Selling 600+ Million Books, Success Principles, and More — Jack Canfield

1. 0:00 – 0:42

   Preview

   1. JCJack Canfield0:00

      Yeah, I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden this chalkboard appears, green chalkboard like in school, and a hand comes out and writes Chicken Soup in script on it. And I said to the hand, "What the hell does chicken soup have to do with this book?" And a voice said back, "When you were a kid, your grandmother gave you chicken soup when you were sick." And I thought, "But this is not a book on sick people." And the voice answered back, "People's spirits are sick. They're in resignation, hopelessness and fear." So I went Chicken Soup for the Soul, and I got goosebumps.

   2. TFTim Ferriss0:29

      [chuckles]

   3. JCJack Canfield0:30

      Told my wife, she got goosebumps. Told Mark, he got goosebumps. Called our agent, he got goosebumps. Went to New York, met with 21 publishers, seven a day for three days. Nobody got goosebumps. [laughs]

   4. TFTim Ferriss0:41

      [laughs]

2. 0:42 – 3:47

   How a single “yes” from Jack shaped my career.

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:42

      Jack, Jack, Jack, it is so good to see you.

   2. JCJack Canfield0:45

      Glad to see you, my friend.

   3. TFTim Ferriss0:46

      And I'm so thrilled that, that you're here and that we're seeing each other again.

   4. JCJack Canfield0:50

      Yeah, this is fun.

   5. TFTim Ferriss0:51

      It has been a long time, and as I warned you before we started recording, I said, "I really doubt people in my audience have the full context or even partial context, so I want 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 Steven Hansomen who became my book agent. At the time, he was a f- 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. But there's even more backstory that I have to share with folks. That would've been 2005, 2006. I was around 27, 28 at the time. Much earlier, this would've been when I just moved to Silicon Valley, I was riding around in my mom's hand-me-down POS minivan, which was broken in every way imaginable, listening to Personal Power II on cassette tape to and from my job as I commuted on 101. I was eating at Jack in the Box in the parking lot of a Safeway a couple nights a week 'cause that's what I could afford. [laughs] 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, "Wow, this kid really likes working for free. Let's give him more responsibility. Hey, would you like to organize some speakers for our main event?" And I thought to myself, "Absolutely. This is a great way for me to meet some of my heroes." And I invited Trip Hawkins of Electronic Arts, I invited you because of the phenom, of course we'll talk about it, but Chicken Soup for the Soul. 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'm so happy to have you on the podcast, so thank you for all of that. It's just... It's-- These are these sliding door moments where there's no way I could play the alternative, but the what if certainly looms large. What if you hadn't said yes to come to that event? What if I hadn't reached out and said, "Jack, all these notes I have from this lecture I've been giving to this high c- tech entrepreneurship class, is there anything here?" And frankly, I hoped you would say no because I didn't want to write a book, and you were like, "Actually, I think there's something here," and before I could say anything you started making introductions, and here we are. So thank you for everything, Jack. I really appreciate it.

   6. JCJack Canfield3:35

      Let me just say, you're someone who knows how to take advantage of an opportunity. [laughs] You've done really well. [laughs]

   7. TFTim Ferriss3:42

      [laughs] You know, you gotta take your shot when you can take your shot.

   8. JCJack Canfield3:45

      That's right.

   9. TFTim Ferriss3:46

      It's been one hell of a ride,

3. 3:47 – 5:38

   A contract lesson: How Chicken Soup for the Soul sold millions in China with zero royalties.

   1. TFTim Ferriss3:47

      so I'm thrilled to have you on. And I was looking through some of the materials beforehand. We're gonna 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, [laughs] the story behind more than 300 million copies sold in China. How does that happen?

   2. JCJack Canfield4:11

      Well-

   3. TFTim Ferriss4:12

      Because I'm imagining chicken soup does not have the same connotation over there, so I d- I don't even know if the title's the same.

   4. JCJack Canfield4:18

      Well, what happened is a company called Anhui Publishing, and they decided to publish the book. And what's 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.

   5. TFTim Ferriss4:34

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JCJack Canfield4:34

      So they decided to make it a textbook to teach English to kids in high school with-

   7. TFTim Ferriss4:39

      Oh, wow

   8. JCJack Canfield4:39

      ... 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't see one penny of millions of books sold. [laughs]

   9. TFTim Ferriss4:53

      [laughs]

   10. JCJack Canfield4:53

       So I learned how to write better contracts in the future.

   11. TFTim Ferriss4:55

       [laughs]

   12. JCJack Canfield4:56

       But the, the fact is, a lot of Chinese people have had major transformations because of the books have taken off, and they have sold then in the general public as a result of kids learning about them 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 gotta be really, really careful when you're in... When you're interacting with the Chinese and making deals, they're very, very clever. [laughs]

   13. TFTim Ferriss5:21

       You gotta be, you gotta be careful.

   14. JCJack Canfield5:24

       Yeah.

   15. TFTim Ferriss5:24

       There is an expression, I'm not gonna say that everyone uses this, but in Chinese, which is 能 够 骗 就 骗 , which is "If you can trick them, then you should trick them." And [laughs] -

   16. JCJack Canfield5:33

       [laughs]

   17. TFTim Ferriss5:33

       ... not saying everyone subscribes to that, but you gotta have-

   18. JCJack Canfield5:36

       Right

   19. TFTim Ferriss5:36

       ... your wits about you.

   20. JCJack Canfield5:37

       Yeah.

   21. TFTim Ferriss5:37

       For sure.

4. 5:38 – 8:35

   Jack’s background: From poverty to Harvard.

   1. JCJack Canfield5:38

      That's right.

   2. TFTim Ferriss5:39

      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 a bit for folks just The basics of where you grew up, what you learned or didn't learn from parents or household, things of that type.

   3. JCJack Canfield6:07

      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, uh, so from the time I was born till the time I was six, we lived in three different states with, you know, on military bases. I don't 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. 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, my stepfather, who had just come out of the Navy. I grew up poor. You know, we were not wealthy at all. And so my father was one of these people, when I went off to college, my stepfather, he, he said to me... He gave me $20. He looked over me in the eye and he said, "Now, there's that." He says, "If you need a helping hand, look at the end of your own arm. There'll be no more gifts coming from me." [laughs]

   4. TFTim Ferriss7:06

      [laughs]

   5. JCJack Canfield7:06

      So, okay. So I learned early on. You know, I, I worked my way through high school. I was a lifeguard at the country club pool. So I was always... I had this thing I was in but not of. I was in the country club meeting girls whose parents were, but I wasn't of that. And I went to a private military school from the fifth grade till I graduated high school. My rich aunt had a son named Jack who died. If I was... You talk about kismet and fate, if my name was Bob, we'd not be talking right now. But because I was Jack-

   6. TFTim Ferriss7:35

      Hmm

   7. JCJack Canfield7:35

      ... 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, again, I was in but I wasn't of. I wasn't a doctor's son. I didn't... You know, the president of the guy who owned the, the Cadillac dealership. That was not my, my crowd. Yet I got to hang out with those kids and eventually got into Harvard, uh, on a scholarship to play football. I was a football player. I was honorable mention all-state. I was an end, all that kind of stuff. And I grew up thinking, you know, you gotta work really, really hard, which I did. I worked my way through Harvard. I cut grass. I cleaned the dorms. I did all... Got up and served food at 6:00 in the morning and then fell asleep immediately in French class. [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss8:16

      [laughs]

   9. JCJack Canfield8:16

      I was so tired, you know?

   10. TFTim Ferriss8:18

       Yeah.

   11. JCJack Canfield8:18

       I remember one day, I'm totally asleep in this class at 9:00 in the morning, and this professor comes over and he shakes me awake and he says, "You can leave now. The class is over." [laughs]

   12. TFTim Ferriss8:30

       [laughs] That's a very understanding comment from the teacher.

   13. JCJack Canfield8:32

       I know. I know. Well, whatever.

   14. TFTim Ferriss8:34

       [laughs]

5. 8:35 – 10:00

   Discovering Chinese history and the “easy A” that changed everything.

   1. JCJack Canfield8:35

      And then I maj- I, I majored... This is interesting. I majored in Chinese history, which is interesting why. Uh, 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... My freshman year, I got all Cs in everything. Here I was, A student in high school, get to Harvard. I always say I graduated in the half of the class that made the top half possible, you know? So-

   2. TFTim Ferriss8:57

      [laughs]

   3. JCJack Canfield8:58

      ... there were a lot of smart, smart kids there, valedictorians from their schools. And I said to my counselor, "I need, I need an easy A for my sophomore year." He says, "Well, this guy, he used to be the ambassador to China. He gives everyone an A. Why don't you take his class?"

   4. TFTim Ferriss9:10

      [laughs]

   5. JCJack Canfield9:11

      And he knew Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong. He had slides of everything, you know. And I got the A. But I fell in love with Chinese history for some weird reason.

   6. TFTim Ferriss9:19

      Hmm.

   7. JCJack Canfield9:19

      So that was my major. So I always tell people, "Prepared me really, really well to do the work I do." It had nothing to do with it. [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss9:26

      [laughs]

   9. JCJack Canfield9:27

      My senior year, I took an elective class. I said, "I need another easy A." And someone said, "Take Soc Rel 10." Soc Rel, Social Relations 10. It's an encounter group. You just sit in there and talk about your feelings and everybody gets an A. So I went over there and I took the class, and I fell in love with human potential. Oh my God.

   10. TFTim Ferriss9:44

       Hmm.

   11. JCJack Canfield9:44

       There's this thing called psychology and people and human behavior and feelings and, you know, motivation. So I said, "Well, how do I get into that?" They said, "Well, it's a little late. You would've... To get into psychology, you had to have studied as an undergraduate," and I hadn't. And they said, "Well, you could sneak into psychology through education."

6. 10:00 – 13:38

   Winning “Teacher of the Year” teaching Black history.

   1. JCJack Canfield10:00

      So I went to the University of Chicago, got a master's degree in education, taught in an all-Black inner city high school for two years, and, you know, got Teacher of the Year my first year, and, you know, became... I went to get to Jesse Jackson's church. I became friends with people in the jazz community. Really got deeply... I would say probably for a year, I, I almost wished I was Black, 'cause I thought white people are milquetoast, and these Black guys, they got-

   2. TFTim Ferriss10:25

      [laughs]

   3. JCJack Canfield10:25

      ... they got energy and the poetry and the songs and the music and the dancing and the anger and the fear and all that. So then basically I started realizing my students were not motivated. They didn't believe they could learn, 'cause they were Black in the inner city and they didn't 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... He was worth $600 million in 1968, which is when I was there.

   4. TFTim Ferriss10:55

      That's wild.

   5. JCJack Canfield10:56

      His best friend was Napoleon Hill, who wrote Think and Grow Rich. And together, they wrote a book together. And then also he wrote a book called The Success System That Never Failed. And that's 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.

   6. TFTim Ferriss11:14

      Jack, could I pause you for a second?

   7. JCJack Canfield11:16

      Oh, please. Do.

   8. TFTim Ferriss11:16

      'Cause there are so many different avenues we can go down here.

   9. JCJack Canfield11:19

      Sure.

   10. TFTim Ferriss11:19

       I wanna come back to W. Clement Stone. $600 million. Just, we'll come back to that, 'cause that's a mind-boggling number, especially at, for that point in time, but any time even now. [laughs] 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?

   11. JCJack Canfield11:39

       I think what happened was this school probably five years earlier was all white and Jewish, and then there was this Black invasion, they would call it, into the community, and there was this white flight out to the suburbs. So what happened was a lot of the teachers didn't really wanna be there. They wanted to go with-

   12. TFTim Ferriss11:56

       Mm-hmm

   13. JCJack Canfield11:56

       ... the, 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't treat the kids very well.

   14. TFTim Ferriss12:03

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JCJack Canfield12:04

       And the other thing is nobody was teaching African American history. I was teaching history And, you know, American history and world history. And I b- I found a book called Before the Mayflower, and it was by a guy named Rome Bennett, and it was a book about African American history. It's 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's always written by the victors, so basically White history is our history.

   16. TFTim Ferriss12:30

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JCJack Canfield12:30

       And they didn't know any of this stuff. 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.

   18. TFTim Ferriss12:42

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JCJack Canfield12:43

       And then they started an African American club, African American studies club. They asked me if I'd be their 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't know that much about swimming. I had swum competitively in high school and was a waterfront instructor at summer camps in Maine and teach kids to swim and all that kind of stuff. 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'd get them into pairs and have them do... go back and forth, say, "I can't." Then I'd have them go replace the, the sentence with "I won't." Now, which feels stronger? Which feels more true? Which is, you know... And they go, "Yeah, can't's really a victim word." So I was doing maybe 10 minutes of that every day along with teaching my history.

   20. TFTim Ferriss13:30

       Mm.

   21. JCJack Canfield13:30

       And I think that's kinda why. The big moment for me, this is so cool. You know, you have these little moments in life where you get affirmation from outside.

7. 13:38 – 14:13

   High praise from Sammy Davis Jr.

   1. JCJack Canfield13:38

      So Sammy Davis Jr. was at school. He was gonna do a talk to the kids. He'd written a book called I Can, and he was there when I got the award. They gave me the award the same day, and I'm walking off stage and he looked at me and he said, "You must be really cool to have gotten that award from those kids." And I, I think I lived on that for days. [laughs]

   2. TFTim Ferriss13:58

      [laughs] I mean, that's a hell of a compliment from a hell of a-

   3. JCJack Canfield14:00

      Yeah

   4. TFTim Ferriss14:01

      ... hell of a person and a hell of an entertainer.

   5. JCJack Canfield14:03

      Yeah, and you're like t- 22 years old or something, you know, it's a big deal.

   6. TFTim Ferriss14:07

      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.

8. 14:13 – 18:08

   W. Clement Stone: The $600 million mentor who turned motivation into a science (and insurance).

   1. JCJack Canfield14:13

      Right.

   2. TFTim Ferriss14:13

      So if we flash forward to W. Clement Stone, how did he make $600 million? It's just, again, I, I... not to fixate on that, but I mean, that's a non-trivial sum of money.

   3. JCJack Canfield14:24

      Three ways. Number one, he started a insurance company called Combined Insurance, and it was really low premiums. In other words, the, the price you paid for it.

   4. TFTim Ferriss14:32

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JCJack Canfield14:33

      And he believed everybody could afford something, and he wanted to insure the people that often wouldn't 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 a training system. This is so cool. Think about this. So here's the training system. He'd tell them what to do, you know, maybe a one-day class. He said, "Now we're gonna go tomorrow and I'm gonna go in..." He's teaching these kids who never graduated college to sell to CEOs of banks and companies. It, it was intimidating for them.

   6. TFTim Ferriss15:02

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JCJack Canfield15:03

      He said, "We're gonna go in. I'm gonna make a sale, at least a presentation. You watch what I did." And so goes in, they do the, the presentation. Either sold or didn't. They go out for coffee afterwards. "What did you notice I did?" "You did this, you did this, you did this." "Okay, but you missed that. Next time, watch that." They go in, they do it again. Do that about three or four times in the morning, and on the fourth time they're going in and he just turns to the kid and he goes, "This one's yours." [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss15:29

      [laughs]

   9. JCJack Canfield15:29

      He just stepped back. And the kid, maybe he made it, maybe he blew it, but afterwards they go out and say, "Okay, you missed two things. We're gonna go to the next one. Watch me do those two things." Next one, he go, "This is yours." By the end of the day, they knew how to sell.

   10. TFTim Ferriss15:41

       That's incredible.

   11. JCJack Canfield15:43

       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, it's a big area where they, you know, bring beef in and they were processing beef all those days, and it's also a big central distribution point for everything. There's a place, it's 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, "Can I buy the air rights over the railroad tracks?" And they said, "Sure." So if you go to that part of Chicago, there are all these buildings over the tracks, which he got a hundred-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.

   12. TFTim Ferriss16:44

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JCJack Canfield16:44

       So a lot of it was investment, and then he also produced a Success magazine started by W. Clement Stone.

   14. TFTim Ferriss16:52

       Mm.

   15. JCJack Canfield16:52

       And he was a speaker, he had books he sold, and the magazine... Og Mandino, who wrote The Greatest Salesman.

   16. TFTim Ferriss16:59

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JCJack Canfield17:00

       So I'm working in the Stone Foundation at one point, so I quit teaching. I worked for Stone.

   18. TFTim Ferriss17:05

       Why did you quit teaching?

   19. JCJack Canfield17:06

       Because Stone offered me a job. [laughs]

   20. TFTim Ferriss17:08

       Oh, okay. [laughs]

   21. JCJack Canfield17:10

       Stone said, "We have this achievement motivation program. We're teaching teachers to do it, to go into the schools. We don't have anyone with i- inner city experience. You do. Would you come work for me?" And it was, like, more than I was making as a teacher and I went, "Yeah, okay." And it's him, right? So working for him was amazing. He just took everybody under his wing, loved them. Imagine you're young, you're 23 maybe, and he says to you, "Work in my foundation. Go teach this stuff. If there's any training you ever wanna take anywhere, it's on me. Go for it." I took 37 weekend workshops that year. [laughs]

   22. TFTim Ferriss17:45

       [laughs] You're the edge case he has to budget for.

   23. JCJack Canfield17:47

       Yeah.

   24. TFTim Ferriss17:48

       [laughs]

   25. JCJack Canfield17:48

       It was like a grant from the, the government or something. So I took all these workshops, you know, everything from 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... I learned so much by being in his

9. 18:08 – 19:14

   Stone’s challenge: Take 100% responsibility and stop watching TV (a 14-month year hack).

   1. JCJack Canfield18:08

      presence, you know? I'll tell you a story. So I got an intake interview first day, and he says to me, "Do you take 100% responsibility for your life?" And I said, "Uh, I don't know." He said, "It's a yes or no answer, son. Think." [laughs]

   2. TFTim Ferriss18:22

      [laughs]

   3. JCJack Canfield18:22

      I said, "Well, based on I don't even understand it, probably no." He says, "Do, do you ever blame anybody for anything?" "Yeah." "Do you complain about anything?" "Yeah." "Do you ever make excuses why you didn't achieve something?" "Yeah." "You don't take 100% responsibility." So he introduced me to the whole concept of 100% responsibility, and then he said to me, "Do you watch television?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "How many hours a day?" I said, "I don't know. Good Morning America, the news, maybe a movie at night, you know, 11 o'clock or something like that." He said, "That's three hours a day. Just cut out an hour a day." I said, "Why?" He said, "Because that'll give you 365 additional hours a year to be productive. Divide that by a 40-hour work week, that's nine and a half weeks. That'll give you a 14-month year. You'll be much more competitive than all the people in your field if you do that." So I did that. [laughs] You know, he was teaching me in the freaking in- interview, like, you know?

   4. TFTim Ferriss19:12

      Mm-hmm. [laughs]

   5. JCJack Canfield19:13

      So it was, it

10. 19:14 – 22:17

    From visualizing $100,000 to a million.

    1. JCJack Canfield19:14

       was cool.

    2. TFTim Ferriss19:14

       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?

    3. JCJack Canfield19:31

       He challenged me 'cause, I mean, as an educator, I was probably making, back then, 30,000 a year if I was lucky. You know, that was like-

    4. TFTim Ferriss19:39

       Mm-hmm

    5. JCJack Canfield19:39

       ... now people make a lot more, inflation. But what happens is he said, "I wanna challenge you to make $100,000 a year, and if you do it, it's only because of what I taught you." And he taught me to set goals, to believe in them, to visualize it, like, as if it's already happening, have an affirmation, "I'm so happy and grateful, I'm now..." whatever. And I started doing that, and I took the goal of $100,000 seriously. And every morning I'd wake up and I'd put 100... Oh, I put a $100,000 bill on the ceiling that I didn't 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... Remember overhead projectors?

    6. TFTim Ferriss20:21

       Sure.

    7. JCJack Canfield20:21

       I projected it onto a piece of flip chart paper, traced it, added some extra zeros-

    8. TFTim Ferriss20:26

       [laughs]

    9. JCJack Canfield20:27

       ... and then I put that on the ceiling. Every morning I wake up, I see that, say my affirmation, which went at that time, "God is my infinite supply and large sums of money come to me quickly and easily as I earn $100,000 a year." And maybe a month or two into it, I'm in the shower, and I had a $100,000 idea 'cause I'd written a book called 100 Ways to Enhance Self-Concept in the Classroom, and I used to get a quarter, 25 cents, for every book that got sold. I said, "Wow, sell 400,000 books, I get $100,000." That was my first $100,000 idea.

    10. TFTim Ferriss21:00

        Mm-hmm.

    11. JCJack Canfield21:01

        So to make a long story short, 'cause I could do a half hour on that story, I literally started to sell more books. I started a bookstore, literally a mail-order bookstore where you could buy my book and had one product. And then my wife at the time said, "You know, we're selling that book." I know what happened. She had ordered something in the mail, and if you ever order something in the mail and it comes, and then there's like five flyers for other products they have in the, in the box.

    12. TFTim Ferriss21:29

        Yeah, sure.

    13. JCJack Canfield21:29

        She had done that. She said, "Why don't we sell other people's stuff?" So we'd added other product, and I hired a high school kid to come in after school and to sell the books, you know, ship them out and so forth. So long story short, I did not make $100,000. I made $92,328. But I went like-

    14. TFTim Ferriss21:46

        [laughs]

    15. JCJack Canfield21:46

        ... "Okay, this is a success." [laughs]

    16. TFTim Ferriss21:49

        [laughs] Yeah.

    17. JCJack Canfield21:50

        Then my wife says, "Do you think it'd work for a million?" I said, "Only one way to find out." So literally we set a million-dollar goal, and that happened with Chicken Soup for the Soul the second year. I got four checks, Tim. You know this 'cause of your success with the books. The first time you get a check for a million dollars for three months royalties, you go like, "Are you kidding me?" [laughs] You know, it's like-

    18. TFTim Ferriss22:11

        [laughs]

    19. JCJack Canfield22:12

        ... it changed my life, you know?

    20. TFTim Ferriss22:13

        Yeah, I mean, that's a juggernaut of a success, but

11. 22:17 – 24:06

    Chicken Soup origins.

    1. TFTim Ferriss22:17

       people probably don't realize quite how much rejection went into that. [laughs] But maybe we could start at the beginning, in [laughs] at least the Genesis story. Where did Chicken Soup for the Soul come from? I mean, people have seen... E- everyone listening has seen this book at some point, chances are, unless they're 18 perhaps and have, like, [laughs] never been into a dentist's office or a physician's office or an airport or fill in the blank, right?

    2. JCJack Canfield22:44

       Right.

    3. TFTim Ferriss22:44

       I mean, it's ubiquitous. How did it start?

    4. JCJack Canfield22:47

       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 Jet Magazine or Ebony Magazine, the kids would pay attention. So stories capture us, and all the great teachers, Buddha, Jesus, we know they, they told stories and parables and so forth. So one day somebody said, "That 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." I went, "No." And over a course of, like, two months, I must have had four people a day say, "That story in a book, that story in a book, that story in a book." So I'm coming home on a plane from Boston to LA, where I was living at the time, and I, I said, "How many stories do I really know?" 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's a book." So I made an agreement-

    5. TFTim Ferriss23:53

       Mm-hmm

    6. JCJack Canfield23:53

       ... that every night I would write, 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'd have 101 stories, you know, 108, whatever. So I did that, and

12. 24:06 – 25:45

    Mark Victor Hansen joins.

    1. JCJack Canfield24:07

       when I was about, I don't know, five, six 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, The Inside Edge it was called. And so Mark said, "What are you working on?" I said, "I'm writing this book." And he said, "You should let me finish it with you." I went, "That's like telling Stephen King you should be his co-author because he's five-sixths of the way through the book. How do you justify that?" He says, "Well, some of the stories you tell you stole from me."

    2. TFTim Ferriss24:40

       [laughs]

    3. JCJack Canfield24:42

       [laughs] I said, "Maybe three, Mark. Come on." And he said, "But I'm a much better salesperson than you. I'll be the upfront voice person." I said, "Well, get me 30 more stories and we'll talk." I had 70 at that time.

    4. TFTim Ferriss24:53

       [laughs]

    5. JCJack Canfield24:54

       So he said, he said, "Okay." Came back, he did it. So basically, it was a marriage made in heaven 'cause he really was good at getting the word out. We were in a mall once... Believe this, Tim. We're in a mall with these... I think it was B. Dalton Bookstores. They were in a lot of the malls.

    6. TFTim Ferriss25:11

       Yeah, I remember B. Dalton.

    7. JCJack Canfield25:12

       Yeah.

    8. TFTim Ferriss25:13

       Mm-hmm.

    9. JCJack Canfield25:13

       And so we're doing a book signing, and there's nobody there.

    10. TFTim Ferriss25:15

        [laughs]

    11. JCJack Canfield25:16

        So Mark goes out into the mall, and he just starts walking up and down the mall yelling, "Are you guys crazy? There's a book signing in B. Dalton right now with these two amazing authors about the best book in the world. Y'all should be in there."

    12. TFTim Ferriss25:27

        [laughs]

    13. JCJack Canfield25:28

        And so he's 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, like, gasped. You know, like, "You're the guy who was in the hall."

    14. TFTim Ferriss25:39

        [laughs]

    15. JCJack Canfield25:39

        Like, he would do that. I was too shy to do that, so [laughs] it worked out really well.

13. 25:45 – 27:56

    144 rejections later.

    1. JCJack Canfield25:45

       But you know, you talked about rejection. We were turned down by 144 publishers once we had a manuscript and took us over a year to sell the book.

    2. TFTim Ferriss25:54

       You know, when I think about that story and I think about, you know, The 4-Hour Workweek, 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. Maybe, tell me if this resonates or not, but the reason... Like, you can have a bad idea that gets rejected, right? Just because something gets rejected a lot doesn't mean it's a good idea.

    3. JCJack Canfield26:17

       Right.

    4. TFTim Ferriss26:17

       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 these stories also in front of audiences.

    5. JCJack Canfield26:30

       Right.

    6. TFTim Ferriss26:30

       And people had been asking you, "Where can I read this in a book?"

    7. JCJack Canfield26:34

       Yeah.

    8. TFTim Ferriss26:34

       But was there anything else that contributed to the perseverance to go through that many rejections?

    9. JCJack Canfield26:40

       I think it's what you just said for us, too, 'cause 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-

    10. TFTim Ferriss26:52

        Mm-hmm

    11. JCJack Canfield26:52

        ... 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 wanna call up and tell your mother, "I gotta read you this story." 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's a copy of something that already worked.

    12. TFTim Ferriss27:14

        [laughs] Sure.

    13. JCJack Canfield27:17

        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, like, get engaged with the characters and really, like, go, you know, get involved, whereas all these stories were in categories like on love, on overcoming obstacles, you know, grief and so forth, that are the human things that everybody lives with, which this is why they're so touched by it, and we just knew to stick with it, you know? And we would've self-published eventually, and I would've made a lot more money, but I didn't really wanna be a publisher. I wanted to be a speaker and a writer.

14. 27:56 – 30:32

    The ABA miracle.

    1. JCJack Canfield27:56

       [laughs]

    2. TFTim Ferriss27:56

       I'm gonna read something here. You can tell me if, if this needs some fact-checking, but this is from Thrive Global. This is a Q&A with you. So here we go. It's just a paragraph. "Eventually 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, 'We'll read the manuscript.' Some people wouldn't even take it, and they read it, in this case, and loved it, and they said they'd publish it. We said, 'How many books do you think you'll sell?'" And this is their response: "Oh, 20,000 if you're lucky." And then your response... I think this is you: "Well, we wanna sell a million and a half in a year and a half," I said. [laughs] "This employee laughed, and then a year and a half later, we'd sold 1.3 million copies." 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's a lot of elbow grease behind it. So two things. Well, actually, it's, guess it's 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?

    3. JCJack Canfield29:13

       Yeah, no, we were doing the mindset work. I always say it's mindset, skill set, and ready, set, go. The set, go, I just wanted another set. Uh, it's take action. It's action. So someone had told us that the book The Road Less Traveled, the author of that book had done five interviews a day for the first year. Five interviews a day. Scott Peck. And that book was on The New York Times list for 12 years, 512 weeks I think, yeah.

    4. TFTim Ferriss29:37

       That's a long time. [laughs]

    5. JCJack Canfield29:38

       Yeah, I think it's a record. I mean, you, you were really close, I think. Maybe you still are. I don't know.

    6. TFTim Ferriss29:43

       [laughs]

    7. JCJack Canfield29:44

       But the reality was I thought, "Well, if that's what worked, let's do it." So Mark and I actually had gone to five best-selling authors and then read about Scott Peck, and we talked to John Gray, who wrote Men Are from Mars. We talked to Ken Blanchard, who wrote The One Minute Manager. 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, "What should we do?" And they all said, "Do as many interviews as possible. Get in front of everybody." I know you did the, the blogger thing, which was brilliant.

    8. TFTim Ferriss30:14

       Mm-hmm.

    9. JCJack Canfield30:14

       We did the radio thing. Now it's, I think-

    10. TFTim Ferriss30:17

        Mm-hmm

    11. JCJack Canfield30:17

        ... podcasts are better than radio, I always tell new authors, because the people listening to them, they're your audience. There's a focus, whereas radio may have a bigger reach, but not everybody's your audience.

    12. TFTim Ferriss30:28

        Mm-hmm.

    13. JCJack Canfield30:28

        But anyway, five a day every day

15. 30:32 – 32:31

    The Rule of Five.

    1. JCJack Canfield30:32

       For a year. So we, we created what we called the Rule of Five. There's a book by John Cramer called the How to Sell a Million Books, something like that.

    2. TFTim Ferriss30:41

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JCJack Canfield30:41

       It's 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 the 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'd take something off and either do it five times or take five Post-its off and do each one time. Call a church. "Can we talk in your church?" Can we... We'd call five PXs in the military and we'd say, "Do... Are you carrying our book? Can I send you one? If you like it, will you carry it?" Call bookstores, "Are you stocking it? Can we send you one? If you like it, will you carry it?" Call them back two weeks later, "Did you get it?" It was, like, nonstop. We were giving talks at churches on, on, you know, Sunday morning, Wednesday night, you know, whatever. The, the ones that have bookstores, we'd do signings. We signed in the parking lot. I spoke at every damn conference there was.

    4. TFTim Ferriss31:28

       [laughs]

    5. JCJack Canfield31:29

       I didn't care where it was or how long it took to get there, if it was there. And we did radio shows that were, like, at 2:00 in the morning. Maybe a trucker driving through Montana will hear it, but maybe he'll like it, maybe he'll buy it. Maybe he'll tell his daughter, and his daughter will tell her friends, and... So literally, it was that level of nonstop activity, and it was interesting because we, we were pretty amped up in the beginning, and we talked to this psychic guy, and he said, "It would be as..." He was entranced. He goes, "It 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, you know?" And we went, "Okay, Rule of Five, that's what we're gonna do." [laughs]

    6. TFTim Ferriss32:13

       [laughs] What prompted the trip to the psychic? Do you remember?

    7. JCJack Canfield32:17

       Yeah, I do. We knew his wife.

    8. TFTim Ferriss32:19

       Mm-hmm.

    9. JCJack Canfield32:20

       And she was a friend of ours, and then he kind of turned psychic, if you will.

    10. TFTim Ferriss32:25

        [laughs]

    11. JCJack Canfield32:25

        He was doing these readings, and they were, they were awesome. So we just thought, "Well, why not? Let's ask

16. 32:31 – 33:55

    Selling The Soul and splurging on sweaters.

    1. JCJack Canfield32:31

       him what we should do."

    2. TFTim Ferriss32:31

       [laughs]

    3. JCJack Canfield32:34

       [laughs]

    4. TFTim Ferriss32:34

       How old were you or what date was this, either one, roughly when the first Chicken Soup for the Soul came out?

    5. JCJack Canfield32:40

       '93.

    6. TFTim Ferriss32:41

       '93.

    7. JCJack Canfield32:41

       And I was born in '44, so what is that? 49 years old? Something like that.

    8. TFTim Ferriss32:46

       And when it hit, right, 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?

    9. JCJack Canfield32:56

       Dramatically.

    10. TFTim Ferriss32:58

        In what ways did that affect your life?

    11. JCJack Canfield33:00

        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't just the money, it was the, the, the confirmation that my intuition, that my passion was correct. You know? You're probably familiar with the concept of ikigai, which comes from the Japanese.

    12. TFTim Ferriss33:29

        Mm-hmm.

    13. JCJack Canfield33:29

        Where if you love to do something, it's 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're passionate about to actually work. In this case, it did. So I thought, "Okay, my purpose is needed. It's gonna work. I can make a living at it." So that was a big confirmation of that, I think, more than anything. And yeah, I bought three sweaters, you know, in different colors and all that kind of stuff.

    14. TFTim Ferriss33:53

        [laughs]

    15. JCJack Canfield33:54

        I went through my nouveau riche

17. 33:55 – 35:58

    The Soup sourced from the universe.

    1. JCJack Canfield33:55

       stage, for sure. [laughs]

    2. TFTim Ferriss33:56

       If the sweaters were the extent of the nouveau riche, [laughs] then I feel like you have very good restraint.

    3. JCJack Canfield34:00

       [laughs]

    4. TFTim Ferriss34:01

       The title itself, Chicken Soup for the Soul, because that ended up to be such an incredible format also for extending that into a million different verticals, right?

    5. JCJack Canfield34:13

       Right.

    6. TFTim Ferriss34:13

       Chicken Soup for the Fill-in-the-blank Soul.

    7. JCJack Canfield34:16

       Yeah.

    8. TFTim Ferriss34:16

       This, I suppose, is a nod to the intuition or unorthodox approaches, but how did that title come to be?

    9. JCJack Canfield34:22

       We had an agent who was gonna s- take us to New York and meet with publishers, and we didn't have a title. So Mark and I said, "Well, we..." We're both meditators, so we said, "Well, let's just meditate and ask the universe, Source, God, whatever you wanna call that energy, for a title." So Mark would go to bed... Mark's really hyper. He'd go to bed chanting, "Make a bestselling title, make a bestselling title, make a bestselling title."

    10. TFTim Ferriss34:46

        [laughs]

    11. JCJack Canfield34:47

        I would just go and I would... Every morning I'd sit for an hour and I'd say, "Okay, God, give me a title." And on Wednesday, two days nothing happened. Third day, I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden this chalkboard appears, green chalkboard like in school, and a hand comes out and writes "Chicken Soup" in script on it. And I said to the hand, "What the hell does chicken soup have to do with this book?" And a voice said back, "When you were a kid, your grandmother gave you chicken soup when you were sick." And I thought, "But this is not a book on sick people." And the voice answered back, "People's spirits are sick. They're in resignation, hopelessness, and fear." 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, "Chicken Soup for the Spirit. No. Chicken Soup for the Soul," and I got goosebumps.

    12. TFTim Ferriss35:43

        [laughs]

    13. JCJack Canfield35:44

        Told my wife. She got goosebumps. Told Mark, called Mark. "What do you think of this?" He got goosebumps. Called our agent. He got goosebumps. Went to New York. Met with 21 publishers, seven a day for three days. Nobody got goosebumps. [laughs]

18. 35:58 – 37:46

    The big break.

    1. TFTim Ferriss35:59

       [laughs]

    2. JCJack Canfield35:59

       So basically, that led to the 144 rejections. And you're right, we went to the American Booksellers Association booth to booth. We had... We're both wearing backpacks full of these spiral-bound, like, 20 stories from the book, the best stories.

    3. TFTim Ferriss36:13

       [laughs]

    4. JCJack Canfield36:13

       "Would you publish this book? Would you be interested in this book?" You know? And most people wouldn't even take one, let alone... And then Peter Vegso, who's the guy who did publish it, you know... And you're right, he said 20,000, and we said no, and he laughed. He laughed out loud at us. And later he said, "Yeah, you know..." He took out an ad in New York on a billboard- Thanking all the publishers that rejected Chicken Soup for the Soul. [laughs]

    5. TFTim Ferriss36:41

       Was it laugh as in, "I don't believe her," or was he like, "That's some chutzpah"?

    6. JCJack Canfield36:45

       No, he laughed 'cause he thought we were fricking crazy. He thought we were-

    7. TFTim Ferriss36:48

       Insane

    8. JCJack Canfield36:48

       ... "You guys are nuts," you know? What happened was the first shipment he made was 800 books to, I think it was Barnes & Noble, might've been Borders, and they sold 80 books the first week. He said, "When you sell one-tenth of your inventory the first week, that's a phenomenon." Next week, 92, the next week, 150. He said something was happening. It just, just shocked him, and they reached a point where literally they had... They started with those presses that do this kind of thing, you know?

    9. TFTim Ferriss37:16

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JCJack Canfield37:16

        And now that, then they had to go to a rotary press like you see in the movies when the newspaper's getting printed, and they had three shifts just doing nothing but printing Chicken Soup for the Soul.

    11. TFTim Ferriss37:26

        Wow.

    12. JCJack Canfield37:27

        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 till later, he said, "Don't take any more orders for delivery in December. I don't want any more revenue for tax purposes this year."

    13. TFTim Ferriss37:42

        [laughs]

19. 37:46 – 40:46

    Word-of-mouth magic.

    1. TFTim Ferriss37:46

       And meanwhile, right, you're following the Rule of Five, you're calling the churches, you're speaking in on Sundays, you're calling the PXs, you're doing all of the things.

    2. JCJack Canfield37:55

       Right.

    3. TFTim Ferriss37:56

       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?

    4. JCJack Canfield38:10

       You know, as far as interviews go, being on Good Morning America definitely made a big difference, being on Fox & Friends. In other words, major national TV shows, which didn't happen immediately. You start out local, and you basically create some reels of you. You know you're someone that can talk, and they'll consider you if they're a producer on the big shows. But those big shows, we'd be on them, and then sales would just boom, you know? But the word of mouth, more than anything, I think, Tim, what we noticed was we'd have these big sales, and then nothing would happen for a week or two, and then there'd be a big sales, and then nothing... And it would take, like, people a week or two to read the book. They'd tell everybody. The word of mouth was crazy, and it was like a chain letter.

    5. TFTim Ferriss38:50

       Mm-hmm.

    6. JCJack Canfield38:50

       It just kept going and going and going and going, geometric progressions. I think the other thing that was really big for us was a company called Skillpath. They were doing... Sometimes you'd get these marketing things that say, you know, "We're gonna be doing a workshop on AI, and we're gonna do it in Davenport, Iowa on Monday, and it will be in the middle of Iowa on Tuesday, and it'll be there." So you have these people running around doing seminars everywhere-

    7. TFTim Ferriss39:18

       Mm-hmm

    8. JCJack Canfield39:18

       ... in little towns that we would never even-

    9. TFTim Ferriss39:20

       Is it like Learning Annex back in the day? Similar or different?

    10. JCJack Canfield39:25

        Well, Learning Annex, and I spoke at those places as well, is similar, but, but here's the value of this. What happened is, let's say you're a trainer for this company. You're going to five cities in Iowa in a week-

    11. TFTim Ferriss39:37

        Mm-hmm

    12. JCJack Canfield39:38

        ... and you're gonna teach the same course, and there's someone else teaching how to communicate with your boss, someone else teaching how to use Excel, whatever. And what happens is that those are places we never would've gone, and in the back of the room they were selling our books.

    13. TFTim Ferriss39:52

        Mm.

    14. JCJack Canfield39:52

        So we got a lot, a lot of book sales in places, and then that word of mouth thing would take over, and it would just keep-

    15. TFTim Ferriss39:57

        Yeah

    16. JCJack Canfield39:57

        ... exploding, exploding, exploding, exploding, exploding. And what's fascinating is I had sent the book to the guy who runs that company and said, you know, "Would you sell this book as part of your back of the room?" 'Cause I knew they did back of the room. Mostly audio programs back then. They were like $60 for six cassettes. And so he said, "Well, I don't know. There's no money in a book," you know, and whatever. So then he was a Christian, and he always led the Wednesday night men's group or something, and he always liked to start with a Bible story. And he gets to the group, and he doesn't have a Bible story in his mind. He opens up his briefcase. There's a Chicken Soup book. He reads the story. It makes him cry. He goes in. He reads the story to his Bible group. They go, "Can you read any more stories?" That night he read seven stories from the book to his Bible group.

    17. TFTim Ferriss40:40

        [laughs]

    18. JCJack Canfield40:40

        And he went, "Maybe I should reconsider." [laughs] So

20. 40:46 – 42:41

    Lessons from live feedback.

    1. JCJack Canfield40:46

       they did.

    2. TFTim Ferriss40:46

       I wanna emphasize something for folks, and this is through my own lens and bias, of course, but part of how you can improve the likelihood of word of mouth with a book like that, or any book really, if you're dealing with especially, I think, nonfiction stories, is practice it in front of live audiences. You just get such valuable feedback. It is not the same. Speaking as someone who's done 800-plus podcast episodes, it's not the same as virtual feedback. You, like, being able to see faces, see when people are getting distracted, see when they're taking notes-

    3. JCJack Canfield41:24

       Mm-hmm

    4. TFTim Ferriss41:25

       ... to hear what they ask you after you're done teaching or presenting, it allows you to refine your material so well. I have thought... Actually, I'm sitting here in Austin, Texas right now, and I've, there, I have an idea for a short book, which of course I've been trying to write a short book for 20 years. I haven't yet succeeded. But I have this idea for a short book, [laughs] and I've 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, "Well, times have changed. Now it's all about TikTok and this and this and this," 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, 'cause I think it's so powerful.

    5. JCJack Canfield42:13

       Well, I never write what I haven't spoken about a lot first for the exact same reason you're talking about, 'cause I get real feedback about what lands, what doesn't land, where did I confuse, where didn't I give them enough information, where was I redundant, you know, et cetera. And people now, they get a book, and they instantly go to create an online course, which they haven't taught live, you know? And at least, at least teach it online live before you just record it, you know, and, and put it online. So yeah, it's, it's crazy what people don't do

21. 42:41 – 44:48

    The burnout years.

    1. JCJack Canfield42:41

       that they should. [laughs]

    2. TFTim Ferriss42:42

       Maybe just put a, a bow on the chapter of Chicken Soup for the Soul. I mean, you've got some crazy accolades related to this, right? The Guinness Book World Record with seven Chicken Soup books on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously. [laughs] That was in 1999. There, there are so many bullet points that I could list off that are just completely nuts, right? When you think back to somebody saying, "Hey, if you sell 20,000 copies, you'd be lucky," and then, and then flashing forward to some of these. You ended up selling the name, the back list, so 220-plus titles, all future royalties, the trademarks, et cetera. How did that happen? How did that come to pass, and why did, why did that happen?

    3. JCJack Canfield43:27

       I think two things. We got kind of 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 like eight or nine books a year because the publisher wanted more because everything has an arc, you know? And so what happened was the success was starting to dwindle. There was a little saturation in the market perhaps. We're niching books now. They don't... Where the first books had universal appeal across the board, when you start doing Sports Fan Soul or Golfer Soul, you know, you start to limit the size of the audience. And so we're doing all these books, and we kinda got tired, and I kinda got burned out at the level of not another one-man... one-armed guy climb Mount Everest story or one-legged, you know, blank. I mean, I should've been inspired, and it was like, "Ugh," [laughs] you know?

    4. TFTim Ferriss44:09

       Yeah. Right.

    5. JCJack Canfield44:10

       Not another, "My mother died, and she loved bluebirds, and a bluebird landed on her windowsill, so I knew it was my mom." And it probably was, but after a while, I'm tired of hearing it, you know?

    6. TFTim Ferriss44:19

       [laughs]

    7. JCJack Canfield44:20

       So I knew I was getting a bit jaded, you know? Like-

    8. TFTim Ferriss44:23

       Yeah. [laughs]

    9. JCJack Canfield44:24

       ... this is not the thing, you know? And also, I think I was tired. So the guy who was the CEO of our company at the time kinda noticed all that and said, "D- would you like to sell it?" I said, "Well, for the right price," you know? 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, it was a good offer. It happened at the right time, so yeah, that's how it happened.

    10. TFTim Ferriss44:46

        And while

22. 44:48 – 46:32

    Life after Chicken Soup.

    1. TFTim Ferriss44:48

       h- let's just say in the... As you're noticing the saturation and the niching down, and when you're checking in with yourself, you don't have a f- a full body yes, right? You're like, "Oh my God, another blueb- bluebird story. I just c- don't know if I can do it." [laughs]

    2. JCJack Canfield45:03

       [laughs]

    3. TFTim Ferriss45:04

       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're like, "Oh my God, what do I do now?" And they have this void that could be really terrifying.

    4. JCJack Canfield45:19

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss45:19

       And I'm just wondering how you thought about what you did after that, and if you already had something in the hopper-

    6. JCJack Canfield45:27

       Yeah

    7. TFTim Ferriss45:27

       ... or if there was another plan.

    8. JCJack Canfield45:29

       During that whole time, I was running seminars, like 300, 400, 500, 600 people seminars, sometimes 700, 800 people in a room. I did one seminar in India that had 7,000 Herbalife people in it for three days on- and they only spoke Tamil. The whole thing was translated, you know?

    9. TFTim Ferriss45:45

       [laughs]

    10. JCJack Canfield45:46

        And so I had that going. That was always happening.

    11. TFTim Ferriss45:48

        Mm.

    12. JCJack Canfield45:48

        And the Chicken Soup was kind of like it was a parallel track to my workshops and my seminars. And so basically, yeah, that was always there. And 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's when, that's when Patty, my, my business partner, said, "You really should consider putting all these success ideas into a book." And that's what led to The Success Principles, which is the second kinda chapter of my life, if you will, in terms of that being... But I was always teaching success ever since W. Clement Stone. Wasn't like I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna quit being a corporate person, and I have no other idea what I'm gonna do," which is-

    13. TFTim Ferriss46:30

        Mm

    14. JCJack Canfield46:30

        ... I can see how it'd be scary.

23. 46:32 – 49:35

    Late-night typing marathons and pun-laden chapter transitions that led to The Success Principles.

    1. TFTim Ferriss46:32

       And I have a first edition copy of The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be because before the 4... I think, when, when was the pub date on The Success Principles?

    2. JCJack Canfield46:46

       2005.

    3. TFTim Ferriss46:47

       2005, right. So it came out two years before The 4-Hour Workweek, and I think I have a brief cameo in there, probably because of the kickboxing stuff-

    4. JCJack Canfield46:56

       Yeah

    5. TFTim Ferriss46:56

       ... or something else.

    6. JCJack Canfield46:57

       I tell that story, yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss46:59

       Yeah, so I have a signed copy at home at my parents' house actually. I keep it right where I can see it. So I've had that ever since. And what was it like stepping into The Success Principles? Were you nervous about that because the bar had been set so high with Chicken Soup for the Soul? Were you able to let go of that? What was that experience like?

    8. JCJack Canfield47:21

       Well, there is a little bit of an identity thing. I became known as the Chicken Soup guy, you know? And I had to, like, let go of that. I mean, some people still see me that way, which is fine.

    9. TFTim Ferriss47:28

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JCJack Canfield47:29

        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, "How long did it take you to write that book?" I'd say, "20 years," 'cause I was collecting all that-

    11. TFTim Ferriss47:40

        [laughs]

    12. JCJack Canfield47:40

        ... all that data about what works in terms of success, you know? And the actual writing took about a year and a half. I would write from about 7:00 at night. Sometimes I'd... All of a sudden I'd hear birds singing, and it would be getting gray out. I'd say, "Oh, my God, I've been up all night typing," you know?

    13. TFTim Ferriss47:55

        [laughs] It's that bluebird again. [laughs] I'm kidding.

    14. JCJack Canfield47:59

        Well, I had a regular job, you know, which was to run my seminars. Fortunately, most of them were on weekends and evenings, but basically, I would go to bed at 7:00 in the morning and sleep till noon, 1:00, then get up and do my business again and then write. And 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. Uh, and I like writing. I like wordsmithing. I'll give you an example. So I have a chapter in there about the guy who wrote Sleepless in Seattle, the movie, and the next chapter is about a guy who is a coffee roaster. It's all about perseverance and not giving up, and he's up in Seattle, and he's roasting... He's l- sleeping on these coffee bean bags 'cause he couldn't afford an apartment. Now he's uber rich, you know. But what happened was one of his major clients was a coffee shop down in Long Beach, California, and he would ship the beans through UPS, and UPS had a strike, and I was able to go, "Wow-" Blah, blah, blah was writing Sleepless in Seattle. In Seattle, this guy was also sleepless. You know, I love that being able to make those-

    15. TFTim Ferriss49:06

        [laughs]

    16. JCJack Canfield49:06

        ... kind of segues and stuff, you know?

    17. TFTim Ferriss49:09

        Yeah. [laughs]

    18. JCJack Canfield49:10

        And then his chapter's called Going the Extra Mile, and basically I said he... W- when the strike happened, he said, "I can't let this guy flounder and not have the beans he needs," and he drove them himself 1,250 miles from-

    19. TFTim Ferriss49:25

        [laughs]

    20. JCJack Canfield49:25

        ... Seattle to Long Beach. And I said, "He was willing to go more than one extra mile. He went 1,250."

    21. TFTim Ferriss49:30

        [laughs]

    22. JCJack Canfield49:32

        Playing with words like that is really fun for me.

    23. TFTim Ferriss49:33

        Mm-hmm.

    24. JCJack Canfield49:34

        Yeah.

24. 49:35 – 50:38

    How Jack’s love of transformation beats any royalty check.

    1. TFTim Ferriss49:35

       What was the reason for continuing to do the seminars? Because you're... Presumably, you'd done very well financially from, as you mentioned, some of the royalties from Chicken Soup for the Soul. 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? Like, why did you keep doing so many in-person events?

    2. JCJack Canfield49:59

       I love doing it. I know you participate in a lot of sports, and you get really good at them fast 'cause of the way you play, but whatever your favorite sport is, you play it 'cause you love it when you're playing it, you know?

    3. TFTim Ferriss50:08

       Yeah. Right.

    4. JCJack Canfield50:08

       And 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. You know, all of a sudden they're coming up and they're saying, "Oh my God," you know? And then watching them name their children after me and write their first book-

    5. TFTim Ferriss50:30

       [laughs]

    6. JCJack Canfield50:31

       ... and, you know, leave shitty marriages and stop-

    7. TFTim Ferriss50:34

       [laughs]

    8. JCJack Canfield50:34

       ... being a, you know, letting their husbands abuse them, and that just...

25. 50:38 – 54:59

    Retirement reflections.

    1. JCJack Canfield50:38

       I love it. I'm kinda sorta retiring right now.

    2. TFTim Ferriss50:40

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JCJack Canfield50:41

       And literally that was the hardest part of that decision, was like... So I had to g- get my wife to agree that I could do X number of workshops a year.

    4. TFTim Ferriss50:49

       [laughs]

    5. JCJack Canfield50:50

       And the other people are doing all the work. I'm 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, you know?

    6. TFTim Ferriss50:58

       What is your age now, Jack?

    7. JCJack Canfield51:00

       81.

    8. TFTim Ferriss51:01

       All right. You are sharp as a razor's edge, and [laughs] I just... I, I have to ask two questions. Number one, what, what do you think contributes to that? Maybe you just t- you also have some fantastic genetics. I don't know. But you're very, very sharp. You have a lot of energy. And then the related question is, and I'm not questioning the decision, but why retire? Why change what you're doing?

    9. JCJack Canfield51:26

       I realized there were things I wanna do that I haven't done. I wanna become a really good chef cook.

    10. TFTim Ferriss51:31

        Mm-hmm.

    11. JCJack Canfield51:31

        I wanna learn how to oil paint. I play guitar mediocrely.

    12. TFTim Ferriss51:34

        Mm-hmm.

    13. JCJack Canfield51:35

        I wanna learn to play the piano. All these kind of hobby things that most people do as they go along in life, I've kinda piled them up [laughs] at the end, you know?

    14. TFTim Ferriss51:43

        [laughs]

    15. JCJack Canfield51:45

        I have a 12-year-old grandson who I absolutely adore, who's the coolest damn kid. He's, he's an old soul kind of kid and amazingly talented. I wanna spend more time with him. I wanna spend more time with my wife. I think I owe her that after all the time she's put up with me being on the road, and I enjoy being with her. And I wanna just explore things because they're fun, not because I need to.

    16. TFTim Ferriss52:07

        Mm-hmm.

    17. JCJack Canfield52:07

        And so I wanna read a book 'cause it interests me, not because I'm getting ready to write something or I'm getting ready to-

    18. TFTim Ferriss52:13

        [laughs]

    19. JCJack Canfield52:13

        ... you know, whatever. It's 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... I'll tell the story real quick. So-

    20. TFTim Ferriss52:27

        Yeah, please

    21. JCJack Canfield52:28

        ... the intention that we were to hold that night was forgive the unforgivable, and I thought, "I've forgiven my parents. I've forgiven people who embezzled from me. I've forgiven people who stole from me. I've forgiven the guy who bullied me in school, forgiven both my ex-wives, their lawyers. You know, I've forgiven [laughs] everybody. What, what's left to forgive? But I'll do it." I take the medicine, and I'm lying there on my mattress, and all of a sudden Vladimir Putin's face comes up. I thought, "Oh, God."

    22. TFTim Ferriss52:52

        [laughs]

    23. JCJack Canfield52:53

        "I, I gotta forgive Vladimir Putin," who I think is one of the more evil guys on the planet. So I literally started to see his childhood. I saw what motivates him. He wants to be seen as majorly significant, that he did something outrageously huge, like put the Soviet Union back together.

    24. TFTim Ferriss53:09

        Mm-hmm.

    25. JCJack Canfield53:10

        How does he do that? You start bringing all these countries back that they gave away, like the Ukraine and Poland and all those places. So I finally forgave him, and I l- I felt this energy just, like, leave my body. I didn't 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 like a shrine to how significant I am. [laughs]

    26. TFTim Ferriss53:38

        [laughs]

    27. JCJack Canfield53:38

        It was like the Guinness Book World Record, magazine covers, awards, honorary doctorates, people that made me honorary sheriff of this town. I've got more damn stuff, you know? And I realized, "Oh my God, part of my motivation has been to feel like I did... I was worthy of being here, you know?

    28. TFTim Ferriss53:56

        Mm-hmm.

    29. JCJack Canfield53:57

        I've, I made a difference. I'm significant." Now, the huge philanthropic, loving, service-oriented heart in my body, but I realized, like, how many honorary doctorates do you need? I'm doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, Doctor Canfield, you know? [laughs] It's like I would go away for four days on a trip to give a commencement speech to get another doctorate-

    30. TFTim Ferriss54:16

        [laughs]
26. 54:59 – 57:38

    Jack’s longevity formula: Laughter, organic food, love, and letting go.

    1. TFTim Ferriss54:59

       I'm gonna 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-

    2. JCJack Canfield55:08

       Right

    3. TFTim Ferriss55:09

       ... and as sharp as, as you are?

    4. JCJack Canfield55:11

       I think several things. Number one, passionate about what I do. In other words, I follow my joy, follow my passion, you know? So there's no- not a lot of resistance between what was coming through and what I want to do. I can't say I'm fearless totally, but I'm, I... Very few fears in my life anymore. Just, you know, if I'm gonna do it, will do it. That inner struggle is mostly gone. That uses up a lot of energy and causes disease in the body. I don't have a lot of limiting beliefs anymore. One of the books I'm writing is about a belief change process that I co-developed with somebody that literally works. So I've cleared just tons of that stuff. I'm a big fan of Byron Katie. Do you know her work?

    5. TFTim Ferriss55:50

       Yeah. Her work is amazing. People can find PDFs online also of the work, which are super helpful, the turnarounds and so on.

    6. JCJack Canfield55:58

       I did that work for years. I've not ever been with her, but I did her work. And just, you know, I don't get upset about anything. It just is what it is, you know, that whole idea. It is what it is. I can... My desire to change it can also be what it is, but it's not out of anger or out of upset, or it shouldn't be that way. It's all just called, you know, whatever. So that is a big piece of it. I meditate regularly. I cleanse. I told you before we came on that I'm in the eighth day of a 10-day cleanse, so, you know, all this stuff coming out of my body, detoxing. I do saunas regularly. I, I won't say I exercise every single day, 'cause that'd 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.

    7. TFTim Ferriss56:40

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    8. JCJack Canfield56:41

       I think laughter is very healing. I love your digital detox concept, which I actually put in the 10th anniversary edition of The Success Principles.

    9. TFTim Ferriss56:48

       [laughs] Amazing. I didn't know that.

    10. JCJack Canfield56:49

        Yeah, I'll have to send you a copy.

    11. TFTim Ferriss56:51

        [laughs]

    12. JCJack Canfield56:51

        I can't believe I didn't do that. But anyway... So I think that, organic food. When I was in graduate school at UMass in Amherst, probably it was '23, '4, 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, uh, the cleansing thing, all of that really, really early on. And then doing the ayahuasca, the plant medicine.

    13. TFTim Ferriss57:19

        Mm-hmm.

    14. JCJack Canfield57:19

        Anything that's not clear comes up and out, so that's all good. And I'm very loving. I get massages regularly. All the things people tell you to do, I'm mostly doing, you know? [laughs] For longevity.

    15. TFTim Ferriss57:31

        [laughs] That's a good list. I'm taking some notes for myself. I need to [laughs] add, add a few more in the rotation.

27. 57:38 – 59:05

    An ayahuasca awakening.

    1. TFTim Ferriss57:38

       So you mentioned the ayahuasca, so let's talk about that. I was surprised, not because I would expect anything otherwise, but I wasn't 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?

    2. JCJack Canfield57:55

       No, it, it doesn't 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, you know, vodka tonic or whatever. And, uh, that's another thing, I stopped drinking quite a bit ago. But the reality was I think I, in graduate school... This is so funny, 'cause the guy who eventually became the head of drug education for New Hampshire is a person who introduced me to mescaline and [laughs] peyote and things like that. But I only did a few journeys. Never... I did LSD once, I think. Never did cocaine. I was afraid of all that. I didn't wanna get addicted, and I'd seen people who had. So none of that for years and years and years and years. And then Lynne Twist, who runs the Pachamama Alliance, was taking people down to the rainforest in Ecuador to help raise consciousness about let's 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's there, and I did that, and I had amazing breakthrough experiences, and so I became interested in it.

    3. TFTim Ferriss58:56

       How old were you when, when, uh, you had that first experience, would you say?

    4. JCJack Canfield59:00

       I'm thinking 20 years ago maybe with Lynne.

    5. TFTim Ferriss59:03

       Yeah. Mm-hmm.

    6. JCJack Canfield59:03

       Yeah, something like that.

    7. TFTim Ferriss59:04

       Mm-hmm.

    8. JCJack Canfield59:04

       And

28. 59:05 – 1:02:03

    The story of Rythmia Life Advancement Center and how it’s affected Jack.

    1. JCJack Canfield59:05

       then when I learned about Rythmia, I thought, "Well, I wanna do that." And the thing I like about Rythmia, for those who don't know, it's a center in Costa Rica. 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 into fights in bars all the time. And so eventually he was gonna commit suicide 'cause he couldn't get his life together. He'd 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 gonna commit suicide, and somebody said, "Don't commit suicide. So you go to the rainforest and work with this guy named Mogonda." So he looks him up, and looks like a resort, and he signs up to go there and gets down there, and the whole thing was a... I mean, the resort images were bullshit. It was an old house-

    2. TFTim Ferriss59:48

       [laughs]

    3. JCJack Canfield59:48

       ... dirty mattresses, cockroaches, you know, all this stuff.

    4. TFTim Ferriss59:51

       Hotel Paradise. Yeah. [laughs]

    5. JCJack Canfield59:53

       And it was funny 'cause when he got there, he tells this story. He got there, and he flies down in a private jet, that whole thing, and gets there, and Mogonda meets him at the airport. He says, "Get my bags, man." Mogonda's this African guy, and he says, "You get your own man. I don't carry your bags." [laughs]

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:00:08

       [laughs]

    7. JCJack Canfield1:00:09

       He was just used to being treated like a king, right? So they get to this place that doesn't look anything like the brochure, and he's about to leave, and he says, "Come on, man. Lie down." And he gets in and 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 thing.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:00:24

       Oh, sh- [laughs]

    9. JCJack Canfield1:00:26

       [laughs]

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:00:26

        Hell of a introduction, yeah.

    11. JCJack Canfield1:00:28

        Yeah. But it, 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'd totally repressed all that. That's why he was so angry, was he was repressing. And then finally, I love this last line, he's lying there and Mogonda just taps him on the head and goes, "Happy birthday, man. You were reborn." [laughs]

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:00:51

        [laughs]

    13. JCJack Canfield1:00:52

        And he was. And so he decided that what he wanted to do was help people have his experience. And the second time he did ibogaine, they said, "You're supposed to open a center, but don't do it with ibogaine, do it with ayahuasca." So he started that center. So I've been down there five times, do four journeys every time you're there, so 20 journeys. And they've been life-changing for me. Just literally life-changing. And I think that's another reason I'm so light and just, you know, it's all good.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:01:19

        Yeah. The pharmacology of ayahuasca in and of itself, super, super fascinating. For people who might be interested also, outside of the, the DMT, which is found in the chacruna, this-- the leaves of this shrub actually related to the, you know, the coffee plant, but the actual vine itself contains a lot of interesting properties. And there's, I think it's ESPD fifty, this like ethnobotanical search for psychoactive drugs. There's a compendium. There's a presentation from that that goes into the-- 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.

29. 1:02:03 – 1:05:27

    Breaking belief loops and understanding community as medicine.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:02:04

       What have you observed as someone who's been a practitioner, a student, a teacher in, for lack of a better term, self-development space for many decades now, what do you think is often missed or undertaught that... I mean, you've seen lots of different waves of different things that have become popular or fallen out of popularity. Is there anything you wish folks paid more attention to?

    2. JCJack Canfield1:02:28

       I think several things come to mind. I don't think about that very often, but I-- se- several things come to mind as you ask the question. Number one, I think most people don't understand the impact of unconscious limiting beliefs. They watch The Secret, they visualize, they affirm, and then somehow it's not working and they don't know why. And so it's, it's always like either fear or limiting beliefs or just lack of willingness to take action, you know, that, that basically corrupts the process. And I think for me, why I'm writing a book about this limiting belief process is I've just worked with literally thousands of people. 'Cause I've-- twice a year, I've been doing these free sessions where I'll get like seven hundred people sign up, and I'll do this belief process with them, and I'd say ninety-nine percent of the people have a major breakthrough. You know? I had a woman got rid of arthritis in like twenty minutes, you know. I mean, ridiculous stuff. And so these beliefs we're 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's never gonna happen again. It's not safe to say what I want. It's not safe to ask for things. It's not safe to be sexy, make noise," whatever. What happens is that we don't realize we have that belief, and so we do all the things we're supposed to do, and it doesn't happen, and it's very frustrating, and sometimes people give up on the whole human potential movement because they're doing all these things that the gurus are teaching them, but they're not dealing with this block. It's kind of like, I'll tell people, it's like calling up Domino's Pizza to order a pizza and then having this other voice call them and say, "Forget the order." [laughing] Then you wonder, "Why isn't this showing up?" You know? And so all this work that, that so many of us taught in The Secret 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's a, it's 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't understand very well. And then I think what we're seeing today that I'm a bit more aware of is the power of community, the power of support, the power of not being alone, th- that there are people there to hold you back on line when you go off, you know. My sister just called a couple hours ago and was having a really tough time, and just spending ten minutes with her, she was back where she needed to be.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:04:57

       Mm-hmm.

    4. JCJack Canfield1:04:57

       But if she didn't have anyone to call, which is increasingly true for her as she gets older and doesn't have a lot of friends who've died and so forth, I think that's really critical. And I think more and more people are becoming aware of that. That's why you're seeing all these communities evolving.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:05:12

       Mm-hmm.

    6. JCJack Canfield1:05:12

       And I think one of the reasons that plant medicine's taken off is because it deals with all those limiting beliefs. They come up. And as we say at Rythmia, "What's coming up is coming out," so don't resist it. And you, you know. [chuckles]

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:05:25

       Yeah. That's a good one.

    8. JCJack Canfield1:05:26

       You got to

30. 1:05:27 – 1:17:47

    E + R = O and strategies for taking 100% responsibility of one’s life.

    1. JCJack Canfield1:05:27

       clear it.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:05:28

       I wanna come back to something that we spoke about, or you spoke about early on with W. Clement Stone in his, his intake interview-

    3. JCJack Canfield1:05:38

       Yeah

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:05:39

       ... when he asked you, "Do you take a hundred percent responsibility for your life?" [chuckles] And the reason I wanna 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've, I've 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... Maybe I don't complain, but I blame, right? Maybe it's just internally. Maybe I don't give voice to it, but there could be some blaming. How do you encourage people to take more or a hundred percent responsibility? What are the steps for people who recognize that's what they want to do, but perhaps have the habits of blaming, pointing fingers, complaining?

    5. JCJack Canfield1:06:42

       Well, I'll 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 the therapist said, "Well, I'm glad to see you agree on something." They said, "What?" "Well, you obviously agree that if you can figure out whose fault it is, somehow that's gonna make your life better." [laughing]

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:07:03

       [laughing] That's really-

    7. JCJack Canfield1:07:04

       Yeah.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:07:04

       Actually, that's outstanding. Yeah. [laughing]

    9. JCJack Canfield1:07:06

       So basically, I teach a, a little formula, equation if you call it, like E + R = O. Event plus response equals outcome. So when there's an event And you blame somebody or something, the government, the bank, the economy, your mother, your sister, your neighbor, the boss, whatever you're blaming for this experience you've just had, that event plus your blaming does not produce a better outcome. So we all want a better outcome. We wanna experience joy, freedom, peace, love, success, abundance, you know, whatever the outcome that we want, health, longevity, whatever. And certain behaviors do not do that. So I've never found a place where blaming produced a better result. You don't feel better-

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:07:52

        No

    11. JCJack Canfield1:07:52

        ... and you don't solve the problem in a way that really gets you anywhere because you've just blamed somebody. And it's amazing how much our culture supports blaming and complaining. I used to call bars ain't it awful clubs. You know, 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, like, you know, the, 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't get resolution, you don't get breakthrough, you don't get better results. So if you look at E plus R equals O, there's only three responses you have any control over, your thoughts, your images, and your behavior. That's it. You can't manage time. You can manage your thoughts in relation to time. You can manage your visualizations in relation to time and your behavior. We think we can control things outside of us. We can only control our response to things outside of us and then notice what kind of r- outcome that produces. And what you've done magnificently, and what I've 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, you've been... Your book, the Titans book, is just amazing. All these people telling you what worked.

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:09:11

        Thank you.

    13. JCJack Canfield1:09:12

        If you haven't read that, by the way, guys, please do. It's incredible. So what happens is blaming, we just discovered, we talked about it, and it's incredible what people blame. I mean, look at our president right now. He's blaming everybody for everything. You know, it's just-- it's unfortunate, but he does. But it's 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't complain about my girlfriend if I don't have an image of some woman who's better than my girlfriend.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:09:44

        Mm-hmm.

    15. JCJack Canfield1:09:45

        Right? Now, the reality is, Matt, nobody ever complains about gravity.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:09:48

        [laughs] Right.

    17. JCJack Canfield1:09:51

        You've never seen an old person walking through the mall all bent over going, "Gravity. I hate gravity. If it wouldn't for gravity, I wouldn't be all bent over. Gravity sucks," you know? You've never seen that. Why not? Because you can't change gravity.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:10:03

        [laughs]

    19. JCJack Canfield1:10:03

        Everyone knows gravity just is, so we don't complain about it. So anything you're complaining about, you have to have a reference point in your mind of something better, better job, better country, better president, better whatever. And what happens then is we, when we become aware of that, we have this better option that we're not willing to risk creating, so therefore we complain about it. It lets off steam, it gets people to go together, "Yeah, I know, my wife's the same way," you know, whatever it is, but we don't get a better result. So, you know, I always say imagine a situation where every woman in the world dies except my wife. Big, big, big thing comes down from outer space, zaps the Earth with some energy field. My wife happens to be in a lead mine that day. She's the only one to survive. Would I come to work and complain about my wife? No. Why not? She's the only one. There is no option, right? So we wouldn't complain about it. [laughs]

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:10:58

        [laughs]

    21. JCJack Canfield1:10:59

        Right? So basically, if you're complaining, then my response to that is, "What would you prefer? What would you have to do to create that?"

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:11:07

        Mm-hmm.

    23. JCJack Canfield1:11:07

        You know, one of my friends runs a, a workshop he does over in, in Europe. He's a European corporate consultant, and one of the questions he asks people, even when they're pissed off at the company they work for, he says, "On a scale of one to 10, how would you rate your quality of life working here?" And they go, "Three." And he go, "Why so high?"

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:11:24

        [laughs]

    25. JCJack Canfield1:11:26

        It's not a zero. Something's going on there, right? So wh- why so high? Which floors them. It kind of breaks the chain of their thought. And then he goes, "So what would be an eight for you?" Never goes to 10 'cause that's too big a leap for people. He goes, "What would be an eight for you?" "Well, 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?" Because that's really what you have to do. You can't just sit there and bitch and moan. Nothing's gonna change.

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:11:53

        Yeah. You mentioned Tools of Titans, and I, 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 Tools of Titans particular was an example of not wanting to let learnings from these interviews s- fall through my fingers like sand through an hourglass.

    27. JCJack Canfield1:12:15

        Mm-hmm.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:12:16

        And one of the essays in that book is taken from Jocko Willink, who's a famous Navy SEAL commander. He's done a million things since. His first public interview ever was on this podcast ages ago. He has this... People can find videos of this too, but it's just called Good. And so if you'll indulge me for a second, I just wanna read a second.

    29. JCJack Canfield1:12:36

        Sure.

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:12:37

        Just a, a minute or two of this. So this, Good, this is the title, and Jocko has a great video of this for people who want, but it's also in the book. So, "Good. This 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," this is when Jocko was in the military, "that was going on, and he'd say, 'Boss, we've got this thing, this situation, it's going terribly wrong.' I would look at him and say, 'Good.' And finally, one day, he was telling me about something that was going off the rails, and as soon as he finished explaining it to me, he said, 'I already know what you're gonna say.' And I asked, 'What am I gonna say?' He said, 'You're gonna say good.' He continued, 'That's what you always say. When something is going wrong or going bad, you look at me and say, "Good."' And I said, 'Well, I mean it because that's how I operate.' So I explained to him that when things are going badly, there's going to be some good that will come from it. Oh, the mission got canceled? Good, we can focus on another one. Didn't get the new high-speed gear we wanted? Good, we can keep it simple. Didn't get promoted? Good, more time to get better. Didn't get funded? Good, we own more of the company. Didn't get the job you wanted? Good, go out, gain more experience, and build a better resume. Got injured? Good, need a break from training. It just goes on and on [laughs]
31. 1:17:47 – 1:24:57

    Why “clean up your messes” is first in Jack’s list of productivity tips.

    1. JCJack Canfield1:17:47

       book.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:17:47

       Yeah, it's a compelling book. I mean, it- whether it's real or not, it's a fun read.

    3. JCJack Canfield1:17:51

       Yeah.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:17:52

       So I'm looking at a blog post. This is from jackcanfield.com, productivity tips. And you, like me, I'm sure, have quite a few blog posts, but you've got... I'll just read the headlines here for a second. There's clean up your messes. Two, focus. Three, just say no. Four, practice the Rule of Five, which we've talked about a bit. Five, meditate. And this is gonna seem so mundane, but I'm very curious if you could expand a bit on clean up your messes and how you go about doing it, because I have a few Achilles heels, as I suppose we all do, and one of them is I collect so much goddamn paper. I am a hypographic note-taking maniac, and I just have paper. It metastasizes to cover every flat surface that I have. And I try to take photos here and there and digitize, but it's messy, and it really agitates me. And I'm not saying that that's ideal. Maybe it shouldn't bother me. But how do you think about why is number one of five on productivity tips clean up your messes, and how do you do it?

    5. JCJack Canfield1:18:59

       Well, you're talking to a fellow person who needs the same rehab, just so you know. [laughs]

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:19:05

       [laughs]

    7. JCJack Canfield1:19:05

       I take more notes at a conference than almost anybody, and I've got literally m- books full of notes and taking notes when I'm listening to stuff and podcast things. I think the problem is that every time you look at all that, it's taking your attention.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:19:20

       Mm-hmm.

    9. JCJack Canfield1:19:21

       And so the research that I've read says we have the ability to hold about seven attention units at a time. And so what happens is that you'll notice the research also, like if a waitress, if you haven't paid the bill yet, any good waiter or waitress can tell you what you had.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:19:39

        Mm-hmm.

    11. JCJack Canfield1:19:39

        As soon as you pay the bill, you ask them 10 minutes later, they don't remember anymore.

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:19:42

        [laughs]

    13. JCJack Canfield1:19:43

        They don't need to.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:19:43

        Yeah.

    15. JCJack Canfield1:19:44

        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's incomplete. Now, that can be that thing you started you didn't finish, it could be that letter you were writing, the book you're not finished up, the notes you have over here. But what I've h- learned to do is find a place for those things, you know. Like, lots of filing systems. I have filing systems in my computer. I have filing systems, I have about 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 a what's called a come up file. So let's say I need to do something March 28th, I have a folder called March. So on the 1st of March, I go through that folder of everything I put in there, and then I put it into my calendar for those days. Or I can put it in now, you know, like call Steve on March 28th. But if there's papers related to that, things we're gonna talk about, whatever, it goes in my March file. So, it's there. It's not in my visual queue. So what happens is whether it's a relationship, and we've all had that experience of walking through a grocery store and seeing someone down the aisle we don't wanna talk to, so we go down another aisle and hope we evade them, you know?

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:20:51

        [laughs]

    17. JCJack Canfield1:20:51

        Because it's incomplete. So all that energy is taken up because it's not complete. All the things you've never said.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:20:57

        Mm.

    19. JCJack Canfield1:20:57

        The upsets, the thank yous, the acknowledgments, the wanting acknowledgments and not having got them. They're taking up space in your head. So everything you can close up, it's almost like you're taking a piece of paper off the desk, and pretty soon you have a clean desk. You know Dan Sullivan's work, the strategic coach?

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:21:15

        Yeah, he's got some great stuff. He's got some great stuff.

    21. JCJack Canfield1:21:18

        Well, one of the things I learned from him, he doesn't have a desk. He's got three or four offices with conference tables, and he'll go into one and say, "Bring over that stuff," and he'll work with one of his people. They do all the things they need to do. They walk out with all the papers. He's done. Doesn't have that pile of [blows] shit that I deal with and you deal with. But the reality is that everything is incomplete. You're walking through the hall of your house, you see a little crack in the wall, and you go, "Oh, it needs to get fixed."

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:21:43

        Mm-hmm.

    23. JCJack Canfield1:21:44

        Pretty soon, you won't 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's time you could have spent writing your book or thinking about your project-

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:21:59

        Mm

    25. JCJack Canfield1:21:59

        ... or loving your mother or giving good feedback to your girlfriend or whatever. So the reality is, it's really important to clean that up, and there's financial messes. There's garage messes. There's, you know, the attic, the tool drawer, the door that has the leashes, the-

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:22:15

        Oh my God. [laughs] I can feel my cortisol pi- piling up as you're listing. [laughs] Sounds like, sounds like you're in my house on my nanny cam. [laughs]

    27. JCJack Canfield1:22:23

        I'm gonna send you, I have a, a sheet of, like, 21 things you need to clean up.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:22:27

        Oh.

    29. JCJack Canfield1:22:28

        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't teach it if you weren't living it. You know, there's... Think about it. Financial records, your checkbook not balanced, stuff in your car, clothes that don't fit anymore.

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:22:45

        Mm-hmm.
32. 1:24:57 – 1:26:38

    Where to begin if you’re unfamiliar with Jack’s work.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:24:57

       Jack, we've covered a ton of ground. I don't want to take up your entire afternoon on a, a Friday, but is there anything else that... I'm not in any rush whatsoever, but is there anything else that you'd like to talk about that we haven't covered? Anything you'd like to say, request of my audience? Anything at all that you'd like to bring up that I haven't already prompted?

    2. JCJack Canfield1:25:19

       I would just say, you know, kind of self-servingly, that if you would like to know more about my work, the book that Tim talked about, it's now in its 20th anniversary edition, The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. It's really the basis of everything I do. If you haven't read a Chicken Soup book, start with the first one. It's really brilliant. One thing I did, Tim, I haven't done it for all my books, but I did with that book, I literally, after we'd 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

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:25:52

       Mm-hmm

    4. JCJack Canfield1:25:52

       ... because what I know is when most people read, they're sub-vocalizing in their brain. They're not speed reading.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:25:57

       Sure.

    6. JCJack Canfield1:25:58

       And if it didn't sound, as one of my actors says, coming trippingly off the tongue, I would rewrite it.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:26:04

       Mm.

    8. JCJack Canfield1:26:04

       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, you know, get feedback, but also read it out loud. How does it sound to you?

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:26:17

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JCJack Canfield1:26:18

        You know? And then make sure you get... I always say get feedback from at least 20 people. First Teenage Soul 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, you know?

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:26:36

        Oh, wow.

    12. JCJack Canfield1:26:37

        Feedback,

33. 1:26:38 – 1:27:44

    Ken Blanchard: “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”

    1. JCJack Canfield1:26:38

       I love what Ken Blanchard says, "Feedback is the breakfast of champions," you know? So [laughs]

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:26:45

       [laughs] Feedback is the breakfast of champions.

    3. JCJack Canfield1:26:48

       Yeah. And most people avoid feedback 'cause they're afraid of what they're gonna hear, and you gotta know that... We call it constructive feedforward, you know, constructive feedback.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:26:57

       Mm-hmm.

    5. JCJack Canfield1:26:58

       But anyway, I would read that book. Go to my website, jackcanfield.com. There's all kinds of things there you might be interested in. And it's interesting, I don't normally say this, but last night, for some reason, I was looking up something, and I couldn't remember it, and I thought it was... There's a guy named Nick Nitin. He did a, a documentary of my life called The Soul of Success, and I went in there to find one little thing, and I don't know, call it egotistical, whatever, I watched the whole damn hour on YouTube. It's free. Just go The Soul of Success-

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:27:26

       Mm

    7. JCJack Canfield1:27:26

       ... on YouTube, and you'll see one of the most amazing documentaries ever made, I think, 'cause he's a, an Emmy-winning documentarian. It, it's-

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:27:34

       Mm-hmm

    9. JCJack Canfield1:27:34

       ... a really good thing. So that'll give you some information about some of the stuff Tim and I talked about that maybe we didn't go deep enough on. And that's about it, I would say, you know?

34. 1:27:44 – 1:29:50

    Parting thoughts.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:27:44

       And we'll link to everything we've 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'll, of course, link to everything as per usual in the show notes at tim.blog/podcast for everybody, including the 21 things [laughs] to clean up, which is gonna, it's gonna ride hard on my OCD, which, which [laughs] is properly diagnosed. I'm not just making that up as a swipe against OCD folks. Big shocker to anyone who actually knows me. I'm kidding. But what I will say as we wind to a close, Jack, is that you've had a huge impact on my life. Your work has had an impact. You personally have had an impact. You've been so gracious, so patient. I don't know if you remember this, but I remember when I was volunteering that at, at that event, S-Phase, and I had all the speakers. I had some type of waiver 'cause I wanted to record [laughs] everything, and, uh, the waiver was, I'm sure, all-sweeping and-

    2. JCJack Canfield1:28:46

       [laughs]

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:28:47

       ... full encompassing of everything because I had probably gotten it online somehow. And I remember you had your glasses on, and you sort of pulled down the glasses like a very patient parent, and you're like, "Timothy, I have some questions about this release." [laughs]

    4. JCJack Canfield1:29:00

       [laughs]

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:29:00

       And then you scratched everything out. You scratched a bunch of nonsense out, and you signed it. You've had an incredible impact on my, on my career, and I just want to, to thank you for all of that and for what you offer to the world as a, as an eternal student and as a teacher.

    6. JCJack Canfield1:29:21

       Oh, thank you.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:29:22

       And I really appreciate you taking the time.

    8. JCJack Canfield1:29:23

       Well, I've enjoyed this, one of the best podcasts I've ever been on, so thank you.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:29:29

       Yeah, [laughs] my pleasure. Least I can do. And I'll, I'll say it one more time for everybody who's 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. And until next time, be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others but also to yourself, and thanks for tuning in

Episode duration: 1:30:11