A few weeks ago, I went on a diet - - a news diet. I had overeaten the anxiety of bad economic news, gorged on giant servings of recession rhetoric, and stuffed myself on politics almost non-stop. As happens to most of us after overeating, I needed a break.
Appropriately enough, the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul provided the comfort food I needed. Jack Canfield, co-creator of the world-renowned series has now written The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. Based on the principles he's studied, developed and taught for over 30 years, this inspiring work is the perfect antidote to the diet of bad news we've all been served lately.
Canfield worked his way from scraping by as a teacher, eating spaghetti and tomato paste every night for dinner, to an international career as an author, speaker and advisor. He holds a Guinness world record for having seven books simultaneously on The New York Times Best Sellers list.
The Chicken Soup for the Soul series, a collection of books featuring short inspirational stories and motivational essays, has sold more than 80 million copies. Canfield has been the author and editor of over 60 best-selling books in print in 39 languages around the world.
The Success Principles, written with co-author Janet Switzer, is a collection of 64 timeless principles that have been used successfully throughout history and for 30 years by its well-known author. Canfield claims, "The principles always work if you work the principles." But Canfield isn't alone in advocating the success that comes from using these principles. As an appetizer to the smorgasbord of ideas offered, the book includes six pages of endorsements from CEOs, authors, leaders and other successful individuals.
The book is organized into six sections that have a natural flow and design. Section I, "The Fundamentals of Success," contains 25 short chapters that set out the basics to get from your present situation to the one where you want to be. These basics may also be the most difficult for some, such as taking 100% responsibility for your life and results. He takes you through the steps of clarifying your life purpose, vision and how to believe in yourself.
Section II, "Transform Yourself for Success" continues addressing the important inner you have to do. In this section, each chapter develops some aspect of yourself, from cleaning up emotional messes, to creating the energy needed to achieve your goals.
The next two sections expand upon the earlier ones. Here the author reveals the importance of building different kinds of support teams as well as maintaining successful relationships. "In this day of strategic alliances and power networks," he writes, "it's literally impossible to build large-scale, long-lasting success without world-class relationship skills."
The fifth section, "Success and Money," strives to enable the reader to have a more positive money consciousness. Finally, Section VI, "Success Starts Now," pushes you to jump-start the life you've always wanted but didn't know how to create.
Canfield's writing style is candid and clever. He carefully turns out phrases that imprint on the mind and make for easy remembering. For example, he tells us to "Reject rejections," and "Become an inverse paranoid" (meaning to see the world as out to help you rather than out to get you). The book lacks the dryness of many business and self-help books and is instead rich with both insight and variation.
Like many of his other works, this book is filled with stories from CEOs, celebrities, business authors, athletes and just people Canfield has met. The author also takes us on the road by giving examples developed in his own seminars and company or while coaching others. Canfield shares generously from his own success story, in effect leading by example.
The Success Principles is a superb collection of ideas and action steps that are both inspiring and effective. Canfield makes success approachable and possible for each of us. In a time of change, he has given us reality-based principles for becoming the best we can be by making the changes we chose, rather than those chosen by others. If you're hungry for positive insights and intelligent ideas, read this book.