Chicken Soup for the Successful Soul

JACK CANFIELD, co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul, discusses overcoming fear, trusting inner guidance, and how his definition of success has evolved. Part 1 of his interview with PURNIMA RAMAKRISHNAN offers practical wisdom for pursuing passion and fulfillment.

Q: You have empowered millions of people and helped them find courage and clarity in times of uncertainty. What keeps you grounded amidst so much movement and chaos?

JC: What keeps me grounded is my meditation practice. I started meditating when I was about 20 years old. I’m 80 now, so that was 60 years ago. I’ve learned many forms of meditation over the years—everything from Hindu to Buddhist to Sufi to Christian to Jewish. I’ve taken numerous week-long seminars, including 10-day seminars, where I focus on meditation. That’s a big piece of what keeps me grounded. I believe that everything in the universe is happening for me, not to me. That’s another belief I have, that everything is perfect the way it is.

The only thing that upsets us is our beliefs about how something should be different, not the actual thing that’s happening. We have a lot going on in the United States now, and many issues could easily upset people. But the fact is, I don’t have any control over that. What I do have control over is my thoughts and my emotions, because my thoughts easily influence them.

There’s a woman named Byron Katie, and I love her work. She wrote a book called Loving What Is. She said that when something happens, you have to ask yourself, Is it true? If I’m upset with the way someone behaves, I have to believe that they should be different. Well, he’s not different. He is the way he is. So, it’s only my belief that something should be different than what it is that creates the upset in me. So, I’ve let go of that. I realize that all fear is created by imagining bad things that haven’t happened yet. So, I stopped doing that years ago and just started being present in the moment. One of the benefits of meditation is simply being present in the moment, without worrying about the future or the past.

Another thing for me is that I believe the experience of joy serves as our guidance system. When we’re on purpose, doing what we’re meant to do, we’re experiencing joy. So, I followed my heart most of my life. And it’s taken me from one thing to the next. Started as a high school teacher, and then became a teacher of teachers, and then became a teacher of everybody. It’s like the same thing we're teaching in school; we’re teaching it in life.

And then I wrote the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. After about 15 years, we sold that whole thing to someone else because I was finished with it. It was time. My inner guidance said, “Move on.”

So, I think another thing that keeps me grounded is that I follow my inner guidance. I trust the internal messages I get from what I call my “High Self.” Sometimes it comes in the form of a wise being speaking to me internally, or it could be an angel, or it could be Buddha, or Krishna, or Christ, or whoever.

Q: How do you personally define success today? Has the definition evolved?

JC: Yeah, it has evolved. Initially, my definition of success was pretty traditional: having enough money to do what I wanted, owning a house, buying the things I wanted, and affording the experiences I wanted to have. And then it evolved into just being able to achieve any goal I set.

In the last 10 years, I would say my definition of success has been fulfilling my soul's purpose. I believe that we all have a purpose that we’re born with, and we’re given talents to fulfill that purpose.

And that if one does that, one is successful. My purpose is to inspire and empower people to live their highest vision in the context of love and joy. And when I’m doing what I do, whether it’s writing Chicken Soup stories, I inspire people.

The Success Principles book I wrote empowers people through all those tools. The seminars I do empower people. So, when I’m on stage, when I’m teaching, when I’m coaching, when I’m writing, those are the things that I do that fulfill my purpose. That is the essence of everybody’s purpose. And along with that comes joy and love. Success is about inspiring and empowering people to live their highest vision in the context of love and joy.

We’re meant to expand our capacity to love as part of our journey, and in doing so, experience more joy. When we exercise our talents to fulfill and serve others, we experience fulfillment and success.

Q: In your book, The Success Principles, there is this one principle that says, “Inquire Within.” Can you share a moment in your life or spiritual journey where this inner stillness or intuition led you to an unexpected breakthrough? How did you evolve because of this principle?

JC: Well, I’ll give you a large answer and then a more specific answer. The large answer is every day in my meditation, I ask to be guided. “What would you have me do today?”

It gives me some sense of whether to work on this or that person. To go specifically to your question, I remember Janet Bray Attwood, who wrote this book, The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Destiny, said to me, “There’s a woman named Rhonda Byrne, and she’s making a movie called The Secret, and she would love to interview you. We’re having this meeting in Colorado, where a lot of the people that she wants to interview for that movie are going to be meeting.” (I had started a group called the Transformational Leadership Council, which had approximately 120 members from around the world.) And so, she said Rhonda would like to come, and I said, “No, I don’t want her to come there because what’ll happen is everyone will want to be in the movie. It’ll create a division that we should be pulling people out of sessions, and it’ll just be disruptive.”

And so, she said, “Okay.” So, that night, I was meditating before I go to bed as I usually do (as well as in the morning). And I’m sitting there in silence, and this big voice says, “Tell Rhonda yes.”

So I did. I called up and I said, “Okay, I just got this inner guidance that I should say yes.” 

And as a result of that, Rhonda Byrne came to that meeting with a camera crew, and she filmed about twenty people, and I was one of them. And that movie just took off. It became the number one DVD in the world. It was a bestseller in Japan. I got to speak in Iran. And they had seen the movie. I’m surprised the Ayatollah allowed it to be shown, but they did air the film The Secret on national television. And they invited me to Tehran. I had to visit the Pakistani embassy to get a visa, because they don’t have an embassy in the United States.

It was 850 people in the seminar. I probably made millions of dollars giving talks and doing other things I never would have done if I hadn't listened to that inner guidance in that moment.

At another time, when I was running a retreat center, I was meditating. All of a sudden, I got this guidance that it was time for me to move to California. And then a whole series of events, like signs, started to emerge that I should go to California. And that changed everything. At first, it was challenging because I was a small fish in a big pond, but everyone I know who works in this field lives here.

So, there have been three or four major shifts for me. Those are probably the main ones. My life evolved.

We're meant to expand our capacity to love as
part of our journey, and in doing so, experience more
joy. When we exercise our talents to fulfill and be of
service to others, then we experience fulfillment and success.

Q: What advice would you give someone who wants to pursue their passion? There are numerous limiting self-beliefs, fears, and negative tendencies. The biggest fear is self-doubt. So, tell me something very practical concerning real life situations.

JC: I believe that change is one of the most important pieces of work anyone can do. Everybody, including me, had experiences somewhere between the ages of three and eight years old where they made a decision based on that experience. Perhaps you raised your hand in school and gave the wrong answer. Everyone laughed, and you said,  “I’m never doing that again.” Or, you wanted to play athletics, but when you didn’t make the team, you felt inadequate. Or you wanted your mother’s attention when you were four years old. She’s vacuuming the floor, not paying attention to you, so you start to think you’re not lovable, not worthy of success. Or maybe you’ve lost some money. You were sent to the store, but you came back without all the money. So, you decided that somehow you’re not good with money. And these little beliefs that we form when we’re children stick with us, and then they become unconscious; you’re unaware of them. You go to make that phone call, but you just can’t bring yourself to pick up the phone because you’re so afraid of rejection, etc.

Currently, I’m working on finishing a book that explores how to become aware of and replace limiting beliefs. The basic idea is that I’ll start by saying, “What is something you want that you can’t seem to manifest, you can’t seem to create, or that you can create but you can’t sustain?”

Some people will get into a relationship, but they can never make it last. Or they’ll get money, but it never lasts. Or they get a job, but they never stick with it. It’s as if they get fired, or their business, their coaching practice, just doesn’t fill up with clients.

And then I’ll say, okay, so what do you feel when you think about that? And they’ll have a feeling like resentment, or resignation, or fear, or sadness, or whatever. And then I’ll say, keep thinking about that thing that you want, that you can’t seem to create.

And I’ll scan your body from head to toe, noticing where you feel the most tension, pain, or numbness. Because when we squeeze too hard, too long, we numb out, we don’t feel it anymore. And everyone does. It might be a band across their shoulders, it might be a band around their head, or it could be queasiness in their stomach. And then I'll say, “What’s the feeling that’s inside of that?” There’s an emotion inside that physical sensation. It could be fear, sadness, etc.

Now, go back in time to the earliest time you can remember having that same physical sensation and feeling. And everybody does. They usually go back between the ages of three and eight years old. Sometimes when they’re a teenager, if they’ve been physically abused, maybe by their husband, they’ll go back to that event. But generally, in their childhood.

And then we’ll say, “What happened? Where were you? Who was there? What did you decide?” And I’ll give you a quick example of one of our clients, who was an Olympic-level athlete. She was amazing. And yet, every time she performed in competitions, she didn’t do as well as she did in practice.

I believe that change is one of the
most important pieces of work
anyone can do. 

And we couldn’t figure it out. She came to us for a session, and we used the process I just mentioned. And she went back to where she was when she was a little girl.

And she remembered that whenever she would bring a ribbon home, or a medal, her mother would never put it on a shelf, a trophy; she would never show it anywhere. And one day she asked, she said, “Mom, why don’t you ever put my ribbons on a bulletin board, or put my trophies on a shelf? Or, every other kid I go to their home, they have that.” And she said, “Whenever you win and bring something home, it makes your brother feel bad, because he never wins anything.”

She decided in that moment, I don’t want to make my brother feel bad. I don’t want to hurt someone I love. So, here she was in her 20s, still stuck with a decision she made when she was eight or nine years old, and she wasn’t even aware of it.

After clearing that belief and adopting a new one—understanding that I’m not responsible for my brother’s feelings, he’s responsible for his own—I realized I’m responsible for fulfilling my purpose: expressing my talents. Following this realization, she went on to win. The reality is that we have these beliefs, and they’re critical. We need to find a way to work with that. You can work with beliefs with tapping, if you’re familiar with EFT tapping, where you tap on these nine acupressure points. That’s another way to get rid of limiting beliefs.

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