In high school, I was just another guy. No prestige, no influence, no connections, just one of the crowd members. I knew the cool kids and the not-so-cool kids and was accepted by both. But I wasn’t really a part of either group. My Dad was a telephone repairman; Mom was a homemaker. My grandparents lived with us and needed constant care. Upon graduation, I was 176th out of 430 academically, so no edge there either. Not an athlete, didn’t own a motorcycle or hot rod car. I had plenty of acquaintances but very few active friends, in fact, just five.
When it came to career expectations, I anticipated an “ordinary and unremarkable” life. Maybe an office job at the phone company? Nice wife, small house, two kids, retire at 65, and die at the statistically most likely age. Then one day everything changed.
I was married with a new son at home, working as a clerk at a government agency. Fifty pounds overweight, smoking two packs a day. Pretty much fulfilling my expected destiny. Then a five-minute radio broadcast playing in the room next to my office changed my entire worldview. It was Earl Nightingale, the “Dean of Personal Motivation”. He said, “If you will spend one extra hour each day studying your chosen field, you will become a national expert in that field in five years or less.”
What? Only five years? Me? Surely not me. Then I did the math. An hour a day, five days a week, for five years is 1,250 hours! That amount of study would make anyone a leading authority. Even me.
That presented a new problem: an expert on what? I had the time, the youth, the drive, but not the direction. For a few weeks, I pondered it. Then one day it hit me, I want to be like Earl Nightingale! An authority in the field of personal development. So, I took him at his word: I devoted at least one hour every day to the study of applied behavioral science, the study of success achievement. I became a fanatic about it, reading books, listening to recordings, going to seminars, and attending discussion groups. It was the only thing I wanted to think about.
My life became consumed with goal setting, skill development, civic club meetings, volunteer work, and study, lots of independent study. Soon, I was being asked to lead discussions, then give presentations, and teach skills. In a two-year period, I attended and spoke at 400 civic club meetings in the state of Arkansas, after work and on weekends. After the first 100 or so, I got pretty good at speaking to groups. That led to leadership roles: chairman of a committee, member of the board, president of the chapter, speaker at the convention. Then I left my government job and went full-time into training and development. I became a professional speaker.
A “Global Authority” is a person of influence, and now, after many years of speaking all over the world, writing 27 books, and receiving virtually every award that is given to professional speakers, I suppose I am influential. I’ve been president of the National Speakers Association, my TEDx video has almost 3 million views, and I have been inducted into the Sales & Marketing Hall of Fame and the Speakers Hall of Fame. I’ve become a university professor, PBS TV host, member of multiple faculties, and received an honorary business degree.
Whatever happened to the “nobody” I was in high school?
He changed the way he saw the world and himself. He started seeking possibilities instead of focusing on obstacles. He removed 50 excess pounds and became an athlete. He began to seek ways to help others and stopped thinking about himself. He spent an extra hour or more every day studying the field of personal development.
At first, I became a rabid student of Earl Nightingale’s works. Then, a year later, I sold his training programs door to door to businesses. After launching my own training business in 1977, I started teaching my own courses. In 1983, I moved from Arkansas and Oklahoma to California. Then, in 1984, while sitting at my desk in San Diego, I got a phone call…from Earl Nightingale! He read an article I had written and offered to publish it as an audio program.
