Being yourself series: Zig Ziglar helps Pam out
This could be the last post for a while on the Being Yourself Series, but I think its a good one. If any self help person had a great reputation its Zig Ziglar. Rick Dudnick sent in this story on his client Pam.
Rick writes: Pam Lontos was an overweight, depressed housewife who was sleeping 18 hours a day. She was sick of the way she was leading her life but didn’t know how to change. Then one day she went to a self-help rally in Dallas and heard Zig Ziglar say that she could change her life if she changed the picture in her mind. Somehow that clicked and she bought everything she could that Ziglar had recorded. She listened to the tapes over and over. Well, her life did change. She got a sales job in a health club. She was good at sales and soon out sold everyone there. She also took advantage of all the exercise equipment and got in shape.
I don’t want to go on and on in this response, but the upshot of it all is that in three years from listening to those tapes, she was VP of sales for the Disney owned Shamrock Broadcasting in charge of 8 radio stations, 2 TV stations, and a production company.
When people heard this they would invariably say, “You can’t do all that in just three years.” To which she would respond, “Don’t tell me it’s impossible until after I’ve already done it.” And that became the
title of her first book.
Here’s where it gets funny and interesting:
Rick writes about Pam calling Zig: Zig, this is Pam Lontos. I used to be a depressed housewife sleeping 18 hours a day and then I listened to your tapes and got motivated, joined a gym, got hired there in sales, did really well and then went to a radio station where I increased their sales 500% in one year and now they’re asking me to do a presentation at the National Association of Broadcasters and I’ve never spoken to a group before so you have to help me because it’s all your fault!”
This led to Zig helping her and becoming her friend. Pam went from the radio station to doing her own speeches on motivation and sales.
Gary inserts: Now don’t go calling Zig thinking he’ll pick up the phone or will become your friend. But if you do and he does, give me a call. I want to meet you. But the idea here is that Pam took bold actions and had the actual gumption to change. What are you going to do? In my book its one of my main points in that you have to act in order to change into a genius. Even if that action is likely to “fail”.
Pam is president of PR/PR, a public relations firm in Orlando, FL
