About Jim Cathcart

Intelligent Motivation for a Challenging World
With over 31 years of professional speaking around the world, Jim Cathcart is one of the best known and most award-winning motivational speakers in the business. He has delivered more than 2,600 presentations to audiences in every state of the US, most provinces of Canada and countries from Scotland to Singapore. Two of his most recent international engagements have been in Bogota’, Colombia and Lagos, Nigeria!

A researcher and philosopher at heart, Jim is also a down to earth regular guy. He has worked in warehouses, driven trucks, sold donuts door to door, been a bank teller, played guitar in night clubs and beer pubs, and sold motorcycles. Someone recently said, “Jim Cathcart is what ‘Fonzie’ would have been if he’d gone to business school.” Jim was an insurance agent for many years, an Army officer and a bill collector who, while in his twenties, had to repossess log trucks in the mountains of northern Arkansas. From this varied background he decided in 1972 to become an authority on the subject of motivation and through decades of dedication and hard work, made it happen.

After hearing Earl Nightingale on the radio one day in 1972, Jim was inspired to change his life. While working as a government clerk in the Urban Renewal Agency he determined to learn psychology and master the process of self-improvement. Through years of fanatical dedication to this new quest he learned new skills, became a certified trainer for a variety of programs, read stacks of books, attended countless seminars and volunteered thousands of hours to civic organizations. In this process he moved from clerk, to manager, to leader, to trainer, to author and professional speaker.

Today he is listed in the professional Speaker Hall of Fame, is a recipient of the prestigious Golden Gavel Award (along with Earl Nightingale, Art Linkletter, Zig Ziglar and many others), has been the president of the National Speakers Association and received the Cavett Award for a lifetime of service. He has authored 14 books and scores of recorded programs. In 2007 he was listed as one of The Top 100 Minds on Personal Development by Leadership Excellence magazine. The San Diego chapter of the National Speakers Association named their member of the year award “The Jim Cathcart Service Award” and the Greater Los Angeles chapter gave Jim the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. In 2008 he was inducted as one of the “Legends of the Speaking Profession.”

Jim Cathcart is an active motivational speaker and prolific author plus an executive coach to numerous high-achievers. In his personal time he plays Rock n Roll guitar, rides his motorcycle on the twistiest roads he can find and runs the trails of the mountains near his home at least twice each week. He’s a proud parent and grandparent and an active civic leader.
He serves on the board of advisors to the School of Business at both Pepperdine University and California Lutheran University.
His personal blog can be found at: Jim’s Blog