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

0:00 Hello, everybody. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. My guest today, I'm so happy to finally have on this podcast. He effectively made my career. Certainly the four hour work week would not have happened. Without him, which is a backstory a lot of folks don't have, Jack Canfield. You can find him online, Jack Canfield. Dot com that's Canfield, C A N F I E L D. He is a bestselling author, speaker, trainer, and entrepreneur. He's the founder and CEO of the Canfield Training Group, which trains entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and more how to accelerate the achievement of their personal and professional goals. Jack is the co-author of more than 200 books, including The Success Principles. how to get from where you are to where you want to be and Perhaps most famously Chicken Soup for the Soul as a series which includes forty four zero New York Times bestsellers and which has sold more than six hundred million copies.

0:53 In fifty plus languages. around the world. He has conducted live trainings for more than a million people in more than fifty countries, holds two Guinness World Records, we'll talk about that, and is a member of the National Speakers Association's Speakers Hall of Fame. I love Jack He's so kind, so generous. He's been so patient with me, even when I was a very boisterous. Chest puffing. early twenties something, way back in the day. And you can find all things Jack at JackCanfield.com. Without further ado, please enjoy a very wide ranging, very practical

1:27 Very tactical conversation with none other than Jack Canfield. Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And I answered your personal question. No it is seemingly. I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal and those galaxy.

1:51 No Jack, Jack, Jack. It is so good to see you. Glad to see you, my friend. Yeah, this is fun. So thrilled that you're here. And that we're seeing each other again. It has been a long time, and as I warned you

2:08 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 Hanseman, who became my Book agent.

2:34 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 have been two thousand five, two thousand six. I was around twenty seven, twenty eight at the time.

2:52 Much earlier, this would have 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 to on cassette tape to and from. my job as I commuted on one oh one. I was eating at Jack in the Box in the parking lot of a safe way a couple of nights a week, because that's what I could afford. And I was volunteering for a group call the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs, which is a mouthful, but S Vhase. Thank you

3:26 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 organized some speakers for a 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.

4:02 To come to that. And here we are. More than twenty years later. And I'm so happy to have you on the podcast. So thank you for all of that. These are these sliding door moments where there's no way I could play The alternative, but the what if

4:17 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 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're 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. Let me just say you're someone who knows how to take advantage of an opportunity.

4:46 You've done really well. You know, you gotta take your shot when you can take your shot. And it's been one hell of a ride. 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.

5:05 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. The story behind more than three hundred million copies sold in China. How does that happen? 'Cause 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.

5:25 Well what happened is the company called Enwe Publishing and they decided to Published the book. And what's interesting is we had a contract that they would pay us ten cents For every book sold in China. But En We was half own by The government and half owned by private equity.

5:42 So they decided to make it a textbook to teach English to kids in high school with 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.

5:58 So I learn how to write better contracts in the future. A lot of Chinese people have had major transformations because of the books have taken off and they have sold in in the general public as a result of kids learning about'em in school. Showing it that her parents

6:17 So on and so forth. So it all works out, all paid off. But that was a major lesson for us. You know, you gotta be really, really careful when you're in it. When you're interacting with the Chinese and making deals, they're very, very clever. You gotta be careful. There is an expression, I'm not gonna say uh that everyone uses this, but in Chinese, which is ng pien, which is if you can trick them, then you should trick them. And not saying everyone subscribes to that, but you gotta have your wits about you. Yeah, for sure. Part of the reason I love doing this podcast is it gives me a pretext for doing a bunch of

6:51 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

7:06 Sure. The basics of where you grew up, what you learned or didn't learn from parents or household. Things of that type. Well, I was born in nineteen forty four. My father was in the air force World War Two was going on. He trained bomber pilots, actually. So from the time I was born until 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.

7:27 But w when I was six we moved to West Virginia. Which is why I'm mostly grow up in Wheeling, West Virginia. Uh 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.

7:44 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 And 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

8:00 My stepfather, he he said to me, he gave me twenty dollars. He looked over you in the eye and he said, No, there's that. If you need a helping hand. Look at the end of your own arm.

8:09 There'll be no more gifts coming from me. Okay. So I learned early on, you know, I I worked my way through high school. I There's a lifeguard of the country club pool. 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.

8:27 And I went to a private military school from the fifth grade to I graduate 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 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. But I w 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 Cadillac dealership. That was not my crowd. Yet I got to hang out with those kids and eventually got into Harvard on a scholarship play football. I was a football player, I was a honorable mention all state, I was an end, all that kind of stuff.

9:06 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 six in the morning and then Fell asleep immediately in French class. I was so tired, you know? I remember one day that I'm like this falling I'm totally asleep in this class at nine in the morning and this professor comes over and

9:30 He shakes me awake and he says, You can leave now, the class is over. That's very understanding content for my teacher. And then I meet. This is interesting. I majored in Chinese history, which is interesting why.

9:46 Uh later I learned I had past lives in China and Tibet and so it made sense to me, but at that time My freshman year I got all Cs and everything. Here I was A student, 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 there were a lot of smart, smart kids there, valedictorians when they were schools. And I said to my counselor, 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, once you think his class and He knew Chang Kai Chek and Mao Tedg, he had slides of everything, you know, and I got the A. But I fell in love with Chinese history for some weird reason. So that was my major

10:26 You know, as I always tell people, prepare me really well to do the work I do. It had nothing to do with it. Yeah. My senior year. I took an elective class, I said another I need another easy A, and someone said, Take Socrel ten, Socrel Social Relations ten. 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.

10:49 Oh my God. 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 have to get into psychology, you had to study as an undergraduate and I hadn't They said, Well you can sneak into psychology through education. 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.

11:13 And Yeah. Teacher of the year, my first year. I went to get to Jesse Jackson's church. I became friends with People in the jazz community.

11:21 I would say probably for a year I I Almost wish I was black'cause I thought white people are milk toast and these black guys 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.

11:35 Basically I started realizing my students Or not motivated. They didn't believe they could learn. 'Cause they were black in the inner city and They didn't have role models.

11:47 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 six hundred million dollars. In nineteen sixty eight.

11:59 Which is when I was there. Yeah, his best friend was Napoleon Hill, who wrote Think Can Grow Rich. And together they wrote a book together. And then also he wrote a book called The Success System that Never Failed. That's why I learned about motivation and setting goals and having vision and values and working hard and using affirmations and

12:17 Visualization, all of that. I wanna come back to W Clement Stone. I Six hundred million. 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. But if we back up for a second, teacher of the year first year. In Chicago.

12:34 What made that possible. What do you think contributed to that? I think what happened was it was This school uh probably five years earlier was all white and Jewish. And then it was this black invasion, they would call it into the community. And there was this white flight out to the suburbs.

12:51 So what happened was A lot of the teachers didn't really want to be there. They wanted to go with 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. And the other thing is nobody was teaching African American history. I was teaching history. You know, American history and world history.

13:11 And I found a book called Before the Mayflower. And it was by Gottie Lerone Bennett, and it was a book about African American history. It's just a paperback. It was like 395. 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. And They didn't know any of this stuff. And the fact that I would do this.

13:34 And the fact that I was loving and kind and motivational and believed they could do everything That made them I think just like me because I was on their side. And then they started the 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.

13:53 Because the guy who was supposed to do it had majored in basketball He was a phys head teacher, he didn't know that much about swimming. I had swum competitively in high school And it was a waterfront instructor and summer camps in Maine and teach kids to swim and all that kinda stuff. So I think

14:09 The last part of that Well that I was starting to do These human potential activities in my classes. You know, I get'em into pairs and have'em do go back and forth say I can't. then I'd have him go replace the the sentence with I won't.

14:23 Now which feels stronger, which feels more true, which is you know And they go, Yeah, can't're a victim word. So I was doing maybe 10 minutes of that every day along with teaching my history. And I think that's kind of why. And the big moment for me, this is so cool, you know, you have these little moments in life where you get affirmation from outside.

14:41 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

14:54 You must be really cool to have gotten that award from those kids. I think I lived on that for days. I mean, that's a hell of a compliment from a hell of a person and a hell of an entertainment. Yeah, and you're like tw twenty two years old or something, you know, it's a big deal. 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. I

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17:31 Better sleep starts. No. So if we flash forward to W. Clement Stone, how did he make

17:42 Six hundred million dollars. It's just not to fixate on that, but I mean that's I think a non trivial sum of money. 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. And he believed everybody could afford something.

17:58 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. He had a training system. This is so cool. So Here's the training system. He tell'em what to do, maybe a Monday class. He said, Now we're gonna go tomorrow

18:18 And I'm gonna go in. He's teaching these kids who never graduated college to sell to CEOs of banks and companies. It was intimidating for them. He said, We're gonna go in, I'm gonna make a sale At least the presentation. You watch what I did. And so

18:32 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 in the fourth time they're going in and and he just turns to the kid and he goes, This one's yours. So he just stepped back and a kid maybe he made it, maybe he blew it. But afterwards they go out and say, Okay, you missed two things.

19:00 We're gonna go to the next one to watch me do those two things. Next one, Hico, this is yours. By the end of the day, they knew how to sell. That's incredible. So he had salespeople. All over the country selling these low price insurance things.

19:15 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, that's a big You know, bring beef in and they were processing beef all those days and it's also a big central distribution point for everything.

19:32 There's a place it's just huge, wide, like six rails wide, going into the main station. Um There was no more real estate to buy. And so he said to the guys who the owner Land. He said, Can I buy the air rights over the railroad?

19:49 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.

20:06 And the third thing he did, he invested well in everything else as well. So a lot of it was an investment. And then he also Yeah. Success magazine started by Dubby Clinton Stone. And he was a speaker. He had

20:19 Books he sold. The magazine Augmandino, who wrote The Greatest Salesman So I'm working in the Stone Foundation at one point, so I quit Teaching. I work for Stone.

20:29 Why did you quit teaching? Because don't offer me a job. Okay. The stone said. We have this achievement motivation program. We're teaching teachers to do it.

20:40 to go into the schools. We don't have anyone that's had 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? Working for him was amazing and he Just took everybody under his wing, loved them.

20:56 Imagine you're young, you're twenty three, maybe He says to you Work in my foundation, go teach this stuff. If there's any training you ever want to take anywhere, it's on me. Go for it. I took thirty seven weekend workshops that year.

21:10 You're the you're the edge case he has to budget for. Yeah. It was like a grant from the the government or something. So I took all these workshops, you know, everything from Carnegie to Gastal 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 presence, you know.

21:34 I'll tell you a story. I got an intake interview first day. And he says to me. Do you take a hundred percent responsibility for your life? And I said,

21:43 I don't know. He said, It's a yes or no answer, son, think. I said. Well, based on I don't even understand it, probably no.

21:52 He says, 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 a hundred percent responsibility. So he introduced me. to the whole concept of a hundred percent responsibility. And Then he said to me, Do you watch television? I said, Yeah.

22:10 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, eleven o'clock or something like that. So that's three hours a day. Just cut out an hour a day. I said, Why?

22:21 He said, because that'll give you three hundred and sixty five additional hours a year to be productive, divide that by a forty hour work week, that's nine and a half weeks. That'll give you a fourteen month year. You'll be much more competitive than all the people in your field if you do that. So I did that. He was teaching me in the It was cool. 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

22:50 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? He challenged me'cause I mean, as an educator I was probably making back then thirty thousand a year if I was lucky. You know, that was like Now people like a lot more.

23:07 Inflation. But what happens is he said, I want to challenge you To make a hundred thousand dollars a year. And if you do it it's only because of what I taught you. And he taught me To set goals.

23:19 To believe in them. to visualize it, you know, like as if it's already happening. uh have an affirmation, I'm so happy and grateful I'm now whatever. And I started doing that.

23:31 And I took the goal of a hundred thousand dollars seriously. And every morning I'd wake up and I'd put a hundred thousand dollar bill on the ceiling. I didn't even know one existed at the time. Banks actually trade'em back and forth. But I took a hundred dollar bill. I projected it with a remember overhead projectors? I projected it onto a piece of like flip chart paper. Traced it, added some extra zeros, and then I

23:53 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 quickly and easily as I earn a hundred thousand dollars a year. And But

24:06 I'd say. Maybe a month or two into it, I'm in the shower. I had a hundred thousand dollar idea. 'Cause I'd written a book. Called one hundred ways to enhance self-concept in the classroom.

24:17 And I used to get a quarter, twenty five cents, for every book that got sold. And I said wow. Sell four hundred thousand bucks. I get it.

24:27 A hundred thousand dollars. That was my first hundred thousand dollar idea. And So to make a long story short,'cause I could do a half hour in that story. I literally Started to

24:39 Sell more books. I started a bookstore. Literally a mail at a bookstore where you could buy my book. Had one product and then my wife at the time said, You know We're selling that book.

24:51 I know what happened. She'd order something in the mail. Have you ever ordered something in the mail and it comes and then there's like five flyers for other products they have in the in the box. Sure. So she had done that. So why don't we sell other people's stuff? So We've added other product. And I hired a high school kid to come in after school and to sell the books, you know, ship'em out and so forth. So long story short, I did not make a hundred thousand dollars. I made ninety two thousand three hundred and twenty eight dollars.

25:15 But I went like okay, this is a success. Then my wife says, You think it'll 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 because 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? It it changed my life, you know.

25:42 Yeah, I mean that's a jugger, not of a success, but People probably don't realize quite how much rejection went into that, but maybe we could start at the beginning. At least the Genesis story. Where did chicken soup for the soul?

25:58 come from everyone listening has seen this book at some point, chances are, unless they're eighteen perhaps and have like never been into a dentist's office or a physician's office or an airport or fill in the blank, right? I mean, it's ubiquitous. How did it start? So I was going around doing workshops for teachers on self esteem. Motivation, that kind of thing. And I was always telling stories.

26:25 Just'cause I noticed when I was a high school teacher If I was talking historical facts, kids were looking out the window. By telling a story. about an escaped slave who became an ambassador of or my own story or something from Jet Magazine or Ebony Magazine, the kids would pay attention. So stories

26:40 Capture us. 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 three thousand three hundred and twenty eight boxes of girl scout cookies in one year.

26:54 My daughter needs to hear that story. I went no. And over a course of a 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 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 Monero story, whatever.

27:16 It was seventy stories. So I said, Okay, that's a book. So I made the commitment that every night I would write Work on a story.

27:24 And at the end of the week I would have two stories. And if I did that for a year I'd have a hundred and one stories, you know, a hundred and f eight, whatever. So I did that. And

27:35 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.

27:45 At this place. human potential leaders would come to this breakfast. The inside edge it was called. So Mark said, What are you working on? I said, I'm writing this book.

27:55 And he said You should let me finish it with you. I went that way. Telling Stephen King he should V his co author because he's five sixths of the way through the book, how do you justify that?

28:07 He says, Well, some of the stories you tell you stole from me. Yeah. Yeah. I said, Maybe three, Mark. Come on. And he said, but I'm a much better salesperson than you. You can be the the I'll be the upfront voice person. I said, Well give me thirty more stories and we'll talk.

28:22 I had seventy. At that time. Okay. Came back, he did it. So basically it was a marriage. Made in heaven'cause he really was good at getting the word up. We were in a mall once

28:35 If believe this, Tim. We're in a mall, I think it was B. Dalton bookstores. They were in a lot of malls. Yeah, I remember B. Dalton. Yeah. And so we're doing a book signing and there's nobody there. 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 and be Don right now with these two amazing authors about the best book in the world. You all should be in there. And so he's doing that and about 40 people came in to beat Dalton and then Mark walks up to the front of the room where I am, ready to do the little talk before the signing. They all like gasped, you know, like you're the guy who was in the hall. I was too shy to do that. So It worked out really well.

29:14 But you know, you talked about rejection. We were turned down by a hundred and forty four publishers once we had a manuscript. And Took us over a year to sell the book. You know, when I think about That story and I think about you know the four hour work week, which was also turned down. Steve and I got front row seats obviously to this by thirty-seven, thirty-nine.

29:35 Publishers, something like that. Imprints within the publishers. Maybe tell me if this resonates or not, but 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. But in this case I had tested 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. And people have been asking you, where can I read this in a book?

30:03 But was there anything else that contributed to the perseverance to go through that many? Rejections. 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 Or what often are called in the speaking business your signature story. that other people had let us use with their signature stories. So we knew they were tear jerkers, 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

30:33 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? You know Sure.

30:48 When you come along with something radically new, like your idea was and our idea was Up until then, no They were all fictional. And they were too short to like get engaged with the characters and really like go, you know, get involved.

31:03 Whereas all these stories We're in categories like on love, on overcoming obstacles, you know, grief and so forth. That Or the human things that everybody lives with, which this is why they're so touched by it.

31:16 And we just knew to stick with it. We would have self published eventually. And I would have made a lot more money, but I would have been I didn't really want to be a publisher. That's I wanted to be a speaker and a writer. So I'm gonna read something here. You can tell me if this needs some fact checking. But this is from Thrive Global. This is a Q and A with you. So

31:37 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, Well, read the manuscript. Some people wouldn't even take it. And they read it in this case and loved it. And they said they publish it. We said, How many books do you think you'll sell? And this is their response. Oh, twenty thousand if you're lucky. And then your response, I think this is you. Well, we want to sell a million and a half in a year and a half, I said. This employee laughed and then a year and a half later we'd sold one point three million copies. To sell one point

32:13 three or one point five million copies is so hard. I mean it is so hard to do. Unless you happen to be very, very lucky somehow. Capturing lightning in a bottle, but usually there's a lot of elbow grease behind it. So two things. Well, actually it's guys, it's just really one thing. What went into selling that many copies? Over

32:36 A year. and a half. And were you still using affirmations? Was that still one of the ingredients in the cocktail? Yeah, and then we were doing the mindset work. I always say it's mindset, skill set, and ready set go. The set go, I wanted another set. It's action. So someone had told us That the book The Road Last Traveled The author of that book.

32:56 has done five interviews a day for the first year. Five interviews a day. Scott Peck. And that but Was on the New York Times list. For twelve years.

33:06 Five hundred and Twelve weeks. Yeah. You know, I think it's a record. I mean you you were really close, I think. Maybe you're still on it. I don't know. But the reality was I thought, well, if that's what works, let's do it. So Mark and I actually had gone to

33:21 Five best selling authors. And then bad about Scott Peck. And we talked to John Gray, who wrote Menor from Mars. We talked to Ken Blanchard, who wrote the one minute manager, we talked to Barbara D'Angelis, who wrote the book on love. And another book on T M that someone had written that was successful. And we said, What should we do?

33:39 And they all said, Do as many interviews as possible, get in front of everybody. I know you did the blogger thing, which was brilliant. We did the radio thing. Now it's I think podcasts are better than radio. I always tell new authors. Because the people listening to him. They're your audience. There's a focus. Whereas radio may have a bigger reach, but not everybody's your audience. So

34:01 Five a day. Every day. Her A year. So we created what we call the rule of five. It's a book by John Kramer called The How to Sell a

34:10 Million books, something like that. 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. Two by three post it. Put it on the wall.

34:19 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 it church. Can we talk in your church? Can we we call five PXs in the military and we say, D 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'em back two weeks later. Did you get it? It was like nonstop. We were giving talks at churches on Sunday morning, Wednesday night, you know, whatever. They have the ones that have bookstores, we do signings.

34:54 We signed in the parking lot. I spoke at every Damn conference there was. It's like Yeah. I didn't care where it was or how long it took to get there, if it was there. We did radio shows that were like at two 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

35:14 So literally it was that level of non stop. activity. And We were pretty emped up in the beginning and we

35:23 Talk to the psychic guy. He was in trance. He goes, it would be As if you would go to a tree. With a very sharp axe. And you would take five swipes of that tree.

35:33 Every single day. Eventually. Even a redwood would have to come down. You know, we went, Okay, we'll five, that's what we're gonna do. What prompted the trip to the psychic? Do you remember? Yeah, I do.

35:47 We knew his wife. And she was a friend of ours and then he Kind of Turn psychic, if you will. He was doing these.

35:57 Readings and they were they were awesome. So we just thought, well, why not? Let's ask him what we should do. And how old were you or what date was this? Either one, roughly when the first Chick-oe for the Soul came out? Ninety three, and I was born in forty four, so what is that? Forty nine years old? Something like that. Yeah.

36:17 Yeah. When it hit, right, when you sold the one point three million copies in a year and a half or whatever it added up to be. How did that change your life? Or in what ways did that affect your life? Well

36:30 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.

36:45 And so it wasn't just the money, it was the Confirmation. that my intuition, that my passion was correct, you know? Uh, you're probably familiar with the concept of ikki guy, which comes from the Japanese. Where is it if you love to do something, that's one thing. Are you good at it?

37:02 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.

37:16 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. I went through my nouveau reef stage for sure. I mean if the sweaters were the extent of the new Varish, then I feel like you have very good restraint. 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? Chicken soup for the fill in the blank soul. Where did that

37:48 This, I suppose, is a nod to the intuition or unorthodox approaches, but how did that title come to be? Well We had an agent. who was gonna take us to New York and meet with publishers. And

38:02 We didn't have a title. So Mark and I said, well, we could we're both meditators. So we said, let's just meditate and ask the universe, source, God, whatever you want to call that energy for a title. So Mark would go to bed. Mark's really hyper. He'd go to bed chanting.

38:15 Mega best selling title, mega best selling title, make a best selling title. 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 and script on it.

38:36 And I said to the hand. What the hell does chicken soup have to do with this book? And the voice said back. When you were a kid, your grandmother gave you a chicken soup. When you were sick.

38:47 And I thought but this not a book on sick people. And the voice answered back. People's spirits are sick. They're in resignation, hopelessness, and fear. Big recession, nineteen ninety three, the Gulf War was going on Down side. A lot of things that are happening now were happening then. The economy was tanking.

39:05 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, chicken soup for the soul, and I got goosebumps. Oh my wife, she got goosebumps. Told Mark called Mark, g what do you think it is? He got goosebumps. Called her agent. He got goosebumps. Went to New York. Yeah, with twenty one publishers, seven a day for three days, nobody got goosebumps.

39:31 So basically that led to You know the hundred and forty four rejections, and you're right, we went to The American Booksellers Association, boot the booth. We're both wearing backpacks full of these spiral bound like twenty stories from the book, the best stories. Would you publish this book? Will you be interested in this book, you know? And most people wouldn't even take one, let alone. And then Peter Vegzo, who's the guy who did publish it. You know, and you're right, he said twenty thousand and we said no.

39:56 And he laughed. He laughed out loud at us. And Later he said, Yeah, you know. He took out an ad

40:04 In New York on a billboard. Thanking all the publishers that rejected chicken soup for the soul. Ha ha ha. He may have just laughed was it laugh as in I don't believe her, or was he like that's some chutzpah?

40:21 No, he he left because he thought we were frickin' crazy. He thought we were insane. Yeah. Shipment he made was eight hundred bucks to uh I think it was uh Barnes and Noble, might have been Borders.

40:37 And they sold Eighty books. The first week. He said, When you sell one tenth of your inventory the first week, that's a phenomenon. Next week ninety two, the next week a hundred and fifty. He said something was happening. So it's just shocked him. And They started with those presses that do this kind of thing, you know?

40:53 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. And I remember one December the guy who was in charge of the money The CFO of that company?

41:08 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. And

41:23 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. Were there any particular breakthrough moments or interviews looking back at these hundreds of things that you tried, were there any that really seem to help the book break through. I think

41:47 You know, as far as interviews go Being on Good Morning America definitely made a big difference. Being on Fox and Friends, in other words, major national T V shows. Which didn't happen immediately. You start out local and you basically create some reels of you you're 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

42:09 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 it'd be a big sales 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. It just kept going and going and going and going.

42:28 I think the other thing That was really big for us. It was a company called Skill Path and another one I'm forgetting the name of right now. But they were doing Sometimes you get these marketing things and say, you know, we're gonna be h doing a workshop on

42:45 AI. Yeah we're gonna do it in Davenport, Iowa on Monday and it will be in the middle of Iowa on Tuesday. So there are these people running around. Doing seminars. Everywhere.

42:56 Is it like learning Annex back in the day? Similar or different? They're learning in X, and I spoke at those places as well. It's 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.

43:13 And you're gonna teach the same course. There's someone else teaching how to communicate with your boss, someone else teaching how to use uh Excel, whatever. Now what happens is That those are places we never would have gone. And in the back of the room, they were selling our books.

43:27 We got a lot, a lot of book sales in places and then that word of mouth thing would take over. And we just keep 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 because I know they did back the room, mostly audio

43:45 programs back then they were like sixty dollars 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 It was a Christian and he always led the Wednesday night men's group or something. They always like 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.

44:11 They go, Can you read any more stories? That night he read seven stories from the book to his Bible group and he went maybe I should reconsider So they did. Yeah. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. Many of you know how deeply I love Japan and its culture of unwavering dedication to craft, refinement, commitment to continuous improvement. But why do I bring this all up?

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45:30 dot com slash Tim. I I wanna emphasize something for folks. And this is through my own lens and bias, of course, but

45:42 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 of someone who's done 800 plus podcast episodes, it's not the same as virtual feedback. Being able to see faces, see when people are getting distracted, see when they're taking notes. to hear what they ask you after you're done teaching or presenting.

46:17 It allows you to refine your materials so well. I have thought Actually, I'm sitting here in Austin, Texas right now, and I've an idea for a short book, which of course I've been trying to write a short book for twenty years. I haven't yet succeeded, but I have this idea for a short book And I've thought about maybe Reaching out to U T Austin here.

46:36 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. I never write What I haven't spoken about a lot first.

47:03 For the exact same reason you're talking about. I get real feedback about what lands, what doesn't land, where did I confuse, where did I give'em 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.

47:19 least teach it online live before you just record it, you know, and then put it online. So yeah, it's it's crazy what people don't do that they should. To maybe just put a bow on the chapter of Chicken soup for the soul. I mean, you've got some crazy accolades related to this, right? Like in his book World Records. With seven chicken soup books on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously.

47:42 That was in nineteen ninety nine. 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 twenty thousand copies, you'd be lucky and Then flashing forward to some of these. You ended up

47:57 Selling the name, the back list, so two hundred and twenty plus titles, all future royalties, the trademarks, et cetera. How did that happen. How did that come to pass? And why did that happen? I think two things.

48:10 We got kinda 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 d 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 well, 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. So we're doing all these books and we kinda got tired and I kinda got burnt out at the level of

48:40 Not another one arm guy climb on Everest door or one legged you know, blank I mean I should have been inspired. It was like uh Not another my mother died and she loved bluebirds and a bluebird landed on our windowsill, so I knew it was my mom. And it probably was, but after a while I'm tired of hearing that. You know. So I I knew I was getting a bit jaded, you know, like is it 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.

49:10 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 Good offer. Happened at the right time. So Yeah, that's how it happened. As you're noticing the saturation.

49:28 And the niching down. And when you're checking in with yourself, you don't have a full body yes, right? You're like, Oh my God, another bluebird story. Don't know if I can do it. 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.

49:53 And I'm just wondering how you thought about what you did after that and if you already had something in the hopper or if There was another plan. During that whole time I was running seminars. And you know, like three, four, five, six hundred people seminar, sometimes seven hundred, eight hundred people in a room.

50:11 I did one seminar in India that had seven thousand herbal life People in it. for three days only they only spoke Tamil. The whole thing was translated, you know? And so I had that going. That was always happening. And the chicken soup was kind of like with a parallel track. The my

50:26 workshops and my seminars. And so Basically, yeah, that was always there. 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. That's when Patty, my business partner, said

50:41 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. kind of chapter of my life, if you will, in terms of that being

50:54 But I was always teaching success ever since W Clement Stone. So yeah, it 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 I can't see how to be scary. And I have a first edition

51:08 Copy of the success principles, how to get from where you are to where you want to be. Because before the four, I think when was the pub date? On the success principles. Two thousand five. Two thousand five, right. So it came out two years before The four hour work week and I think I have a brief cameo in there, probably because of the kickboxing stuff. Yeah or something else. I tell that. 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

51:40 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? 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 some people still see me that way, which is fine. But No, I think

52:00 For me it was a very natural transition. It was a book. I know how to sell books. People would say, How long did it take you to write that book? I say twenty years. 'Cause I was collecting all that 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

52:17 But seven at night. Sometimes I all of a sudden I'd hear birds singing and it would be getting gray. I was Oh my God, I've been up all night typing, you know. So I had the regular bluebird again. Basically I would

52:35 Go to bed at seven in the morning and sleep till noon. One o'clock, then get up and do my business again and then write So Thank God my wife could put up with all that, but she did. And it worked out really well. But It was not that hard. I like writing. I like wordsmithing. I'll give you an example.

52:52 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 had It's a coffee roaster.

53:02 It's all about perseverance, not giving up. And he's up in Seattle. And he's sleeping on these coffee bean bags because he couldn't afford an apartment. Now he's uber rich. No. But what happened was one of his major clients was a coffee shop. Down in Long Beach, California.

53:19 And he would ship the beans through uh UPS. And UPS had a strike. And I was able to go Wow. Blah blah blah, I was writing Sleepers in Seattle.

53:30 In Seattle, this guy was also sleepless. You know, I love that being able to make those kind of segues and stuff, you know? Yeah. And then his chapter is called Going the Extra Mile. I said he w when the strike happened, he said, I can't let this guy

53:48 And he drove them himself. one thousand two hundred fifty miles from Seattle to Long Beach. I said he was willing to go more than one extra mile. He went one thousand two hundred fifty playing with words like that is really fun for me. Yeah. What Was the reason for continuing to do the seminars because you're presumably you've done very well financially from, as you mentioned, some of the royalties.

54:12 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 additional revenue stream. Like why did you keep doing so many in person events? I love doing it.

54:27 It's like I don't know if you I know you participate in a lot of sports and you got really good at'em fast'cause the way you play. But whatever your favorite sport is, you play it'cause you love it when you're playing it, you know. 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 Awareness has happened, the breakthroughs happen, you know, all of a sudden and they're coming up and they think, Oh my God, you know? And then watching them name

54:56 their children after me and write their first book and leave shitty marriages and stop letting them husbands abuse them and That just I love it. I I'm kinda sort of retired right now. And literally that was the hardest

55:11 So I had to get my wife to agree that I could do X number of workshops a year. But it's now like and the other people are doing all the work. I'm not renting hotels and filling them and doing all that kinda crap I used to do. They used to have twelve staff, and I have two.

55:29 And how w what is your age? Now, Jack. All right. You are sharp as a razor's edge, and I have to ask two questions. Number one 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.

55:45 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? I realized there were things I wanna do that I haven't done. I wanna become a really good chef cook.

56:00 I wanna learn how to oil paint. I play guitar mediocre. 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'em up. At the end.

56:13 I have a twelve 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 want to 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.

56:36 So I want to read a book'cause it interests me, not because I'm getting ready to write something or I'm getting ready to you know, whatever. And um It's funny, I never thought I would retire. I told everyone for years I'd never retire. And then I was doing an ayahuasca experience done in uh Costa Rica.

56:53 I'll tell a story with real quick. So 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 everybody. What what's left to forgive. But I'll do it.

57:13 So I 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 I gotta forgive Vladimir Putin, who I think is one of the more evil guys on the planet. So I I literally started to see his childhood. I saw what motivated him He wants to be seen as majorly significant.

57:34 that he did something outrageously huge, like put the Soviet Union back together. How does he do that? you start bringing all these countries back that they gave away, like the Ukraine and Poland and you know All those places. So

57:46 I finally forgave him. And I felt this energy just like leave my body. Who I didn't know I had such animosity toward him. And Then the next thing I see is my door to my office. And

57:58 The office opens and the first three feet of my office is like a shrine. To how significant I am. It was like The Guinness Book World Record magazine covers, awards, uh honorary doctorates, uh, you know, people that made me honorary sheriff of this town.

58:17 I've got more damn stuff, you know? And I realized, oh my God. Part of my motivation has been to feel like I I was worthy of being here. You know, I've I'm I made a difference. I'm significant, you know. Now the the huge Philanthropic, loving, service oriented heart in my body.

58:35 But I realized like How many honorary doctors do you need? You know, I'm I I'm doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor Campfield, you know? It's like I would go away for four days on a trip. give a commencement speech to get another doctorate.

58:48 And I leave my wife and my kids, you know, it was crazy. And so I had that awareness and I thought, you know I really need to slow down. And take a look at all that motivation and part of it being eighty one It was my eightieth birthday last summer.

59:02 Maybe first birthday. In August. I Just realize, you know, I there's a lot I wanna do that I'm not doing. And I'm gonna just

59:11 Work the to decide. Not totally I've got four books I'm still writing, so I'm not retired, retired. But It's like the the road warrior. You know, the three weeks in the Asia the three weeks. Yeah, all that. And I'm not doing that anymore.

59:25 I love how four books is the retirement plan. That's Jack's version of lazy. So 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. And as sharp as you are. I think several things. Another one passionate about what I do. And then I follow my joy, follow my passion.

59:48 So there's 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've very few fears in my life anymore. Just, you know, if I wanna do it, we'll do it. And um so that's there that inner struggle is mostly gone.

1:00:04 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 the belief change process that I'd go develop with somebody. that literally works. So I've cleared just tons of that stuff. I'm a big fan of Byron Cady. Do you know her work? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Her work is amazing. People can find PDFs online also of the work, which are super helpful. The turnarounds and so on. I did that work for years. I've not ever been with her, but I did her work.

1:00:34 I don't get upset about anything. It just is what it is, you know, that whole idea. It is what it is. 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 Yeah, I'm in the Eighth day of a ten day cleanse. So you know

1:00:57 All this stuff coming out of my body, detoxing. I do saunas regularly. I I won't say I'm exercise every single day'cause I'd be a lie, but I exercise enough to keep things moving. I only listen to comedy channels on my X M radio. I laugh a lot. 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. Amazing. Amazing. I didn't know that. Yeah, I'll have to send you a copy.

1:01:23 I can't believe I didn't do that. So I think that organic food When I was in Graduate school at U Miss. In Amers.

1:01:31 Probably it was twenty three, four, something like that. My best friend we played racket ball every night. He was the owner of a health food store. So I got into the organic thing, the supplement thing, the

1:01:43 Cleansing thing, all of that really, really early on. And then doing the ayahuasca, the plant medicine, anything that's not clear comes up and out, you know? So that's all good. And I'm very loving I get massages regularly.

1:01:58 All the things people tell you to do are mostly doing, you know. It's a good list. I'm taking some notes for myself. I need to come on. Add a few more in the rotation. So you mentioned the ayahuasca, so let's talk about that. I was uh 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

1:02:26 Plant medicine. No, it 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 of beers or you know And uh that's another thing I stopped drinking quite a bit ago.

1:02:44 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 Masculine and AOD and things like that. But I only did a few journeys. Never I did L S D once, I think. I was never did cocaine. I was afraid of all that. I didn't want to get addicted and I'd seen people who had

1:03:06 So none of that for years and years and years and years. And then Lynn Twist, who runs the Pachamam 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 things you do is take ayahuasca in the jungle. With a real shaman that's there.

1:03:24 I did that and I had an amazing breakthrough experiences and so Became interested in it. How old were you when you had that first experience? Yeah. I'm thinking twenty years ago, maybe with Lynn. Yeah, something like that.

1:03:38 And then when I learned about Rhythmia. And I thought, well I wanna do that. And the thing I like about Rhythmia, for those who don't know, it's a center in Costa Rica.

1:03:48 And it was founded by a guy who was b in his own words a total asshole. He was a womanizer, a drug addict, a drinker, uh got to the fights and bars all the time and 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 sixty million dollars, I think. But he was miserable. So he said he was going to commit suicide and someone said don't commit suicide.

1:04:13 So you go to the rainforest and work at this guy named Muganda. 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

1:04:24 The resort images were bullshit. It was an old house, dirty mattresses, hot roaches, you know, all this stuff. Hotel paradise. Yeah. And it was funny'cause when he got there and he tells the story, he got there and uh he flies down in a private jet and that whole thing and gets there and Maganda meets him at the airport. He says, Get my bags, man. Maganda's this African guy and he says Look at you, man. I don't carry your bag. 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.

1:04:57 He gets in about eight people lying head to head in the middle of a circle in the garage on mattresses. They do Ibogame, which is an African Hell of a introduction, yeah. 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 had totally repressed all that. That's why he was so angry was he was repressing

1:05:23 And then finally I love this last line. He's lying there and Maganda just taps him on the head and goes. Happy birthday, man. You were reborn. And he was and so he decided that what he wanna do was help people have his experience. And the second time he did over again said, You're supposed to open a center, but don't do it with Iowa Game, do with ayahuasca. So he started that center.

1:05:45 I've been down there five times, do four journeys every time you're there, so twenty journeys. They've been life changing for me. Just literally Life changing. I think that's another reason I'm so latent.

1:05:56 You know. It's all good. Yeah, the pharmacology of ayahuasca in and of itself super, super Fascinating for people who might be interested also outside of the DMT, which is found in the Chakruna, this the leaves of the shrub actually related to the

1:06:13 you know, the coffee plant, but the actual vine itself contains a lot of interesting properties. And there's uh I think it's ESPD fifty, this psych ethnobotanical search for p psychoactive drugs. There's a compendium. that goes into uh there's a presentation from that that goes into the Some of the potential. properties around neurogenesis and so on, from the beta carblades and so on.

1:06:37 themselves in the vine. So even the vine has some very, very interesting properties. What have you observed? As someone who's been a practitioner, a student A teacher in the For lack of a better term, self development space for many decades now.

1:06:54 What do you think is often uh Mist or Undertaught. I mean, you've seen lots of different waves of different things that have become popular, fallen out of popularity. Is there anything you wish folks paid more attention to? I think several things come to mind.

1:07:12 I don't think about that very often, but I 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

1:07:23 watch the secret, they visualize, they affirm, and then somehow it's not working. They don't know why. And so it's it's always like eater fear. Or limiting beliefs or just lack of willingness to take action, you know, that that basically Corrupts. The process.

1:07:37 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 think ninety nine percent of the people have a major breakthrough. Had a woman got rid of arthritis.

1:07:56 In like twenty minutes, you know. I mean ridiculous stuff. So these beliefs we're holding on to 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, not safe to be sexy, make noise, whatever. What happens is That we

1:08:18 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.

1:08:35 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. Yeah. Then you wonder, why isn't it showing up, you know?

1:08:49 And so all this work that that so many of us taught in the secret and so forth There's 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 is a visualization process usually. Or thought prices.

1:09:08 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 Yeah.

1:09:18 I'm more aware is the power of community, the power of support, the power of Not being alone. There are people there to hold you back in line when you go off, you know. My sister just called a couple of hours ago.

1:09:31 I was having a really tough time. But just spending ten minutes with her. She was Yeah. Where she needed to be. 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.

1:09:44 I think that's really critical. And I think more and more people are becoming aware of that. It's why you're seeing all these communities evolving. 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 arrhythmia, what's coming up is coming out. So don't resist it.

1:10:02 That's a good one. Get to clear it. I wanna come back to something that we spoke about or you spoke about early on with W Clement Stone in his intake interview when he asked you, Do you take a hundred percent responsibility for your life? And the reason I want to revisit that is that I grew up in a family where there was a lot of complaining.

1:10:24 There's a lot of finger pointing, a lot of blaming, and the villain would change depending on the context. And I've worked very hard to Try to correct that training for myself. And

1:10:38 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. 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

1:10:58 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.

1:11:12 Complaining. Well, I'll start with a story a couple therapist told me once. She was working with a couple. And they were arguing about whose fault it was that something had happened. And a therapist said, Well, I'm glad to see you agree on something. Think of what?

1:11:26 Well, you obviously agree that if you can figure out whose fault it is, somehow that's gonna make your life better. That's really that's outstanding. Yeah. So basically I teach you a a little formula equation, if you call it, like A plus R equals O. Event Plus response equals outcome. So when there's an event

1:11:50 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.

1:12:06 So we all want a better outcome. We want 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.

1:12:24 You don't feel better. You don't solve the problem in a way that really g gets you anywhere. because you've just blame 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, and 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.

1:12:51 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

1:13:03 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

1:13:15 visualizations in relation to time. In 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 outcome that produces. And what you've done magnificently and what I've done a lot as well.

1:13:31 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 produce the better results. I mean you've been your book, The Titans Book, is just amazing. All these people telling you What worked. And such amaz if you haven't read that, by the way, guys, please do. It's incredible. So

1:13:51 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.

1:14:08 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. No. The reality is

1:14:21 Nobody ever complains about gravity. You've never seen an old person walking through the mall all bent over and gravity. I hate gravity. Wasn't for gravity, I wouldn't be all bent over. Gravity sucks, you know. Never seen that. Why not? Because you can't change gravity. 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

1:14:46 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. Mm.

1:14:57 Let's 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

1:15:09 Imagine a situation where every woman in the world dies except my wife. 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 who survived. When I come to work and complain about my wife No. Why not? The only one. There is no option, right? So we wouldn't complain about it.

1:15:29 Right. If you're complaining, then my response to that is what would you prefer? What would you have to do to create that? One of my friends runs a a workshop he does over in in Europe. He's a European. Corporate consultant.

1:15:46 And one of the questions he asked people Even when they're pissed off at the company they work for, he says On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your quality of life working here? And they go, Three. Nico, why so high?

1:15:58 It's not a zero. Something's going on there. Right? So w why so high? Which floors them, it kind of breaks the chain of their thought. So what would be An eight for you. Never goes to ten, because that's too big a leap for people. What would be an eight for you?

1:16:12 Well 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.

1:16:25 You know? Yeah. So you mentioned

1:16:30 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 Yeah.

1:16:49 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. And He has this you can people can find videos of this too, but it's just called good.

1:17:08 And so if you'll indulge me for a second, I just want to read just a a minute or two of this. So 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 Jocco was in the military that was going on, and he'd say, Boss, we've got this thing, the 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 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.

1:17:48 And I said, Well, I mean it because that's how I operate. So I explained to him When things are going badly, there's going to be some good that will come for 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, build a better resume. Got injured? Good. Need a break from training. It just goes on and on. And uh and then he says I'll just uh put a pin in it, he says, Now I don't mean to say something trite. I'm not saying to sound like Mr. Smiley positive guy. That guy ignores the hard truth. That guy thinks a positive attitude will solve problems. It won't, but neither will dwelling on the problem. No, accept reality, but focus on the solution. Take that issue, take that set back, take that problem and turn it into something good. Go forward. And if you're part of a team, that attitude will spread throughout. And

1:18:37 I feel like You reflect that? And Certainly Jocko is sort of an archetype of many types. And

1:18:48 It's also for me at least makes it clear that it's something you train yourself to do, right? If it doesn't come naturally all the time. just like an exercise habit or anything else. Like this is something that you have to condition yourself to do. with reminders and practices. Are there any reminders or practices that you have for yourself to stay? On the rails, so to speak, with the hundred percent responsibility. You know, I've always got something I'm working on and you have to have like something that keeps it in your focus, you know.

1:19:19 So if I'm Engaging in some kind of negative self talk. And I take and I create an opposite affirmation and I'll put that on some post-its and put on the refrigerator door and on my bathroom mirror and stuff like that. Because we know it Normally you probably have other data than than I do on this, but neuroscience tends to tell us

1:19:38 That it takes about sixty six days to change a belief. And it can take longer depending on who it is and how badly that belief is ground into you through the trauma of it that's creation. But generally it it requires repetition. There's a guy, I forget his name right now, he's uh the head of uh Peak Performance at uh West Point. He's um wrote a book about it.

1:19:57 And One of the things when I read the book that he does is when the students are wanting a behavioral change They create an affirmation and he teaches them every time you walk through a door Reach up and touch the door, Jim.

1:20:11 Then say your affirmation. Now I have a repetitive system that's built in. It tells me to do that. Think about how many doors you go in and out of every day. Into the bathroom, into the kitchen, out of the kitchen, into your car, back out of you know, whatever. And so it's that level of repetition until it becomes You know, ground in there not to be Peter.

1:20:28 I mean, I know my phone number, I don't have to repeat it. Well I did when I first got it, you know. And you wanna get your new ideas like that. I always say if you can build in four New behavioral shifts a year. Think about it in ten years you got 40 new shifts. That's a lot. So for me

1:20:44 For example, when we read the the what was the book? Shaman um. From Mexico. What. Oh uh Carlos Castaneda. Oh a different one. Different job in from Mexico. Yeah, this is me being sharp and even when

1:21:02 Anyway, he had these the four agreements. That's the guy, the book. Oh, this is uh Don Miguel. Don Miguel Ruiz, yeah. So My wife and I decided we'll take the four agreements and we'll work on each agreement for three months. And so for three months that was the agreement, you know, of not m not making other people wrong, thinking positive, et cetera. And

1:21:25 We had to like reinforce that and we had little signs that told us what to focus on and so forth. So I think it's important to do that. Because as you know, we are so distracted today now with A I and scrolling through Instagram and I mean, I even get caught in that occasionally. I'll go looking for something on YouTube and the next thing I know I'm watching old reruns of Jay Leno.

1:21:46 Yeah. But I think that uh yeah, reminders are important. Yeah, I'm gonna use the doorway. That is a great cue. It's actually something if people want to read Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming doorways are also really helpful for some of that. People can check out Steven Leberge if you want to go into a really weird town. And also for people who might be wagging a finger at me, I know that Carlos Castaneda was not a shaman, but it was the teachings of Don Juan, I think, a Yaqui way of knowledge.

1:22:16 That was the book that I was thinking of. Yeah, he was he was a gr that was one of the first books I read. It was a great book. Yeah, it's a compelling book. I mean it's whether it's real or not, it's a fun read. So I've looking at a blog post This is from Jack Canfield.com. Productivity tips. And

1:22:33 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

1:22:56 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.

1:23:10 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?

1:23:33 Well you're talking to a fellow person that needs the same rehab, just so you know. I take more notes at a conference than almost anybody and I've got literally Books full of notes and Taking notes when I'm listening to stuff and podcast things.

1:23:49 I think the problem is that every time you look at all that It's taking your attention. And so the research that I've read says we have the ability to hold about seven attention units at a time.

1:24:01 And so what happens is That You'll know the research also, like if a waitress If you haven't paid the bill yet. Any good waiter or waitress could tell you what you had.

1:24:12 As soon as you pay the bill, you ask them ten minutes later, they don't remember anymore. You don't need to. 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.

1:24:26 Now that can be Yeah. Thing you started you didn't finish. It could be that letter you were writing in the book you're not finished up, the notes you have over here. But what I've learned to do is find a place for those things. You know, like I have lots of filing systems, I have a Filing systems of my computer, I have filing systems I

1:24:43 About ten 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. Let's say I need to do something March twenty eighth. I have a folder called March. So on the first of March, I go through that folder.

1:24:59 Of everything I put in there and then I put it into my counter for those days. Or I can put it in now, you know, like Called. Oh Steve on March twenty eighth. But if there's papers related to that, things we're gonna talk about, whatever, it goes in my March file. So it's fair. It's not in my visual.

1:25:13 Q. So what happens is whether it's a relationship 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'em, you know?

1:25:25 Because it's incomplete. So all that energy is taken up because it's not complete. All the things you've never said. the upsets, the thank yous, the acknowledgments, the wanting acknowledgements and not having got'em, 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.

1:25:46 You know Dan Sullivan's work? The strategic goes. Yeah. Yeah, he's got some great stuff. 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.

1:25:57 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 polyp shit that I deal with and you deal with. But the reality is that Everything is incomplete.

1:26:13 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. 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 or Loving your mother or giving good

1:26:35 Fe back to your girlfriend or whatever. So the reality is it's really important. To clean that up. And there's financial mess, there's garage messes, there's You know, the attic, the tool drawer.

1:26:47 The door that has the leashes, the I can feel my cortisol. Piling up as you're listening. Well, I sound like sounds like you're in my house on my nanny camp. I'm gonna send you. I have a a sheet of like twenty-one things you need to clean up. 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, you were complete. You couldn't teach it if you weren't living it.

1:27:12 Think about it. Financial records, your checkbook not ballast, stuff in your car. You know, clothes that don't fit anymore. I mean people go down a list of all that stuff. I literally had to go through my clothes at one point. I'm a shirt. Horror. I love short, you know. This is another thing we have in common. No, I have

1:27:31 So many t shirts. It's just unacceptable. It's indefensible. I know. I know. I know. But I had to go through and kind of clean it out, you know, because it got to a point where I couldn't even put anything in the closet. So the rule is if if I haven't worn it in the last sixty days and it's not a tuxedo or something like that. It's gone. I love all the decluttering books that are out there and you know, all that kind of stuff. One person said.

1:27:54 Go through your house, take everything you haven't used in the last thirty days, put it in a box. Label the box, what's in it. And if another hundred and twenty days go by and you haven't used it, just throw it out. Well I'll tell you a dirty little secret, which is And I moved eight years ago from San Francisco to Austin.

1:28:13 And I moved all my stuff from California into storage because there was a gap Where I was shopping for a place and I didn't have anywhere to put all this stuff. It has been sitting in storage. All that stuff for eight years, I get a bill for it every month, and I'm like, I should go down and take a look at that. And then I'm like, I cannot allow myself

1:28:34 to look at that stuff because I'm gonna want to keep all this junk that I haven't needed in eight years. So it's my ignorance is bliss approach. Yeah. Yeah. At this point. Oh yeah. George Carlin does a really good routine on stuff, if you can find it, it's really amazing. Oh, I will find it.

1:28:53 George Carlin, what a genius. Also his his late night bit on heaven and hell. People can look that up where it's The you know, the word in heaven the French are the cooks, the Japanese are the lovers and this and this, and then in hell, X, Y, and Z. It's also worth checking out. But decluttering the twenty one things that I need to clean up.

1:29:13 Please do send that to me. Yeah, I will. I will. Is that something we could share in the show notes for this episode for other people? Yeah, I think it's I think it's even a page in my book. If not, I'll I'll get it for you. All right, perfect. Jack, we've covered a ton of ground. I don't want to take up your entire afternoon on 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

1:29:37 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? I would just say you know

1:29:49 If you would like to know more about my work, the book that Tim talked about, it was found in his twentieth 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

1:30:08 Tim. I haven't done it problem of books but I did with that book. I literally after we Probably edited every story five or six times. Went out to Colorado to a ski resort in the summer.

1:30:19 Took three days, read every story out loud. Because what I know is when most people read they're so vocalizing in their brain. You're not speed reading? And if it didn't sound as one of my actors says Coming trippingly off the tongue, I would rewrite it.

1:30:33 And that book went on to sell a hundred and five million copies. So Basically I think Th that was a good thing to do. So I always tell people, like you said, you know, get feedback.

1:30:44 But also read it out loud. How does it sound to you? You know? And then make sure you get I always say get feedback from at least twenty people. First teenage soul book, we had an entire high school suspend classes for a day. Over one thousand kids read all the stories. So we had an Excel spreadsheet. They all graded every story on a scale of one to ten. That book went on to sell I think six million copies or something like that, you know? So

1:31:07 Feedback. I love what Jim Lancher says. Feedback is the breakfast of champions. You know? Feedback is the breakfast of champions. Most people avoid feedback because they're afraid of what they're gonna hear.

1:31:22 And you gotta know that we call it constructive Speed forward, you know, constructive feedback. But anyway. I would read that book. Go to my website, JackCampfield.com. There's all kinds of things there you might be interested in.

1:31:34 And it's interesting, I hadn't I don't normally say this, but last night for some reason I was looking up something and I couldn't remember it but I thought it was There's a guy named Nick Nan. He did a documentary of my life.

1:31:46 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 on YouTube and you'll see one of the most amazing documentary he's ever made, I think.

1:32:01 Because he's a Emmy winning documentarian. So that'll give you some information about some of the stuff Tim and I talked about. That's about it, I would say, you know. 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 Jack Canfield.com. You can find all that. We'll of course

1:32:24 Link to everything as per usual in the show notes at Tim dot blog slash podcast for everybody, including the twenty one things to clean up, which is gonna ride hard on my O C D, which It's 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

1:32:47 You've had a huge impact on my life. Your work is at 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 a at that event, S Phase, and I had all the speakers, I had some type of waiver because I wanted to record everything. And uh the waiver was, I'm sure, all sweeping and full encompassing of everything because I had probably gotten it online somehow.

1:33:14 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. And then you scratched everything out. You scratched a bunch of nonsense out and you signed it. You've had in it. Incredible.

1:33:32 impact on my career. And I just want to thank you for all of that and for what you offer to the world as an eternal student and as a teacher. Well thank you. And I really appreciate taking the time. Well, I enjoyed this one of the best podcasts I've ever been on, so thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. Least I can do. And I'll say it one more time, everybody who's listening. We will link to everything in the show notes. Tim.blog slash podcast. Just search Canfield C A N F I E L D and it will pop right up. And

1:34:03 Until next time. Be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others, but also to yourself. And thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcasts.

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