In today’s episode, Haylie Pomroy interviews America’s #1 Success Coach and the man behind the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Jack Canfield. Having achieved phenomenal success, Jack put his experiences and wisdom into writing in his book, The Success Principles. Haylie and Jack dive into some of those success strategies, helping us navigate through areas where we might not be feeling, finding, or achieving success. He talks about the importance of taking action and accountability in your own life to achieve success and the importance of focusing on your health along the way. If you want to know how to become successful in all parts of life, then learn from those who are. Success leaves clues; and Jack has left many of those for us in this conversation.

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Success Strategies To Live By With Jack Canfield 

We have a special guest. Someone that's important in my life, in my world, and that I know is going to give you some jewels and gems to help you find the success that you want in your health. Jack Canfield is a number one success coach. He's a best-selling author. A lot of you know him from the whole Chicken Soup for the Soul series and The Success Principles. He has conducted training in more than 50 countries around the world. He also holds two Guinness World Record titles. We'll talk about those in a little bit. His books have sold over 500 million copies in 47 languages all around the world. Jack is a teacher and motivational speaker. He has been an important mentor in my life. I know that he's going to become equally important in yours. Please enjoy this incredible time that we all get to share with Jack Canfield.

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I am privileged to get to have one of my mentors, someone that has changed my life on a lot of different trajectories. Jack Canfield is here with me. Jack, I am excited for myself, as well as for our community to get to have this time with you. Thank you so much for being here.

It's truly my honor and pleasure, Haylie. I'm excited to be here.

I have had many breakthroughs in knowing you, and being able to work with you through all different aspects of personal and professional life. As I'm trying to give resources to the members of our community, I want to dive into some things specific around The Success Principles, if that's okay with you. This is one of Jack's many incredible books, but I like to call this a playbook for myself in a lot of challenges or opportunities on both ends of those spectrums. I feel like I read all the Chicken Soup for the Soul. There are a lot of different variations on that theme. What made you move into The Success Principles? What was the precipice or the inspiration to help people like myself in my community to move through areas where they weren't feeling, finding or achieving success?

I had achieved phenomenal success. I grew up in a house in West Virginia. My father made $8,000 a year, which was not a lot of money. We’re lower middle-class. I now live in a house that if I were to sell it would cost $6 million on 3 acres of land. I published 250 books roughly, sold half a billion books around the world. I could go on all the successes I've had, which have been phenomenal. I wanted to pay that forward. If you were to read one book, and it would teach you what you needed to know to create success in any area of your life. There's specific knowledge. If you want to be a lawyer, you've got to study law. If you want to have a healthy life, lose weight, and be all that, then they should study with you, in terms of the general specifics of being successful, the mindset, the general skillsets of setting goals, being clear of your life purpose, taking 100% responsibility, and all those things.

I'm lying in bed with my son one morning. He was about twelve maybe. He was on his laptop playing a game. I'm lying there on my laptop. I thought, “What are the principles that have made my life successful?” I started to list them and I came with 112. I thought, “I'll write three pages on each of those things. I’ll have a 300-page book. That'd be great.” I started to find I couldn't write three pages. Some of them took 10, 12, so we cut it way back. These are the core principles of success, or 67 principles in the 10th Anniversary Edition. We did the first one and a lot of people went, “It's great, but all the people you referenced in that book are people like Steve Jobs and John Gray, who wrote Men Are from Mars. They're different. They're not like me.”

The second book, I replaced a lot of those stories and revised it, so that people who read the first book who were normal everyday people shifted their lives. My inspiration was simply to share with everyone what I learned. If you look behind me, that's not a background. That's my wall. I've got about seven of those walls in my house. I've read 3,000 books. I realized I've taken over 600 seminars. I've watched God knows how many TED Talks. How could I take all that information and bullet it down to the absolute best of what people would need to know? That's what I did. It took me two years to write the book. It took me 40 years to get ready to write it.

Isn't that true? When I was first started working with you, I also had this phenomenal success in changing my own health trajectory. I brought myself back from a terrible fate from a health perspective. I was on 60 milligrams of prednisone. I was hospitalized with kidney failure. I had systemic eczema. I had gone through all of that journey and I thought I couldn't be going through this for no reason. The other was, I have to be able to be in service, help people, and define the success that I was able to change my health. I started opening clinics and practices, and I saw these people have these amazing successes with their health, getting off medications, losing tremendous amounts of weight, being their best selves in front of the camera.

It was working with you where I thought I'm dyslexic. I know you know this as my community knows. I can't even read my own book. I had hit a plateau. We talk a lot in weight loss about hitting a plateau. I say, “Why is your scale stuck and what to eat about it?” Turning towards something always with passion and conviction. I wasn't able to sell over a million copies out of the box, number one New York Times bestselling book until I could get over that plateau. Jack, it was your words that stuck into my head that said, “You don't need to read your book, write your book.” Thirty-seven languages later, several books afterwards, it tears me because it was something I desired so much. I was stuck and you helped me. Those principles helped me. Why I wanted to have you on so much, not to be self-serving because I love when I get a moment of your time, but because I want that for my community.

They're struggling every day, whether it's weight loss, autoimmune disorders, pain, or dealing with a physician that doesn't believe that their reality is worthy of action. I wanted to get myself back emotionally. I love you and thank you. My community thanks you. I was hiding in a hotel room under the covers when my book launched because I couldn't go out and do a book launch party. I couldn't believe it. Thank you. I know my community thanks you because it's changed the lives of so many people. It was my playbook. It's tattered and it's used. I was re-looking at it.

I want to talk about principle number 38, which is fuel your success with passion and enthusiasm. In my community, I tell people to fall in love with food, for powering your plate, for what it can do for your body. If you could share with my community some ways, when maybe they've abused food. Everybody says you abused food and that's why your metabolism is slow. In our society, with the chemicals, the pollutants, and the poor misconception that diet means don’t eat carbs and starve yourself. You get rewarded for fasting, not religiously or spiritually, but just not eating. You've got some great tips in this number 38. How can we help my community members right now? We want to think about Debbie? We want to think about Cynthia Price. We want to think about my community members that are out there struggling with this. I want them to have some of your words of wisdom.

Everybody has passion. A lot of our passion gets killed off by our schooling, sometimes by our religious teachers if they're not tapped in right away. It gets killed off by the society. We're told we're not okay. We're told we're too thin, too fat, too old, too young, and all these things. A lot of people give up. There's something that come from not just issues from health, but anxiety. Some of that's biochemical, physical, spiritual, emotional, all of that. The first thing you have to do is whatever you're going to approach, approach it with passion. Act as if it matters. There's always a why.

I was working with a company that had a weight loss product once. This woman told a story and I said, “Why were you so dedicated to that product?” She said, “I was overweight. I started using that product, and one day my grandson hugged me. He said, 'Grandma, my hands are touching behind your back.’” He realized the whole time she was overweight. He judged her and all of a sudden, this moment in time made it worth it. Why do you want to be healthy? I want to be healthy. I want to live a long time. My goal is 105 years old. I want to watch my seven-year-old grandson graduate from high school and college, and get married and be there. My wife's thirteen years younger than me. I don't want to die and leave her with thirteen years of loneliness. I always tell her to get married again if that happens. She says she wouldn't, but I think she would.

I have a lot I want to do. I want to make a difference in the world. Do I love all the things you shouldn't eat? Yes. If I get to heaven, I'm going to ask God, “Why did you make all that stuff tastes so good when it's not good for you.” The point is you have to have a reason for what you do, and you have passion for it. We all have things we want to do that being healthy allows us to do, whether it's to travel the world. I know people that wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, and they can't do it. They would have a heart attack. They're so out of shape. What is it that matters to you that you can get excited about? When you approach whatever you do, approach it with 100% commitment.

I always tell people or ask them the question, “Would you like to be married to someone who is 98% committed to monogamy?” Everyone says no. Why not? Ten days a year, you'd have to worry about, is this the day that she’s going to cheat on me? You want to be 100% committed to whatever it is you do. Gary Keller wrote a book called The ONE Thing. The idea was there’s one thing. If you change that, it will change everything. For me, getting healthy was that one thing for a lot of years. I started getting enough sleep. I started drinking more water. I started exercising. I have more energy. My creativity was up. I was less grumpy. My wife used to complain about that no more.

If we were making love, she didn't want this whale climbing on top of her. One day she said, “You've lost a lot of weight. This feels good.” Those are the things that keep me eating healthy, doing the right things, doing the exercise, getting sleep, and getting the nutrition I need. Commit and be enthusiastic. The word enthusiasm comes from the Greek word entheos. It’s a root word of theology, theos, meaning God. To be enthusiastic is to be filled with life energy, to be filled with God-source energy, nature, whatever you want to call it. We want to make sure we have that going for us as well. We all know people who show up and looked like they were weaned on a pickle.

You look at what is attractive in life. I never met Robin Williams in person, but one of my friends was his physical therapist, another friend of mine was his chiropractor. They said, "When he walks in, the room lit up.” Everyone would gravitate to be with him because it was so much energy coming off of him. When you're healthy and dynamic, you're following what you love, you're doing your passions, as well as eating, you’re making that a passion and doing it correctly. What is it that you love to do? Give yourself to that as well. Many of us are doing what we think we should do instead of what we want to do. There are things we've learned like all the things you teach, that when you do them life works better. We should do that, but you want to do that because it's going to give you the life you want.

I believe that pleasure stimulates the metabolism. When you have pleasure, when you eat food, when you have something that makes you happy, the endorphins are secreted. There's this whole cascade of hormones that happen. I talk about putting power in your plate. You mentioned something when you said, "Act as if.” I am going to tell a story and maybe it’s TMI, but let's go there. We have the metabolism shake, and I know you're familiar with that. It's got spirulina, carrot, kale, asparagus, and watercress. A lot of people that have been in an unhealthy place, a lot of inflammation, sometimes their palette is only delighted by something that is addictive or sugar.

I remember I had a client that was in poor health. He was not able to have a meniscus repair. The doctor said the insurance wouldn't cover it unless he loses 27 pounds. I said, “I want you to go on the cleanse. We're going to do three cycles of it. Let's get you down.” He said, “I cannot stand the look and the smell of your shake.” I said, “I don't care. Close your eyes, plug your nose. I want you to act as if you're having a milkshake and a root beer float. Let's give it seven days of taking in what we know is going to help your body. Let's have you visualize and focus on all the good that it's doing, and thinking about reducing that inflammation and making that tissue healthy, so when they stitch in the meniscal tear, it'll take those sutures and it'll mend.” About five days in he said, “I'm starting to not gag.” I was like, “Success.” It was about fourteen days in and he says, “My body's starting to crave it.”

Sometimes I find that people are stuck because maybe they don't have a passion for cooking, or they don't have a passion for grocery shopping. I have this passion for it, but it was not what I set out to do. I wanted to be a veterinarian. I have enough animals around me all the time to prove it, but I had to change the paradigm shift to save my life. I had to say, “I'm fascinated by quinoa and millet, and healthy foods.” My body realized or recognized as I got healthier and healthier, and those successes beget more success. You talk a lot about acknowledging the rewards or acknowledging the breakthroughs. That was what changed the trajectory for me.

A lot of times with my clients, I'll say, “If you don't have a passion for it, act as if.” That's a lot of your principles. You have a great principle number 47, which is inquire within. Especially when a body's struggling, I always say, “Lean in and listen to the intimate conversation that your body's having,” because your body's telling us something. When my clients or my community come, they come back and they're disheartened, they say, “I went and I saw my physician. I wanted to check thyroid stuff and he said, ‘It's stress and it's all in your head.’” They're so defeated. If you could share a little bit on the “inquire within.”

I teach some courses, and in one of the courses that I was teaching, they were talking about this other expert telling them what they should do in their business and their practice, because I own integrative healthcare clinics. People ask me, “How should I start my clinic?” I said, “He can tell you this and I can tell you this, but the most important thing is what you're telling you.” That's so important from a health perspective, because whether it's a crease in the ear lobe letting us know that we're going to have issues with cholesterol, or scalloping in the tongue that lets us know we have digestive issues, or a purpleness in the tongue letting us know that we have lack of circulation and we need more alkaline foods or testing the pH. Your body's always whispering and talking. Many times, we don't listen until it's screaming. Would you share a little bit about principle number 47? Wisdom on inquiring within, because this is so important for my community, especially when they're struggling.

You have to learn to trust yourself and to access your intuition, to access your inner knowing. As Haylie said, your body is always talking to you. It talks to you and it tells you you've got pain, if you have inflammation, if you're constantly hungry, whatever it is. There's something going on. We have to learn how to listen and how to interpret what we hear. I have a good doctor. He's a holistic doctor. He studied herbs and other things. He's got an MD from the University of West Virginia, but he's also explored holistic medicine and he's into diet. They test my blood for that. He said, “You need more vitamin D.” He's good.

I also have other people I consult with as well who can do muscle testing. There are a lot of ways to find out what's going on in there. When you think something's wrong and someone's telling you it's all in your head because it doesn't match their model, you have to be careful and honor that. I'll tell you a story because vaccines are all up in the air. Should we take the COVID vaccine or not, which one, and all that? There's a woman that I talked to. She's not a strong, total anti-vaxxer by any means. What happened with her son was she went to the doctor with him. They will often give you six vaccines in a row on a same day. If your body's not strong, that can overwhelm it. She intuitively knew her son should not get six vaccines. She had worked out with their doctor, maybe one every couple of weeks, month, whatever they agreed on.

She went in one day and the doctor wasn't there. It was another doctor. He said, “I looked at his chart. If you don't let me give him all those vaccinations today, I'm going to report you to child services.” She freaked out. She let him do the vaccines. The kid became autistic. It's not that necessarily any vaccine causes that, we don't know, but it overloaded his system to the point that it couldn't process it. She should've walked out and said, “Fine, you report him. I'll get my lawyer. I'm going to talk to Dr. Jones. We have a deal.” She was young. She was in her twenties. She didn't know any better. You have to be willing to advocate for yourself and say, “I don't care if you don't think I need this test, I want that test. I want you to test me for that. You're my doctor. I'm paying you for that.” Find another doctor. There are lots of doctors around. Many of them are much more aligned with the kind of things that Haylie's teaching that I believe in as well, in terms of holistic health, organic food, all these things.

Our doctors have all been trained primarily by the pharmaceutical companies who fund a lot of the medical school research, who fund all the doctor's conferences. They want to sell you pills that cost a lot of money, when quite often, it's not something you need to put in your body. It's something you need to get out, which is the cleansing. You’re not drinking enough water. There are a million things. I don't want to try to teach you what Haylie does so well. I will share this from your previous question as well, which was about pleasure, eating, sugar. When I first started cleansing in my life, I was a big sugar eater. I went 7 or 8 days without it, and all of a sudden, I wasn't craving sugar. All of a sudden. that desire shuts off. If you have candida, which is being fueled by sugar, it starts going, “Feed me.”

You said, "It's all in your brain.” I go, “Let's say it's all in my brain. I don't yet know how to exist without my brain.” If you're not willing to treat the rest of my body and you think it's all here, can we at least treat my brain and get on with it, and let's all get healthy together. Candida has a good angel here and a little devil over here. Candida is like the devil-head puppies and they're all crazy. In that chapter eight, you told a story and it says, “She listened and took action.” We have what's called a Request for Care that we use in our community, which is a letter that I walk my community through preparing ahead of time before they go into their doctor's appointment.

When I think about The Success Principle, there's a lot about taking action. It's one thing to say, “I'd like my doctor to listen to me. I like them to run more diagnostics, to run more labs. I like them to give me 45 days to see if I can get my cholesterol down before I have to go on statin drugs.” You can do whatever you want, people, most of the time, but we'll see how it all goes. It’s taking action and being proactive, and I love that in The Success Principles. There are a lot of books out there that are playbooks that say you should, or you could, or wouldn't it be lovely, or this person did this, but the principles are laid out in ways.

Because I'm in the clinic, I can't say, “This is probably going to make your cholesterol feel better.” We need to see the numbers change. I have physicians that refer people to me. I can't say, “You sure look like your blood pressure is better. I envision your scale moving.” It has to happen. Taking that action is critical. I love that. Something interesting to bounce off something that you said, being an advocate, and that's in my clinic, one of the largest roles that I do is travel with clients and be an advocate, whether they're Johns Hopkins, Brigham and Women's, Mass General, or wherever we're going at the time. I've been at the Miami COVID Institute Treatment Center quite few times.

Realizing that you have a choice in the trajectory of your life. I had a situation with my grandmother. I've had three times that this has happened where I've walked out of a hospital, ADO, Against Doctor's Orders. One was with my grandmother. I'm not saying that everybody should do this, but it was my grandmother. Since I was knee-high to grasshoppers, she lets me do whatever I think I should do. I pulled her IV and took her the heck out of Cedars. We took her to a private hospital because she had C. diff. It was a hot mess and a nightmare. My stepson was in a bad car accident. We had good doctor friends at another trauma center. I didn't drive him. We had him transported over.

I was hospitalized at a hospital. All my good friends and colleagues were at UCLA. They know me. I have ITP. They know my immune system. I got stuck. I got meningitis and I was at a different hospital. They wouldn't let me leave. I popped my plug and took a drive and check myself into UCLA. I'm using these extreme examples, but these are three things that I'd been through in my life. I want my community to know that they need to feel empowered in their health. Achieving any aspect of success, that was a principle that rang true. Jack, maybe I took a little bit of liberty with it and heard you tell me I can pull my IV at any time I want, but she took action. I took that one to heart. She listened to me and took action.

You have to learn to believe that you know most about you. You have dreams. Sometimes you have a dream. Sometimes you hear a song on a radio that's got the message you can't get out of your head. Why? There's something there that the universe and your body wants you to hear. It's speaking to us over and over again. In order to be an advocate for yourself, learn about your health. Read a couple of books. Find out about what good nutrition is, find out about supplements, the good and the bad. Find out about exercise and water. I read a book once that was called, You’re Dying of Thirst. The basic premise of the book was that 72.9% of all people on the planet are under hydrated. Many of our diseases are because we don't have enough water. All the diseases that aren’t supposed to be happening are happening.

There was a time I read a book a day. I took a speed-reading class. You can see all the books behind me. That was what I wanted to know a lot about. Part of it was how do I take care of myself. Don't outsource yourself to someone else. You don't have to know as much as Haylie knows or other people know, but you got to know enough to ask the right questions. When your body responds and you get that twinge feeling, or your stomach tightens up, or your hairs on the back of your neck stand up, which is your intuition talking to you, trust it. At least get a second opinion from someone else. Don't immediately go under. My wife got addicted to watching reruns of The Good Doctor, which is about this guy named Shaun Murphy as an autistic doctor. Sometimes the doctors have a thing that they want to do, and Sean Murphy, because he's a savant goes, “No, that's not it.” The traditional doctors wanted to go one way. They're not right. It's an art for them as well as the science. Trust yourself.

Especially in the anatomy of the body like a broken bone and repairing a fracture, that's a tangible thing. We were talking in our community about the thyroid and the hormones. That cannot be tangible things. We can touch the organ or the glands that secrete the hormone. One of the things that I did for our community was the Food Rx book. I went through the seven most common things that people are plagued with, chronic disease. I took and distilled down what labs to run, what they should be for health, and what they mean. It was interesting. A dear friend of mine's mother was in the hospital with a heart attack. They got ahold of me. It was a little bit delayed. I said, “Did they run this?” He said, “Yes, I had Wendy run over and take picture of that chapter before we rushed out the door to go to the hospital.” I was so touched because that's why I created that.

I want you to be empowered. It's a lot to know, but if you can distill it down and you're having inflammation or autoimmune or a cardiovascular event, what should I be savvy enough about myself? As you said, taking that responsibility. That's another thing in The Success Principles. That was interesting to me in relationship with food, relationship with spouse, relationship with children, is you talk a lot about taking 100% accountability. What would it be like if it was 100% your responsibility to have a good relationship with that? Isn't it supposed to be 50/50, Jack? Aren’t I supposed to be mad at the food industry for putting chemicals and pollutants in my food and calling them food? Aren't I supposed to be mad at the FDA or USDA for not labeling genetically modified salmon? Shouldn't I be unhealthy because the world isn't coming to the table with something healthy on my plate? Why is that not going to get to me to a successful health journey?

It doesn't change what's going in your body, for starters. We give away our power and we trust often too many people. I get a lot of food at Whole Foods, but even some of that's not the best food sometimes. Local farmer’s market, get to know the people, organic food. Can you always do it? Not always. You go to a restaurant and you can't be sure all the time, but take responsibility. I have this first chapter in my book, take 100% responsibility for your results. A lot of people say, “I got cancer. Am I responsible for that?” I say, “Let me ask you a bunch of questions. If you only eat organic food your whole adult life, don’t you know about it?” No. “Even primarily alkaline diet?” No. “Do you eat enough vegetables?” Probably not. “Do you eat a lot of sugar?” Yes. “Do you use a cell phone a lot? Do you have little earbuds in there? Do you have Wi-Fi in your house? Do you live next to a cell tower?”

I go through 50 questions. All of the things like lipstick, most lipsticks have anywhere from 30 to 40 carcinogens in them, and they’re putting it right on the most absorbing part of your body, which is your mouth. Deodorants have aluminum in it. They go, “I didn't know about that.” Whose responsibility is it for you to know? You got to understand the advertisers are out there all day long trying to sell you stuff you don't need, and it's not good for you because it's profitable for them. You have to buyer beware. You've got to become educated. Imagine you're living in a country full of landmines. You need to learn the map, where are they. There are a lot of them.

I'll tell you a story that was told to me by a guy who was a consultant to the cereal industry for a while. He told me the story that the government said, “We need to get less sugar in children's cereal in the morning because the kids always want to reach for the Sugar Pops and Captain Crunch and all this stuff.” He brought all these CEOs of corporations together in Chicago with the government and the FDA. They said, “We need you to lower the amount of sugar.” This one guy stood up and said, “If that's what you're here to tell us to do, it’s not going to happen. I'm going to walk out because if there will be one person that doesn't do it, the kids will buy that cereal and I'll go bankrupt, and I'll lose my job. It's not going to happen.” They're not on your side.

The consumers insisted on it. That's the reason why.

They have been, and we're getting more and more happening. You see a whole organic section now in normal supermarkets. The key things are labeled, non-GMO, gluten-free. When I grew up in the ‘70s it was always like, “It's whole wheat. It must be good.” We call it wheat belly, not so much. Take 100% responsibility. Don't blame anybody. If you get angry at them, that's okay for an hour, but if you stay angry for longer an hour, two things are happening. One, you're not changing your behavior. You're still blaming them. Number two, anger is raising the acidic level in your body. It lowers your immune system, and it's not helping you at a time when you want your immune system to be as high as it's ever been in your life.

I have you here with me not because I'm the metabolism whisper, a nutrition expert, or have this amazing community. I got you here because I am a ginormous askhole. You always say, "Be an askhole.” That's principle number seventeen in the book. One of the biggest things that I noticed in my community is this sheepish energy, especially women that have struggled in their health or are struggling in their health, asking for help, asking for answers, or asking for a better solution, especially when asking for labs. A lot of women's issues with thyroid, with hormone replacement therapy, autoimmune disorders, Hashimoto's is rampant right now. Our health is our wealth. If people have said that for a long time, but I don't think it's ever more relevant than it is now. We’re seeing what you come to the table with determines what is being served in the trajectory of your health.

When you say, “Be an askhole.” How can someone in a situation where my sister-in-law, for example, goes into the doctor? The doctor says, “I don't see any reason to run that.” She says, “Yes, but this is going on.” The doctor says, “I don't see anything wrong with that.” Mine is, change doctors. That's going to be seven months out. You give some cool suggestions of how to ask. The number five, the one that I go crazy that I ask repeatedly and apparently, I did that since I was three years old, “But why?” My mom always tells when I had strep throat and they did the culture. They said, “She has a bacterial infection.” I said, “How can you see it? How do you know?” My mom said, “She's going to be trouble.” I'm constantly asking. That's why people fly me in, because I'll ask the question that maybe they're afraid to ask for their own health. Are there a couple of things that you can nudge my community to be a little more fearless in this?

First of all, realize you have the right to ask. We're talking here about maybe asking medical providers for things, but asking anybody, asking your husband, asking your children, asking the school system. There are a lot of places we have to ask for what we want. Many of us are afraid of rejection. We're afraid of looking foolish. We're afraid of not looking like we know, and a lot of times we don't know. Ask questions. Why do you want to run that test? Why do you not want to run that test? What's your objection? Be willing to ask whatever it is that you want to know and believe that you have the capacity to do that, and you have the right to do that. Ask as if you expect to get it. Act like you're going to get a yes.

If you ask in a wimpy way, they're going to say, “I don't want to bother with her or him. Go away.” If you ask in a powerful way, then that's important. In your mind, imagine you're going to get a yes. If you're going to the doctor, you're going to ask a question. Imagine before you even get in the car, close your eyes, spend a minute and see yourself getting what you want. That's an important piece. Assume you can get it, assume that it is available. That's the assumption you want to come from. Everything we do is based on an assumption. It's going to work. It's not going to work. We decide that before we even asked. Most people say no to themselves before they ever ask and get a no from anyone else.

Do not say no to yourself for fear that you're going to get a no from somebody else. That one, I got chills. That one rang so true to me so many times. I remember we were in Santa Barbara together, and you were telling the story about a salesperson. It was the 46th time that they finally got a yes. What if they had quit at 45? Not just the first time and not just to yourself. I want my community to know that. Act as if they're going to say yes. When I go into an office and sometimes on my way out, I go, “By the way, I want to make sure we rerun the CRP.” I walk out because of course, we're going to. They go, “Okay.” Instead of, “Is there any way you would please be willing to run? I know you didn't want to run it next time.” I just say, “I know you and I love to look at the CRP. Let's make sure we run that.”

Also, be clear and specific when you ask for something. If there's a certain test you want to run or you want to know about selling, be specific about it. The fun thing is now, you can go online. You can talk to Haylie and you can find out all kinds of questions you should ask. Know that you have the right to ask. Be clear and specific when you ask. Don't say, “Was there some test that does whatever?” Ask for what you want and assume you're going to get it. Ask repeatedly. If they say no, say, “I want you to do this. Will you do it for me?” “I don't want to do it.” “I would like you to do it. Will you do it for me?” One of the things we often say is ask like a kid, “Mom, can I have a cookie?” “No. It will ruin your appetite.” “Mom, I promise I'll eat.” “No, you can't have a cookie. It’s got too much sugar.” “Mom, I promise I won't eat anything else. Mom, can I have a cookie?” “Here, have a damn cookie.” What happens is often they'll say yes because they want to end the conversation and you'll get it, so asking repeatedly.

You mentioned about 46 rejections. My Chicken Soup for the Soul book, which changed my life. I'm living in a $6 million home. I was living in a $400,000 home at the time, 144 rejections, 144 publishers turned down that book before a publisher said yes. If I give it up after 100, Haylie and I would not be having this conversation right now. Perseverance to get what you want is important. I can tell you a story about a guy who was going to doctor after doctor, and they weren't giving the tests he wanted. Finally, he got the test that he wanted. They all said, “You're under stress.” He had picked up a parasite that got in his heart. He would have died if he hadn't kept asking and asking and going to more people. Ask like your life could depend on it, or at least the quality of your life.

With a lot of our community members, I always say, The Fast Metabolism Diet is not a book for first time dieters, it's a book for last time dieters. We're the only species that uses the word diet to abuse the body physiologically, socially, humiliate. People that have to take their diet food, they can't share it with your children. It's unhealthy. I share the story a lot of being at my daughter's rodeo. She was in high school rodeo and we were with friends. They were seventeen. This mom and her daughters stood next to us. Both of their phones went off. They both grabbed their phones and they started swiping. They were receiving rewards or coins for how long they had gone without food, which right now, we're seeing a big move away from it, thank God, which is long-term fasting for non-spiritual or religious reasons.

My heart broke because I thought we've got a seventeen-year-old that were abstaining from food. I'm older, back in my day, that would be projecting an eating disorder on your teenage daughter. Right now, it's something that's celebrated with coins and rewards. A lot of the people that end up coming to our community have been through so many diets in the past where it's not sustainable. It's not something that's going to feed yourself. My background is in agriculture, animal sciences, and in soil science. I worked with the black rhinos in the Denver Zoo, and we created a diet for them so that they would have the most profound longevity in captivity.

I worked for a zoo in Nebraska with chimpanzees, and we created a diet for them so that they would not get a lot of sores on the pads of their feet being in captivity. We needed to create a diet that would not allow their skin to peel out, to flourish. In the horse world, we create diets to make horses stay sound, not have inflammation, billions and billions of dollars focusing on a diet. In our world, we tell people to diet in a way like keto, that if you were to do in the animal industry, ASPCA and the dairy industry has banned that in dairy cattle. For you to have success, there's a lot of clarity. I know, Jack, that you're offering our community this amazing workbook. We're going to all go out and order this so that we can go through these principles together in our community.

I've read a lot of business books and I read a lot of self-help books. I try to consume as much knowledge as I can. I believe this from a dietary perspective. When it's right, it will give you vitality and life, and you can't help but want to share it with your children and your grandchildren, and those that you love. That's why our FMD Chili's been made over 700,000 times together in our app. We want to share that bounty of success with people. That's when you know you're in the right space and what you're doing is going to help you achieve the fulfillment in your heart, the health in your cells, the excitement and the vibration in your mitochondria, and you're going to have an abundance of energy and joy.

Jack, do you have any questions? I want everybody to grab their book. I want to go through these principles and look at how they apply to your relationship with food, and how they reply to the relationship with your body, and how they reply to where you put your dollars when you're a consumer. Don't be afraid to go and ask your grocer. If you're in an area that doesn't have a lot of organic food stores, they all order from the same people, go ask your grocer to order for you something special because you're special and you need that.

As we wrap it up and we put it in a nice little package with a beautiful bow, I can't thank you. Is there one last thing that you want to tell my community? What I get from you is when it's tough, when it's hard, when you don't always see the results that you planned on, what's something that people can hold onto as a litmus test to know that they're doing the right things for themselves? Mine is always when you can share it with your grandkids, you know you're on a good diet. When you're proud to feed your loved ones, when you feel like you're going to change the health of someone that is struggling with something that you made, then you know you should be eating that.

I don't know that I have a wrap it up brilliant phrase for the issue we're talking about, but I will say that anything you want to achieve is possible. I'm sure Haylie has seen it. I've seen it. People that weighed 300 pounds and now weigh 150 pounds. People that have been deathly ill are now healthy as heck. People that couldn't walk well, needed a cane, now walking without it. People that had terrible relationships now have good relationships. I always say you have everything you need in terms of inner capacity to achieve anything that you want. You may have to learn new things, work a little harder than you want, develop some discipline, which a lot of people don't have anymore, and especially at a time when a lot of us are working from home where we don't have a boss that says, “Do this.” We’re on our own. We tend to fall into some old patterns and habits of laziness and conditioning. It's challenging to overcome 25 years of eating wrong because that's the way your parents raised you and start to eat correctly.

We know from neuroscience, it takes about 66 days minimum to change a behavior, to create new neural pathways in your brain so all of a sudden you go, “I'd rather have zucchini than whatever else I shouldn't be eating tonight. I'd rather have some blueberries for dessert than ice cream.” The point being that's all possible. All of a sudden, what seemed impossible becomes possible. It becomes easy. It becomes who you are. The struggle goes away because now it's your natural way of being. You're reaching for the right things. We're doing the right behaviors. I would end with this, disciplines of success. It's disciplines that get you where you want to go. I was reading something, and this guy was talking about the single decision. The idea is you make a decision and then you stick to it. Your decision is, “I'm going to get healthy, whatever it takes.” He talked about it in a way that I thought was interesting.

I grew up with a father who was a blue-collar worker. He said, “You have to have a blue-collar mindset.” What does he mean by that? Blue collar people get up, they go to work, they get there at 8:00, they work until 3:30 or 5:00, and they go home. They do whatever needs to be done. Whereas a lot of us, we're in charge of our own schedules. We can eat and go to bed when we want to. We're not as disciplined. You want to have a blue-collar mentality, which says, “I'm going to do whatever it takes. These people who have gone before me.” Tony Robbins has a great quote, “Success leaves clues.” Haylie and I have studied lots of clues. I've read thousands of books. Haylie has read hundreds of books in medical studies and everything. We know a lot. We're leaving clues. Follow in our footsteps. I promise you, if you read The Success Principles, it will improve every area of your life. If you follow Haylie’s advice in terms of health and nutrition, you’re going to get healthier. It will happen. Be willing to do the work.

The other thing he said was this, “Don't always expect overnight miracles.” Sometimes what we ask you to do, the results don't show up until 30 days, 60 days, 90 days later, but they show up. It's that faith of your teachers, the faith of us, the faith of these principles. I've trained tens of thousands of people who are super successful everywhere. I know that if it works for them, it'll work for you. I know Haylie knows the same thing because she’s seen it happen. Be willing to do the work even though it's a little uncomfortable at first, even though you don't see instant results. If you keep putting in the time, all of a sudden you go, “I'm on the other side of the river here. This is cool.”

Thanks, Jack. I cannot thank you enough. I know our community is overjoyed that we get this special one-on-one time with you. We'll wrap up all kinds of things and ways that they can engage with you. I know I've sent so many people in your direction. That's because you truly changed my life, Jack. I can't thank you enough. Every opportunity way past your being 105, when we're truly old together, I will still be thanking you for all of your wisdom. I know that my community members will be so grateful for this. Hear me now, hear Jack Canfield now. We need discipline but know that anything that you want is completely possible. I love you all. Jack, I love you. I will talk and see you hopefully soon. Bye, everybody.

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That warmed my heart all the way to my toes. Isn't he amazing? I want for you to know everything that he was saying. I want you to fuel your success with passion and enthusiasm. Remember that when you fall in love with food and you create this healthy relationship with food, maybe you're not into cooking and you're not into shopping, but when you're eating, make sure that you're recognizing the power that's on that plate to make you sleep deeper, love deeper, feel more joy, reduce inflammation, and get those sex hormones flowing in. As we talked about principle number 47, one of my favorites is inquire within. If you're struggling, if you're scale stuck, if you can't break through a plateau, don't be frustrated, angry, or agitated with your body. Lean in because it's trying to tell you something.

Do the lemon challenge tests, do the pH testing, make sure that you take the quizzes. It was an honor anytime I get to spend time with Jack. It's meaningful. As you are such special people to me in our community, I wanted to share that with you. Ask and be a ginormous, huge askhole, and make sure that you're going to our website and you're asking for what you need, that you are part of our membership community, and you're asking your questions. Make sure that you're acting as if you are going to get nothing but yes for all that you desire for your health. Make sure you grab The Success Principles. Jack has many good books. This one is more like a playbook, more like something that is going to give you true tools to make significant changes in your lives. What an awesome experience. Thanks for sharing it with me. Until next time.

Important Links:

• Food Rx
• The Fast Metabolism Diet
• Chicken Soup for the Soul
• The Success Principles
• https://www.JackCanfield.com/
• www.JackCanfield.com/transformation

About Jack Canfield

Jack Canfield, known as America's #1 Success Coach, is a bestselling author, professional speaker, trainer, and entrepreneur.  He is the founder and CEO of the Canfield Training Group, which trains entrepreneurs, educators, corporate leaders and motivated individuals how to accelerate the achievement of their personal and professional goals.