Zig Ziglar - Over the Top

Over
the
Top

Zig Ziglar

Revised edition copyright 1997 by The Zig Ziglar Corporation
First edition copyright 1994 by The Zig Ziglar Corporation

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Annual Inflation Data 1944 to 1992 from Stocks, Bonds, Bills, and Inflation 1993 Yearbook, Ibbotson Associates, Chicago (annually updates work by Roger G. Ibbotson and Rex A. Sinquefield). Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. Publishers. Scripture quotations noted KJV are from the King James Version.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ziglar, Zig.
Over the top / Zig Ziglar.Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7852-7119-2 (revised hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-7852-7119-8 (revised hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7852-8877-0 (trade paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7852-8877-5 (trade paper)
1. Success. 2. Conduct of life. I. Title.
BJ1611.2.Z52 1997
158.1dc21

97-27090

Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 RRD 6 5 4 3

To my friend and mentor,
Fred Smith, who is fun and inspiring.
He is also the wisest and
most effective teacher I've ever had.

Contents

TWO Right Attitude +
Specific Skills +
Golden Rule
Philosophy
Character
= Complete Success

THIRTEEN Getting upand staying upwhen you've
been knocked down

FOURTEEN Commitment + Courage + Discipline =
Freedom

S ince a significant portion of Over the Top deals with establishing a goals program, I share with you my goals for this book in your life.

1. To give you legitimate hope and fuel it with encouragement, which is as vital to the soul as oxygen is to the body.

2. To share with you how you can acquire more of the things money will buy and all of the things money won't buy.

3. To show you how to have employment security in a world where job security no longer exists.

4. To persuade you that failure is an event, not a person.

5. To help you change the picture you have of yourself so you can change your perception of what life has to offer.

6. To encourage you to make decisions today that will enable you to live well and finish well.

7. To demonstrate why you've got to be before you can do and do before you can have.

8. To raise both your IQ and your EI (emotional intelligence).

9. To help you develop the right attitudes, combine them with the right skills, and develop a character foundation to ensure a balanced success.

10. To "sell" you on why you should make friends with your past so you can focus on the present and safeguard your future.

11. To show you how you can be happier, healthier, more prosperous, more secure, have more friends, greater peace of mind, better family relationships, and more hope.

12. To show you why you can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

This book covers one
procedure that can double
your income, improve
family relationships, and
make you happier
and healthier.

Ninety-five percent of the people who hear, understand, and agree with a principle do not have the ability to apply it to their lives because they do not have the necessary resources. Stanford University

W hen I acquired the Stanford University information, I really got excited because it solved for me some mysteries about life and motivation. Why do so many people start on a project, get marvelous results for a brief period of time, and then revert to their old humdrum way of thinking and living? Why does motivation change some people permanently and others only temporarily? Why do we get roughly two hundred times as many letters, phone calls, and personal statements from people who say my books and tapes changed their lives as we do from people who say my presentation changed their lives?

The answer is now clear. They hear me speak and get excited, then they encounter negative situations, problems, and people. Little by little, over a period of time, they lose their enthusiasm, and they are back on square one.

Wonderful news! You have in your hands the resource necessary to implement and apply the princples that will change and enrich your life.

As you read Over the Top you will note that I never make a promise or promises, as I did on the preceding page, without giving you a plan to fulfill the promise. You will in each case discover why you should use the plan and, even more important, how you can. Over the Top is the resource book that will enable you to keep hope alive and give you the inspiration, conviction, and know-how to follow through.

Motivation, as I will say in the book, is not permanentbut then neither is bathing. However, if we bathe every day, we are ahead of the game. From a motivational point of view, if we deliberately seek encouragement (motivation) on a daily basis, it will become a habit and enable us to get ahead and stay ahead in life.

CHALLENGE: After you have thoroughly read and highlighted the parts of the book that are most meaningful to you, keep this book highly visible so that you can grab it at any time of the day or night. Then I challenge you to read a thought or page. I promise there will be some information on it that will reignite the sparks and get you excited again about what's really important in life. In short, you will receive the encouragement you need to continue your winning ways.

S omebody once said that truth could be denied, but it could not be avoided. I agree. The information presented in Over the Top is designed to give you hope based on some of the great truths of life. In the process of sharing this information, I will use many real-life stories, examples, illustrations, and parables to make a number of very important points. When combined, these points reveal a solid blueprint for life based on facts and principles, not theories. I assure you that I have researched and evaluated the information in Over the Top from psychological, theological, and physiological points of view and have secured endorsements from authorities in each of these disciplines.

Over the Top gives you the guidelines you need to exchange the fears, guilt, and anger of the past for a future built on a solid base and filled with hopeful expectancy. Since encouragement is the fuel of hope, encouraging thoughts and ideas are on every page to get you started and keep you going. As you read, you'll see that the people and companies that build their lives and businesses on an ethical base, and operate on the belief that their purpose in life is to serve others, are the ones that enjoy the greatest success. Most important, you will come to know that without God all things are permissible, but with God all things are possible. In the process you will understand why God's possibles will produce infinitely more over-the-top people than man's permissibles.