Earl Nightingale’s classic, The Strangest Secret, earned the first Gold Record for the spoken word, with sales exceeding 1 million copies. Nightingale, known as the “dean of personal development,” reveals how he discovered and lived the secret to success.
Audio
Earl Nightingale narrating The Strangest Secret
(31 mins 35 secs)
The origins of this brief but powerful message can be traced back to a night in 1956. Then the owner of an insurance agency, Earl Nightingale was in the habit of giving his sales staff a weekly “pep talk” over the office’s intercom system. The staff came to count on these talks, so when they learned that Nightingale would be leaving on a week’s vacation, and would therefore be unable to deliver his talk, they became upset. 
Earl’s solution was to record his message on audio tape, so that it could be played in his absence.
The inspiration for the message itself pulled Nightingale out of a deep sleep in the early hours of the morning. He immediately woke up, went to his desk, and typed it out, then recorded it that very day. When it was played for his staff, they were astounded by what they heard. Word of the remarkable message quickly spread, and soon the office was flooded with requests for a copy. It seemed that everyone who heard it was amazed by its simplicity and power, and wanted to pass it along to someone else.
About the Narrator
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Earl Nightingale (March 12, 1921 – March 25, 1989) was an American motivational speaker who was born in Los Angeles, California. Earl Nightingale was on the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the war Earl began work in the radio industry, which eventually led to work as a motivational speaker. In 1956 Earl produced a spoken-word record, The Strangest Secret, which sold over a million copies, making it the first spoken-word recording to achieve Gold Record status. Shortly afterwards, he cofounded the Nightingale-Conant corporation with Lloyd Conant. |
