Ep 177: Lessons in Personal Branding from the Ziglar Family with Tom Ziglar | Recap Episode
Welcome back to the influential personal brand podcast. Special recap edition joined today by AJ and we are breaking down an important family to us, the Ziglar family. If we got a chance, if you didn’t get a chance to make sure you listen to the interview that we did with Tom Ziglar, of course, Zig Ziglar, son, and Zig had a massive impact on our life and our early career. And so it was an honor to reconnect with Tom and see what they are up to. AJ and I are going to share with you some of our biggest takeaways from the episode. So why don’t you kick us off?
I think, I think one of my biggest takeaways was just really interesting quotes that Tom shared that was one of zigs old quotes. And I think he even said it was from the seventies or eighties, an older quote, but I thought it was really relevant for the, the time and space that we live in right now. And the quote was if you pursue standard of living, you will likely, never have a better quality of life. But if you pursue a better quality of life, the standard of living will always go up. And I thought that was really good and timely. Just in the, the season that so many of us are in and our businesses are in, and there’s been a lot of economic change and family change and business change and virtual and just all the things. And I just I was listening to radio station a couple of days ago and they were sharing that HR department’s number one concern right now are there people’s mental health and wellbeing.
It’s not retention, it’s not recruiting it’s, it’s actually employee mental health and wellness. And it was timely because I had heard that on a radio interview. And then this interview with Tom was almost back to back and I kind of just thought, Oh, that’s the universe going? Ding, ding, ding, connect the dots here of what are you in pursuit of? What are you in pursuit of? And I just thought it was really good to kind of like take a step back. And as we get into this recap to settle in of like, Whoa, what I am I in pursuit of and where does my own quality of life fit when it comes to what I’m working forwards working towards and why am I working towards it? So it was a little bit off interview topic, but for whatever reason, I kind of just even pause the interview and kind of sat with that for a moment of going, I know the rest of the interview, isn’t going to be talking about this, but this really simple quote really stuck out to me of just taking a moment of going, am I in pursuit of something for the wrong reasons?
And where does the quality, where does my quality of life come into the equation of what I’m working towards? Or is that even a factor? So I kind of off script there, but that was my very first and probably most important takeaway, not from just the interview, but probably my whole week.
I mean, that, that it was for me too. That was, that was one of my big, my big takeaways. And just this idea that the quality of your life directly influences also the quality of your work. And I think it’s like, you know, that that idea in school, that companies I think are waking up to that. I mean, that’s, I think one of, one of the good things that have come out of the recent time is going, it’s not only the right thing to just care about the quality of life of the people who are working in the business. It also is a good thing for the health of the business. Like the financial health of the success is when you have happier people, they do better work. So if you can’t get yourself to come around to it, you know, if you’re an employer just because you’re good natured is, is to make that connection.
And, and I think it, it hit me even more personally as going like, Oh, wow, where is the quality of my life? And am I focused on that? As much as the quality of work. And if I allow myself to really create the quality of life and focus on that, that the quality of work will increase as, as a by-product and the standard of living and just everything. And, and I think, I feel like there is this trend in the world right now, where people are in some ways, in some ways, letting go a little bit of like the money in the hustle and the, you know, the achievement and starting to wake up more to just like happiness and joy and fulfillment. Although there’s plenty of that other stuff that we’re all, we’re all hanging on to, it’s hard wired into our brains, but, and it was, that was my first takeaway too.
That was really good. So my second thing that kind of stuck out to me as I love this, and he was talking about his own identity. Tom was talking about his own identity and correlation to such a publicly and widely positively known reputation there. You need to get your own points. These are my points. And he said, he said something I had to realize is that, although I was speaking through and for my father’s legacy on principles and values, that my dad Zig was a one of a kind and I’m not him. And he’s not me. And I don’t speak like him and think like him, I don’t motivate like him, I don’t inspire him, but that’s okay. Is that people still wanted zigs principles and values and ideas, but they wanted them in the own way that Tom could deliver them.
Right. And I think that was really kind of an aha moment for so many of us is what are we trying to be like? That is not who we are just because we think that’s what other people want. Not because that’s what they told us they want. It’s just because that’s what we think they want. And so, as Tom was going through this story of how he really had to learn that the gift of his was not his own, but he had his own gifts and that people still wanted to learn from him and his own way. And he didn’t have to be Zig or be like Zig in order to complete that, you know, cycle there. And it just made me think of how often so many of the clients that we work with and people that we talk to, and even us, right, our own family, friends, our own team that we live in this idea of a I’m going to be this way, because I think that’s what my audience would like.
Like Rory actually heard this again on the radio, in the car lot here lately. Apparently the other thing I was going to say but one third of Americans actually decide where they’re going to vacation based on how that location will look on social media as they take pictures and kind of shared that. And I was like, well, that’s funny, wait, that’s not funny. Funny, not funny because it’s, it’s a, it’s really unfortunate that we do things. We live our life thinking that this is what other people want from us without ever living into our own uniqueness and originality. And quite honestly forget that, like, we don’t even do things for ourselves anymore just to impress, please show others on what we’re doing versus is that really what we want. And so anyways, it was a great part of the interview. It was short and sweet, but also very poignant in the fact of man, how many of us are living in the shadow of other people’s expectations?
When indeed no one, they didn’t, they don’t even want that from you. They want what, you’re not giving them, but you’re not giving it to them because you don’t think that’s what they want. So I just thought it was very I don’t know, humbling in a way of going, wow, have you ever even thought, are you trying to be someone that you’re not to impress people that actually want the real you, not the fake you? And it was a, I think it was just a really good part of the interview of this aha moment that so many of us relate to.
Yeah, I was pro that was profound. I mean, I I’ve I wrote, I wrote down when he said, dad always told us that his gift is not our gift and that like, I mean, that gave me chills because I was going what an important lesson for Zig to pass on. And also for everyone to know, like the way he said it too is so true is like Zig had plenty of weaknesses, just like anyone else does that are Tom’s strengths. And who are we trying to be like, that is not us. That is preventing us or disallowing us from, from being us. And I think that happens all the time. Right? We’re trying to emulate somebody or something, some set of people versus what you said, just settling in and receiving the idea that what want from us is to just be us. I, I love Sally Hogshead kind of talks about this, where she says, you don’t have to become more fascinating. You have to just become more of who you already are. And as a by-product of that, you’ll be fascinating. But when we try to become like everyone else, then we, you know, we, we become bland and and we’re not living in our, in our gifts. And that, that was powerful, powerful moment. That was really cool.
Yeah. So apparently we have the exact same takeaways. Maybe the third one will be different. We’ll say that the third one, I thought wasn’t necessarily a point in the interview. It was the interview as a whole. And we talk a lot about this and we’ve had several guests on the show over the last several months that have also talked about how do you take one existing piece of content and build an empire? And it’s not just a book or just a course or just us speaking or justice, but it’s like, how do you take a piece of content or in the Ziglar, Ziglar family, lots of pieces and pieces of content. But you don’t have to have thousands of pieces of content to build a very large production engine of business. You can build a big business off of one set of curriculum. And, you know, I could give you dozens of people who have done this, but one piece of content can be a book and a speech, and a course and shared on a podcast and turned into a coaching program and then a training program and then a consulting program, and then a certification program or a train the trainer program.
It’s like, the list goes on and on and on off of one set of content, it’s like, you don’t need 35 different pieces of content to build a very big business that’s multifaceted. And I think so often people get consumed with, in order to do a new thing. I have to have new content and what Zig the kind of Zig vault of content and what Tom is doing with that is a great example of no, we’re not necessarily trying to create brand new content. We’re repurposing content that has been loved and adored around the world and giving it to people in new ways. Smart and really good. So again, it was just the whole interview as a whole of reminding all of us. You don’t have to have lots of pieces of content to have lots of different business models.
Yeah, that’s a really good reminder. It’s another example of like, when we talk about she hands wall, where if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. And I think people are always like off chasing the next content. And sometimes I think in a lot of cases, you’re more likely to make more money by serving your existing audience in a deeper way versus creating a new thing for a new audience. And so that’s a good reminder. For me, my third takeaway that I wrote down was, was just again, it wasn’t so much related to personal branding except for like being an entrepreneur. When Tom said, you know, a great leader is more focused on the growth of their people than the results from their people. It’s kind of tied back into that quality of life thing that it was just like, if you really can invest in people and care about people and build them and provide for them and coach them that, you know, that is, that is how you get the most out of them, not by just coming at them and pressuring them to get the most out of them and, you know, just building those relationships and investing in people and, and, and believing in them.
And I think that’s part of their shared legacy. Definitely, as I say, that’s very Ziglar, Ziglar, Ziglar philosophies. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So well, there you go, a great chance to sit down with legendary family and Tom is such a great guy. We’re excited to see how that brand is doing and the new era and it’s transitioning and it’s it’s really, really cool. And anyways, it’s honor for us to get, to bring conversations like that to you and an honor to us that you would keep coming back to listen to them. So thanks for being here. We’ll catch you next time.