The first time I ever heard the name Denis Waitley was when I checked out a couple
of his audio programs, Seeds of Greatness and The Psychology of Winning from my
employers continued employee education library.

His work with USA Olympic athletes inspired a talk he called 5 Golden Rings which
is probably my favorite all time Dennis Waitley personal development session.

Dennis, like many personal development speakers from California kinda has a slight new
age slant, but his audio programs and books are just solid foundation Wisdom of the Ages
principles and concepts.  Dennis Waitley is very refined speaker much like Brian Tracy and
to some extent Jim Rohn.

Most of his career Dennis worked more in corporate environment than the entrepreneurial
world.  However in the early nineties he did join the board of Ussana, a network marketing
nutritional company and did seminars for their distributors all over the world.

Dennis Waitley was born in 1933, so he is not a spring chicken, but he is still speaking for
corporate clients to this day, sharing wisdom and principles that are as valid today as they have
always been and will always be.

Like many great personal development speakers, Dennis started with humble beginnings.  He
was born in San Diego his mom and dad where blue collar workers who worked in a warehouse
and factory.  Dennis attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and became a
naval aviator.

After leaving the Navy, Dennis Waitley became a financial public relations representative
for an electronics company. Later, he was offered a job by Jonas Salk to be a fundraiser at
the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

In 1976, his life was about to take a major turn.  Dennis spoke at a church and parts of that
talk became what the personal development world would come to know as
The Psychology of Winning. 

He released the audio program to the public in 1978, which has sold more than 2 million
copies and which generated over $100 million in sales.   This program and many other Dennis
Waitley programs are part of personal development libraries around the world.

During the 1980s through 2000’s, Waitley released more than 15 books such as Seeds
of Greatness, The Winner’s Edge and Empires of the Mind.  In 2007,

Waitley worked with Network Marketing Nutrition company Usana for several years
and was on their board. In 1997 there was some negative press about Dennis and his
credentials on the Usana website.

Usana is a publicly traded company so this made headlines for a few days.  The truth is
Dennis Waitly had nothing to do with this, and probably never read his Usana bio.  It
appears that someone at Usana corporate exaggerated the credentials of Dennis Waitley
and several other Usana corporate officers and board members

Why they think this matters is beyond me.  I guess they were trying to make the board look
as good as they could to investors. Some people feel the number of initials someone has
behind their name is the determining factor of success.  Just naive, who ever made this
decision would probably be well served actually listening to some of Mr. Waitley’s
materials.

Here were some of the headlines from 2007 regarding Dennis Waitley.

USANA Health Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ:USNA) issued the following statement today
regarding allegations made concerning the academic credentials of board member,
Dr. Denis Waitley:

“The board of directors has regretfully acknowledged Denis Waitley’s decision to retire
from the board and acknowledges his contributions to USANA during his tenure as
a director.”

Tweet this

“Dr. Denis Waitley has decided not to stand for reelection to the USANA board of directors.
Dr. Waitley recently informed USANA that an error appeared in his biography listed in the
Company’s proxy statement and that he did not in fact earn a masters degree in Organizational
Development from the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California. Dr. Waitley did
confirm that he earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy
in Annapolis, Maryland, and a Ph.D. in Human Behavior from La Jolla University. Dr. Waitley’s
board term will end on April 17, 2007, at which time he will retire as a director of the
Company.

“The board of directors has regretfully acknowledged Denis Waitley’s decision to retire
from the board and acknowledges his contributions to USANA during his tenure as
a director.”

Commenting on Dr. Waitley’s decision, Dr. Myron Wentz, chairman of USANA’s board of
directors, said, “It is with regret that we accept Dr. Waitley’s decision not to stand for
reelection. We appreciate all that Denis has done to help build this great company. Denis’s
lifetime of accomplishments speak for themselves.”

I 1,000 percent agree.  Denis’s lifetime of accomplishments speak for themselves.  What
did or didn’t happen with Usana and whose fault is was has no bearing on the number of
lives that have been inspired since The Psychology of Winning was released in 1978.

Waitley was also a founding member of the National Council for Self-Esteem and a former
chairman of psychology for the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Sports Medicine Council.

Denis Waitley is one of the most respected keynote lecturers and productivity consultants
in the world. He has helped millions of individuals look at themselves and develop their own
emotional intelligence. He has studied and counseled leaders in every field from “Fortune
500” top executives to managers of multinational corporations, from NASA astronauts to
Superbowl and Olympic champions, from heads of government to family and youth groups.

He has made an positive impact on the world and in our book, he is a legend.

With over 10 million audio programs sold in 14 languages, Denis Waitley is the most-
listened-to-voice on personal and career achievement to ever walk the planet.  He is the
author of 14 books and audio programs including global best-sellers:

Seeds of Greatness,

Being the Best,

The Joy of Working

Empires of the Mind

The Psychology of Winning is the all-time best selling program on self-mastery. Dennis
Waitley is a legend and every personal development student should study his work.

DENNIS WAITLEY  THE PHYCHOLOGY OF WINING

I found this video on YouTube and thought I would place it here for our readers.

Repetition is the Mother of Learning!   It is my hope that you will add this
program to your personal development library.

Brian Tracy is the real deal, a business and personal development legend that is still practicing his craft daily.  He shows no signs of slowing down.  He was born in a rough Canadian neighborhood in January of 1944.

When I think about the great influences in my life Brian is definitely in the Top 5.

He is a very refined and elegant speaker.  Every word out of his mouth is wisdom. I don’t recall him ever making a joke and some people feel is delivery is too polished and robotic. However, truth is truth, wisdom is wisdom, and Brian Tracy is someone all personal development students should study.

Brian share the foundational mindsets, values, work ethic and core principles that all self-made people understand.

Brian Tracy simply tells it like it is.  We all have the opportunity to internalize wisdom of the age’s principles, or not, it is up to us.

Brian Tracy has been very instrumental in helping many entrepreneurs really understand the importance of setting goals.  Brian doesn’t ignore the numbers.  He does a lot of research.  He says even in today’s world where every personal development speaker on the planet talks about the importance of setting goals, only 7% of the world’s population has goals.

What about you?

In recent years Brian has talked a lot about HABIT.  He says courage is a habit as well as fear.

I recently hear this quote from Brian Tracy and I thought it was genius.

If you are only working eight hours a day, you are working to survive.  Every hour over eight hours each day is working towards becoming excellent in your craft.

By natural instinct, people want to stay comfortable.  He says high achievers have instinctively re-programmed their mindsets to develop a sense of urgency. They get things done like their life depends on it!

Brian underscores the importance of developing a reputation as someone who does things FAST! Furthermore, according to Brian, “People who make a commitment to EXCELLENCE first and foremost become EXCELLENT!”  “Excellence yields opportunities!”  “When we do things in an average way – we don’t get anything out of it. When we do things excellently – we get everything out of it!”

Brian Tracy been one of the most influential business and personal development mentors in history.  Brian’s key principles and common-sense approach was confirmation for me in my early entrepreneurial endeavors.

I never take for granted how fortunate I was to start my entrepreneurial journey prior to the internet.  It saddens me to think that many may never have the opportunity to discover Brian Tracy because they are buying the hype from some silver tongued get rich quick dude who still has his day job.

I so appreciate Brian Tracy and the other LEGENDS we feature here at Pure Motivation for confirming Wisdom of the Ages Success principles and the pivotal role they have played in my own journey.

Being in a position to personally express my wholehearted gratitude to Brian (and to others) through this website is an honor and a pleasure. Brian and I spoke together in California about twenty years ago with Mark Victor Hansen and several other speakers at a weekend boot camp.

We had a short exchange and I expressed to him what an impact his audio CD’s and books had had on my journey.  I know he hears this every day, but my personal development library is full of Brian Tracy material and yours should be too.

Brian Tracy is regularly characterized as iconic, epic, legendary – all true, all well-earned, and well-deserved however in our brief encounter he seemed very down to earth, humble, gracious, human being.

He frequently talks about his wife, children, and grandchildren in interviews I have heard over the years.  If seems very clear that he understands the importance of family and the 7 key areas of life.  It appears to me he focuses on what is important and ignores everything else.

Today Brian Tracy is the CEO of Brian Tracy International, a company that specializes in the training of individuals and organizations.

Throughout his 40+ year career, Brian has consulted for more than 1,000 companies and addressed more than 5,000,000 people in 5,000 talks and seminars throughout the US, Canada and 70 other countries worldwide. He is the top selling author of over 70 books, including Eat That Frog, a New York Times Best Selling book. In addition to this, he has written and produced more than 500 audio and video learning programs, including the worldwide, best-selling Psychology of Achievement, which has been translated into more than 28 languages.

BRIAN TRACY FULL DAY SEMINAR

Upon conceiving them, their mother quietly visited Florida to give birth in secrecy and within three weeks she put them for adaption. When both brothers were six weeks old, they were adopted by a 38 year old generous spinster, Mamie Brown who worked in a coffee shop.

Les attended formal school along with his sibling but on reaching grade five, his teachers considered him a misfit and mentally slow in comparison with other children, as he was more inclined towards seeking attention and was a poor student.




He began to believe the opinions of his teachers and considered himself a slow student, but his adoptive mother thought otherwise. To put it bluntly Les was in special ed with the retarded kids.

His mother and one of his high school teachers recognized his potential. With their guidance, Les learned how to challenge himself and his ambition for his life. On passing high school, he never stopped learning and continued to educate himself.

He spent a few years with the direct sales company Amway after graduating high school.

Well, after graduating high school, Les Brown became a city sanitation worker, but he had bigger dreams than that.

Les Brown wanted to pursue a career in radio broadcasting. He loved the cadence and style that disc jockeys had so he decided to go after it.

One day, after constantly practicing his DJ skills in his home with a brush as the microphone, Brown decided to head down to one of the local radio stations in hopes to become a DJ. When he got into the station manager’s office, the manager asked, “Do you have any background in broadcasting?”

Les responded “No, sir I don’t.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have a job for you then.”

The station manager figured that would be the end of Les Brown bothering him. But that manager gravely underestimated Brown’s determination to become a disc jockey.

Brown marched into the general manager’s office every day for the next week, hoping a job would be available. Finally, the station manager relented and gave him a job as an errand boy and the rest is history.

Earl was the voice during the early 1950s of Sky King, the hero of a radio adventure series, and was a WGN radio program host from 1950 to 1956.[2] Nightingale was the author of the personal development classic THE STRANGEST SECRET. This recording provided many entrepreneurs around the world continuous motivation since the day it was published in 1957. The LP record Album was released shortly afterwards and was played continuously on the record players of entrepreneur’s around the world. It was later released on audio cassette, and the last time I looked the audio CD was still available on Amazon.

Economist Terry Savage has termed Earl Nightigales STRANGEST SECRET “…one of the great motivational books of all time”