The best year of my life was in 1977. I was 16 years old. When school started, I got a job working as a stock boy at a women’s shoe store on weekends and afternoons. The general manager did not allow music to be played in the stock room. Instead, Zig Zigler tapes were played. Zig was a pioneer in sales, motivation and inspiration.

At first, I wasn’t very receptive to the tapes. However, after several months, I had gotten used to them. Eventually, I could recite each and every word on the 10 tapes. It became an ongoing joke, because I learned to imitate the voice so well. To this day, I can still hear Zig saying, “Money can buy you a house, but it won’t buy you a home; money can by you a bed, but it won’t buy you a good night’s sleep.”  Little did I know that someday I would produce my own self-help tapes, which have sold more than a million copies.

Saturdays were always the busiest days in retail. On one particular Saturday, five sales people chose to not show up for work. The general manager freaked out, and in a moment of haste, insisted that I get on the floor and start selling shoes. I told him I couldn’t do it, that I had never sold a thing in life. Besides, I was wearing a dirty t-shirt and jeans. He dragged me down to the mall and bought me a shirt and a slip-on tie, and the next thing I knew I was on the shoe floor.

I will never forget that day— from my first sale to the most beautiful women I had ever seen to the nine pairs of shoes and boots sold to the woman from Mexico City. Throughout it all, I was calculating how much money I was going to earn that day. I went from minimum wage (US$4 an hour) to a 10-percent-commissioned salesman. I earned approximately US$1,300 that day.

After that first sale, I was unstoppable. I could not help but feel that the Zig Ziglar tapes had made a big impression on me. This was a big turning point in my life and career. That night, when the final numbers were tallied at the register, the general manager turned to me and said, “You just crushed the largest single sales day by an employee in this store’s twenty-year history.”

The feeling of elation at that moment has rarely been duplicated in my life, but it is that feeling of unbelievable accomplishment that keeps me motivated to this day. I went on to sell ladies’ shoes for several more years. I learned to love selling, and more importantly, I realized the power of words, dreams and vision.