Get Motivated! Better Than Good: Creating a Life You Can’t Wait to Live by Zig Ziglar

When asked how he is Zig would respond “better than good” – why because he truly expected things to be and become “better than good”. How you expect things to be greatly influences how they become.  You have to believe in your heart that life is, indeed, “better than good.”, hence the title.

Zig suggests the passionate people who make the greatest contributions to society are highly motivated also have proper motives. Proper motives always seek to accomplish goals that contribute to the common good of serving others. 

So think about what are you doing to continually rekindle the passion of your life? What kind of inspiration are you providing for yourself that will keep you pursuing your dream?

Get involved, invest, inquire and imagine for inspiration.  Nothing is as infectious as optimism and a positive outlook.

Research shows that happy people and unhappy people tend to have very similar experiences in life. The difference is perspective: unhappy people spend more time thinking about life’s unpleasant events; they become introspective and self-centred in their thinking, and thus in their living. Happy people, on the other hand, take life’s events in stride. They have a positive world view that allows room for disappointments and failures along the way. Happy people seek out and depend upon facts that bolster their perspective on life; they are outward focused and centred on others.

When something disappointing happens to people with a positive perspective on life, they view it as an exception to the rule. Positive people don’t react to life; they respond. Responding is positive; reacting is negative. Responders don’t have their heads in the sand, living in denial. They recognize the seriousness of some of life’s events, but they see them as things that simply alter their course, not close it down. Everyone knows that life is not lived in a straight line from womb to tomb. 

The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more you will have to express gratitude for.  Zig taught at Sunday school classes and the book has fairly religious undertones.  Saying that he thought were obvious such as “day really did end last night” and “God not only permits U-turns in life, He encourages them” others told him were influential statements.

Because a fellow has failed once or twice, or a dozen times, you don’t want to set him down as a failure till he’s dead or loses his courage – and that’s the same thing.

Peak performance in life only comes when exercising passion toward what you believe is your purpose in life.  Some people have not yet searched for and discovered their purpose.  People with great passion for their calling often fail before they achieving peak performance. Why? Because they often start too strong and fast. Maybe they lack the maturity, lack technical training, know-how or experience. They may have so much passion that they rush out and trip all over themselves because they just don’t know any better. Yes, they fail at first but their passion keeps them in the game; they refuse to take no for an answer.

Countless marriages land on the rocks of divorce because unhealthy people marry thinking that marriage, or their spouse, will make them whole. Wrong. If you’re not a healthy single person you won’t be a healthy married person.

Zig’s example of a happy marriage was that when answering the home phone he would say “Good morning! This is Jean Ziglar’s happy husband!” Virtually everyone who called his home for the first time commented on that greeting before getting to the reason for their call. Seemingly the Redhead, his nickname for his wife, loved it.

Marital difficulty at home can lead to a decline in job productivity, so Zig argues it just makes
sense to acquire and secure that home-court advantage.  I would argue that makes sense also for times when you are not at work!  Remember in life you can develop new purposes to give you even greater passion which can led to even higher peaks of performance.

Most importantly you can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.