In an exclusive interview, Jack Canfield, author of the blockbuster Chicken Soup for the Soul series, reveals the art, science and spirit of success
Time magazine once called him ‘the publishing phenomenon of the decade’. J ack Canfield is the originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series of books, which now has over 225 books in print with a total sales of over 500 million copies worldwide in 47 languages. He is also America's top success coach and a leading expert in creating peak performance for entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, managers, sales professionals, corporate employees, and educators. In this interview, he speaks about success, failure, goal-setting and his avid interest in commitment to life-long learning.Excerpts:
How critical are our beliefs in terms of manifesting what we want in our lives and becoming successful?
The answer is very critical. In fact, it may be the most critical thing in becoming successful other than taking action, because beliefs and the emotions that that are created by them, like self-doubt and fear, are the things that stop people from taking action. Therefore, to be successful one needs to find some methodology for surfacing whatever limiting beliefs might be stopping you and then working to release those.
Can you give us an example?
My favorite story about the power of beliefs is about Cliff Young, an Australian potato farmer who had always wanted to run in a long distance race, and in 1983 at the age of 61, decided to enter the Sydney to Melbourne Ultra Marathon, an 875 kilometer (544 mile) race. He was wearing overalls and gum boots, a t-shirt and a baseball cap. While everyone else was wearing Nike, Reebok and Asics running gear. The race organisers, worried about his health, asked if he'd ever run a long distance race before. He said no. They asked if he'd run a short race like a half marathon and he said no and responded the same to a question regarding a 10k. So then they asked him what made him think he could run this race and he said, "I'm a farmer. Once I spent 3 days running nonstop with no sleep rounding up my sheep before a major storm came in, so I think I can do this." They didn't want to let him enter, but finally acquiesced, and when everyone took off they were running fast, but Cliff ran rather slowly doing what's now been dubbed the 'Young Shuffle'. But here's the advantage that Cliff had. He didn't know you were supposed to run for 16 hours and sleep for 8, and repeat that process to the end, so when everyone went to sleep he was so far behind no one was awake to tell him to go to bed, and they were up and gone before he got there. This went on for two days, but on the third day, while everyone was sleeping, Cliff ran by them again, with no one telling him to sleep. He ran non-stop for 5 ½ days and broke the old record by almost 2 days. What this tells us is that the other people believed they had to get that kind of sleep but Cliff didn't have that belief, so he continued on, and was extremely successful because of what he didn't believe as opposed to what everyone else thought was common knowledge.
Any other examples?
On a more personal level, when I was in my early twenties and my annual income was $8000, I set a goal to make $100,000 in one year. I had no idea how to do that, but my mentor W. Clement Stone, who was worth $600 million in 1979 said to me, "Right now you make $8000 a year and you don't believe you can do this; however, if you'll choose to believe it's possible, and repeat an affirmation every day like 'I'm happily and joyfully earning, investing and spending $100,000 a year' and spend five minutes a day with your eyes closed visualising living a $100,000 a year lifestyle, your subconscious mind will begin to believe it and it will start coming up with ideas and strategies for making it happen. So, I started exercising the techniques he taught me, and believed it was possible because he was worth $600 million, and the shift occurred and sure enough, about one month later I started having $100,000 ideas. I began putting those ideas into action and by the end I had made $92,325 and I now believed it was possible to actually achieve these kinds of goals. I immediately set a goal to make a million dollars and created a new affirmation, 'I am happily depositing my million dollar royalty check,' because I knew it was going to be through writing that I did that. Sure enough, within a few years I got my first check for $1,130,000. I know from my own experience and the experience of thousands of my students that changing our beliefs is one of the most critical steps in changing our level of success. You have to believe it to achieve it.
You have also talked about the importance of self esteem in life and being successful. Can you tell our readers a few things about this?
I teach something called 'The Poker Chip Theory of Self Esteem'. It states if two people went to a casino, one with $10 to bet and the other with $100, the person with $10 is going to bet more cautiously because if they lose two bets of $5 they're out of the game; whereas, the other person can lose $5 twenty times before they're out of the game. Therefore, they can bet more freely, and self esteem is the same way. If I have low self esteem, I tend not to risk as much. I don't share my ideas in staff meetings. I don't risk investing money. I don't ask people out on dates. I'm afraid to make requests and stand up for myself, because I have such low self esteem that if I lose more by being rejected or losing in the eyes of others, my self esteem level will be zero. Therefore, I do everything I can to protect what little I have. Soon these people become very defensive. They don't play; they withdraw from life in general or they become braggers to try and overcome their sense of low self esteem.
Gotta Have Faith . Can you tell us a little more on this?
Self esteem is made up primarily of two things, feeling lovable and feeling capable. Lovable means I feel people want to be with me. They invite me to parties; they affirm I have the qualities necessary to be included. Feeling capable is knowing that I can produce a result. It's knowing I can handle anything that life hands me. So, to become capable means I have to learn things like goal setting, appropriate risk talking and how to produce the results I want. This is not generally taught in schools. That's why there are so many workshops and trainings today - to fill in that gap. Greater self esteem produces greater success, and greater success produces more high self esteem, so it keeps on spiraling up. I started in my life with very low self esteem. I had an abusive father, an alcoholic mother and I wasn't the smartest kid in school. I eventually did learn how to study and eventually got good grades and actually graduated from Harvard University. It was a long trek of learning to love myself and learning how to create success. For the first ten years after I got out of graduate school I studied success. I read every book I could get my hands on and took every training I could find, and that allowed me to become an expert in this area. I learned how to create high self esteem and success in my own life and in the lives of others.
What about goal setting? How does that help in courting success?
I believe that goals are very important. There was actually a study done at an Ivy League University where they asked the graduating seniors whether, or not they had created goals for their life. Only 3% of the class said they had specific measurable goals for their life. At their 25th reunion they administered another questionnaire and found out the net worth of the 3% who set goals was greater than the total net worth of the other 97% who hadn't. So we know that goals provide direction, momentum and keep us motivated when we have setbacks. Everyone needs to set measurable, specific goals and by that I mean 'how much' and 'by when'.
Could you go into some detail on that?
People often say "I want to make more money" or " I'd like to increase my sales'. Often in a seminar I'll hand someone a dollar and "Now have more money." And they'll say. "I wanted more then that". I'll say, "How is anyone supposed to know? How is the universe supposed to know? How is your subconscious supposed to know?" It needs to be specific such as " I want to increase my income by $50,000 this year" or "I want to double my income from $100,000 to $200,000 by December 31, 2012". Should goals be bold, audacious or realistic? I think they need to be both. We need to set goals that are bold and stretch us to make us grow. They also need to be realistic, because if they're too bold or too outrageous, then we don't believe they're possible so we won't take action. If it's too scary, then we'll freeze. And if they're not audacious enough and don't make you stretch and grow, then there's no excitement, enthusiasm or motivation. I always say a goal should stretch you but not break you.
How does one handle failure in professional as well as personal life?
Failure is simply a delay in results. Failure just means you haven't got there yet. We might have a business that fails. We might fail in terms of enrolling enough people to fill a workshop. We might fail in a relationship that doesn't work out. We might fail at losing weight. It simply means we haven't learned how to do it yet. So, if we examine our failures and learn from them, because all failures are opportunities for learning, we can learn what didn't work and how we contributed to that.
But that doesn't really happen…
Unfortunately, most people either give up or blame someone else for their failure and don't mine the experience for the learning. When marriages fail it's often because people don't spend enough time with each other or they haven't learned how to communicate correctly or how to express their feelings without being abusive. They haven't learned how to finances in a that's conducive to both partners feeling good or they haven't learned how to express love in the language of their partner. We now know there are 5 love languages which include: nurturing touch, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service and gifts. Most people don't know this, but they can learn to speak the love language of their partner and be more successful in relationships.
Can you elaborate on this?
In my own life, I remember when I went to get a loan from a bank to start my own company. I filled out the application in a way that I knew how to do it. I was 29 at the time and had never applied for a loan before. The bank said they wouldn't give me the loan and I asked why not. They said you don't have this, this, this and this on your application. I said if I go back and fill all that in can I resubmit the loan and they said yes. I went back to fill out all the other information they wanted and gave it to them. They said we're still not giving you the loan because we're not that confident that you can repay it. I went to 5 different banks, each time learning something more about how to present it more correctly in order to assure them I'd be able to pay back the loan, and I eventually got it. I failed 5 times to get the loan, but didn't fail to get it eventually.
That's a very interesting example…
When we wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul we were rejected by 144 publishers over a period of 18 months before finally getting a contract. By then I didn't feel like we'd failed; I just felt like we should keep improving the book proposal and we eventually got 20,000 people to sign a form saying that they would buy a book if it were published. We got more proficient at learning how to work with publishers and now I can do it in my sleep. It's a matter of seeing failure as a learning experience and not taking it as a sign to stop or a sign that you are incompetent. Henry Ford, the great automaker, went bankrupt 5 times, and Walt Disney 3 times before they became successful. Kodak recently went under Chapter 11 because when the digital camera first began coming out, there were people at Kodak who wanted to get into the digital camera business, but the people in charge felt it would cannibalize their 35mm camera and film sales so they didn't and they got creamed. Now they have a high definition video camera and they do have digital cameras. They learned from their mistake and now they're doing their best to catch up.
One success mantra that you keep talking about is a commitment to lifelong learning. Why is that?
As Bob Dylan, one of America's popular singers said in one of his songs, 'you're either busy growing or busy dying'. Lifelong learning is important because there is no stasis in the universe; everything is moving. Everything is either getting worse or getting better. It's improving or it's falling behind. In order to keep ourselves focused on growth and staying up with the changing universe we have to continue learning. First, it's good for the brain. We now know that every time you learn something new it increases brain function and protects against getting Alzheimer's disease. There's something called neuro-plasticity in the brain where it can learn forever. We used to think you couldn't learn that much when you got older, but we now know you can.
Can you give us an example?
Think about how things have changed in business with the Internet. It's changed the music industry, the publishing industry where people are now getting their books out as eBooks or buying books online. It's changed in the sense that brick and mortar stores have gone out of business because people are buying their products from online stores like Amazon, iTunes and so forth. So, if we don't stay up and learn things like new technologies, the Internet and Internet marketing or how to use social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) then we fall behind. I teach something called 'The Hour of Power', which is every day you want to spend 20 minutes reading in your field or about psychology and success. You want to spend 20 minutes meditating because we learn inwardly through our intuition. You want to spend 20 minutes exercising. If you do that you'll be happier, healthier and wiser at the end of the year and probably wealthier as a result. Therefore, I'm a big believer in going to seminars, reading books, listening to CDs and watching DVDs. And now with the Internet there's so much available to us at all times, so you want to continue learning in your personal life in terms of nutrition, health, relationships and in your corporate life, in terms of your job skills, management skills, leadership skills, etc.
What comes in the way of learning? Do you think culture as it is evolving today hampers the process of learning?
I think the thing that stops most people from learning more is simply a lack of commitment. We have to schedule time. Television, radio and movies are such distractions and are so powerful that it's hard to walk by a TV set that your spouse may be watching, because it pulls you in. They're called hot mediums. It's engaging and meant to engage you to keep you there to watch the next commercial. The President of NBC once told me the purpose of television programming is simply to keep you hooked until the next commercial comes on. So, the more viewers they get the more advertising rates they can charge. So, we have to become disciplined about only spending a little time with TV…I watch an hour of TV a day max, usually the news and a 30 minute sitcom with my wife and the rest of the time I'm either working, reading, exercising or we're spending time relating. As I said the entertainment industry has spent tons of money figuring out how to grab your attention and we have to spend just as much willpower to resist being trapped by that. The average American watches about six hours of TV a day. I don't know what it is in other countries, but I know that's probably true for most modern countries. One of my friends named the TV 'the income reduction box'. Basically, we need to take responsibility to schedule time for learning. I read for several hours a day. I studied speed reading so I could read a book a day and that keeps me up to date in many fields.
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