Episode 1364 · Oct 9, 2026

You Don't Build a Business, You Build People with Tom Ziglar

Tom Ziglar

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Most founders don't stall because they hired the wrong people. They stall because they manage the right people instead of coaching them. In this episode of The Daily Mastermind, host George Wright III opens with a line from Zig Ziglar that reframes the entire job of a leader — "You don't build a business. You build people, and people build businesses" — and then hands the mic to Tom Ziglar, CEO of Ziglar Inc., to walk through exactly how that works in practice.

Tom Ziglar started 40 years ago in the company's cassette duplication department. Today he's a global leadership coach, the author of *10 Leadership Virtues for Disruptive Times*, and the steward of a legacy that has reached more than 250 million people through his father's 45 books. What he shares here is a repeatable, five-step framework he calls the Intentional Coaching Conversation — a weekly one-on-one structure that turns compliance into ownership.

Tom Ziglar on Why You Don't Build a Business, You Build People

Tom's definition of leadership is refreshingly concrete: your job is to develop, educate, inspire, and grow the people on your team so they can take your place. Not so they can stay comfortable in their lane. So they can replace you.

That sounds counterintuitive until you connect it to the second Ziglar quote George leads with: "If you're irreplaceable, you're unpromotable." A leader who hoards decisions and keeps every process locked in their own head isn't protecting their position — they're freezing it. The leader who builds a bench gets recognized as someone who develops people who get the job done, and that's who moves up.

You can have everything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want.

The Founder's Trap: Why Managing Your Team Makes You the Bottleneck

George frames the problem that sends most entrepreneurs looking for a solution in the first place. You hire exceptional people — then you manage them. So they wait to be told what to do. Every core decision routes back through you, and the business scales only as far as your personal bandwidth allows.

The distinction he draws is sharp: telling people what to do creates compliance, but asking them where they want to go creates ownership. People who own their plan don't need constant check-ins to stay in motion. They already have direction, and they already have a reason. Ask yourself honestly how many decisions in your business still require your signature today, and you'll know whether you're leading or bottlenecking.

The 5-Step Intentional Coaching Conversation

Tom insists on the word *conversation* — not meeting, not review. The ICC is a structure you work through with a team member, and it may take two months to complete all five steps with one person. That's fine. The point is intentionality, not speed.

Steps 1 and 2: Define Success, Then Find the Why

It starts with one disarmingly simple question: *What does success look like to you?* If we're in May and you finish the year strong, what does winning mean? Tom points out that what someone tells you — and what they don't — says everything. "Success to me would be keeping my job" tells you one thing. "Success would be being eligible for a promotion" tells you something entirely different. So does "ideally I'd work 30 hours a week." In some roles that's workable, in others it's a challenge, but wouldn't you rather know on day one?

Step two is the follow-up: *Why is that important to you?* Asking a team member "why do you work here?" is awkward and gets you nothing. Anchoring the why to their own stated definition of success gets you the truth.

Steps 3 and 4: Performance Opportunities and the Co-Created Plan

Step three covers what Tom calls performance opportunities, broken into three parts: What attitude could you demonstrate that would make you more successful? What effort could you increase or optimize? What skill could you develop? You ask, then you listen. Sometimes you have 25 years in the industry and the person across from you has three months, so you nudge — but you let them discover the answer, because discovery is what creates ownership.

Tom's example: a reserved team member realizes that clients are nervous when a stranger shows up at their door, and decides to smile and bring an upbeat attitude when he rings the bell. The coach's next question is simply, "How are you going to do that?" Maybe the answer is listening to Zig Ziglar on the drive over. Write it down. That becomes step four — the co-created plan. It's *co*-created because you'll let someone color outside the lines and learn, but you won't let them drive the car off the cliff.

Step 5: The Heartbeat of Accountability

The tie-down is a question, not a mandate: "Is it okay if I hold you accountable to your goals?" Then you set the rhythm — every single week, sometimes five minutes at lunch, sometimes 30 minutes when you're working through something together.

If they won't be held accountable to the plan they created, they're not going to be held accountable to the plan you give them.

Most leaders push back that they don't have time for another meeting. Tom's answer is that you're already meeting with your direct reports weekly — you're just not being intentional with that time. This isn't more meetings. It's better ones. And it's why one-time training never sticks: development is a heartbeat, not an event.

Why Coaching Leadership Works for Every Personality Type

Tom shares the story of Michelle Delgado, an executive whose family is from Puerto Rico and who started her career in a competitive, male-dominated New York City firm about 30 years ago. Every project that came in, people fought over. Every raise cycle, people argued their case. That wasn't how she was raised — in her culture, the leader picks the best person for the job. Two years in, she realized she was behind: others had the better projects, the better relationships, and the better pay, not because they were more capable, but because the culture rewarded fighting.

With coaching leadership, that gap never opens. On day one you ask what success looks like, why it matters, and what she needs to develop — then you build it weekly. Tom notes he's an S type on DISC himself: a relationship person who avoids confrontation. Two years of that disadvantage compounds into hundreds of thousands of dollars over a career. Coaching levels the field for every personality style, on both sides of the table.

Action Steps

Count how many core decisions in your business still have to route through you this week. That number is your bottleneck.
Pick one person on your team and schedule an Intentional Coaching Conversation before the week ends.
Open with the two questions only: *What does success look like to you?* and *Why is that important to you?* Then listen more than you talk.
Have them write the plan — attitude, effort, skill — in their own words, and ask permission to hold them accountable to it.
Convert an existing weekly check-in into the heartbeat of accountability rather than adding a new meeting to the calendar.

If everyone on your team is excelling in their role, protecting their quality of life, and hitting their personal goals, why would they ever leave — and how could you possibly be overlooked for the next level? That's what coaching does. It's never too late to start living the life you were meant to live.

About the guest

Tom Ziglar

Tom Ziglar is the CEO of Ziglar Incorporated, a global leadership coach, and author of 10 Leadership Virtues for Disruptive Times. As the son of legendary motivator Zig Ziglar, Tom continues the legacy by helping organizations build high-performance, coaching-based cultures that drive results and personal growth.

Tom Ziglar, CEO of Ziglar Inc., who outlines a five-step “Intentional Coaching Conversation” for weekly one-on-ones: define what success looks like, uncover why it matters, identify performance opportunities (attitude, effort, skill), co-create the employee’s plan, and establish the “heartbeat of accountability” through regular check-ins. Tom explains why one-time training doesn’t stick and shares an example showing how coaching clarifies expectations, supports different personalities, and develops people to take leaders’ places.

Tom shares this lesson with billion-dollar companies, small-business owners, and prestigious academic institutions, allowing thousands of clients to take their business further than they ever dreamed possible.

The world hungers for inspiration, motivation, and hope. With Tom’s innovation and world-class coaching, Ziglar is the go-to resource.

Balancing your career, personal life, finances, physical health, and mental wellbeing can be overwhelming. But it’s possible, thanks to Tom Ziglar’s formula for balanced success.

Tom Ziglar believes there are three ways you can achieve greatness Learn more about achieving Success, Significance, and Legacy.

ziglar.com instagram.com facebook.com linkedin.com

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

George Wright III: [00:00:05] Welcome back to "The Daily Mastermind." George Wright III [00:00:10] here, I'm your host. If this is your first time listening, I hope you'll do me a favor and, subscribe to the show. [00:00:15] Don't miss any episodes. Also, if you go over to dailymastermind.com, we've got some awesome stuff [00:00:20] there. I'd love for you to be getting the weekly prosperity report with all the strategies and tactics. But [00:00:25] today, I wanna ask you to really think about one of the traps that I think most [00:00:30] founders and entrepreneurs run into, and I'm gonna start with this. It's a quote from Zig [00:00:35] Ziglar: "You don't build a business. You build people, and people build [00:00:40] businesses." Here's another quote: "If you're irreplaceable, you're [00:00:45] unpromotable." Now, how many decisions in your business right now still have to go through [00:00:50] you? Think about that. How many of the core decisions when you're trying to build and grow and scale a business, [00:00:55] how many of them have to come through you? How much control do you have over the g- organization? 'Cause, [00:01:00] see, I think that the founder's trap that I'm referring to is that we hire really good people, and then we [00:01:05] manage them. We manage them. So what's happening is they're waiting to [00:01:10] be told what to do, and we become the bottleneck, and the business will only [00:01:15] scale to the extent that you manage your people. And so the trap that we have is we're trying to grow and [00:01:20] scale and build this business, and we hire these great, exceptional people, but we manage them. [00:01:25] And so if you're telling people what to do, it's going to create compliance. [00:01:30] But asking them where they wanna go creates ownership And [00:01:35] people who own their plan don't need you checking on them all the time. They're already driven, they [00:01:40] already have a direction, and they own their plan. So think of a time that you finally stopped [00:01:45] managing people and started coaching them. What changed? And if you [00:01:50] haven't done that, I would encourage you to real- and challenge you even, to really check that out and try that with [00:01:55] individuals that you're truly trying to lead. So today I want to share a conversation with you I had with [00:02:00] Tom Ziglar. Now Tom, he's the CEO of Ziglar Inc. And for those of you that know, the [00:02:05] legacy of his father, Zig Ziglar, has reached over 250 million people. He wrote 45 [00:02:10] books. He's definitely an OG of the industry. Tom Ziglar, his son, started 40 [00:02:15] years ago working in the company's cassette duplication department, where they were making cassette tapes. [00:02:20] Some of you may not even know what that is. But now he's a global leadership coach and author of "10 Leadership [00:02:25] Virtues for Disruptive Times." He trains leadership teams all over the world. We had [00:02:30] an amazing conversation, but I want to share with you a clip from that interview because he [00:02:35] talks about a solution to this founder's trap, which is the five-step intentional [00:02:40] coaching conversation. And this is something that all leaders can use in their weekly [00:02:45] one-on-ones with their team. So he'll talk about these five steps, basically what success looks like, [00:02:50] why it matters attitude, effort, and skill, co-creating a plan, and the heartbeat [00:02:55] of accountability. This is the steps that you would do with an individual. And he talks about [00:03:00] why one-time training is never really going to stick and create the results you want. I'm [00:03:05] gonna challenge you to listen to this episode. I want you to go through and take notes, and then grab a pen and [00:03:10] pick somebody on your team that you work with and plan to have this conversation with them [00:03:15] this week, this intentional coaching conversation. I think it's gonna help you become a much better [00:03:20] leader, I think it's gonna help your organization grow, and I think it's gonna take the pressure off you as well, [00:03:25] if you remember our conversation yesterday from Capacity. And so I really hope this is something that brings you value. [00:03:30] Let me know what you think of it. Give me some feedback at Daily Mastermind, and I'll look forward to hearing from you regarding the [00:03:35] show. Tom Zigler: we call it the ICC, the intentional coaching conversation, [00:03:40] and I like to call it a conversation, uh, because that's what it is. And so [00:03:45] as the leader, your goal, and you, and what you're trying to do is, is, is work [00:03:50] with your people on these five steps. And so the f- and, and so the first, uh, step [00:03:55] is real simple. What does success look like to you? Hey, we're, we're in [00:04:00] May of 2026. If, if you finish the year strong, what does success look like to you? What does [00:04:05] winning mean to you? And, and you can rephrase that 50 different ways. And so [00:04:10] what you start to understand is what that individual sees as [00:04:15] success. And it's funny because what they tell you and don't tell you says everything. Well, [00:04:20] you know, success to me would just be, uh, keeping my job. Well, what does that tell you about them? [00:04:25] Success to me would be eligible for a promotion. George Wright III: Hmm. Tom Zigler: Oh, well, what does that tell you, [00:04:30] right? Um, and so it's not always money and, and it's not always stuff, you know, [00:04:35] recognition, but everybody's different. And then the second question is, [00:04:40] "Oh, wow. So you would, you would like to be considered for a promotion. That's awesome. Um, tell me why, why is [00:04:45] that important to you? " So we're trying to find the why, George Wright III: Hmm. Tom Zigler: right? Uh, [00:04:50] but it's weird if I come to you and say, "Hey, George, uh, why do you work here?" George Wright III: Yeah. [00:04:55] Why, what, what motivates you? Yeah. Tom Zigler: Right, that's ... George Wright III: by directing it at them. What does [00:05:00] success look like, and then why is that important to Tom Zigler: Yeah. And in today's [00:05:05] world, you know, they might say, "Well, ultimately it's balanced life, you know, in my ideal world. I'd like to, [00:05:10] I'd like to work 30 hours a week." Well, in some places that works great, in some places [00:05:15] that's a challenge, but I wouldn't, as a leader, wouldn't I like to know right out of the gate because [00:05:20] maybe I got three or four and I've got an opportunity to maximize and, and balance. And [00:05:25] so if they say, "This is what I want and this is why I want it, " and [00:05:30] then you s- you say, "Hey, would you like some help achieving [00:05:35] that? " And so the third question, and they're gonna say [00:05:40] yes, and then step three is, okay, so, and there's three parts to this. [00:05:45] What attitude, these [00:05:50] are called performance opportunities, George Wright III: Okay. Tom Zigler: so step three is performance opportunities. What [00:05:55] attitude could you demonstrate that would allow you to be more successful? [00:06:00] What effort could you either increase or [00:06:05] optimize that would make you more successful? And George Wright III: So rather than telling them [00:06:10] what you need, you're getting them to come up with the answer to their own interest that they're trying to accomplish, [00:06:15] right? Tom Zigler: exactly. George Wright III: that's great. Tom Zigler: And then what skill could you develop in [00:06:20] yourself that would allow you to go there, right? [00:06:25] And you just, you listen George Wright III: Mm-hmm. Tom Zigler: and, you know, sometimes we got 25 [00:06:30] years in our s- in our industry and the person we're coaching has three months, [00:06:35] but we gotta nudge them a lot, right? We gotta s- ... And, George Wright III: they're not just gonna come up with the [00:06:40] answers and just tell you what they're Tom Zigler: we know, but we want them to discover, right? [00:06:45] Because when they discover it, it's tho- there, they own it. And then, then you say, "Okay," so they [00:06:50] write that stuff down and then you say, "I really like what you said about that attitude, [00:06:55] right? I, I know that you're kind of a reserved person and, and when you go on a call to a, to a client's [00:07:00] home, they're a little nervous because the stranger's coming in their house and, and you said, maybe I should [00:07:05] smile and have kind of an upbeat attitude when I ring the doorbell." I go, "That's [00:07:10] fantastic. How are you gonna do that? " And so they tell me [00:07:15] how, right? Or they shrug their shoulders and they're like, "I'm not really sure." And so we, [00:07:20] we ask more questions. So they might say, uh, "Well, I'm gonna listen to Zig Ziglar on the way to my [00:07:25] call, right?" If they're, if they're really on top of it and I'm, I'd give them a high, give them a high five. And I'd say, [00:07:30] write that down, right? And so now we go through all three of those and they [00:07:35] start writing these things down that they're gonna do and then I look at that [00:07:40] thing, so that's step four is co- what's called co-create the plan is [00:07:45] step four and I'm having them write their own plan and I'm [00:07:50] having, and it's called co-create because I might let them get a little outside the [00:07:55] lines and let them learn a little bit, but I'm not gonna let them crash the car off the [00:08:00] cliff, right? You know, we're not gonna go there. And so now they've got this great [00:08:05] plan and I go, "Wow, that's a great plan. [00:08:10] Those are some great goals. Is it okay if I hold you accountable to [00:08:15] your goals?" So I've asked permission to hold them [00:08:20] accountable to the plan they just created. George Wright III: Yeah. Tom Zigler: Now, as a leader, I want you to [00:08:25] understand this, if they won't be held accountable to the plan they created, they're not gonna [00:08:30] be held accountable to the plan you give them. I mean, it's George Wright III: There's so much deep into [00:08:35] that. I, I will, I will just say, just listening to what you're saying, a lot of those [00:08:40] steps and those things from a leader standpoint, they might say, "That's very intuitive, that's very, very obvious," but [00:08:45] how, it's the, it's the how and and it's the nuance of coaching [00:08:50] this leadership process. And I love the word co-create because that's so true, you know, [00:08:55] because you could go in with all five of those steps ahead of time and say, "Listen, um, I know you're trying to make some extra [00:09:00] money and, um, you know, I know you're here to support your family and do some things. You know, if, if, if you want to get [00:09:05] that, you could do these extra things and I get, you know None of that is [00:09:10] co-creating. That is what, that is what this coaching leadership is all about. I love it. Tom Zigler: Yep. And [00:09:15] the fifth step is The tie down and it's called the heartbeat of accountability. [00:09:20] And so I'm like, "Hey, George Wright III: But you're asking, right? You're asking them if you can hold [00:09:25] them accountable. Tom Zigler: Um, yeah. So I, so I just said, "Is it okay if I hold you accountable?" And you say, "Yeah, [00:09:30] absolutely." Say, "So, so George, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna meet every week and [00:09:35] sometimes it's gonna be five minutes at lunch. Sometimes it's gonna be 30 [00:09:40] minutes because we're really working on something together, but I'm gonna see how you're doing [00:09:45] every single week." It's like every week. And so now, well, guess what? [00:09:50] Most leaders are already meeting with their direct reports every week. And [00:09:55] so the initial shock is, "Well, I don't have time for another meeting." And what I'm really [00:10:00] saying is, "No, you're wasting time in your meetings because you're not [00:10:05] intentional in the time that you're using. So let's be intentional." And so it [00:10:10] might take, uh, two months with some people to get through all five [00:10:15] of those steps with somebody, right? Um, so I was [00:10:20] working with a, uh, an executive, uh, a lady and she said, "Well," she says, "Well, how would this program have helped [00:10:25] me? And she said it, uh, she's a very big advocate of Ziglar and me and, and she said, "Well, how would this help [00:10:30] me? " And I, and I said, "Well, I don't know, because I'm a coach, right? I don't know. I'm in your situation." [00:10:35] And she said, "Well, when I started my career, you know, our family's from Puerto Rico and, and I [00:10:40] grew up in, uh, New York. And so I went to work in New York City in a high [00:10:45] rise and a very competitive, male dominated business. You know, this is like 30 years ago. [00:10:50] And she said, um, you know, we're in there and it's like, it's like a, a pack of [00:10:55] dogs on, on raw meat." She didn't say that, I'm saying that. So every project that [00:11:00] came in, everybody fought over it to who would get it. And she said, "Well, I'm, I'm a [00:11:05] woman, young woman from Puerto Rico, and in our culture, we don't do [00:11:10] that. You know, the way we look at that situation, the leader should pick the best one for it. " And [00:11:15] here it was every man for themself. And so she said, "And then when it came [00:11:20] time for the raise, uh, everybody's in there arguing why they should get a big [00:11:25] raise." She goes, "That's not, that's not the way I was raised. That's not my culture." And [00:11:30] so I didn't do that. And then she goes, "I realized two years in it, I'm way behind. They've got [00:11:35] the better projects, they're making the better relationships and they're making more [00:11:40] money, not because they're better than me, but [00:11:45] because there was a culture that said, You gotta fight for everything you got. How would, how would [00:11:50] coach leadership be different?" And I said, "Oh, that's easy." [00:11:55] I said, "Day one, you're in, you're in here. Her name's Michelle Delgado. She's [00:12:00] fantastic." So I, I would say, "Michelle, day one, we're meeting." I'd say, "Hey, congratulations. You're gonna do [00:12:05] great here. This is your first year. At the end of the year, what would success look like to you?[00:12:10] And she would say, "Well, I wanna get a promotion. I wanna earn [00:12:15] respect. I wanna have recognition. I wanna do a great job." Well, great. Why is that important [00:12:20] to you? And then she's gonna tell me. And then we're gonna create a plan and I'm gonna know from [00:12:25] day one where she wants to go, what development she needs, and [00:12:30] every single week, we're gonna help build that. So that whole two year ... Like, think about it. [00:12:35] Think about like a, like I'm an S type personality in disc. I'm not gonna go in and [00:12:40] fight, right? I'm a relationship person. I don't like [00:12:45] confrontation. So not because I'm not as smart or as capable, but just because of my [00:12:50] style, two years into my career, it ends up being hundreds of [00:12:55] thousands of dollars at the end of my career. That's how far behind I am. [00:13:00] And so this George Wright III: And no matter what's your personality, right? like if this is, a lot of leadership just has to be [00:13:05] pushy, right? Like, but, you know, uh, they try to be. But no matter what your personality style is, this [00:13:10] coaching leadership process fits into that, right? And, and no matter who the [00:13:15] person is you're talking to. Tom Zigler: Yeah. So it works for everyone. It [00:13:20] max, it ... So let me go back to Zig Ziglar's quote. You don't build a business, [00:13:25] you build people and people build the business. And as a [00:13:30] leader, what's your job? It's to develop, educate, inspire, and [00:13:35] grow the people on your team so they can take your place. Why? [00:13:40] So you can get recognized as a leader who develops people who get the job done, so now you can move [00:13:45] up. So dad had another quote, "If you're irreplaceable, you're [00:13:50] unpromotable." George Wright III: Yeah. that's a good one to think about. Think about [00:13:55] that one if you're listening to this. If you're irreplaceable, you're unpromotable. Tom Zigler: You can [00:14:00] have every, you know, you can have everything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want. So if [00:14:05] I helped everybody on my team excel [00:14:10] in their job role while they had quality of life [00:14:15] and were achieving their personal goals, why would they ever leave [00:14:20] and how could I be ignored for the next level up for me [00:14:25] because everybody on my team wins. George Wright III: Yeah. Tom Zigler: That's just what we do. And that's through [00:14:30] coaching. [00:14:35] [00:14:40]

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About the host

George Wright III

George Wright III is an entrepreneur, investor, and the host of The Daily Mastermind. Over more than two decades he has founded and scaled several multimillion-dollar companies and built a renowned seminar business that put some of the world's biggest names and brands on stage. With 25+ years across marketing, sales, and executive leadership, he's made a career of turning bold ideas into results — and momentum into lasting growth.

Today his mission is singular: empower driven entrepreneurs everywhere to master their mindset, unlock their potential, and live their ultimate destiny. Through The Daily Mastermind, George shares the Prosperity Principles and strategies that help people create massive change — in their business and in their life.

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