simple process that we take. Well, and Tom, I was going to ask you, because I wanted to really, for our listeners, differentiate for them the difference between a lot of traditional leadership training and coach leadership. You just articulated really well, and I was going to ask you about that. I feel like it's also why most training programs for leadership fail or fail to get implemented. And so I just want to kind of hyper focus on you saying that one more time. Is this why you focus on coach leadership versus just traditional leadership overall? 100%. And I learned this lesson early. 20 years ago, we created a software tool called Zig VIP, Virtual Interactive Performance. And so we go in and we do this training. And then every week, everybody in the group would get an email and it would have a 90 second synopsis of one of the points in the training, like a refresh. And then it had an open-ended question. And the open-ended question was, how did you apply this skill this week? And they would write out a long answer and it would go to their manager. So we had 440 people do the program and there was about 50 managers. They got all this report and the first email that we sent out 94 answered it And then the second it was 83 And by the fifth one it was less than 20 Why Because the managers didn take that information and go to each of their team member and say hey, George, I like how you applied that skill. Tell me more about it. That's all it would have taken. And so if there was- Ask the questions. Yeah. If there was such thing as one and done, Zig Ziglar would have solved all the problems of the world, right? You'd only have to take one course. She wouldn't even be thinking about it. So fast forward to today, Thursday and Friday last week with a client, they have 900 employees. We had 34 of their leaders. We took them through two days of intensive leadership training. And about 40% of it was teaching them the coaching process. And now over the next eight months, our coaches are going to meet with their leaders every other week. and we're going to hold them accountable to actually having coaching conversations with their people. And we're going to reinforce in a coaching conversation. So it's not just, hey, here's how you do it. Good luck. Yeah. Yeah. It's like application. Yeah. It's, hey, you know, next, before we meet, you're going to meet with all your people twice. And what are you going to say to Bob? And what are you going to say to Jill? And what are you going to say to Henry? Right. And so we're getting in that leadership mind and we've made it so simple. The five steps are so simple. And then when we come back in two weeks, it's like, hey, we're going to work on this virtue and this key point. And then we're going to talk about how your conversations went. You know, it's crazy because I think a lot of people have started to shift, but when they really understand what makes moves the needle, it's not lifelong learning. I'm a big fan of it's one of my core principles, lifelong learning. But what they think, what they realize is that it's not learning unless you're applying and changing and ongoing. And you just mentioned a minute ago, this five-step coaching process. Would you mind sharing that with us? Do you have a five-step process that you just kind of, it's what you take people through, right? Yeah, absolutely. We call it the ICC, the Intentional Coaching Conversation. And I like to call it a conversation because that's what it is. And so as the leader, your goal and what you're trying to do is work with your people on these five steps. And so the first step is real simple. What does success look like to you? Hey, we're in May of 2026. If you finish the year strong, what does success look like to you? What does winning mean to you? You can rephrase that 50 different ways. And so what you start to understand is what that individual sees as success. And it's funny because what they tell you and don't tell you says everything. You know, success to me would just be keeping my job. What does that tell you about them? Success to me would be eligible for a promotion. Oh, what does that tell you? Right? And so it's not always money and it's not always stuff, you know, recognition, but everybody's different. And then the second question is, oh, wow. So you would like to be considered for a promotion. That's awesome. Tell me, why is that important to you? So we're trying to find the why, right? But it's weird if I come to you and say, hey, George, why do you work here? Yeah. What motivates you? Yeah. Right. So you're starting by directing it at them. What does success look like? And then why is that important to you? Yeah. And in today's world, you know, they might say, ultimately, it's balanced life. You know, in my ideal world, I'd like to work 30 hours a week. In some places, that works great. In some places, that's a challenge. But as a leader, wouldn't I like to know right out of the gate? Because maybe I got three or four and I've got an opportunity to maximize balance. And so if they say, this is what I want and this is why I want it. And then you say, hey, would you like some help achieving that? And so the third question, and they're going to say yes. And then step three is, okay. And there's three parts to this. What attitude, these are called performance opportunities. Okay. So step three is performance opportunities. What attitude could you demonstrate that would allow you to be more successful? What effort could you either increase or optimize that would make you more successful? So rather than telling them what you need, you're getting them to come up with the answer to their own interests that they're trying to accomplish, right? Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's great. And then what skill could you develop in yourself that would allow you to go there, right? and you just, you listen. And, you know, sometimes we got 25 years in our, in our industry and the person we're coaching has three months. Well, we got to nudge them a lot, right? We got to. Because they're not just going to come up with the answers and just tell you what they're thinking. We know, but we want them to discover, right? Because when they discover it, it's there, they own it. And then you say, okay, so they write that stuff down. And then you say, I really like what you said about that attitude, right? I know that you're kind of a reserved person. And when you go on a call to a client's home, they're a little nervous because the stranger's coming in their house. And you said, maybe I should smile and have kind of an upbeat attitude when I ring the doorbell. I go, that's fantastic. How are you going to do that? And so they tell me how, right? Or they shrug their shoulders and they're like, I'm not really sure. And so we ask more questions. So they might say, I'm going to listen to Zig Ziglar on the way to my call, right? If they're really on top of it, I'd give them a high five. And I'd say, write that down, right? And so now we go through all three of those and they start writing these things down that they're going to do. And then I look at that thing. So that's step four is what's called co-create the plan in step four and I'm having them write their own plan and I'm having it's called co-create because I might let them get a little outside the lines and let them learn a little bit but I'm not going to let them crash the car off the cliff right you know we're not going to go there and so now they've got this great plan and I go wow that's a great plan Those are some great goals. Is it okay if I hold you accountable to your goal? So I've asked permission to hold them accountable to the plan they just created. Now, as a leader, I want you to understand this. If they won't be held accountable to the plan they created, they're not going to be held accountable to the plan you give them. There's so much deep into that. I will just say, just listening to what you're saying, And a lot of those steps and those things from a leader standpoint, they might say that's very intuitive, that's very obvious, but how it's the how and it's the nuance of coaching this leadership process. And I love the word co-create because that's so true, you know, because you could go in with all five of those steps ahead of time and say, listen, I know you're trying to make some extra money and, you know, I know you're here to support your family and do some things. You know, if you want to get that, you could do these extra things. And I get, you know, none of that is co-creating. That is what this coaching leadership is all about. I love it. Yep. And the fifth step is the tie down and it's called the heartbeat of accountability. And so I'm like, hey, George. But you're asking, right? You're asking them if you can hold them accountable. Yeah. So I just said, is it okay if I hold you accountable? And you say, yeah, absolutely. You say, so George, this is what we're going to do. we're going to meet every week. And sometimes it's going to be five minutes at lunch. Sometimes it's going to be 30 minutes because we're really working on something together. But I'm going to see how you're doing every single week. It's like every week. And so now guess what? Most leaders are already meeting with their direct reports every week. And so the initial shock is I don't have time for another meeting. And what I'm really saying is, no, you're wasting time in your meetings because you're not intentional in the time that you're using. So let's be intentional. And so it might take two months with some people to get through all five of those steps with somebody. Right? So I was working with an executive lady and she said, she said, how would this program have helped me? And she said it. She's a very big advocate of Ziggler and me. And she said, how would this help me? And I said, I don't know, because I'm a coach, right? I don't know. I'm in your situation. And she said, when I started my career, you know, our family's from Puerto Rico and I grew up in New York. And so I went to work in New York City in a high rise and a very competitive male dominated business. You know, this is 30 years ago. and she said, you know, we're in there and it's like a pack of dogs on raw meat. She didn't say that. I'm saying that. So every project that came in, everybody fought over it to who would get it. And she said, I'm a woman, young woman from Puerto Rico. And in our culture, we don't do that. You know, the way we look at that situation, the leader should pick the best one for it. And here it was every man for themselves. And so she said, and then when it came time for the raise, everybody's in there arguing why they should get a big raise. She goes, that's not the way I was raised. That's not my culture. And so I didn't do that. And then she goes, I realized two years in it, I'm way behind. They've got the better projects. They're making the better relationships and they're making more money, not because they're better than me, but because there was a culture that said, you got to fight for everything you got. How would coach leadership be different? And I said, oh, that's easy. I said, day one, you're in here. Her name's Michelle Delgado. She's fantastic. So I would say, Michelle, day one, we're meeting. I'd say, hey, congratulations. You're going to do great here. This is your first year. At the end of the year, what would success look like to you? And she would say, I want to get a promotion. I want to earn respect. I want to have recognition. I want to do a great job. Great. Why is that important to you? And then she's going to tell me. And then we're going to create a plan. And I'm going to know from day one where she wants to go, what development she needs. And every single week, we're going to help build that. So that whole two year, think about it. Think about like I'm an S type personality in DISC. I'm not going to go in and fight. Right. I'm a relationship person. I don't like confrontation. So not because I'm not as smart or as capable, but just because of my style. Two years into my career, it ends up being hundreds of thousands of dollars at the end of my career. That's how far behind I am. And so this is. And no matter what your personality. Right. A lot of leadership just has to be pushy, right? But they try to be. But no matter what your personality style is, this coaching leadership process fits into that, right? And no matter who the person is you're talking to. Yeah. So it works for everyone. So let me go back to Zig Ziglar's quote. You don't build a business. You build people. And people build the business. And as a leader, what's your job? it's to develop, educate, inspire, and grow the people on your team so they can take your place. Why? So you can get recognized as a leader who develops people who get the job done. So now you can move up. So dad had another quote. If you're irreplaceable, you're unpromotable. Yeah, that's a good one to think about. Think about that one. If you're listening to this, If you're irreplaceable, you're unpromotable. You can have everything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want. So if I helped everybody on my team excel in their job role while they had quality of life and were achieving their personal goals, why would they ever leave? And how could I be ignored for the next level up for me? because everybody on my team wins. Yeah. That's just what we do. And that's through coaching. So, Tom, you not only do coaching, but you coach coaches and you coach leaders. And so two things I'm thinking in my mind. One is how do you get them to stay consistent with this because that's a key, right? And then where does it, even if you love the process and you understand the process, where does it usually break down? Is it because they're not consistent Or how do you get real leaders to stay consistent? Because you know how you can go and you can learn these great things and you start to apply them and you don't stay consistent. What have you found is effective ways to get leaders to stay consistent with this I mean here the secret sauce You ask them where they want to go You ask them what have you tried so far Are you willing to try something different? Is it okay if I hold you accountable? And then you hold them accountable. It's a process. I love it. And so from a leadership, and this is the hard one, right? Because when you invest in coaching for your people, that's a big investment. But let me ask you a question. You got 10 people on your team. And Gallup again says to replace somebody, the average is one and a half times their salary. So let's say you got 10 leaders on your team and we'll just make it easy. They're making $100,000 each. so to replace one of them will cost you 150 minimum and if they were a top performer you're probably looking at a quarter million what if instead of that you spent half of that coaching them kept them all and raised their performance and so this is this is for owners and leaders This is what you've got to look at. How much of your retention challenge are you putting in the right category? And how much of a leadership approach like this would pay for itself almost overnight? Right. Yeah. Right. So it's the perspective of inaction, that what you will lose from inaction as much as action. And I love the fact that you're talking about the process that you teach leaders to implement is the process you use with leaders to get them to implement. That's why I think you're kind of laughing if you can't see us, if you're not on a YouTube channel now. I tell you, I want to ask you one other question before we shift a little bit into, I want to get your take on AI in the marketplace, but where do you see, or what is one of the most common or key areas of mistakes that you see leaders making right now? Maybe it relates to this process to fix it, but where do you see mistakes? Because I do feel like creating a culture of accountability sometimes very quickly turns into micromanaging, which we don't want to do, right? But what are some mistakes that you feel leaders are making right now in today's environment? Yeah, there's a whole bunch of them. A big one is tools instead of relationships. you know, managing people through, you know, managing stuff, managing output. I mean, in, you know, how many keystrokes? I mean, when the, one of the crazy things, when the pandemic hit, some, some people got sent home with laptops that, that measured how much work they were doing, right? The camera would come on. What kind of trust does that build? Like, you know, Hey, if you treat them like a five-year-old, they're going to act like a three-year-old. I mean, that's pretty much what just happened there. That's a good distinction, by the way, to say all of us are trying to become more efficient, more leverageable, more output with technology. But when you let technology replace the relationships, that's when you start to lose your leadership, influence, trust, respect, and output. Yeah. And so as a leader, we have to have clarity. So what does the vision look like? And what is the plan to make that vision come to life? What kind of clarity do we have to have? And then as a team member, what's my role in that? What am I supposed to do? And so if I'm meeting with you every week around the three items of attitude, effort, and skill that'll help you perform better, I've got a real good glimpse on what's going your priority and focus is on. Right. And so I know whether you're on track or off, off the grid, but all that happens with relationship, all of that happens because I trust you. Yeah. That's a big deal. So the clarity is a key, that trust building factor around the relationship. And that's, that's a good kind of segue into the AI thing because. Yeah. Cause I was going to say, there's a lot of change happening with leadership. How do you see AI affecting leadership in the workforce right now? Yeah. So here's like why I'm all in on coaching and why we have the biggest opportunity we've ever had with this AI. AI is going to be hugely disruptive. It's already changing people's jobs. There's all kinds of estimates. I don't know what's right. I don't know if unemployment is going to go to 5% or 10%. And some people are saying, I don't know what's going to happen. But this is what I do know, that AI is so powerful that a lot of the stuff, the data gathering, the looking around, the planning, that's like almost instantaneous. Right? But there's a couple of things that AI will never do. AI will never build a relationship. That's what we do as leaders and as people. AI will never have wisdom. Think about the difference between wisdom and knowledge. Yep. And here's the big one for me. AI will never believe in you. And so think about it. And I do this at every class. I say, how many of you have ever done more than you thought you could because someone else believed you could? yeah and so ultimately as a leader that's what we do we take somebody who has to get out of their comfort zone to go to the next level and sometimes we have to get almost face to face and say look i believe in you you got this you can do it go do it it's okay if it's not perfect the first time just go do it and they're like i don't know i mean you know i've never given a talk before i've never called an account that big you know i've never this is my first time being a team lead i've never done that. You can do it. You've got what it takes. I'll be there right with you. Then they go and do it and they come back and they're grinning, right? They did it. And their confidence goes- Because of your belief. Because of your belief. You had to transfer your belief to them. AI is never going to do that. And so now, and this is what's crazy to me, because let's, I'll compare somebody who's 25 versus 55. So a 55 year old, they've been doing their job for 20 years. They got all the contacts, all the relationships, all the knowledge. They instinctually, they know what makes sense, what doesn't make sense. And now AI is coming for their job. And they're like, oh, I'm 55. It's too late for me. I mean, I can't learn that stuff. I mean, you know, the kids are going to take over because they understand this. Guess what? AI is like you having a second brain, the same brain you had when you were 25. They could juggle a hundred things. But now you've got the wisdom inside of you to take the knowledge that AI provides you to make great decisions. The 25-year-old isn't going to get there for 20 more years. It's just not possible. And so really, if you're 55, you have a strategic advantage over somebody who's 25 because you've got the wisdom, the experience to make sense out of what AI is telling you. And then second, you've got to understand what AI is all about. It's not about replacing relationships. It's about optimizing your time so you can spend most of it building relationships. Oh, that's great. Right. That's where it's all about. and we need to get smart. And so where do you start? You just start using AI every single day, right? And, you know, we're starting to put in, we've got Zig AI and Zig GPT and I use Claude and Chat GPT and started using Manus, which is an agent. And I'm just getting into it. And it's like compressing things that used to take so much time. It's like almost- Well, that's, this is such a great perspective though for people that either are all about adopting AI or even people that are worried about AI, both of them, if they realize from the lens that what you just said I love, relationships, wisdom, and belief are things that it's not going to bring that you uniquely can do. So if you are a big adopter on AI, you can still remember relationships, wisdom, and belief are key critical things you could do. If you're worried about it, also realize those are the things. It doesn't at all boil down, Tom, to just a mindset of how you're approaching AI as a leader? It's a 100% mindset. So I'll give you two examples. So at Ziegler, we have this thing called the wheel of life, and it's the seven areas of life, the mental, the spiritual, the physical, the family, the financial, the personal, and the career. Now I'm going to do the sequence again. We start with mental, the way I think about things, what I, you know, my mind gets to tell, I get to control my mind, decide what I'm going to do, right? And so spiritual is next. I'm going to work on my spiritual qualities, you know, character and integrity, love, kindness, all these different things. Then physical is third. Those three things build the self, right? If I'm strong mentally, spiritually, and physically, then the fourth one is family. How do we lead our family? We lead our family by example, which gives us influence. So if I'm doing the first three right, I'm prepared for my family, right? And then it goes financial, and financial is where we dream. It's the stewardship of the money we have, and we start dreaming about the things that we want. And so we start planning because most people don't get financially aware until either a dream or a disaster comes along. It's more fun when it's a dream. So let's dream, right? Because you're going to make the same decisions to fund a dream that you have to make to get out of a disaster, right? It's just one of them is by choice and it's fun. And the other one is by pain. And then we go from financial to personal. And these are the hobbies and the energy and the things that I love to do that fill me up. And then career is last. So career is number seven. But think about this. How do people start off in life? They get out of school and it's all career. And they, everything else suffers. And then maybe they're successful in their career, but they've lost their health. They lost their family. They've lost their hope. The same thing happens in business. You know, in the five steps, step number three in the intentional coaching conversation was attitude, effort, and skill. What attitude can you develop? What effort can you do? What skill? When we hire a new hire, what's the first thing we work on them with? Skill? Hey, we need to train you how to do this. Yeah. And then the second thing is, and this is how many times you got to do it. and then when they're not doing it enough at the right level, we give them an attitude adjustment. It's totally backwards. Backwards. What if we started with attitude and mindset and energy? The skill will come. Yeah, now they're self-driven. They want to do more. They want to learn more. I love it. Yeah. By the way, I love that seven. In the sequence, I want to make sure people really caught that. It's in a sequence for a reason, but this wheel of life, I think that's great. Work on yourself, your family, your purpose, and then you're getting into your finance and personal and career. Most people are starting at the bottom of that sequence and they never make it to the others. But I can guarantee you, if you're working on the top, you go to the next. It's with the Daily Mastermind, our community of entrepreneurs, business owners, founders. I mean, it is about mind, body, spirit, money, business, to create a life and lifestyle that you want to live. Otherwise, you're not co-creating your life. You're living someone else's dream and you're just keeping up. You're trying to keep up at least, right? Yep. Yep. There's one more I want to give a, I just finished a book. Whenever I read a great book, I like to just share. Okay. So Jim Murphy, he wrote Inner Excellence, which is unbelievable. And his new book is called The Best Possible Life. And he has a great way of kind of explaining the life that we live. So there's three worlds we live in. So the third world is the world of anxiety, fear, and worry. It's about us trying to control everything. It's transactional. If I make the sale, people love me. If I don't make the sale, people hate me And it all about living either in the past or in the future Because every conversation we have it like you know when I talked to them last time what did they say Did they like that Did they respond to it Golly I hope they like this new approach right So now we thinking we never present Okay And the second world is the world of thoughts, feelings, and choice. So that's why my first book is called Choose to win because we got that choice. And so when we become aware of our thoughts and our feelings, and we understand that not every thought is true and every feeling is what it really is, and we get the choice, what's the choice? We can either live in the third world, which most people do. It's just natural. It's not past or future. Or we can live in the world we were created for, which is the first world. And the first world is the world of love, wisdom, and courage. That's great. So why are we really here? There's two commandments. Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. We're here to love, right? And then we need the wisdom, which is we're seeking the truth. And then we need the courage to go and share it. And when we, this was dad's secret on the stage. Somebody said, why was your dad so successful on stage? And I said, he was fearless. And they said, why was he fearless? And I said, because he only had two responsibilities on stage. His responsibility wasn't to the host. It wasn't to the audience. It wasn't to anybody there. He only had two responsibilities. Number one was to be prepared so he could give his best. And number two was to speak the truth in love. Because he knew if he did that, how people received it, that was between them and God. And so that's— Boy, how does that not increase your confidence and esteem and performance, right? You have no attachment to the outcome. Yes. You're only there to serve them. And, you know, a lot of people, like I see when we're working with leaders who are very uncomfortable with this, they're like, I don't really know how to do this. And what if it goes wrong? And what if they ask me a question I don't know the answer to? And I'm like, none of that matters. If they ask you a question and you don't know the answer, just say, I don't know the answer. You're only showing up because you love them and you want the best for them. And you're curious to ask questions so you can help them move forward. And if you're prepared, you're set. Yeah, we got the questions for you to do. Trust the questions. And if you don't know the answer, say, oh, I don't know. I'll get back to you. I'll find that out. And so what happens is it's like we all know within a minute or less, usually, is the conversation I'm having with this person a transaction so that they can get what they want? or are they genuinely curious about me? Yeah. And do they want the best for me? And as a leader, when your people know that at the end of the day, you want the best for them, let's say your star performer comes in and they tell you, Hey, guess what? Today's the day. Today's the day I start my own business. You're going to have one or two responses. Oh no, what's going to happen to the team? Or you're going to stand up, hug them and high five them and say, I've been waiting for this day. You were made for this. Right. And when you have that second response. Man, the team celebrates because everybody knows that whatever they were made for is possible and you're going to help them. And then they're going to they're going to recruit people just like them to come work. Yes. Right. And the intangible benefit is everything around you is going to grow. Yeah. And they're going to be your best partner in whatever they do. they're going to refer people back to you in their new world. So that's the, so Jim Murphy just said it so beautifully. I want to live in the world of love, wisdom, and courage because they're, and he says something else that's pretty deep. He says the more anxious fear or worry you have, the more selfish you are. It's a good way to look at it for sure. Because you want everything to happen for your benefit. Wow. I appreciate you sharing that with us. That book, Best Possible life. I'm going to get into that because I really like the idea that most people live in that third world, right? That, you know, future or past. You know, hopefully a lot of people get to that point with that second world where it's thoughts and feelings and choice, but man, what would it be like? You know, most people are trying to find fulfillment. What they really want is peace and they also want purpose and impact. And, you know, those things are created when you're living in that first world. And I ironically, and I can say this because I've had hundreds of speakers work for me. I've had personally these experiences. When you don't go in with attachment to the outcome and you are not worried about impressing and things like this, you perform so much better. Your confidence is so much higher. I think that's great advice. I appreciate you sharing that book with us. I think that's one I'll have to check out for sure. I'll tell you a speaker epiphany I had. So when dad passed away, it was about a week later, I'm back to the office for the first time and I'm just in my office, you know, because he's not there and that's a big deal. I mean, even, you know, it's just, you can't prepare for it. Had the door closed and I had on my whiteboard, I actually wrote up a hundred speakers. And I started thinking about the most well-known speakers in the general public, in their niche, And I thought to myself, I bet 95 out of those 100 probably have more financial success than my dad. But I bet every single one of them would trade places now. Yeah, that's pretty strong. Because what you said is what really matters. the purpose, the fulfillment, the legacy, the difference we make in other people's lives. And you can tell, I know you've seen it in the green room. You know what kind of person somebody is in the green room. And it's unfortunately, people believe they're press clippings in our, in that. Yeah, they do change. Yeah. And that kills them. They don't even see it. it kills the fullness of life they could have. It kills the ultimate, dad just savored every day. Yeah. And eventually you get to a point in your life and you reflected on this afterwards and it's too bad we don't have time for some more of these stories that you had about your dad, but you get to your point in your life. I've seen it happen with a lot of people at all different ages is, you know, they go through a phase where they evolve and this evolution, like my logo and my company, you change where you really realize you can create your life and your mindset. And then you start to unleash your potential, but it always gets to legacy. It always comes back to say, what's my life about? What am I doing? And how am I doing it? And, you know, that's the piece that you're looking for. You just don't slow down enough until later in life that you start to realize that, you know, your father was a great example of that. You've then continued that legacy. Maybe we should definitely mention before we go here, the Zig 100 event. Tell me what that is and why you're doing it. And we'll leave some links in our show notes for everyone as well on that too. But I don't want us to end this episode without talking about that. So what's going on there? Yeah, this is the event of a lifetime. I can't tell you how excited I am. I mean, back in the 90s and 2000s, I used to promote big events. I mean, I had Zig Ziglar the keynote and I could go, I could get a big audience there. Yeah. And last year, my daughter, Alexandra, says, Dad, Papa's 100th birthday is next year. We should do something big. And my daughter, who I get to work with, which is really cool. And I say, yeah, you're right. We should. And she says, do you think Dave Ramsey would rent us his facility? Because he just built this amazing arena. Yeah, it's huge. And I said, I don't know, I'll ask him. So Dave is a big Zig fan. We've been working with him for over 15 years. Huge supporter. If you listen to the Ramsey show, you hear a Zig Ziglar quote about every other day. I mean, it's there. Yeah, right. So I emailed Dave. two minutes later, because we're both early morning people, he emails me back. So what I said was, hey, would you ever allow a business like us to use our facility? And the answer came back, no, but for a friend. And so we're having it at his facility in Franklin, Tennessee, right outside of Nashville. It seats 2100, but the way we're configuring it, it's going to have room for 1500 because we've got platinum level and VIP and then we've got Joe Fumich and people are coming from all over. And so Dave is speaking. Brian Buffini is speaking. He's a legend in real estate. You know, he's got maybe the largest coaching organization in the country. Todd Duncan, Bob Bodine, Michael Chandler is an MMA fighter. I mean, it's just going to be amazing. It's a stellar lineup. Yeah, it is. It's crazy. One day and, you know, as I've talked to the different people coming, they're like, what do you want me to say? And I said, look, here's the thing. Dad's going to be watching this from heaven and he doesn't want it to be 95% how great Zig Ziglar was. Right. Right. He wants it to be maybe 5% how you had a transformational moment or experience because of a Ziegler philosophy in your own trajectory, and then how that allowed you to be the difference maker in your own career to other people. And then the takeaway that everybody in that room in that amount of time could apply to their own life and business to where it would change their life. And so isn't that the coolest plastic. I love it. I mean, and so we're bringing all the, you know, the Zig fans. This is what I get every day. I'll be talking to an 18 year old and they're like, yeah, the reason I'm here is I grew up listening to your dad in the car. Oh, look, there's my dad. And so his dad will come over and say, yeah, I started listening to your dad because my dad got me an Amway. I mean, this is- crazy. So it's four generations of this, but the reason that the, and so dad is known for his wisdom and it's ancient wisdom. And the older the wisdom, the more likely it's true. Otherwise, it wouldn't be here, right? It would sustain. Yeah. And so what we've got to do is build our business and our life and our relationships around wisdom. And you got to know what to do as well. It can be your superpower, but it's also the way to do it. Yeah. So the promise and the plan. And the plan. And so that's what the event. It's a transformational event, and it's about the promise of who we can become, what we can accomplish, and then the plan on how to get there. And you're going to see from 10 or 12 other people what they did in their own life to apply it. And so you're going to learn something from everybody. You'll probably learn more from the person you sit next to because that's what's cool about these is the right people show up. And if you're listening to this episode right now, you know, I don't know exactly, you know, this event's going to sell out for sure. But I did talk with Tom earlier, you know, at Ziggler100.com is the website, but I'm going to put the link in there so you can go check that out. And we'll also put the links for you to connect with Tom and his company and what they do and how they do it because we've got a lot of great resources. And Tom, listen, you've dropped just some amazing value on this episode. So I appreciate you. I know we went way over what we normally do, but I didn't want to stop. In fact, I could keep going because there's so many lessons and leadership principles and stories, which we love, right? But thank you so much for being on the show, man. We really appreciate you. This has been great. Thank you. What an honor. Listen, if you're listening to this, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to share this show. and I want you to remember and take these principles and these ideas and things that Tom shared and put them into practice with your business. You know, you're all, whether you're struggling, whether you're crushing it, whether you're next level in it, you got to remember what I always say on this show is that it's never too late to start creating the life that you were meant to live. But you've got to take action. You've got to implement what you have. You've got to keep that attitude and you've got to surround yourself with the right people. Just like one of the reasons I reached out and twisted his arm, tried to get Tom on. So listen, I want you to do me a favor and share this show, but I look forward to talking with you more. Hit us up on The Daily Mastermind on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. We'll talk with you again tomorrow. Have an amazing day.