#833: Jack Canfield — Selling 600+ Million Books, Success Principles, and How He Made The 4-Hour Workweek Happen

Jack Canfield is the coauthor of more than two hundred books, including, The Success Principles™: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be and the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, which includes forty New York Times bestsellers and which has sold more than 600 million copies in 50-plus languages around the world.

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• [00:00:00] Who is Jack? • [00:01:57] How a single “yes” from Jack shaped my career. • [00:04:55] A contract lesson: How Chicken Soup for the Soul • sold millions in China with zero royalties. • [00:06:45] Jack’s background: From poverty to Harvard. • [00:09:43] Discovering Chinese history and the “easy A” that changed everything. • [00:11:07] Winning “Teacher of the Year” teaching Black history. • [00:14:35] High praise from Sammy Davis Jr. • [00:17:37] W. Clement Stone: The $600 million mentor who turned motivation into a science (and insurance). • [00:21:35] Stone’s challenge: Take 100% responsibility and stop watching TV (a 14-month year hack). • [00:22:40] From visualizing $100,000 to a million. • [00:25:42] Chicken Soup • origins. • [00:27:35] Mark Victor Hansen joins. • [00:29:15] 144 rejections later. • [00:31:28] The ABA miracle. • [00:34:05] The Rule of Five. • [00:36:05] Selling The Soul • and splurging on sweaters. • [00:37:27] The Soup • sourced from the universe. • [00:39:33] The big break. • [00:41:22] Word-of-mouth magic. • [00:45:37] Lessons from live feedback. • [00:47:27] The burnout years. • [00:49:25] Life after Chicken Soup • . • [00:51:05] Late-night typing marathons and pun-laden chapter transitions that led to The Success Principles • . • [00:54:02] How Jack’s love of transformation beats any royalty check. • [00:55:07] Retirement reflections. • [00:59:32] Jack’s longevity formula: Laughter, organic food, love, and letting go. • [01:02:10] An ayahuasca awakening. • [01:03:39] The story of Rythmia Life Advancement Center and how it’s affected Jack. • [01:06:43] Breaking belief loops and understanding community as medicine. • [01:10:06] E + R = O and strategies for taking 100% responsibility of one’s life. • [01:22:27] Why “clean up your messes” is first in Jack’s list of productivity tips. • [01:29:27] Where to begin if you’re unfamiliar with Jack’s work. • [01:31:08] Ken Blanchard: “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” • [01:32:13] Parting thoughts.

Show notes for this episode: https://tim.blog/2025/10/29/jack-canfield/

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