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 Nightingale began work in the radio industry, which eventually led to work as a motivational speaker. In 1956 he 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
