{"id":11815,"date":"2025-10-30T19:36:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-jack-canfield-selling-600-million-books-success-principles-and-how-he-made-the-4-hour-workweek-happen-833\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T19:36:53","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:36:53","slug":"the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-jack-canfield-selling-600-million-books-success-principles-and-how-he-made-the-4-hour-workweek-happen-833","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-jack-canfield-selling-600-million-books-success-principles-and-how-he-made-the-4-hour-workweek-happen-833\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Jack Canfield \u2014 Selling 600+ Million Books, Success Principles, and How He Made The 4-Hour Workweek Happen (#833)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Please enjoy this transcript of <a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2025\/10\/29\/jack-canfield\/\">my interview with Jack Canfield<\/a><strong> <\/strong>(<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/youtube.com\/JackCanfield\">@JackCanfield<\/a>), known as America\u2019s #1 Success Coach. Jack is a bestselling author, professional speaker, trainer, and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of the Canfield Training Group, which trains entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, sales professionals, educators, and motivated individuals how to accelerate the achievement of their personal and professional goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He has conducted live trainings for more than a million people in more than 50 countries around the world. He holds two Guinness World Record titles and is a member of the National Speakers Association\u2019s Speaker Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n<p>Jack is the coauthor of more than two hundred books, including, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Success-Principles-How-Where-Want\/dp\/0007265492\/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20\"><em>The Success Principles\u2122:\u00a0 How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be<\/em><\/a>, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Success-Principles-Workbook-Jack-Canfield\/dp\/0062912895\/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20\"><em>The Success Principles Workbook<\/em><\/a>,<em> <\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Jack-Canfields-Key-Living-Attraction\/dp\/0757306586\/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20\"><em>Jack Canfield\u2019s Key to Living the Law of Attraction<\/em><\/a><em>, <\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Aladdin-Factor-Jack-Canfield\/dp\/0425150755\/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20\"><em>The Aladdin Factor<\/em><\/a><em>, <\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Dare-Win-Jack-Canfield\/dp\/0425150763\/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20\"><em>Dare to Win<\/em><\/a>, and the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B09LQVD65R\/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20\"><em>Chicken Soup for the Soul\u00ae<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>series, which includes forty <em>New York Times <\/em>bestsellers and has sold more than 600 million copies in 51 languages around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Transcripts may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting 2+ hours, it can be difficult to catch minor errors. Enjoy!<\/p>\n<div class=\"podcast-player\">\n<div class=\"podcast-player-inner-wrap\">\n<p>Jack Canfield \u2014 Selling 600+ Million Books, Success Principles, and How He Made The 4-Hour Workweek Happen<\/p>\n<p><noscript><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.art19.com\/shows\/58dacbdc-646e-4585-9914-19c3de11d1ba\/episodes\/a95c9785-a0d7-4aca-a7eb-16cae804f09d\/embed?type=micro\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 30px; border: 0 none;\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Additional podcast platforms<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Listen to this episode on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/833-jack-canfield-selling-600-million-books-success\/id863897795?i=1000734075885\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/3Pekylgi1yU2g29kheViUJ?si=iUFpYvr1R7OLhYTwtni4VA\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/+AAKebtqVAwk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Overcast<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcastaddict.com\/podcast\/2031148#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Podcast Addict<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pca.st\/timferriss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pocket Casts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/castbox.fm\/channel\/id1059468?country=us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Castbox<\/a>,\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/music.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLuu6fDad2eJyWPm9dQfuorm2uuYHBZDCB\">YouTube Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/9814f3cc-1dc5-4003-b816-44a8eb6bf666\/the-tim-ferriss-show\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.audible.com\/podcast\/The-Tim-Ferriss-Show\/B08K58QX5W\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Audible<\/a>, or on your favorite podcast platform. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/IcGFLsF8fEk\">Watch the interview on YouTube here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>DUE TO SOME HEADACHES IN THE PAST, PLEASE NOTE LEGAL CONDITIONS: <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Tim Ferriss owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as his right of publicity. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WHAT YOU\u2019RE WELCOME TO DO:<\/em> <em>You are welcome to share the below transcript (up to 500 words but not more) in media articles (e.g., <\/em>The New York Times<em>, <\/em>LA Times<em>, <\/em>The Guardian<em>), on your personal website, in a non-commercial article or blog post (e.g., Medium), and\/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided that you include attribution to \u201cThe Tim Ferriss Show\u201d and link back to the tim.blog\/podcast URL. For the sake of clarity, media outlets with advertising models are permitted to use excerpts from the transcript per the above.<\/em> <\/p>\n<p><em>WHAT IS NOT ALLOWED:<\/em> <em>No one is authorized to copy any portion of the podcast content or use Tim Ferriss\u2019 name, image or likeness for any commercial purpose or use, including without limitation inclusion in any books, e-books, book summaries or synopses, or on a commercial website or social media site (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) that offers or promotes your or another\u2019s products or services. For the sake of clarity, media outlets are permitted to use photos of Tim Ferriss from <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>the media room on tim.blog<\/em><\/a><em> or (obviously) license photos of Tim Ferriss from Getty Images, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Jack, Jack, Jack, it is so good to see you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Glad to see you, my friend.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I\u2019m so thrilled that you\u2019re here, and we\u2019re seeing each other again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, this is fun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It has been a long time, and as I warned you before we started recording, I said, \u201cI really doubt people in my audience have the full context or even partial context.\u201d So I wanted to give them some of the backstory, because one could make a compelling argument that I owe my career as such to you, because you made the introduction to Stephen Hanselman, who became my book agent. At the time, he was a, I suppose, former superstar editor on his way to becoming an agent. So we were both starting out in a sense, and you made that introduction.<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s even more backstory that I have to share with folks. That would have been 2005, 2006. I was around 27, 28 at the time. Much earlier, this would have been when I just moved to Silicon Valley, I was riding around in my mom\u2019s hand-me-down POS minivan, which was broken in every way imaginable, listening to <em>Personal Power II<\/em> on cassette tape, to and from my job as I commuted on 101.<\/p>\n<p>I was eating at Jack in the Box, in the parking lot of a Safeway a couple nights a week, because that\u2019s what I could afford. And I was volunteering for a group called the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs, which is a mouthful, but SVASE, and I had volunteered, which I still recommend to folks, because I knew nobody, nobody knew me, and I always tried to do extra jobs as a volunteer. And eventually they said, \u201cWow, this kid really likes working for free. Let\u2019s give him more responsibility. Hey, would you like to organize some speakers for a main event?\u201d And I thought to myself, \u201cAbsolutely. This is a great way for me to meet some of my heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And I invited Trip Hawkins of Electronic Arts. I invited you, because of the phenom, of course, we\u2019ll talk about it, but <em>Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em>, I invited all sorts of folks, and that was the first time that we met. You graciously agreed to come to that. And here we are, God knows how many, to almost 20 years, more than 20 years later, and I\u2019m so happy to have you on the podcast. So thank you for all of that.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just, it\u2019s \u2014 these are these <em>Sliding Door<\/em> moments, where there\u2019s no way I could play the alternative, but the what if certainly looms large. What if you hadn\u2019t said yes to come to that event? What if I hadn\u2019t reached out and said, \u201cJack, all these notes I have from this lecture I\u2019ve been giving to this high-tech entrepreneurship class, is there anything here?\u201d And frankly, I hoped you would say no, because I didn\u2019t want to write a book. And you were like, \u201cActually, I think there\u2019s something here.\u201d And before I could say anything, you started making introductions, and here we are. So thank you for everything, Jack. I really appreciate it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, let me just say \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>More than I can say.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Let me just say you\u2019re someone who knows how to take advantage of an opportunity. You\u2019ve done really well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You know, you\u2019ve got to take your shot when you can take your shots.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And it\u2019s been one hell of a ride. So I\u2019m thrilled to have you on. And I was looking through some of the materials beforehand. We\u2019re going to run out of time before we run out of topics, but ultimately, we will rewind the clock, and go back to some of the beginning chapters. But I have to ask, because there is a bullet here. The story behind more than 300 million copies sold in China. How does that happen?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Because I\u2019m imagining chicken soup does not have the same connotation over there. So I don\u2019t even know if the title\u2019s the same.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, what happened is a company called Anhui Publishing and they decided to publish the book. And what\u2019s interesting is we had a contract that they would pay us 10 cents for every book sold in China. But Anhui was half owned by the government, and half owned by private equity. So they decided to make it a textbook to teach English to kids in high school with \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>\u2014 Chinese on one side, English on the other, and they printed millions and millions of books. Because it was in the schools, which was the government side, we didn\u2019t see one penny of millions of books sold. So I learned how to write better contracts in the future. But the fact is, a lot of Chinese people have had major transformations because of the books have taken off, and they have sold them in the general public as a result of kids learning a lot in school, showing it to their parents, so on and so forth. So it all works out, it all paid off. But that was a major lesson for us. You know, you\u2019ve got to be really, really careful when you\u2019re in \u2014 when you\u2019re interacting with the Chinese and making deals, they\u2019re very, very clever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You\u2019ve got to be, you\u2019ve got to be careful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>There is an expression, I\u2019m not going to say that everyone uses this, but in Chinese, which is \u201cN\u00e9ng pi\u00e0n ji\u00f9 pi\u00e0n,\u201d which is \u201cIf you can trick them, then you should trick them.\u201d And not saying everyone subscribes to that, but you\u2019ve got to have your wits about you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Right. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>For sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>That\u2019s true.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So part of the reason I love doing this podcast is it gives me a pretext for doing a bunch of internet sleuthing on my friends without seeming like a stalker or a crazy person. And I really had no understanding or grasp of your childhood, your upbringing, anything like that. Could you speak to \u2014 a bit for folks, just the basics \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 of where you grew up, what you learned or didn\u2019t learn from parents, or household, things of that type?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Sure. Well, I was born in 1944. My father was in the Air Force. World War II was going on. He trained bomber pilots, actually. And so from the time I was born until the time I was six, we lived in three different states with \u2014 on military bases. I don\u2019t remember much of it at all. But when I was six, we moved to West Virginia, which is where I mostly grew up, in Wheeling, West Virginia, a steel town, coal mining, all that kind of stuff. And my father was an alcoholic, and he got violent when he was drunk, and my mother decided to divorce him when I was six, and we went to live with my grandmother. And I actually lived in the attic of her house for years, and then eventually she met my stepfather, who had just come out of the Navy.<\/p>\n<p>And I grew up poor. We were not wealthy at all. And so, my father was one of these people, when I went off to college, my stepfather, he said to me \u2014 he gave me $20. He looked over me in the eye and he said, \u201cNow, there\u2019s that.\u201d He says, \u201cIf you need a helping hand, look at the end of your own arm. There\u2019ll be no more gifts coming from me.\u201d So, okay. So I learned early on, I worked my way through high school. I was a lifeguard of the country club pool. So I was always \u2014 I had this thing I was in, but not of. I was in the country club, meeting girls whose parents were, but I wasn\u2019t of that.<\/p>\n<p>And I went to a private military school from the fifth grade, so I graduate high school. My rich aunt had a son named Jack who died. If I was \u2014 talk about kismet and fate, if my name was Bob, we\u2019d not be talking right now. But because I was Jack, she adopted me after his death, and sent me to a private school in town. So I got a much better education than my brother, or anyone else. And, but I \u2014 again, I was in, but I wasn\u2019t of \u2014 I wasn\u2019t a doctor\u2019s son. I didn\u2019t \u2014 the president of the guy who owned the Cadillac dealership, that was not my crowd. Yet I got to hang out with those kids, and eventually got into Harvard on a scholarship to play football. I was a football player. I was an honorable mention all state. I was an end, all that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n<p>And I grew up thinking, you know, you\u2019ve got to work really, really hard, which I did. I worked my way through Harvard. I cut grass. I cleaned the dorms. I did all \u2014 got up and served food at 6:00 in the morning and then fell asleep immediately in French class, because I was so tired, you know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I remember one day, I\u2019m like this, falling \u2014 I\u2019m totally asleep in this class at 9:00 in the morning, and this professor comes over and he shakes me awake and he says, \u201cYou can leave now. The class is over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s a very understanding comment from the teacher.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I know, I know. Well, whatever. And then I majored \u2014 this is interesting, I majored in Chinese history, which is interesting why. Later I learned that I had past lives in China and Tibet, and so it made sense to me. But at that time, it was this \u2014 my freshman year, I got all Cs in everything. Here I was, A student, high school, get to Harvard. I always say I graduated in the half of the class that made the top half possible. So there were a lot of smart, smart kids there, valedictorians from their school.<\/p>\n<p>And I said to my counselor, \u201cI need an easy A for my sophomore year.\u201d He says, \u201cWell, this guy, he used to be the ambassador to China, he gives everyone an A, why don\u2019t you take his class?\u201d And he knew Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, he had slides of everything, and I got the A. But I fell in love with Chinese history for some weird reason. So that was my major, and so I always tell people, it prepared me really well to do the work I do. It had nothing to do with it, you know?<\/p>\n<p>My senior year, I took an elective class, I said, \u201cI need another easy A.\u201d And someone said, \u201cTake Soc Rel 10.\u201d Soc Rel, Social Relations 10. It\u2019s an encounter group. You just sit in there and talk about your feelings and everybody gets an A.\u201d So I went over there and I took the class, and I fell in love with human potential. Oh, my God. There\u2019s this thing called psychology, and people, and human behavior, and feelings, and motivation.<\/p>\n<p>So I said, \u201cWell, how do I get into that?\u201d And they said, \u201cWell, it\u2019s a little late to get into psychology,\u201d you had to study as an undergraduate and I hadn\u2019t. And they said, \u201cWell, you could sneak into psychology through education.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So I went to the University of Chicago, got a master\u2019s degree in education, taught in an all Black inner city high school for two years, and I got Teacher of the Year my first year, and became \u2014 I went to Jesse Jackson\u2019s church. I became friends with people in the jazz community. Really got deeply \u2014 I would say probably for a year, I almost wished I was Black, because I thought white people are milquetoast. And these Black guys, they\u2019ve got \u2014 they\u2019ve got energy, and the poetry, and the songs, and the music, and the dancing, and the anger, and the fear, and all that.<\/p>\n<p>And so then, basically I started realizing my students were not motivated. They didn\u2019t believe they could learn, because they were Black in the inner city, and they didn\u2019t have role models. And that became my passion. How do I motivate them to achieve? And I met W. Clement Stone, my mentor, he was a self-made \u2014 he was worth $600 million in 1968, which is when I was there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Wild.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah. His best friend was Napoleon Hill, who wrote <em>Think and Grow Rich<\/em>. And together, they wrote a book together. And then also he wrote a book called <em>The Success System That Never Failed<\/em>. And that\u2019s where I learned about motivation, and setting goals, and having vision, and values, and working hard, and using affirmations, and visualization, and all of that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So let me \u2014 Jack, could I pause you for a second?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Oh, please do. Do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Because there\u2019s so many different avenues we can go down here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Sure. Sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I want to come back to W. Clement Stone. $600 million. Just \u2014 we\u2019ll come back to that, because that\u2019s a mind-boggling number, especially at \u2014 for that point in time, but any time, even now. But if we back up for a second, Teacher of the Year, first year in Chicago. What made that possible? What do you think contributed to that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I think what happened was it was, this school, probably five years earlier, was all white and Jewish, and then it was this Black invasion, they would call it, into the community, and there was this flight flight out to the suburbs. So what happened was a lot of the teachers didn\u2019t really want to be there. They wanted to go with the kids who went. So there was a certain kind of malaise, and almost an upset that they had. And I think a lot of them didn\u2019t treat the kids very well.<\/p>\n<p>And the other thing is nobody was teaching African American history. I was teaching history, and American history, and world history. And I found a book called <em>Before the Mayflower<\/em>, and it was by a guy named Lerone Bennett, and it was a book about African American history. It\u2019s just a paperback. I think it was like $3.95. I bought one for every one of my students, and I would teach Black history along with white history. You know, history\u2019s always written by the victors, so basically white history is our history, and they didn\u2019t know any of this stuff. And the fact that I would do this, and the fact that I was loving, and kind, and motivational, and believed they could do everything, it made them, I think, just like me, because I was on their side.<\/p>\n<p>And then they started an African American Club, African American Studies Club. They asked me if I\u2019d be a sponsor. I said yes. So that was another thing. I ended up coaching the swimming team, because the guy who was supposed to do it had majored in basketball. He was a phys ed teacher. He didn\u2019t know that much about swimming. I had swum competitively in high school, and was a waterfront instructor in summer camps in Maine, and teach kids to swim and all that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n<p>And I think the last part of that was that I was starting to do these human potential activities in my classes. You know, I\u2019d get them into pairs and have them do \u2014 go back and forth, say, \u201cI can\u2019t.\u201d And then I\u2019d have them go replace that sentence with, \u201cI won\u2019t.\u201d And which feels stronger? Which feels more true? Which is \u2014 and they go, \u201cYeah, can\u2019t is really a victim word.\u201d So I was doing maybe 10 minutes of that every day, along with teaching my history, and I think that\u2019s kind of why.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And the big moment for me, this is so cool, you know you have these little moments in life where you get affirmation from outside. So Sammy Davis Jr. was at school, he was going to do a talk to the kids. He\u2019d written a book called <em>I Can<\/em>. And he was there when I got the award. They gave me the award the same day. And I\u2019m walking offstage, and he looked at me and said, \u201cYou must be really cool to have gotten that award from those kids.\u201d And I think I lived on that for days.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I mean, that\u2019s a hell of a compliment, from a hell of a \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 hell of a person, and a hell of an entertainer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah. And you\u2019re like 22 years old or something, you know, it\u2019s a big deal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, the right words at the right time. I mean, just like you were probably offering the right words at the right time to a lot of those students.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So if we flash forward to W. Clement Stone, how did he make $600 million? That\u2019s just, again, not to fixate on that, but I mean, that\u2019s \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah. I think \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 a non-trivial sum of money.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Three ways. Number one, he started an insurance company called Combined Insurance, and it was really low premiums. In other words, the price you paid for it. And he believed everybody could afford something, and he wanted to insure the people that often wouldn\u2019t be insured by the big companies. And because of that, and then he also hired people that were not college graduates to be salespeople, and then he had them \u2014 he had a training system. This is so cool. Think about this. So he\u2019d go in, here\u2019s his training system. He\u2019d tell him what to do, you know, maybe a Monday class. He said, \u201cNow we\u2019re going to go tomorrow and I\u2019m going to go in.\u201d And he\u2019s teaching these kids who never graduated college to sell to CEOs of banks, and companies. It was intimidating for them. He said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to go in, I\u2019m going to make a sale, at least a presentation. You watch what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And so, goes in, they do the presentation, either sold or didn\u2019t, they go out for coffee afterwards. \u201cWhat did you notice I did?\u201d \u201cYou did this, you did this, you did this.\u201d \u201cOkay, but you missed that. Next time, watch that.\u201d They go in, they do it again. Did it about three or four times in the morning, and a fourth time they\u2019re going in, and he just turns to the kid and he goes, \u201cThis one\u2019s yours.\u201d So he just stepped back. And a kid, maybe he made it, maybe he blew it. But afterwards he\u2019d go out and say, \u201cOkay, you missed two things. We\u2019re going to go to the next one and watch me do those two things.\u201d Next one, he\u2019d go, \u201cThis is yours.\u201d By the end of the day, they knew how to sell. It was a \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s incredible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>It was amazing. So he had salespeople all over the country selling these low price insurance things. Second thing he did, he was a genius when it came to real estate. He invested in a lot of real estate. The coolest thing he ever did, if you go into Chicago on rails, that\u2019s a big area where they, you know, bring beef in, and they were processing beef all those days, and it\u2019s also a big central distribution point for everything. There\u2019s a place, it\u2019s just huge, wide, like six rails wide going into the main station. And there was no more real estate to buy, and so he said to the guys who own the railroad land, he said, \u201cCan I buy the air rights over the railroad tracks?\u201d And they said, \u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So if you go to that part of Chicago, there are all these buildings over the tracks, which he got a 100-year lease on the air rights and they built these huge skyscrapers, which he then got the royalties for, or the commissions for, or the rents for, whatever. So he was just very creative. And the third thing he did, he invested well in everything else, as well. So a lot of it was investment. And then he also produced <em>Success<\/em> magazine, started by W. Clement Stone. And he was a speaker, he had books he sold, and the magazine, Og Mandino, who wrote <em>The Greatest Salesman<\/em> was the \u2014 so I\u2019m working in the Stone Foundation at one point. So I quit teaching. I worked for Stone and I \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Why did you quit teaching?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Because Stone offered me a job.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>So Stone said, \u201cWe have this achievement motivation program. We\u2019re teaching teachers to do it, to go into the schools. We don\u2019t have anyone that\u2019s had inner city experience. You do. Would you come work for me?\u201d And it was like more than I was making as a teacher, and I went, \u201cYeah, okay.\u201d And it\u2019s him, right? Working for him was amazing, and he just took everybody under his wing, loved them. Imagine you\u2019re young, you\u2019re 23, maybe, and he says to you, \u201cWork in my foundation, go teach this stuff. If there\u2019s any training you ever want to take anywhere, it\u2019s on me. Go for it.\u201d I took 37 weekend workshops that year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You\u2019re the edge case he has to budget for.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah. It was like a grant from the government or something. So I took all these workshops, everything from Dale Carnegie to Gestalt therapy, and body work, and meditation, and so he funded all that, which was great. But he really was an amazing being that just \u2014 I learned so much by being in his presence, you know?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll tell you a story. So I got an intake interview first day, and he says to me, \u201cDo you take 100 percent responsibility for your life?\u201d And I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d He said, \u201cIt\u2019s a yes or no answer, son. Think.\u201d I said, \u201cWell, based on I don\u2019t even understand it, probably no.\u201d He says, \u201cDo you ever blame anybody for anything?\u201d \u201cYeah.\u201d \u201cDo you complain about anything?\u201d \u201cYeah.\u201d \u201cDo you ever make excuses why you didn\u2019t achieve something?\u201d \u201cYeah.\u201d \u201cYou don\u2019t take 100 percent responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So he introduced me to the whole concept of 100 percent responsibility, and then he said to me, \u201cDo you watch television?\u201d I said, \u201cYeah.\u201d He said, \u201cHow many hours a day?\u201d I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know. <em>Good Morning America<\/em>, the news, maybe a movie at night, 11:00 or something like that.\u201d He said, \u201cThat\u2019s three hours a day.\u201d He says, \u201cCut out an hour a day.\u201d I said, \u201cWhy?\u201d He said, \u201cBecause that\u2019ll give you 365 additional hours a year to be productive. Divide that by a 40-hour work week, that\u2019s nine and a half weeks. I\u2019ll give you a 14-month year. You\u2019ll be much more competitive than all the people in your field if you do that.\u201d So I did that. He was teaching me in the fricking in interview, like, you know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>So it was cool.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What were some of the things that really stuck with you after you got the job? Whether it was through osmosis, whether it was through direct teaching, like why did that job, and that mentorship have the impact that it did? Were there any other examples or stories that come to mind?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah. He challenged me, because I mean, as an educator, I was probably making, back then, $30,000 a year if I was lucky. That was like \u2014 now people make a lot more, inflation. But what happens is, he said, \u201cI want to challenge you to make $100,000 a year. And if you do it, it\u2019s only because of what I taught you.\u201d And he taught me to set goals, to believe in them, to visualize it, like as if it\u2019s already happening, have an affirmation, \u201cI\u2019m so happy and grateful I\u2019m now whatever.\u201d And I started doing that, and I took the goal of $100,000 seriously, and every morning I\u2019d wake up, and I\u2019d put \u2014 oh, I put a $100,000 bill on the ceiling, that \u2014 I didn\u2019t even know one existed at the time. Banks actually trade them back and forth. But I took a $100 bill, I projected it with a \u2014 remember overhead projectors?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I projected onto a piece of like flip chart paper, traced it, added some extra zeros, and then I put that on the ceiling. Every morning I wake up, I see that, say my affirmation, which went, at that time, \u201cGod is my infinite supply and large sums of money come to me quickly and easily as I earn $100,000 a year.\u201d And about, I\u2019d say maybe a month or two into it, I\u2019m in the shower, and I had $100,000 idea, because I\u2019d written a book called <em>100 Ways to Enhance Self-Concept in the Classroom<\/em>, and I used to get a quarter, 25 cents, for every book that got sold.<\/p>\n<p>And, I said, \u201cWow, sell 400,000 books, I get $100,000.\u201d That was my first $100,000 idea. And so, to make a long story short, because I could do a half hour in that story, I literally started to sell more books. I started a bookstore, literally a mail order bookstore, where you could buy my book, had one product, and then, my wife at the time said, \u201cYou know, we\u2019re selling that book.\u201d I know what happened. She had ordered something in the mail, and have you ever ordered something in the mail and it comes, and then there\u2019s like five flyers for other products they have in the box?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>So she had done that. Said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we sell other people\u2019s stuff?\u201d So we\u2019d added other products, and I hired a high school kid to come in after school and to sell the books, ship them out, and so forth. So long story short, I did not make $100,000. I made $92,328, but I went like, \u201cOkay, this is a success.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>And then my wife says, \u201cDo you think it\u2019ll work for a million?\u201d I said, \u201cOnly one way to find out.\u201d So literally we set a million dollar goal, and that happened with<em> Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em>, the second year, I got four checks, Tim, you know this because of your success with the books. The first time you get a check for a million dollars for three months\u2019 royalties, you go, like, \u201cAre you kidding me?\u201d It\u2019s, like, it changed my life, you know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, I mean, that\u2019s \u2014 I mean, that\u2019s a juggernaut of a success. But people probably don\u2019t realize quite how much rejection went into that, but maybe we could start at the beginning, in at least the Genesis story. Where did <em>Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em> come from? I mean, people have seen \u2014 everyone listening has seen this book at some point, chances are, unless they\u2019re 18, perhaps, and have like never been into a dentist\u2019s office, or a physician\u2019s office, or an airport, or fill in the blank, right? I mean, it\u2019s ubiquitous.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How did it start?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>So I was going around doing workshops for teachers on self-esteem, motivation, that kind of thing, and I was always telling stories, just because I noticed when I was a high school teacher, if I was talking historical facts, kids were looking out the window. If I was telling a story about an escaped slave who became an ambassador, or my own story, or something from <em>Jet<\/em> magazine or <em>Ebony<\/em> magazine, the kids would pay attention.<\/p>\n<p>So stories capture us. And all the great teachers, Buddha, Jesus, we know they told stories, and parables, and so forth. So one day, somebody said, \u201cThat story you told about the Girl Scout who sold 3,328 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in one year, is that in a book anywhere? My daughter needs to hear that story.\u201d And I went, \u201cNo.\u201d And over a course of two months, I must have had four people a day say, \u201cIs that story in a book? Is that story in a book? Is that story in a book?\u201d So I\u2019m coming home on a plane from Boston to L.A. where I was living at the time, and I said, \u201cHow many stories do I really know?\u201d So I wrote down every story, the dog story, the Girl Scout story, the puppy story, the Mount Everest story, whatever it was 70 stories. So I said, okay, that\u2019s a book. So I made the commitment that every night I would work on a story, and at the end of the week I would have two stories. And if I did that for a year, I\u2019d have 101 stories, 108, whatever. So I did that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And when I was about, I don\u2019t know, five-sixths through, I had breakfast with Mark Victor Hansen, who became my co-author. And we were having breakfast in Beverly Hills at this place. All these human potential leaders would come to this breakfast. And the Inside Edge it was called. And so Mark said, \u201cWhat are you working on?\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m writing this book.\u201d And he said, \u201cYou should let me finish it with you.\u201d I went, \u201cThat\u2019s like telling Stephen King, you should be his co-author because he\u2019s five-sixths of the way through the book. How do you justify that?\u201d He says, \u201cWell, some of the stories you tell you stole from me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I said, \u201cMaybe three, Mark. Come on.\u201d And he said, \u201cBut I\u2019m a much better salesperson than you. I\u2019ll be the upfront voice person.\u201d I said, \u201cWell, give me 30 more stories and we\u2019ll talk.\u201d Because I had 70 at that time. So he said, \u201cOkay.\u201d Came back. He did it. So basically it was a made in Heaven. He really was good at getting the word up. We were in a mall once, believe this Tim, we were in a mall where he is, I think it was B. Dalton bookstores. They were in a lot of the malls.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, I remembered B. Dalton.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah. And so we\u2019re doing a book signing and there\u2019s nobody there. So Mark goes out into the mall and he just starts walking up and down the mall yelling, \u201cAre you guys crazy? There\u2019s a book signing in B. Dalton right now with these two amazing authors about the best book in the world. You all should be in there.\u201d And so he\u2019s doing that. And about 40 people came into B. Dalton. And then Mark walks up to the front of the room where I am ready to do the little talk before the signing. And they all gasped, like \u201cYou\u2019re the guy who was in the hall.\u201d But he would do that. I was too shy to do that. It worked out really well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But you talked about rejection. We were turned down by 144 publishers once we had a manuscript. Then it took us over a year to sell the book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>When I think about that story, and I think about <em>The 4-Hour Workweek<\/em>, which was also turned down, Steve and I got front row seats, obviously to this by 37, 39 publishers, something like that, imprints within the publishers. And maybe tell me if this resonates or not, but you can have a bad idea that gets rejected, just because something gets rejected a lot doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a good idea. But in this case, I had tested everything in the classes, so I knew what worked. I knew that the material stuck, so to speak. And you had been testing stories also in front of audiences. And people had been asking you, \u201cWhere can I read this in a book?\u201d But was there anything else that contributed to the perseverance to go through that many rejections?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I think it\u2019s what you just said for us too. We had tested these stories over and over and told them we got standing ovations. Many of the stories in there, the first book were what often are called in the speaking business, your signature story that other people had let us use with their signature stories. So we knew they were tearjerkers, they were inspirational, they made you laugh. They made you feel like you want to call up and tell your mother, \u201cI\u2019ve got to read you this story.\u201d So basically we knew that, like you said, you knew that from your experience. What I find in the book world, especially in the New York publishing world, is everybody wants something that\u2019s a copy of something that already worked.<\/p>\n<p>So basically when you come along with something radically new, like your idea was, and our idea was, up until then, no collections of short stories had ever worked. Because they were all fictional. And they were too short to get engaged with the characters and really go get involved. Whereas all these stories were in categories like on love, on overcoming obstacles, grief and so forth that are the human things that everybody lives with, which is why they\u2019re so touched by it. And we just knew to stick with it. And we would\u2019ve self-published eventually, and I would\u2019ve made a lot more money, but I didn\u2019t really want to be a publisher. I wanted to be a speaker and a writer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So I\u2019m going to read something here. You can tell me if this needs some fact-checking, but this is from Thrive Global. This is a Q&amp;A with you. So here we go. It\u2019s just a paragraph.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEventually, we went to ABA, the American Booksellers Association, and went booth to booth for two or three days and on the final day, this one new publisher employee said: \u2018We\u2019ll read the manuscript.\u2019 Some people wouldn\u2019t even take it, and they read it and loved it, and they said they\u2019d publish it. We said, \u2018How many books do you think you\u2019ll sell?\u2019\u201d And this is their response. \u201cOh, 20,000 if you\u2019re lucky.\u201d And then your response, I think this is you.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018Well, we want to sell a million and a half in a year and a half,\u2019 I said.\u201d This employee \u201claughed, and then a year and a half later we\u2019d sold 1.3 million copies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To sell 1.3 or 1.5 million copies is so hard. I mean, it is so hard to do unless you happen to be very, very lucky somehow in capturing lightning in a bottle. But usually there\u2019s a lot of elbow grease behind it. So two things. Well actually it\u2019s just really one thing. What went into selling that many copies over a year and a half? And were you still using affirmations? Was that still one of the ingredients in the cocktail?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, we were doing the mindset work. But it\u2019s a combination. I always say it\u2019s mindset, skill set and ready, set, go. The set go. I wanted another set. Action. It\u2019s action. So someone had told us that the book, <em>The Road Less Traveled<\/em>, the author of that book had done five interviews a day for the first year. Five interviews a day. And Scott Peck. And that book was on the <em>New York Times<\/em> list for 12 years \u2014 512 weeks, something like that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s so long.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, I think it\u2019s a record. I mean, you were really close, I think. Maybe you still are. I don\u2019t know. But the reality was I thought, \u201cWell, if that\u2019s what works, let\u2019s do it.\u201d So Mark and I actually had gone to five bestselling authors and then read about Scott Peck and we talked to John Gray, who wrote <em>Men Are from Mars<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>We talked to Ken Blanchard, who wrote <em>The One Minute Manager<\/em>, we talked to Barbara De Angelis, who wrote a book on love and then another book on TM that someone had written that was successful. And we said, \u201cWhat should we do?\u201d And they all said, \u201cDo as many interviews as possible. Get in front of everybody.\u201d I know you did the blogger thing, which was brilliant. We did the radio thing. Now I think podcasts are better than radio. I always tell new authors because the people listening to them, they\u2019re your audience. There\u2019s a focus, whereas radio may have a bigger reach, but not everybody\u2019s your audience. But anyway, five a day every day for a year.<\/p>\n<p>So we created what we call the rule of five. It\u2019s a book by John Kremer called <em>How to Sell a Million Books<\/em>, something like that. And it\u2019s a great book. We bought the book and we took every idea that was in that book and we made a Post-It, little two-by-three Post-It, put it on a wall. And if you went down the wall of our company at that time, Self-Esteem Seminars, it was just covered with Post-Its. And every day we\u2019d take something off and either do it five times or take five Post-Its off and do each one time call it church, can we talk in your church? Can we call five PXs in the military?<\/p>\n<p>And we\u2019d say, \u201cAre you carrying our book? Can I send you one? If you like it, will you carry it?\u201d Call bookstores. \u201cAre you stocking it? Can we send you one? If you like it, will you carry it?\u201d Call them back two weeks later. \u201cDid you get it?\u201d It was nonstop. We were giving talks at churches on Sunday morning, Wednesday night, whatever. The ones that have bookstores, we\u2019d do signings. We signed in the parking lot. I spoke at every damn conference there was.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t care where it was or how long it took to get there. If it was there, we did radio shows that were at two in the morning. Maybe a trucker driving through Montana will hear it, but maybe he\u2019ll like it. Maybe he\u2019ll buy it. Maybe he\u2019ll tell his daughter and the daughter will tell her friends. So literally it was that level of nonstop activity. And it was interesting because we were pretty amped up in the beginning. And we talked to the psychic guy and, he was in trance, he\u2019d go, \u201cIt would be as if you would go to a tree with a very sharp ax. And you would take five swipes at that tree every single day. Eventually, even a redwood would have to come down.\u201d And we went, okay, rule of five. That\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What prompted the trip to the psychic? Do you remember?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, I do. We knew his wife and she was a friend of ours. And then he turned psychic, if you will, and he was doing these readings. And they were awesome. So we just thought, well, why not? Let\u2019s ask him what we should do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And how old were you, or what date was this? Either one? Roughly? When the first <em>Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em> came out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>\u201993, and I was born at \u201944. So what is that, 49 years old, something like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah. And when it hit, when you sold the 1.3 million copies in a year and a half or whatever it added up to be, how did that change your life?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Dramatic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>In what ways did that affect your life?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, it allowed me to move out of a very small house. It allowed me to get a better car, all that kind of stuff. I think more so, it was an affirmation from the world that the work I was passionate about was needed. And so it wasn\u2019t just the money, it was the confirmation that my intuition, that my passion was correct. You\u2019re probably familiar with the concept of Ikigai, which comes from the Japanese. Whereas if you love to do something, that\u2019s one thing. Are you good at it? Does the world need it? And are they willing to pay for it? So all four of those have to come together for this thing that you\u2019re passionate about to actually work. In this case it did. So I thought, okay, my purpose is needed. It\u2019s going to work. I can make a living at it. So it was a big confirmation of that, I think more than anything. And yeah, I bought three sweaters in different colors and all that kind of stuff. I went through my nouveau riche stage for sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>If the sweaters were the extent of the nouveau riche, then I feel like you have very good restraint. The title itself, <em>Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em>, because that ended up to be such an incredible format also for extending that into a million different verticals, right? <em>Chicken Soup for the Fill-in-the-Blank Soul<\/em>. And this I suppose is a nod to the intuition or unorthodox approaches, but how did that title come to be?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, we had an agent who was going to take us to New York and meet with publishers. And we didn\u2019t have a title. So Mark and we are both meditators. So we said, \u201cWell, let\u2019s just meditate and ask the universe source, God, whatever you want to call that energy, for a title.\u201d So would go to bed mark\u2019s really hyper. He\u2019d go to bed chanting, \u201cMake a best-selling title, make a best-selling title, make a best-selling title.\u201d I would just go and I would, every morning I\u2019d sit for an hour and I\u2019d say, \u201cOkay, God, give a title.\u201d And on Wednesday, so two days, nothing happened. Third day, I\u2019m sitting there and all of a sudden this chalkboard appears, green chalkboard like in school, and the hand comes out and writes \u201cchicken soup\u201d in script on it. And I said to the hand, \u201cWhat the hell does chicken soup have to do with this book?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And the voice said back, \u201cWhen you were a kid, your grandmother gave you a chicken soup when you were sick.\u201d And I thought, \u201cBut this is not a book of sick people.\u201d And the voice answer back, \u201cPeople\u2019s spirits are sick. They\u2019re in resignation, hopelessness, and fear.\u201d We were in the first big recession, 1993. The Gulf War was going on. Downside. A lot of things that are happening now, were happening then the economy was tanking and people were losing jobs. So timing was good in terms of people needing inspiration. That played out well. So I went <em>Chicken Soup for the Spirit<\/em>, <em>Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em>, and I got goosebumps. Told my wife, she got goosebumps. Called Mark, \u201cWhat do you think of this?\u201d He got goosebumps, called her agent, he got goosebumps, went to New York, met with 21 publishers, seven a day for three days. Nobody got goosebumps.<\/p>\n<p>So basically that led to the 144 rejections. And you\u2019re right, we went to the American Booksellers Association, booth to booth. We were both wearing backpacks full of these spiral bound, 20 stories from the book, the best stories. \u201cWould you publish this book? Would you be interested in this book?\u201d And most people wouldn\u2019t even take one, let alone \u2014 and then Peter Vegzo, who\u2019s the guy who did publish it, you\u2019re right, he said, \u201c20,000,\u201d and we said, \u201cNo.\u201d And he laughed. He laughed out loud at us. And later he said, \u201cYeah.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>He may have just laughed. Was it laugh as in \u201cI don\u2019t believe her,\u201d or was he like, \u201cThat\u2019s some chutzpah.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>He laughed, because he thought we were freaking crazy, he thought we were \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Insane.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>\u201cYou guys are nuts.\u201d And what happened was the first shipment he made was 800 books to, I think it was Barnes and Noble, might\u2019ve been Borders. And they sold 80 books the first week. He said, \u201cWhen you sell one 10th of your inventory the first week, that\u2019s a phenomenon.\u201d Next week, 92.\u201d The next week 150, he said something was happening. It shocked him. And they reached a point where literally they started with those presses that do this kind of thing. And now then they had to go to a rotary press like you see in the movies when the newspaper\u2019s getting printed. And they had three shifts just doing nothing but printing <em>Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em>. And I remember one December, the guy who was in charge of the money, the CFO of that company, told his staff, I never knew this until later, he said, \u201cDon\u2019t take any more orders for delivery in December. I don\u2019t want any more revenue for tax purposes this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And meanwhile, you\u2019re following the rule of five. You\u2019re calling the churches, you\u2019re speaking in on Sundays, you\u2019re calling the PXs, you\u2019re doing all of the things. Were there any particular breakthrough moments or interviews looking back at these hundreds of things that you tried? Were there any that really seemed to help the book break through?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I think as far as interviews go, being on <em>Good Morning America<\/em> definitely made a big difference, being on Fox and Friends. In other words, major national TV shows, which didn\u2019t happen immediately. You start out local and you basically create some reels of someone that can talk and they\u2019ll consider you if they\u2019re a producer on the big shows. But those big shows, we\u2019d be on them and then sales would just boom. But the word of mouth more than anything, I think, Tim, what we noticed was we\u2019d have these big sales and then nothing would happen for a week or two. And then there\u2019d be big sales, and it would take people a week or two to read the book. They\u2019d tell everybody the word of mouth was crazy, and it was like a chain letter.<\/p>\n<p>It just kept going and going and going and going. Geometric progressions. I think the other thing that was really big for us, it was a company called SkillPath, sometimes you get these marketing things and say, \u201cWe\u2019re going to be doing a workshop on AI, and we\u2019re going to do it in Davenport, Iowa on Monday. And it\u2019ll be in the middle of Iowa and Tuesday. It\u2019ll be there.\u201d So there have these people running around doing seminars everywhere in little towns that we would never,<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Is it like Learning Annex back in the day, similar or different?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, Learning Annex, and I spoke at those places as well, it\u2019s similar, but here\u2019s the value of this. What happened is, let\u2019s say you\u2019re a trainer for this company. You\u2019re going to five cities in Iowa in a day a week, and you\u2019re going to teach the same course, and there\u2019s someone else teaching how to communicate with your boss, someone else teaching you how to use Excel, whatever. Now what happens is that those are places we never would\u2019ve gone. And in the back of the room, they were selling our books. So we got a lot of book sales and places, and then that word of mouth thing would take over and it would just keep exploding, exploding, exploding, exploding, exploding. And what\u2019s fascinating is I had sent the book to the guy who runs that company and said, \u201cWould you sell this book as part of your backroom?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because I knew they did backroom, mostly audio programs back then. They were like $60 for six cassettes. And so he said, \u201cWell, I know there\u2019s no money in a book or whatever.\u201d So then he was a Christian and he always led the Wednesday night men\u2019s group or something. And he always liked to start with a Bible story. And he gets to the group and he doesn\u2019t have a Bible story in his mind. He opens up his briefcase. There\u2019s a <em>Chicken Soup<\/em> book. He reads the story, it makes him cry. He goes in, he reads the story to his Bible group. They go, \u201cCan you read any more stories?\u201d That night, he read seven stories from the book to his Bible group. \u201cMaybe I should reconsider.\u201d So they did.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I want to emphasize something for folks, and this is through my own lens and bias of course, but what part of how you can improve the likelihood of word of mouth with a book like that, or any book really, if you\u2019re dealing with, especially, I think non-fiction stories, is practice it in front of live audiences. You just get such valuable feedback. It is not the same. Speaking of someone who\u2019s done 800 plus podcast episodes, it\u2019s not the same as virtual feedback. Being able to see faces, see when people are getting distracted, see when they\u2019re taking notes.<\/p>\n<p>To hear what they ask you after you\u2019re done teaching or presenting, it allows you to refine your materials so well. I have thought, actually, I\u2019m sitting here in Austin, Texas right now, and I have an idea for a short book, which of course, I\u2019ve been trying to write a short book for 20 years. I haven\u2019t yet succeeded. But I have this idea for a short book, and I\u2019ve thought about maybe reaching out to UT Austin here to teach a class just to work on the material and try to present it, because it worked so well for particularly the first book. And for people listening who might think, \u201cWell, times have changed. Now it\u2019s all about TikTok and this and this and this.\u201d Yes, certain things have changed, but a lot is still the same. So I just wanted to speak to the live audience piece of it. Because I think it\u2019s so powerful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, I never write what I haven\u2019t spoken about a lot first for the exact same reason you\u2019re talking about, because I get real feedback about what lands, what doesn\u2019t land, where did I confuse, where did I give them enough information, where was I redundant, et cetera. And people now, they get a book and they instantly go to create an online course, which they haven\u2019t taught live. At least teach it online live before you just record it and put it online. So yeah, it\u2019s crazy what people don\u2019t do what they should.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So to maybe just put a bow on the chapter of <em>Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em>, you\u2019ve got some crazy accolades related to this, right? The <em>Guinness Book<\/em> World Record with seven <em>Chicken Soup<\/em> books on the <em>New York Times<\/em> bestseller list simultaneously. That was in 1999. There are so many bullet points that I could list off that are just completely nuts. When you think back to somebody saying, \u201cHey, if you sell 20,000 copies, you\u2019d be lucky.\u201d And then flashing forward to some of these. You ended up selling the name, the backlist, so 220 plus title titles, all future royalties, the trademarks, et cetera. How did that happen? How did that come to pass and why did that happen?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I think two things. We got burned out on the process. When we first started it we were doing a book or two a year, and by the end we were doing eight or nine books a year because the publisher wanted more because everything has an arc. And so what happened was the success was starting to dwindle. There was a little saturation in the market, perhaps. We\u2019re niching books now. Where the first books had universal appeal across the board. When you start doing <em>Sports Fan Soul<\/em> or <em>Golfer Soul<\/em>, you start to limit the size of the audience. And so we\u2019re doing all these books and we got tired, and I got burned out at the level of not another one-arm guy climbing Mount Everest story or one-legged. I should have been inspired. It was like, \u201cAh, not another.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My mother died and she loved bluebirds, and a bluebird landed on our windowsill. So I knew it was my mom, and it probably was. But after a while, I\u2019m tired of hearing that. I knew I was getting a bit jaded. This is not the thing. And also I think I was tired. So the guy who was the CEO of our company at the time noticed all that and said, \u201cWould you like to sell it?\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, for the right price.\u201d So we sold it for tens and tens and tens and tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars. So yeah, it was a good offer. It happened at the right time. So that\u2019s how it happened.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>As you\u2019re noticing the saturation and the niching down, and when you\u2019re checking in with yourself, you don\u2019t have a full-body yes. You\u2019re like, \u201cOh, my God, another \u2014 don\u2019t know if I can do it.\u201d Were you doing things in parallel that you then kept doing after you sold things off? Because for a lot of people that could become their identity, and once they sell it, they\u2019re like, \u201cOh, my God, what do I do now?\u201d And they have this void that could be really terrifying. And I\u2019m just wondering how you thought about what you did after that and if you already had something in the hopper or if there was another plan.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>During that whole time, I was running seminars and three, four, five, 600 people seminar, sometimes 700, 800 people in a room. I did one seminar in India that had 7,000 Herbalife people in it for three days, and they only spoke Tamil. The whole thing was translated. And so I had that going. That was always happening. And the <em>Chicken Soup<\/em> was kind of like, it was a parallel track to my workshops and my seminars. So basically, yeah, that was always there.<\/p>\n<p>I knew I could go back to that, and not go back to that, but just shift my energy over to that. And I did. And that\u2019s when Patty, my business partner, said, \u201cYou really should consider putting all these success ideas into a book.\u201d And that\u2019s what led to <em>The Success Principles<\/em>, which is the second chapter of my life, if you will, in terms of that being. But I was always teaching success ever since W. Clement Stone. And so yeah, it wasn\u2019t like I was like, \u201cOh, I\u2019m going to quit being a corporate person, and I have no other idea what I\u2019m going to do, which is I can\u2019t see how. It\u2019d be scary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I have a first edition copy of <em>The Success Principles<\/em>, how to get from where you are to where you want to be. Because before <em>The 4<\/em> \u2014 when was the pub date on <em>The Success Principles<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>2005.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>2005. Right. So it came out two years before <em>The 4-Hour Workweek<\/em>. And I think I have a brief cameo in there, probably because of the kickboxing stuff or something else.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I tell that story. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, so I have a signed copy at home. At my parents\u2019 house, actually. I keep it right where I can see it, so I\u2019ve had that ever since. And what was it like stepping into <em>The Success Principles<\/em>? Were you nervous about that because the bar had been set so high with <em>Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em>? Were you able to let go of that? What was that experience like?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, there is a little bit of an identity thing. I became known as the <em>Chicken Soup<\/em> guy and I had to let go of that. Some people still see me that way, which is fine. But no, I think for me it was a very natural transition. It was a book. I knew how to sell books. People would say, \u201cHow long did it take you to write that book?\u201d I\u2019d say 20 years because I was collecting all that data about what works in terms of success. And the actual writing took about a year and a half. I would write from 7:00 at night. Sometimes all of a sudden I\u2019d hear birds singing and it would be getting gray. \u201cOh, my God, I\u2019ve been up all night typing.\u201d I had the regular \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s that bluebird again. I\u2019m kidding.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, I had a regular job, which was to run my seminars. Unfortunately, most of them were on weekends and evenings, but basically I would go to bed at 7:00 in the morning and sleep until noon, one o\u2019clock, then get up and do my business again and then write. So thank God my wife could put up with all that, but she did and it worked out really well. But yeah, it was not that hard. And I like writing. I like wordsmithing. I\u2019ll give you an example, so I have a chapter in there about the guy who wrote <em>Sleepless in Seattle<\/em>, the movie. And the next chapter is about a guy who\u2019s a coffee roaster. It\u2019s all about perseverance, not giving up. And he\u2019s up in Seattle and he\u2019s sleeping on these coffee beanbags because he couldn\u2019t afford an apartment. Now he\u2019s uber rich, but what happened was one of his major clients was a coffee shop down in Long Beach, California.<\/p>\n<p>And he would ship the beans through UPS and UPS had a strike. And I was able to go, \u201cWow, blah, blah, blah. I was writing <em>Sleepless in Seattle<\/em>. In Seattle, this guy was also sleepless.\u201d I love that, being able to make those kind of takeaways and stuff. And then his chapter is called \u201cGoing the Extra Mile.\u201d When the strike happened, he said, \u201cI can\u2019t let this guy flounder and not have the beans he needs.\u201d And he drove them himself 1,250 miles from Seattle to Long Beach. I said, \u201cHe was willing to go more than one extra mile. He went 1,250.\u201d Playing with words like that is really fun for me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What was the reason for continuing to do the seminars? Because presumably you\u2019d done very well financially from, as you mentioned, some of the royalties from <em>Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em>. Was there something you got personally from doing the seminars? Was it kind of an insurance policy of sorts to have an additional revenue stream? Why did you keep doing so many in-person events?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I love doing it. I know you participated in a lot of sports and you get really good at them fast because the way you play, but whatever your favorite sport is, you play it because you love it when you\u2019re playing it. For me, nothing turns me on more than being up in front of a group, sharing ideas and stories and experiential exercises where people are interacting and watching their lights come on, their eyes get bright, their awarenesses happen, the breakthroughs happen. All of a sudden they\u2019re coming up and they think, \u201cOh, my God.\u201d And then watching them name their children after me and write their first book and leave shitty marriages and stop letting their husbands abuse them. And I love it.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m kind of retiring right now and literally that was the hardest part of that decision was so I had to get my wife to agree that I could do X number of workshops a year. And now it\u2019s other people are doing all the work. I\u2019m not renting hotels and filling them and doing all that kind of crap I used to do. I used to have 12 staff. Now I have two.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And what is your age now, Jack?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>81.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. You are sharp as a razor\u2019s edge. And I have to ask two questions. Number one, what do you think contributes to that? Maybe you also have some fantastic genetics. I don\u2019t know, but you\u2019re very, very sharp. You have a lot of energy. And then the related question is, I\u2019m not questioning the decision, but why retire? Why change what you\u2019re doing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, I realized there were things I want to do that I haven\u2019t done. I want to become a really good chef cook. I want to learn how to oil paint. I play guitar mediocrely. I want to learn to play the piano. All these kind of hobby things that most people do as they go along in life, I\u2019ve kind of piled him up at the end. I have a 12-year-old grandson who I absolutely adore, who\u2019s the coolest kid. He\u2019s an old soul kind of kid and amazingly talented. I want to spend more time with him. I want to spend more time with my wife. I think I owe her that after all the time she\u2019s put up with me being on the road and I enjoy being with her. And I want to just explore things because they\u2019re fun, not because I need to. And so I want to read a book because it interests me, not because I\u2019m getting ready to write something or I\u2019m getting ready to whatever.<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s funny, I never thought I would retire. I told everyone for years I would never retire and then I was doing an ayahuasca experience down in Costa Rica and I literally \u2014 I\u2019ll tell the story real quick.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Please.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>The intention that we were to hold that night was forgive the unforgivable. And I thought, \u201cI\u2019ve forgiven my parents. I\u2019ve forgiven people who embezzled from me. I\u2019ve forgiven people who stole from me. I\u2019ve forgiven the guy who bullied me in school, forgiven both my ex-wives, their lawyers.\u201d I forgiven everybody. What\u2019s left to forgive, but I\u2019ll do it. So I take the medicine and I\u2019m lying there on my mattress and all of a sudden Vladimir Putin\u2019s face comes up. I thought, \u201cGod, I\u2019ve got to forgive Vladimir Putin?\u201d Who I think is one of the more evil guys on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>So I literally started to see his childhood. I saw what motivated him. He wants to be seen as majorly significant, that he did something outrageously huge, put the Soviet Union back together. How does he do that? You start bringing all these countries back that they gave away, like Ukraine and Poland and all those places. And so I finally forgave him and I felt this energy just leave my body. I didn\u2019t know I had such animosity toward him. And then the next thing I see is my door to my office and the office opens and the first three feet of my office is a shrine to how significant I am. It was like the <em>Guinness Book<\/em> World Record, magazine covers, awards, honorary doctorates, people that made me honorary sheriff of this town.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve got more damn stuff. And I realized part of my motivation has been to feel like I was worthy of being here. I made a difference. I\u2019m significant. Now, it\u2019s a huge philanthropic, loving, service-oriented heart in my body, but I realized how many honorary doctorates do you need. I\u2019m Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Canfield. It\u2019s like I would go away for four days on a trip to give a commencement speech to get another doctorate and I\u2019d leave my wife and my kids. It was crazy. And so I had that awareness and I thought I really need to slow down and take a look at all that motivation. And part of it, being 81, my 80th birthday last summer, 81st birthday in August, I just realized there\u2019s a lot I want to do that I\u2019m not doing. And I\u2019m going to just shove all this work stuff to decide. Not totally. I\u2019ve got four books I\u2019m still writing, so I\u2019m not retired retired, but the road warrior, the three weeks in Asia \u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, the road warrior. The travel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, all that and I\u2019m not doing that anymore.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I love how four books is the retirement plan.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s Jack\u2019s version of lazy. So I\u2019m going to come back to the ayahuasca in a second, but before we get to that. What do you think has contributed to you being as vibrant, full of energy, and as sharp as you are?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I think several things. I\u2019m passionate about what I do. I follow my joy, follow my passion. So there\u2019s not a lot of resistance between what\u2019s coming through and what I want to do. I can\u2019t say I\u2019m fearless totally, but very few fears in my life anymore. Just if I want to do it, we\u2019ll do it. And so that inner struggle is mostly gone. That uses up a lot of energy and creates disease in the body. I don\u2019t have a lot of limiting beliefs anymore. One of the books I\u2019m writing is a belief change process that I developed with somebody that literally works, so I\u2019ve cleared just tons of that stuff. I\u2019m a big fan of Byron Katie. Do you know her work?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah. Her work is amazing. People can find PDFs online also of her work, which are super helpful, the turnarounds and so on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I did that work for years. I\u2019ve not ever been with her, but I did her work. And I don\u2019t get upset about anything. It just is what it is. That whole idea, it is what it is. My desire to change it can also be what it is, but it\u2019s not out of anger or out of upset or it shouldn\u2019t be that way. It\u2019s all just called whatever. So that is a big piece of it. I meditate regularly. I cleanse. I told you before we came on that I\u2019m in the eighth day of a 10-day cleanse. So all this stuff coming out of my body, detoxing. I do saunas regularly. I won\u2019t say I exercise every single day. That\u2019d be a lie, but I exercise enough to keep things moving. I only listen to comedy channels on my XM radio. I laugh a lot. I think laughter is very healing. I love your digital detox concept, which I actually put in the 10th anniversary edition of <em>The Success Principles<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Amazing. I didn\u2019t even know that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, I\u2019ll have to send you a copy. I can\u2019t believe I didn\u2019t do that. But anyway, so I think that, organic food. When I was in graduate school at UMass in Amherst, I was 23, [24], something like that. My best friend, we played racquetball every night. He was the owner of a health food store, so I got into the organic thing, the supplement thing, the cleansing thing, all of that really, really early on. And then doing the ayahuasca, the plant medicine, anything that\u2019s not clear comes up and out. So that\u2019s all good. And I\u2019m very loving. I get massages regularly. All the things people tell you to do, I\u2019m mostly doing for longevity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s a good list. I\u2019m taking some notes for myself. I\u2019m going to add a few more in the rotation. So you mentioned the ayahuasca, so let\u2019s talk about that. I was surprised not because I would expect anything otherwise, but I wasn\u2019t aware that you had these experiences. Is that something that goes back many decades or is there something that prompted you to engage with plant medicine?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>No, it doesn\u2019t go back many decades. I mean, I did not smoke pot in high school and college. It made me fall asleep, so my drug of choice on weekends was a couple beers or a vodka tonic or whatever. And that\u2019s another thing, I stopped drinking quite a bit ago, but the reality was I think in graduate school \u2014 this is so funny because the guy who eventually became the head of drug education for New Hampshire is a person who introduced me to mescaline and peyote and things like that, but I only did a few journeys. I did LSD once, I think. I never did cocaine. I was afraid of all that. I didn\u2019t want to get addicted and I\u2019d seen people who had, so none of that for years and years and years and years.<\/p>\n<p>And then Lynne Twist, who runs the Pachamama Alliance, was taking people down to the rainforest in Ecuador to help raise consciousness about let\u2019s save the rainforest. And I went on one of those trips and one night, one of the journeys, one of the things you do is take ayahuasca in the jungle with a real shaman that\u2019s there. And I did that and I had amazing breakthrough experiences. And so I became interested in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How old were you when you had that first experience, you\u2019d say?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I\u2019m thinking 20 years ago maybe with \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, something like that. And then when I learned about Rythmia and I thought, \u201cWell, I want to do that.\u201d And the thing I liked about Rythmia, for those who don\u2019t know, it\u2019s a center in Costa Rica. And it was founded by a guy who was, in his own words, a total asshole. He was a womanizer, a drug addict, a drinker, got in fights in bars all the time. And so eventually he was going to commit suicide because he couldn\u2019t get his life together. He\u2019d been in and out of rehab so many times. And he was worth about $60 million, I think, but he was miserable. So he said he was going to commit suicide, and somebody told him and said, \u201cDon\u2019t commit suicide until you go to the rainforest and work with this guy named Maganda.\u201d So he looks him up and looks like a resort and he signs up to go there and gets down there. I mean, the resort images were bullshit. It was an old house, dirty mattresses, cockroaches, all this stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Hotel paradise. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>And it was funny because when he got there, he tells this story. He got there and he flies down in a private jet, that whole thing. He gets there and Maganda meets him at the airport. He says, \u201cGet my bags, man.\u201d Maganda is this African guy. And he says, \u201cGet your own, man. I don\u2019t carry your bags.\u201d He\u2019s used to being treated like a king. So they get to this place that doesn\u2019t look anything like the brochure and he\u2019s about to leave and he says, \u201cCome on, lie down.\u201d And he gets in there, about eight people lying head to head in the middle of a circle in the garage on mattresses. And they do ibogaine, which is an African \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Hell of an introduction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, but it totally rocked his world because what happened was he ended up going back to his grandfather and he realized his grandfather had been sexually violating him his whole youth and he totally repressed all that. That\u2019s why he was so angry, was he was repressing. And then finally, I love this last line. He\u2019s lying there and Maganda just taps him on the head and goes, \u201cHappy birthday, man. You\u2019re reborn.\u201d And he was. And so he decided what he wanted to do is help people have his experience. And the second time he did ibogaine, he said, \u201cYou\u2019re supposed to open a center, but don\u2019t do it with ibogaine. Do it with ayahuasca.\u201d So we started that center. So I\u2019ve been down there five times, do four journeys every time you\u2019re there, so 20 journeys. And they\u2019ve been life-changing for me, just literally life-changing. And I think that\u2019s another reason I\u2019m so light and it\u2019s all good.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, the pharmacology of ayahuasca in and of itself, super, super fascinating for people who might be interested. Also outside of the DMT, which is found in the chacruna. The leaves of the shrub actually related to the coffee plant, but the actual vine itself contains a lot of interesting properties. And I think it\u2019s ESPD50, this ethnobotanical search for psychoactive drugs. There\u2019s a presentation from that that goes into some of the potential properties around neurogenesis and so on from the beta-carbolines and so on themselves in the vine. So even the vine has some very, very interesting properties.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What have you observed as someone who\u2019s been a practitioner, a student, a teacher in the, for lack of a better term, self-development space for many decades now? What do you think is often missed or under-taught? You\u2019ve seen lots of different waves of different things that have become popular, fallen out of popularity. Is there anything you wish folks paid more attention to?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, I think several things come to mind. I don\u2019t think about that very often, but several things come to mind as you ask the question. Number one, I think most people don\u2019t understand the impact of unconscious limiting beliefs. That they watch <em>The Secret<\/em>, they visualize, they affirm, and then somehow it\u2019s not working and they don\u2019t know why. And so it\u2019s always either fear or limiting beliefs or just lack of willingness to take action that basically corrupts the process. And I think for me, why I\u2019m writing a book about this limiting belief process is I\u2019ve just worked with literally thousands of people. Twice a year I\u2019ve been doing these free sessions where I\u2019ll get 700 people sign up and I\u2019ll do this belief process with them. And I\u2019d say 99 percent of the people have a major breakthrough. I had a woman got rid of arthritis in 20 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, ridiculous stuff. And so these beliefs we\u2019re holding onto that usually got formed between the age of three and eight, somewhere in that range because of some experience we had, usually a traumatic experience. You make a decision, that\u2019s never going to happen again. It\u2019s not safe to say what I want. It\u2019s not safe to ask for things. It\u2019s not safe to be sexy, make noise, whatever. What happens is that we don\u2019t realize we have that belief. And so we do all the things we\u2019re supposed to do and it doesn\u2019t happen. And it\u2019s very frustrating and sometimes people give up on the whole human potential movement because they\u2019re doing all these things that the gurus are teaching them, but they\u2019re not dealing with this block. I\u2019ll tell people it\u2019s like calling up Domino\u2019s Pizza to order a pizza and then having this other voice call them and say, \u201cForget the order.\u201d And you wonder, \u201cWhy isn\u2019t this showing up?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And so all this work that so many of us taught in <em>The Secret<\/em> and so forth, that seems to be a missing piece for a lot of people, I would say. And fear, which is based on limiting beliefs is my experience, which we imagine bad things happening in the future, it\u2019s a visualization process usually or a thought process which we can intervene on as well. But I think those are the two big things that people don\u2019t understand very well. And then I think what we\u2019re seeing today that I\u2019m a bit more aware is the power of community, the power of support, the power of not being alone. That there are people there to hold you back and lying when you go off.<\/p>\n<p>My sister just called a couple hours ago and was having a really tough time and just spending 10 minutes with her she was back where she needed to be. But she didn\u2019t have anyone to call, which is increasingly true for her as she gets older and doesn\u2019t have a lot of friends who\u2019ve died and so forth. I think that\u2019s really critical. And I think more and more people are becoming aware of that. That\u2019s why you\u2019re seeing all these communities evolving. And I think one of the reasons that plant medicine\u2019s taken off is because it deals with all those limiting beliefs. They come up. And as we say at Rythmia, \u201cWhat\u2019s coming up is coming out, so don\u2019t resist it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s a good one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>And you get to clear it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I want to come back to something that we spoke about or you spoke about early on with W. Clement Stone in his intake interview when he asked you do you take a hundred percent responsibility for your life? And the reason I want to revisit that is that I grew up in a family where there was a lot of complaining. There was a lot of finger pointing, a lot of blaming, and the villain would change depending on the context. And I\u2019ve worked very hard to try to correct that training for myself. And most of the time I would say I do pretty well, but there are certainly times when I seem to revert back to that early experience and find myself complaining about \u2014 maybe I don\u2019t complain, but I blame. Right? Maybe it\u2019s just internally. Maybe I don\u2019t give voice to it, but there could be some blaming. How do you encourage people to take more or 100 percent responsibility? What are the steps for people who recognize that\u2019s what they want to do, but perhaps have the habits of blaming, pointing fingers, complaining?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, I\u2019ll start with a story. A couples therapist told me once she was working with a couple and they were arguing about whose fault it was that something had happened. And a therapist said, \u201cWell, I\u2019m glad to see you agree on something.\u201d And they said, \u201cWhat?\u201d \u201cWell, you obviously agree that if you could figure out whose fault it is, somehow that\u2019s going to make your life better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s outstanding. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>So basically I teach a little formula equation, if you call it. E + R = O, event plus response equals outcome. So when there\u2019s an event and you blame somebody or something, the government, the bank, the economy, your mother, your sister, your neighbor, the boss, whatever you\u2019re blaming for this experience you\u2019ve just had, that event plus your blaming does not produce a better outcome. So we all want a better outcome. We want to experience joy, freedom, peace, love, success, abundance, whatever the outcome that we want, health, longevity, whatever. And certain behaviors do not do that, so I\u2019ve never found a place where blaming produced a better result. You don\u2019t feel better and you don\u2019t solve the problem in a way that really gets you anywhere because you\u2019ve just blamed somebody.<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s amazing how much our culture supports blaming and complaining. I used to call bars \u201cAin\u2019t it awful?\u201d clubs. Every profession has their own bar. They go to the firemen go here, the police go there, the lawyers go there, the doctors go there and they bitch and moan about everything that happened that day. The economy, the president, the minister of the hospital, whatever. So the reality is it lets off steam and you get agreement, but you don\u2019t get resolution, you don\u2019t get breakthrough, you don\u2019t get better results. So if you look at E + R = O, there\u2019s only three responses you have any control over. Your thoughts, your images, and your behavior. That\u2019s it. You can\u2019t manage time. You can manage your thoughts in relation to time.<\/p>\n<p>You can manage your visualizations in relation to time and your behavior, but we think we can control things outside of us. We can only control our response to things outside of us and notice what kind of outcome that produces. And what you\u2019ve done magnificently and what I\u2019ve done a lot as well is look at who are the people that are succeeding. What are their responses to certain events? How do they relate to this situation? Which ones produced the better results? I mean, your book, the <em>Titans<\/em> book, is just amazing. All these people telling you what worked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Thank you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>If you haven\u2019t read that, by the way, guys, please do. It\u2019s incredible. So what happens is blaming, we just discovered, we talked about it. And it\u2019s incredible what people blame. I mean, look at our president right now. He\u2019s blaming everybody for everything. It\u2019s unfortunate, but he does. But it\u2019s not producing particularly great results as a result of it. Complaining, in order to complain, you have to have a reference point of something better you prefer. So I can\u2019t complain about my girlfriend if I don\u2019t have an image of some woman who\u2019s better than my girlfriend, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Now, the reality is that nobody ever complains about gravity. You\u2019ve never seen an old person walking through the mall, all bent over going, \u201cGravity, I hate gravity. If it wasn\u2019t for gravity, I wouldn\u2019t be all bent over. Gravity sucks.\u201d Never said that. Why not? Because you can\u2019t change gravity. Everyone knows gravity just is, so we don\u2019t complain about it. So anything you\u2019re complaining about, you have to have a reference point in your mind of something better. Better job, better country, better president, better whatever.<\/p>\n<p>And what happens then is we \u2014 when we become aware of that, we have this better option that we\u2019re not willing to risk creating. So therefore we complain about it, and it lets off steam. It gets people to go together. Yeah, I know. My wife is the same way, whatever it is, but we don\u2019t get a better result. So I always say, imagine a situation where every woman in the world dies except my wife. Big thing comes down from outer space, zaps yours with some energy field. My wife happens to be in a lead mine that day. She\u2019s the only one to survive. Would I come to work and complain about my wife? No. Why not? She\u2019s the only one. There is no option, right? So we wouldn\u2019t complain about it.<\/p>\n<p>So basically, if you\u2019re complaining, my response to that is what would you prefer? What would you have to do to create that? One of my friends runs a workshop he does over in Europe. He\u2019s a European, corporate consultant, and one of the questions he asks people, even when they\u2019re pissed off at the company they work for, he says, \u201cOn a scale of one to 10, how would you rate your quality of life working here?\u201d And they go, \u201cThree.\u201d He\u2019ll go, \u201cWhy so high? It\u2019s not a zero. Something is going on there, right? So why so high?\u201d Which floors them. It kind of breaks the chain of their thought. And then he goes, \u201cSo what would be an eight for you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Never goes to 10. That\u2019s too big a leap for people. He goes, \u201cWhat would be an eight for you?\u201d \u201cWell, this would be happening. This would be happening. What could you do to help generate that result? What could you do to help make that happen in your company?\u201d Because that\u2019s really what you have to do. You can\u2019t just sit there and bitch, and moan. Nothing is going to change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. So you mentioned <em>Tools of Titans<\/em>, and I wanted to just, not to push the book, but it brought to mind because I put together these books mostly as reference books for myself and <em>Tools of Titans<\/em>, in particular, was an example of not wanting to let learnings from these interviews fall through my fingers, like sand through an hourglass.<\/p>\n<p>And one of the essays in that book is taken from Jocko Willink, who\u2019s a famous Navy commander. He has done a million things since. His first public interview ever was on this podcast ages ago. People can find videos of this too, but it\u2019s just called \u201cGood.\u201d And so if you\u2019ll indulge me for a second, I just want to read a second \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 just a minute or two of this. So this \u201cGood,\u201d this is the title and Jocko has a great video of this for people who want, but it\u2019s also in the book. So \u201cGood.\u201d \u201cThis is something that one of my direct subordinates, one of the guys who worked for me, a guy who became one of my best friends pointed out, he would pull me aside with some major problem or issue.\u201d This was when Jocko was in the military. \u201cThat was going on and he\u2019d say, \u2018Boss, we\u2019ve got this thing, this situation. It\u2019s going terribly wrong.\u2019 I would look at him and say, \u2018Good.\u2019 And finally one day he was telling me about something that was going off the rails. And as soon as he finished explaining to me, he said, \u2018I already know what you\u2019re going to say.\u2019 And I asked, \u2018What am I going to say?\u2019 He said, \u2018You\u2019re going to say good.\u2019 He continued. \u2018That\u2019s what you always say when something is going wrong or going bad, you look at me and say, good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I said, \u2018Well, I mean it because that\u2019s how I operate.\u2019 So I explained to him that when things are going badly, there\u2019s going to be some good that will comfort. Oh, the mission got canceled? Good. We can focus on another one. Didn\u2019t get the new high-speed gear we wanted? Good. We can keep it simple. Didn\u2019t get promoted? Good. More time to get better. Didn\u2019t get funded? Good. We own more of the company. Didn\u2019t get the job you wanted? Good. Go out, gain more experience and build a better resume. Got injured? Good. Need a break from training.\u201d It just goes on and on, and on.<\/p>\n<p>And then he says, just to maybe put a pin in it, he says, \u201cNow, I don\u2019t mean to say something trite. I\u2019m not trying to sound like Mr. Smiley positive guy. That guy ignores the hard truth. That guy thinks a positive attitude will solve problems. It won\u2019t, but neither will dwelling on the problem. No, except reality. But focus on the solution. Take that issue, take that setback, take that problem and turn it into something good. Go forward. And if you\u2019re part of a team, that attitude will spread throughout.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And I feel like you reflect that. And certainly Jocko is an archetype of many types. And it\u2019s also, for me at least, makes it clear that it\u2019s something you train yourself to do, right? If it doesn\u2019t come naturally all the time, just like an exercise habit or anything else, this is something that you have to condition yourself to do with reminders and practices. Are there any reminders or practices that you have for yourself to stay on the rails, so to speak, with the 100 percent responsibility?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, I guess so. I think, well, I\u2019ve always got something I\u2019m working on and you have to have something that keeps it in your focus. So if I\u2019m engaging in some kind of negative self-talk then I take and I create an opposite affirmation and I\u2019ll put that on some Post-Its and put on the refrigerator door and on my bathroom mirror, and stuff like that. Because we know that normally you probably have other data than I do on this, but neuroscience tends to tell us that it takes about 66 days to change a belief. And it can take longer depending on who it is and how badly that belief is ground into you through the trauma of it. That\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n<p>But generally, it requires repetition. There\u2019s a guy, I forget his name right now. He\u2019s the head of peak performance at West Point. He wrote a book about it. And one of the things when I read the book that he does is when the students are wanting a behavioral change, they create an affirmation and he teaches them every time you walk through a door, reach up and touch the door jamb and then say your affirmation. Now, I have a repetitive system that\u2019s built in that tells me to do that. And you think about how many doors you go in and out of every day into the bathroom, into the kitchen, out of the kitchen, into your car, back out, whatever.<\/p>\n<p>And so it\u2019s that level of repetition until it becomes ground in. They don\u2019t have to repeat it. I mean, I know my phone number. I don\u2019t have to repeat it. Well, I did when I first got it. And you want to get your new ideas like that. I always say if you can build in four new behavioral shifts a year, think about in 10 years you got 40 new shifts. That\u2019s a lot. So for me, for example, when we read the \u2014 what\u2019s the book? Shaman from Mexico. Boy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, it\u2019s Carlos Castaneda?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>A different one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Different shaman from Mexico.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, this is me being sharp at anyone. Anyway, he had <em>The Four Agreements<\/em>. That\u2019s the guy, the book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, this is Don Miguel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Miguel Ruiz. Don Miguel Ruiz.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>There we go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah. So my wife and I decided we\u2019ll take <em>The Four Agreements<\/em> and we\u2019ll work on each agreement for three months. And so for three months, that was the agreement of not making other people wrong, thinking positive, etc. And we had to reinforce that and we had little signs that told us what to focus on and so forth. So I think it\u2019s important to do that because as you know, we are so distracted today now with AI and scrolling through Instagram. I mean, I even get caught in that occasionally. I\u2019ll go looking for something on YouTube and the next thing I know I\u2019m watching old reruns of Jay Leno. But I think that reminders are important.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, I\u2019m going to use the doorway. That is a great cue. It\u2019s actually something. If people want to read, <em>Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming<\/em>. Doorways are also really helpful for some of that. People can check out Stephen LaBerge if you want to go into a really weird town. And also for people who might be wagging a finger at me, I know that Carlos Castaneda was not a shaman, but it was <em>The Teachings of Don Juan<\/em>, I think, <em>A Yaqui Way of Knowledge<\/em>. That was the book that I was thinking of.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah. That was one of the first books I read. It was a great book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s a compelling book. I mean, whether it\u2019s real or not, it\u2019s a fun read. So I\u2019m looking at a blog post or some \u2014 I think, yeah, this is from jackcanfield.com productivity tips. And you, like me, I\u2019m sure have quite a few blog posts. I\u2019ll just read the headlines here for a second. There\u2019s \u201cClean up Your Messes,\u201d two, \u201cFocus,\u201d three, \u201cJust Say No,\u201d four, \u201cPractice the Rule of Five,\u201d which we\u2019ve talked about a bit. Five, \u201cMeditate.\u201d And this is going to seem so mundane, but I\u2019m very curious if you could expand a bit on \u201cClean up Your Messes\u201d and how you go about doing it. Because I have a few Achilles heels, as I suppose we all do.<\/p>\n<p>And one of them is I collect so much goddamn paper. I\u2019m a hypographic note-taking maniac, and I just have paper. It metastasizes to cover every flat surface that I have. I try to take photos here and there and digitize, but it\u2019s messy and it really agitates me. I\u2019m not saying that that\u2019s ideal. Maybe it shouldn\u2019t bother me, but how do you think about \u2014 why is number one of five on productivity tips \u201cClean up Your Messes,\u201d and how do you do it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, you\u2019re talking to a fellow person that needs the same rehab, just so you know. I take more notes at a conference than almost anybody and I\u2019ve got literally books full of notes and taking notes when I\u2019m listening to stuff and podcast, things. I think the problem is that every time you look at all that, it\u2019s taking your attention. And so the research that I\u2019ve read says we have the ability to hold about seven attention units at a time.<\/p>\n<p>And so what happens is that you\u2019ll notice the research also. If you haven\u2019t paid the bill yet, any good waiter or waitress could tell you what you had. As soon as you pay the bill, you ask them 10 minutes later, they don\u2019t remember anymore. They don\u2019t need to. So what happens is all those attention units are being taken up by things that are incomplete. So messes in my world are incompletions. So anything that\u2019s incomplete. Now that can be that thing you started, you didn\u2019t finish. It could be that letter you were writing the book you\u2019ve not finished up the notes you have over here.<\/p>\n<p>But what I\u2019ve learned to do is find a place for those things. I have lots of filing systems. I have filing systems in my computer. I have filing systems. I bought 10 drawers in my office that are file drawers. And so things go in those places. And if I need to remember something to do it, I have what\u2019s called a comp file. So let\u2019s say I need to do something March 28th, I have a folder called March. So in the 1st of March, I go through that folder of everything I put in there, and then I put it into my counter for those days. Or I can put it in now called Steve on March 28th.<\/p>\n<p>But if there\u2019s papers related to that, things we\u2019re going to talk about, whatever, it goes in my March file. So it\u2019s there. It\u2019s not in my visual cue. What happens is whether it\u2019s a relationship we\u2019ve all had that experience of walking through a grocery store and seeing someone down the aisle we don\u2019t want to talk to. So we go down the aisle and hope we evade them because it\u2019s incomplete. So all that energy is taken up because it\u2019s not complete. All the things you\u2019ve never said, the upsets, the thank you\u2019s, the acknowledgements, the wanting acknowledgements, and not having got them are taking up space in your head.<\/p>\n<p>So everything you can close up, it\u2019s almost like you\u2019re taking a piece of paper off the desk and pretty soon you have a clean desk. Do you know Dan Sullivan\u2019s work? The Strategic Coach?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. He\u2019s got some great stuff. He\u2019s got some great stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, one of things I learned from him, he doesn\u2019t have a desk. He\u2019s got three or four offices with conference tables and he\u2019ll go into one and say, \u201cBring over that stuff.\u201d And he\u2019ll work with one of his people. They do all the things they need to do. They walk out with all the papers, he\u2019s done. Doesn\u2019t have that pile up shit that I deal with and you deal with. But the reality is that everything that\u2019s incomplete, you walking through the hall of your house, you see a little crack in the wall and you go, \u201cOh, it needs to get fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pretty soon you won\u2019t see that crack because you have to block it out of your awareness to pay attention to other things. So now things are not getting handled that need to get handled. And also if you do keep paying attention to it, that\u2019s time you could have spent writing your book or thinking about your project or loving your mother or giving good feedback to your girlfriend or whatever. So the reality is it\u2019s really important to clean that up. And there\u2019s financial messes, there\u2019s garage messes, there\u2019s the attic, the tool drawer, the door that has the leashes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, my God. I can feel my cortisol piling up as I\u2019m listening. Sounds like you\u2019re in my house on my nanny cam.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I\u2019m going to send you \u2014 I have a sheet of 21 things you need to clean up. I used to work for a company called insight training seminars, and if you were a trainer, you had to clean all that up because you had to be living that you were complete and you couldn\u2019t teach it if you weren\u2019t living it. So basically think about it, financial records, your checkbook, now balance, stuff in your car, clothes that don\u2019t fit anymore. I mean people go \u2014 you could go down a list of all that stuff. I literally had to go through my clothes at one point. I\u2019m a shirt whore. I love shorts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s another thing we have in common. No, I have so many t-shirts. It\u2019s just unacceptable. It\u2019s indefensible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I know, I know. But I had to go through and clean it out because it got to a point where I couldn\u2019t even put anything in the closet. And so the rule is if I haven\u2019t worn it in the last 60 days and it\u2019s not a tuxedo or something like that, it\u2019s gone. So there\u2019s a lot of the \u2014 I love all the decluttering books that are out there and all that kind of stuff. One person said, \u201cGo through your house, take everything you haven\u2019t used in the last 30 days. Put it in a box, label the box what\u2019s in it.\u201d And if another 120 days go by and you haven\u2019t used it, just throw it out because you\u2019re never going to use it again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, I\u2019ll tell you a dirty little secret, which is I moved eight years ago from San Francisco to Austin and I moved all my stuff from California into storage because there was a gap where I was shopping for a place and I didn\u2019t have anywhere to put all this stuff. It has been sitting in storage, all that stuff for eight years, and I get a bill for it every month. And I\u2019m like, \u201cI should go down and take a look at that.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cI cannot allow myself to look at that stuff because I\u2019m going to want to keep all this junk that I haven\u2019t needed in eight years.\u201d So it\u2019s my ignorance is bliss approach. It\u2019s a small tax to pay at this point. Oh, yeah, stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>George Carlin does a really good routine on stuff if you can find it. It\u2019s really amazing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, I will find it. George Carlin, what a genius. Also, his late night bit on Heaven and Hell, people can look that up. In Heaven, the French are the cooks, the Japanese the lovers, and this and this. And then in Hell, X, Y, and Z. It\u2019s also worth checking out. But decluttering, the 21 things that I need to clean up, please do send that to me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, I will. I will.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Is that something we could share in the show notes for this episode for other people?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay. All right. Perfect.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>I think it\u2019s even a page in my book. If not, I\u2019ll get it for you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right, perfect. Jack, we\u2019ve covered a ton of ground. I don\u2019t want to take up your entire afternoon on a Friday, but is there anything else that \u2014 I\u2019m not in any rush whatsoever, but is there anything else that you\u2019d like to talk about that we haven\u2019t covered? Anything you\u2019d like to say? Request of my audience? Anything at all that you\u2019d like to bring up that I haven\u2019t already prompted?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Yeah, I would just say self-servingly that if you would like to know more about my work, the book that Tim talked about, it was found in his 20th anniversary edition, <em>The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be<\/em>. It\u2019s really the basis of everything I do. If you haven\u2019t read the <em>Chicken Soup<\/em> book, start with the first one. It\u2019s really brilliant. One thing I did, Tim, I haven\u2019t done it for all my books, but I did with that book, I literally after we probably edited every story five or six times, went out to Colorado to a ski resort in the summer, took three days, read every story out loud. Because what I know is when most people read, they\u2019re sub vocalizing in their brain. They\u2019re not speed reading.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>And if it didn\u2019t sound as one of my actors says coming trippingly off the tongue, I would rewrite it. And that book went on to sell 105 million copies. So basically, I think that was a good thing to do. So I always tell people, like you said, get feedback, but also read it out loud. How does it sound to you? And then make sure you get \u2014 I always say get feedback from at least 20 people. First <em>Teenage Soul<\/em> book, we had an entire high school suspend classes for a day. Over 1,000 kids read all the stories. So we had an Excel spreadsheet. They all graded every story on a scale of one to 10. And that book went on to sell, I think, six million copies or something like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>So feedback. I love what Ken Blanchard says, \u201cFeedback is the breakfast of champions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Feedback is the breakfast of champions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Most people avoid feedback because they\u2019re afraid of what they\u2019re going to hear. And you\u2019ve got to know that \u2014 we call it constructive feedback. But anyway, so I would read that book, go to my website, jackcanfield.com. There\u2019s all kinds of things there you might be interested. And it\u2019s interesting, I normally say this, but last night for some reason I was looking up something and I couldn\u2019t remember it. I thought it was. There\u2019s a guy named Nick Nanton. He did a documentary of my life called <em>The Soul of Success<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I went in there to find one little thing and, I don\u2019t know, call it egotistic or whatever, I watched the whole hour on YouTube. It\u2019s free. Just go to The<em> Soul of Success<\/em> on YouTube and you\u2019ll see one of the most amazing documentaries ever made, I think, because he\u2019s an Emmy-winning documentarian, really good thing. So that\u2019ll give you some information about some of the stuff Tim and I talked about that maybe we didn\u2019t go deep enough on. And that\u2019s about it, I would say.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And we\u2019ll link to everything we\u2019ve discussed in the show notes. Jack Canfield also, just to reiterate the spelling, C-A-N-F-I-E-L-D, jackcanfield.com. You can find all that. We\u2019ll of course link to everything as per usual in the show notes at tim.blog\/podcast for everybody including the 21 things to clean up. It\u2019s going to ride hard on my OCD, which is properly diagnosed. I\u2019m not just making that up as a swipe against OCD folks. Big shocker to anyone who actually knows me. I\u2019m kidding.<\/p>\n<p>But what I will say as we wind to a close, Jack, is that you\u2019ve had a huge impact on my life. Your work has had an impact. You personally have had an impact. You\u2019ve been so gracious, so patient. I don\u2019t know if you remember this, but I remember when I was volunteering at that event, S phase. I had all the speakers. I had some type of waiver because I wanted to record everything. And the waiver was, I\u2019m sure all sweeping and full encompassing of everything because I\u2019d probably gotten it online somehow. I remember you had your glasses on and you pulled down the glasses like a very patient parent, and you\u2019re like, \u201cTimothy, I have some questions about this release.\u201d And then you scratched everything out. You scratched a bunch of nonsense out and you signed it.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve had an incredible impact on my career, and I just want to thank you for all of that and for what you offer to the world as an eternal student and as a teacher.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, thank you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I really appreciate you taking the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jack Canfield: <\/strong>Well, I\u2019ve enjoyed this. One of the best podcasts I\u2019ve ever been on, so thank you.<strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, my pleasure. Least I can do. And I\u2019ll say it one more time, everybody who\u2019s listening, we will link to everything in the show notes, tim.blog\/podcast. Just search Canfield, C-A-N-F-I-E-L-D and it will pop right up. Until next time, be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others, but also to yourself. Thanks for tuning in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Jack Canfield (@JackCanfield), known as America\u2019s #1 Success Coach. Jack is a bestselling author, professional speaker, trainer, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}