The Blue Ocean Bob Philosophy: Inspirational Author

Earl Nightingale (1921–1989) was a Depression-era child with a thirst for knowledge. He wanted to know how a person with no particular advantage in the world could reach his or her goals while also making a major contribution to others. His lifelong desire to find an answer to this question motivated him to become one of the world’s foremost experts on the principles of success. After surviving the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941, Earl began a prolific career in network radio and business. He hosted his own daily radio show and later bought an insurance company. At the urging of an employee, Earl recorded some of his motivational words for his sales force. The result was The Strangest Secret, the first spoken word recording to sell over a million copies. Shortly thereafter, Earl met Lloyd Conant, a successful businessman, and together they founded an electronic publishing company that grew to be a multi-million dollar giant in the self-improvement field. Earl and Lloyd created Our Changing World, a five-minute daily radio program that became the longest-running, most widely syndicated show in radio. Many of Earl’s messages from these programs were assembled into the book, This Is Earl Nightingale (1969). For five years, Earl served as a mentor to Bob Proctor at Nightingale-Conant Corporation.