Earl, was born in Los Angeles, California in 1921. By 1933 his father had left him, his mother and two brothers. It was the bottom of the Great Depression and millions were unemployed. Earl’s mother worked at the WPA in a sewing factory to provide for her three boys. They lived in Tent City on the waterfront in Long Beach, California. Earl wanted to know why they were so poor while others appeared to be so rich. Why some people were so miserable while others, so happy. Simply, what made people turn out the way they do. At that time no one that Earl asked seemed to have an answer to his questions. Not his mom or any of the other adults in his neighborhood. But, certain that someone, somewhere had the answer and had written it down, Earl marc began a literary search that would stretch over the next twenty years – a search that would lead Earl to study the world’s great religions, philosophy and psychology.

When Earl was seventeen, eager to escape his surroundings and explore new and exciting places, he joined the Marines. He was sent to Hawaii and stationed aboard the USS Arizona. He was at his station the morning of the attack on Pearl Harbor and was one of twelve surviving Marines on board that day.

After the war Earl went to work for KTAR in Phoenix. Radio was in it’s “hay-day” and with Earl’s talent it wasn’t long before he moved to where the heart of the action was – - Chicago, Illinois. Offered jobs at both NBC and CBS he went to work for CBS, where he quickly became a legendary icon to kids across the nation as the voice radio hero, Sky King.

Later, expanding his horizon, Earl bought a small Franklin Life Insurance agency where each Saturday morning he would give pep talks to the salesmen hoping to inspire and motivate them to be the best salesmen they could be. One day, while Earl was planning a vacation his manager expressed concern that sales would drop during Earl’s absence as they would not get their pep talk. Earl came up with the idea to record something that could be played while he was gone.

Earl thought about what he might write and turned the question over and over again in his mind. Then, one night, a short time later, he woke up and knew exactly what he wanted to say.  The next morning, he recorded the message and pressed it on a record.

The message contained the most valuable information Earl had learned – a conclusion of the truth that he had searched for and found in every book he’d ever read since he was a child of nine, the answer he found while reading Napoleon Hill’s best seller Think and Grow Rich “we become what we think about”. He realized that he had been reading the same truth over and over again, from the New Testament, in the sayings of Buddha, in the writings of Lao Tse, to the works of Emerson “We become what we think about”, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”…We can’t become anything but what we think! So, it was from this enlightenment that Earl wrote The Strangest Secret. He said he called it that, because of the irony of it all – that this truth of why we become whatever it is we become is no “secret” at all and therefore it’s “strange” that we don’t all know about it! The salesmen played it, not only for themselves, but for their families and friends and when the others heard it wanted one too. Over the next thirteen years, the demand for The Strangest Secret would grow so large that Earl accepted an offer of help to fulfill orders from an acquaintance who had a small mail order company. Together, they became the founding pioneers and world leaders in the personal development industry. The Strangest Secret went on to receive a Gold Record. The only recording of it’s kind to ever go Gold.

Meanwhile, Earl Nightingale’s success as a radio and later, television personality continued to grow, as did the demand for him as a speaker. Earl’s radio program Our Changing World became the most highly syndicated radio program ever and was heard across the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa, the Bahamas, 23 countries overseas as well as the Armed Forces Network. In 1985, Earl was inducted into The Association of National Broadcasters, Radio Hall of Fame.

During his lifetime, Earl Nightingale wrote and recorded over 7,000 radio programs, 250 audio programs as well as television programs and videos. In the mid-eighties, Earl wrote his first book, Earl Nightingale’s Greatest Discovery for which he received the Napoleon Hill Gold Medal for Literary Excellency.

Today, Earl Nightingale is remembered as the greatest philosopher of modern times and his best selling programs and books continue to inspire new generations around the world to reach their highest potential.

Diana Nightingale