Zig Ziglar - biography

Zig Ziglar was born to John Silas and Lila Ziglar in Coffee County, Alabama as the tenth of twelve children. When he was four years old, his father accepted a management position at a Mississippi farm and his family moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi, where Zig Ziglar spent most of his childhood. In 1932, his father died of a stroke (and his younger sister died two days later), leaving his mother to raise the remaining eleven children alone.

Ziglar served in the Navy during World War II. He was in the Navy V-12 Navy College Training Program, attending the University of South Carolina.

He later worked as a salesman in a succession of companies, during which time his sales skills improved and his interest in motivational speaking grew. In 1968, Ziglar became a vice president and training director for the Automotive Performance company, and moved to Dallas, Texas, where he still lives today. In 1970, he went into the business of motivational speaking full-time.