Motivational Speaker Zig Ziglar Dead at 86

The man Texas Monthly once dubbed "the nation's most motivated motivational speaker" is dead at age 86. Zig Ziglar, author of more than two dozen books, died in the Dallas suburb of Plano, reports AP. Ziglar rose to national fame with his first book, See You at the Top, and became a fixture on the lecture circuit and at corporate retreats for decades with his folksy advice.

The Washington Post lists some of his mantras:

• “If you’re going to have to swallow a frog, you don’t want to have to look at that sucker too long!”
• “The more you gripe about your problems, the more problems you have to gripe about!”
• “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help other people get what they want!”

A friend, former FedEx chief Fred Smith, is quoted in the Texas Monthly profile mentioned earlier: “I’ve asked myself many times how Zig can say the same things people have been hearing all their lives, and instead of getting yawns he gets a tremendous response." (More motivational speaker stories.)