Your hope is built on…faith. No faith, no hope. But faith in what? We take a 14-minute commentary from Zig Ziglar on faith and break it down into bite-size pieces. This truly is a root to our personal success, or lack thereof. Thanks to Design Crowd and Earth Class Mail for their support of this episode.
Hey everyone, this is Kevin Miller and I have The True Performance Show, episode 404 for you today. Zig Ziglar brings us a message about faith and why it’s a statistically proven ingredient for success. It’s not a sermon, but a commentary on faith.
Something interesting here. Zig talks on the power of faith. Period. Now, he was an outspoken Christian. It wasn’t his primary platform, but he shared his faith as a necessary part of his personal success story, just like sales and motivation and healthy relationships. The Ziglar company is firmly built on Christianity and all the key people involved with Ziglar are Christians, myself included. However, a primary reason Zig and the Ziglar message are so widely received is because Zig loved and accepted anyone and everyone equally, and respected leaders from very different areas of belief.
We had an iTunes review not long ago stating the show had great value, but they wished we wouldn’t get into God talk so much.
Then we’ve received emails from two different people since then, disappointed that we had a guest who cited they were agnostic. It was Simon Sinek, who has the third most-watched TED talk of all time. Interestingly, Tom Ziglar and I just interviewed a celebrity that will post in an upcoming show…who also in the show said they were agnostic.
There have been other big names who, though they didn’t come right out and say it, do not share the Christian faith. One is a primary figure in Zig’s upcoming documentary, and was the first person the Ziglar family asked to feature in it.
My point? Ziglar and this show come from a foundational belief in Jesus Christ. And in that faith we adhere to the Biblical belief that all are children of God and have unique gifts and offerings to bring to the table, regardless of the diversity of beliefs they may hold. There are definitely some people we decline for interviews who are too outspoken on specific values and beliefs we believe are…too contrary.
So with that said, whether Christian or…not, we’re going to hear from Zig on how one’s faith, or lack thereof, affects their pursuit of personal success.
Here is almost 14 minutes of Zig from Strategies for Success: Blueprint for Achievement, which you can buy in audio form at Ziglar.com.
Listen in, then we’ll break it down:
Zig leads off saying the Wheel of Life involves these things:
- Physical
- Mental
- Spiritual
- Personal
- Family
- Business
Six areas of life. Many leaders today will say “balance” is a myth. They are often referring to having perfect days of utopian balance. I’d agree. I’ve found that success, significant success, in any one area, comes from laser focus and attention that pushes out other things. For a time.
But think of it as cycles. I, personally, love the seasons. With all due respect to southern Californians, I lived and schooled there as a kid and grew very bored with, from the perspective of my youth, the feeling there was “no weather.” Meaning…there was no change.
I like spring, summer, fall and winter. I don’t want any of them to last forever. I like seasons where I’m creating and building. Then seasons of refining. Sometimes seasons of just…maintaining. Not much, but some. I’ve also come to expect seasons of trial.
So back to Zig’s areas, over the weeks, months and years, how are we doing in these six areas?
- Physical
- Mental
- Spiritual
- Personal
- Family
- Business
It’s a great quarterly or semi-annual exercise to get real and rate how we are doing.
I did this as I worked on this show. I have aspects of success in all, but there are some that are lagging. I’m at a place where I am taking very little personal time. I’m investing a lot in the other areas and letting this one fall. It is not sustainable; the deficit WILL manifest itself. Next, I’m not investing in my spiritual life enough…I’m stealing time to put elsewhere. It’s an easy one to hit the snooze button on, over and over.
On the topic of balance, though, I really tend to look at these six areas annually. If any are significantly ignored for an entire year, they will atrophy and it’s very difficult to resurrect to a decent degree of health. Which causes many to just abandon them altogether. We see this often.
Very physically fit people who don’t address the mental aspect of their health.
Very spiritual people who don’t address the business/work/financial side of their lives.
Wealthy people who have let their wellness go completely to pot.
It’s all very unattractive.
My counsel? Write the six areas down and list out the good and bad that come to mind. Be aware. Then decide how important it is for you to pursue…overall success, or admit what area you are not willing or desiring to succeed in. It should be an eye-opening and convicting exercise.
Zig says, “Faith is your greatest hope-builder of all.”
If we have no hope in our lives, no expectation for achieving anything more, we submit to going through the motions. Cruise control, boredom, and…again…atrophy.
Hope is vital to our existence. Well, to a successful existence of fulfillment and purpose and true joy.
So if Zig says faith is the greatest hope-builder of all…we need to take that captive.
I dwelt on this, and it rings true. Let’s turn the question upside-down. Can you have hope without faith? Hope is belief and expectation in something that does not exist yet.
If I hope to get a better job, but no faith in any opportunities being available, or no faith in my own ability to succeed, then…there IS no hope. Breaking it down like that, we could recraft Zig’s statement from, “Faith is your greatest hope-builder of all” to…”Without faith, hope cannot exist.”
Again, we aren’t citing faith in…a specific thing. We aren’t saying Christianity, science, or Karma, or the government, or unicorns. We’re saying faith, as defined by a belief and expectation in something bigger than the raw material of ourselves and our lives.
So, the point? If you are struggling with hope, let’s take a serious matter into consideration.
The best inspiration and motivation in the world can’t do a thing for your hope, if at the core, you’ve lost faith.
That’s where I’m going to leave you -- and me -- on this right now. Is there an area of you or your life where you need to admit you’ve lost faith? You may have want and desire and even get excited from time to time, but when it flat-out comes down to it…if you were hooked up to a polygraph machine and were asked the question, the truth would come out that…you have an area where you no longer have any faith.
That…is where you need to dwell first and foremost.
Zig tells the story of the lady who worked for him, the introvert, who didn’t want to stand before people, and how she came to great success.
“I believe that inside of every human being there is incredible potential. And that potential can be brought out.”
I’m simply going to lay a question and a statement at your feet for you to ponder:
1. Do you believe there IS incredible potential inside of you? Do you? For real. Face-to-face with yourself in the mirror. Driving alone in your car. On a run or at the gym. At home. Do you believe there is incredible potential inside of you? If not…you are stuck and you need to, again, go back to…faith. You must have it in yourself.
2. A statement. Notice Zig said that “potential CAN be brought out.” He didn’t say it WILL come out. It can. I can get fitter. But it won’t simply happen. It’s not happenstance or coincidence. Have you ever seen somebody after a long time and they are substantially slimmer or have rippling muscles, and you say, “My goodness, what happened…what did you do?” And they replied, “Nothing? I really don’t know! It just kind of happened!”?
That’s ludicrous. They can lose weight and put on muscle. If…they do something daily about it. The potential that exists in you CAN be brought out. If you do the work to get it out.
That is the ultimate point of this True Performance show. To get inspired enough to do the things we need to do…in order to make positive progress and succeed.
For those who would like some encouragement in their lives, do you know all the good things people think about you? Zig told the story of the people who attended a “Born to Win” event he hosted, and the exercise of: “I like _______ because ________.”
I thought about that. I’d like to think I pretty well know the good things my friends and family and partners and coworkers would say about me. But as I thought about it…I’m not totally sure! Especially as I thought about what I would say about some people in my life. I think I’d come out with some things that would surprise them, and be pretty impacting.
And thus…I think they would surprise me.
Could you ask five people to write down at least one “I like ______ because _______” for you? Hopefully, they will do more.
That will seem uncomfortable, but…so is anything worth doing. No pain, no gain, is not so cliché in reality.
If anybody will really do it, I’d love to hear the outcome. Let me know at ask.zigshow.com, or email me at [email protected]
Folks, thank you for affording me the time to dig into this message and these principles of true performance. I always feel like the greatest beneficiary.
Here is to you, and YOUR True Performance. Talk with you in the next show…