1-Sentence-Summary: See You At The Top shows you how to have a spiritually, socially, financially, and physically successful and meaningful life by utilizing tools like positive thinking, kindness to others, and goal-setting.
Read in: 4 minutes
Favorite quote from the author:
Audio Summary
Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account*:
Are you the kind of person that makes the excuse that you cannot be successful because you don’t have enough talent? Sometimes we relinquish our ability to change by thinking that we’re just not skilled enough.
It’s easy to blame our failures on these kinds of thoughts. But they keep you from reaching your full potential in all aspects of your life. This is why Zig Ziglar refers to this kind of thinking as “loser’s limp.”
The good news is that no matter how defeated you feel from past failures and mentalities that hold you back, you can change. All it takes is a few simple steps as you’ll learn in Ziglar’s See You at the Top.
Here’s a summary of the best ideas I got out of this book in just 3 lessons:
- Always assume the best in people, including yourself and especially your family members.
- Unlock the power of goal-setting by being specific about what you want to aim for and breaking them down into actionable daily steps.
- Use the power of a positive attitude to defeat “stinkin’ thinkin’.”
Get your climbing gear ready, start climbing the mountain to success, and after these lessons, we’ll See You at the Top!
Lesson 1: What you think about others, including yourself, has a huge impact on how successful you and they are.
If you want to become successful, you need to have positive relationships. Nobody can climb the ladder when the people around them are constantly pulling them down. But it’s easier to have kind people around you when you are proactively nice.
It starts with setting aside time to put in the work to help others. Your ability to do this, and how well you treat the people closest to you depends on what you think of them.
Most of the time, you deal with others according to how you see them. But you might not consider the lasting impact this can have on them and you.
A famous study by psychologist Dr. Robert Rosenthal showed how this works. He separated students into two classes. In one, he told the teacher they had a class of geniuses. The other was told that their kids were just average.
The truth was, all of the children were average. But at the end of the school year, the students with the teacher who believed they were more intelligent were an entire grade above the others!
What you think of others matters because it affects how you treat them and how far they can go. And whether they’re down or up, it affects you.
Lesson 2: Be specific about your goals and break them into daily actions to achieve your dreams.
Goal-setting is a mighty tool for changing your life. But you probably struggle with it simply because you don’t know how to do it right. It does take hard work and focus, but with some help, you can harness its power.
First, get specific with what you want. If you’re arbitrary about it, like saying you want to be healthy, you’re not going to get anywhere. It helps to quantify your goals by deciding how much you want to improve. Like how much weight you want to lose.
The next step is to establish a timeline for when you want to finish your goal that accounts for obstacles that will get in your way.
Now you want to write your goals down. Think about the various aspects of life that you want to improve in. For me, I divide it up in terms of faith, family, finances, fitness, and fun.
Set a goal in each of the categories you want to change. Or, if you’re wanting to start small, you can just set one aim in one area.
You’ll also want to break your goals down into smaller pieces by identifying what daily or weekly steps you must take to achieve them.
The author, for example, wanted to lose weight. He decided on going for 165 pounds and gave himself a timeline of 10 months. Writing it in one of his books scheduled to be published in that time added motivation for him to finish.
His daily work to achieve this aspiration included short runs and later on longer ones and calisthenics. Soon the pounds started falling off and he’d met his goal!
Lesson 3: Defeat “stinkin’ thinkin’,” also known as a bad attitude, with the power of a positive attitude.
No matter how diligent you are, you’re always going to have setbacks while working toward your goals. You can’t do anything about these events, but you can control how you’ll react to them.
This is what Ziglar means when he says you need to develop a positive attitude. It’s so important that one Harvard University study identified that 85% of what you accomplish is a matter of your attitude! Only 15% comes from your intelligence.
It’s hard not to sabotage the power of your outlook on life by unproductive thinking patterns. The author calls this “stinkin’ thinkin’,” and it brings all of us down from time to time.
One baseball team in the minor leagues was struggling with stinkin’ thinkin’. Their losing streak was growing as the players began to grow worse at blaming each other for it.
The coach decided he’d had enough and asked for some help from a faith healer. After receiving a promise that they would start winning again, their attitudes changed and the players ended up winning the pennant in the Texas League series!
To take advantage of the power of a positive attitude, don’t wait for a leader to tell you to change. Begin each day with a healthy mentality by looking to what you have to be grateful for and what you’re excited about.
Society today makes this hard with the flood of negativity from the news and social media. Combat this by reviewing what language you’re using and making an effort to use more positive words.
See You At The Top Review
Just when I think I’ve read everything by Zig Ziglar I find another great book of his. See You At The Top is one of my new favorites. Even though it has some of the same advice as most self-improvement books, the research it shares and the ideas to implement the principles are unique and actionable.
Who would I recommend the See You At The Top summary to?
The 37-year-old who is overweight and doesn’t like their career, the 61-year-old that wants some inspiration to start setting goals again, and anybody that wants to know how to improve their lives in a few simple, research-backed steps.
Last Updated on September 19, 2022
