Sad news in the business world of motivational business — the death of Zig Ziglar.

I think I only saw Zig speak once, at a weekly sales training session for Southwestern Book Company in Nashville, TN, back in the summer of…1983?  He and others we heard, such as Dave Dean and Og Mandino, encouraged us to think more of ourselves than we normally tend to think.

All of us have an internal conversation — a running commentary — in our thoughts.  How we focus that conversation and the resultant feelings is what makes motivational speakers so popular.

We don’t know what squirrels knocking hickory nuts out of trees are thinking to themselves (“Gotta remember where that nut fell to the ground 100 feet below…and that nut…and that one…wait!  Was that the shadow of a predatory bird?  Ooh, that skin patch itches.  Must scratch my back.  Let’s see…which nut was I trying to track last?  Hmm…”) but they probably don’t need a lot of motivation to stop negative thoughts in their heads (“Why bother gathering nuts?  I’m just going to grow old and die, anyway!”).

My business hat off to Zig for giving the motivational industry a big boost in his heyday.

My hat’s off also to Eric Thelen at Southern Experience, Inc., whose “customer first” mentality gave my wife and me the opportunity to purchase wonderful pairs of 50-yard line seats for the last two Univ. of TN football games we attended, handling a refund for an accidental double-charge without blinking an eye.

Thanks to Paula at Walmart; Sean at Rite-Aid; Andrea and Miranda at Beauregard’s; Joe, Catherine, Jennifer and Harold at Kinesthetic Cue; and others whose names escape me at this moment.