Natalie : Today on the show I'm speaking to the legendary Mr. Jack Canfield, now he gets personal and tells us about some personal things that he overcame with his life and exactly how he did it. So that can help you do the same, so please enjoy.

Hi I'm Natalie Ledwell and this is the Inspiration Show. And today I have with me my guest, there's no introduction, the amazing Mr. Jack Canfield. Hi Jack.

Jack : Hi glad to be here.

Natalie : I'm glad that you could spend time with this, like I said you don't really need an introduction, you very famous from the chicken soup for the soul series, and many other things. But can you tell us a little bit about your background, and what got you to this point?

Jack : Well I grew up in a typical dysfunctional American family, unless for genuine, my father was a workaholic, my mother was an alcoholic, and I was very fortunate though I have an aunt who had a son named Jack, who died when he was in college and she adopted me, and Seventy Two is a really good school, it was a day school but I went to move high school for 8 years in West Virginia which at that time had the 48 worst educational system in America so I was forced not to get a fairly good education, went to college majored in Chinese History which was prepared me for the work I do today, I say killingly. But while I was in college I took an elective class in Psychology and I became fascinated with the human behavior, and then what happened was I ended up teaching in an all-black inner-city high school in Chicago. And I was really curious about my students I was motivated to learn, I'd always wanted to learn as much as I could about anything. And I've discovered that they weren't motivated and so my quest became how do I motivate them? To believe in themselves that they can achieve anything they wanted in life. And because of that time in the Ghetto that wasn't the reality for these kids and so I met a man named W. Clemenstone, he was a good friend in Napoleon, he already thinking go rich and I already got involved with him and I learned all this achieve and motivation principles and practices then we called it you know positive thinking today's law of attraction. And I started playing that in my classroom and I've got so good in what I was doing that when kids on suspension and probation they would sneak on the school, come to my class then sneak out of school again so they didn't wanna miss it. And that first year of teaching I've got the Teacher of the Year award from the students and so I knew I was on to something. And so very quickly I was ask to teach the teachers how do you teach this stuff and I became a teacher trainer, and one day someone said 'my husband's company needs what you do' and I said 'I never worked in a company' and they said and I said 'I just worked with kids' and they said 'why don't you think the kids are the suits, so don't worry about it'. So I went over in Todd Cole setting a Self Esteem, an affirmations, and visualizations, they loved it. And eventually my work more often to public seminars, and working with corporations, and then I always noticed that stories is when people beyond on their seat if you're telling a story, teaching history, telling a story about somebody on the edge of their seat so I started collecting stories even when I was a high school teacher and I would use stories and that what eventually became chicken soup in the soul. People started saying ;the story told about the girl scout who sold 3,528 boxes of girls scout cookies' and 'send the book anywhere' and I have to say no and they'd say 'well my daughter needs to read that' and then after one day I went put these stories on the book and that literally transform their life and?

Natalie : Yes 'coz that was such a successful franchise, it was chicken soup for the African-American soul, for African women soul, teenager soul, I actually have one for the traveling soul. So that was such a maser, amazing franchise. And now you've moved on from there so what is it that you're doing now? What's your focus?

Jack : well what I was doing before chicken soup is that I was running trainings, and helping people literally learn how to trust in themselves, believe in their dreams, go for what they wanted. And so I got tired of doing chicken soup series inside, I want to you know change, I went and wrote a book called the Success Principles: How to get from where you are to where you want to be. And that's been really the focus of my work, my life's purpose is to describe as inspiring people, inspiring and empowering people to live their highest vision in a context of love and joy in a harmony with the highest of good all concern. I had that after the Wallstreet meltdown. 'Coz I realized if everyone was trying to do what they do in a harmony with the highest of all concern it wouldn't happen. Then the work I do today is primarily running around like tomorrow leaving for Russia, doing a one day seminar in Moscow, and 2 days for 7,000 members of a networking company, I work in large corporations, I do retreats, I do high and seminars, I do my bet to success trainings every year, we have a coaching program, we coached about 3,000 mid-wife for every year. And my big passion now is training trainers. So looking at western legacy I leaved, other than my written work, and my audio programs is now got trained about 250 trainers from 42 countries around the world, and so every year we're doing about 820 people.

Natalie : Yep. Actually we recently contacted by a woman who Matrix, my Mind Movie Matrix product, who is one of your coaching programs. She's being coached on how to build business online, so I've stepping in helping with tele-seminars series.

Jack : Oh good. Excellent, yeah.

Natalie : Now I need to ask, were there any limiting beliefs that came up for you on the journey?

Jack : Yes. My whole list of the month. My biggest jagger-not-that-idea-pass was I'm not blank enough, you know, you can fill it with I'm not smart enough, I'm not rich enough, I'm not connected enough, I'm not worthy enough, I'm not you know I don't know enough techniques yet to be really good, all on the way that was the biggest issue I had. So it drove me, the notary part is that I worked too hard for a long time, I don't know anymore, and then the but the good part of it trained me to go out and learn as much as I could about everything so I feel worthy, I now know my worthiness does not depend on my knowledge, it depends on my quality of my being-ness which was there for all the time. So that you surrender in to and accept and allow, the others like just driving pushing things that I did for years. You know and the bad thing about perfectionism it kind of works it. So yeah it reinforce a lot for being good. But the price is awesome I mean it cost me one marriage and probably spend more time with my children yearly on, probably with a good lot sleep, you know that more relax and have more fun. But I've transcended that that was a big word for me, a lot of is.

Natalie : And with there anything specific that you do to move past there?

Jack : Well it was a combination of therapy, meditation, coaching, mentors, lots of workshops, and I've read 3,000 books and taking 600 seminar so somewhere in there, little things pop. But I would say the techniques that I learned were primarily meditation, 'coz you watch your mind doing its ridiculous negativity and after a while you go "Oh that's ridiculous", you see how you setting yourself up. The other thing was the affirmations, taking the opposite of what limiting belief was and affirming that, and after a while you basically crowd out the negative belief, we say if you can create it, uncreate it and re-create it. And so that's the power that we have in our mind and so for me, years of repetition, listening to audio tapes, you know surrounding myself with positive thoughts, reading positive books, and hanging out with positive people, and if you do that eventually you know the inner culture shifts and what happens is when you go 51% negative to 51% positive, it's very subtle. But all the sudden the results are amazingly different and that's why what I teach are what I call the daily discipline of success, you have to work in a consistent manner over time whether to watching mind movies, whether it's lifting or creating your vision boards, whether it's doing an affirmations, visualizations, meditation, exercise; it's a daily discipline and as you know most of the research now says about 30 days in a row without 1 interrupted day, and then what happens is your mind starts to shift, you're building new neural pathways create your minds with proteins and you know the brain get create a little law to for more dendrites spiny turtubances at the end of the axon and the dendrites and all this to happen. So basically it's that commitment, someone say we weren't meet yesterday and someone in our group said you know change is not easy. It requires discipline, then after be suffering then has to be committed and that's the difference I think between those people that succeed in life and those people who just get by.

Natalie : Yup. You know isn't it just fascinating and amazing that impart of what we created yesterday you know research this the scientific back up, the scientific proof that what people been talking about since the early 1800's why it works, how it works, and how it can work for everyone. I love that.

Jack : Well I'd always love when research validates with what I've been known.

Natalie : Yes. Yes.

Jack : and now there's so much research, I love it, I love reading it and on I knew it you know it proves it.

Natalie : Exactly.

Jack : But there is if you love research there is plenty of out there.

Natalie : Yup. Now I may knew you're living this life of passion, you do what you love. What advice you have for people out there that looking trying to figure out what it is and identify what their passion about.

Jack : Well I think there's a couple of ways. Number one is to do what I call the joy review, look back over your life and ask yourself when have I been happiest? When have I expressed most joy? And for me, it's always when I was teaching, when I was learning and especially when I was learning about myself, and about people, about spirituality, and about success too. And so for me, I'd say what I would do if somebody they were singing in front of me is that I would have this and I would when were you have been happiest in the work? When have you been happiest in your social life? The other thing is you know friends of mine name Janet and Crizel would have invented this cool thing called the passion test and I actually in their book 'coz they took me through it and it was really good because one of the things that I realize when they do the test is you know you ask yourself a question, you complete the sentence, I'm happiest the most so filled when I , and then you can be impeding my card, I'm teaching, I'm watching television, I'm exercising, I'm playing yobo, whatever it might be, and then you get your 10 things and you go through this first choice you record them and I realized my number one passion was hanging out with highly conscious people, sharing and learning and having fun together. And I realized the next question they asked is scale 1 to 10 how present is that in your life and it was about a 3. And so I said okay what can I do to bring that to a 10?And that's when I started the transformational leadership council where I invited 30 people like John Grey and Steven Emarcavila, you know Junior and Paul Shilly, and all these different people held wasking Sadona Method to come to my house and say look we all run transformational trainings, I would like to get together with you guys twice a year and would do a little presentations, have fun, we'll play, would you guys like to do that? And everyone but 1 person said yes. And so now we have a 120 members, we'd meet twice a year for 4 days, I can't wait to coming up about 3 weeks to get to do that,

Natalie : Yes.

Jack : And it's like I'm like as I said West Virginia, I'm like a pig in mud, you know. And I think you said in Australia was like a fox eating guts or something like that.

Natalie : Yes.

Jack : But the idea that just pure joy of doing it and you love to do you know so. It's really when you're not enjoyed then what I believe is you're off course, you know you're not it's your internal guide and system that's guiding you toward that you were meant to do in manifesting here in the planet. You know I say work is required suffering is not. And so many people think you have to suffer just to achieve, I don't believe that.

Natalie : Right. Alright I have a little hypothetical question for you,

Jack : Yes.

Natalie : A genie is about to appear in front of you, and he's gonna grant you 1 wish, and that wish is to have dinner with one person can be anyone from past to present, who do you choose to have dinner and why?

Jack : You know one of 3 people, it doesn't matter which one, that would be Jesus, Buddha, or Mother Theresa. And the reason I pick all three of those I think all three of them mastered the unconditional love, and that's the highest level of consciousness that I am committed in reaching into my life. I don't know if I will ever reach what some people called enlightenment, I've had moments with that you know meditation, but I really am happiest when I just allowing things to be and loving people, things, places, the sound of the plane finagled while we were recording, just loving it and accepting it unconditionally and I would love to know how they were, 'coz we have all these images of them being like this and or were they really, or did they more feisty than that you know. A lot of questions I would ask them, so either of the three of those would be fine.

Natalie : And it is interesting to think of Jesus, Mother Theresa, Buddha, they still live life and isn't that something you know I sometimes struggle it's like you have the spiritual connection that you want to have, you still need to keep your feet on the ground.

Jack : Yes.

Natalie : You still need to go through the purchases of life and you know in direct to other people.

Jack :Well the Buddhist say you know before enlightenment, carrying wood, chopping water, after enlightenment, carrying wood, and chopping water, you still have to go the grocery store, feed the cat you know, take a shower, pay your bills, whatever. And I think that the trick is learning how to be present in consciousness and joy when you do those things 'coz they're just part of the process. I think a lot of people are trying to eliminate things in their life they don't like and certainly we can create more of the life we want. But I also realize it that you know even changing a diaper, doing the dishes, we don't call it doing the dishes in my house if you call it sparkly enough the kitchen. And it is sound so much more fun.

Natalie : Yes exactly.

Jack : And you feel the warmth of the water in the hands and washing the dishes get cleaned and so it's a matter of learning how to enjoy every moment.

Natalie : Yeah. And taking that moments to stop and be grateful. Like be grateful that I actually get to spend this time with you today Jack and we spent that time yesterday was fantastic. It's such a pleasure to be in your company and I'm really grateful that we spend the time yesterday.

Jack : Thank you. I'm grateful that I can sit here in my home in front of my pool with two beautiful people in jeans and in shirt.

Natalie : Yes.

Jack : And actually know that this is fulfilling my life's purpose.

Natalie : Exactly. Now we've actually set up page for you to find out more about Jack and what he does, so if you click on the banner to the side there you go through to that website and if you're listening to the podcast, you go to mindmovies.com/jackcanfield you can go through to that special site. Now I encourage you all to please share this information and the video by clicking the Facebook and Twitter share buttons above and if you haven't done so already, make sure that you put your e-mail on the box above there ?coz I would love to send you my 87 dollar Manifesting with the Masters video echoes. Now it has masters like John Vitale, Bob Proctor, Masi Shymoff, I'd like to send that to you for free so make sure that you put your e-mail on the box above there to get that. So until next time remember to live large, choose courageously, and love without limits. We'll see you soon.