The Tim Ferriss Show
Jack Canfield is the coauthor of more than two hundred books, including,The Success Principles™: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Beand the Chicken Soup for the Soul®series, which includes forty New York Times bestsellers and which has sold more than 600 million copies in 50-plus languages around the world.
This episode is brought to you by:
- Monarchtrack, budget, plan, and do more with your money: https://www.monarch.com/tim
- AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement: https://drinkag1.com/tim
- Helix Sleep premium mattresses: https://helixsleep.com/tim
Timestamps:
- [00:00:00] Who is Jack?
- [00:01:57] How a single “yes” from Jack shaped my career.
- [00:04:55] A contract lesson: How Chicken Soup for the Soul sold millions in China with zero royalties.
- [00:06:45] Jack’s background: From poverty to Harvard.
- [00:09:43] Discovering Chinese history and the “easy A” that changed everything.
- [00:11:07] Winning “Teacher of the Year” teaching Black history.
- [00:14:35] High praise from Sammy Davis Jr.
- [00:17:37] W. Clement Stone: The $600 million mentor who turned motivation into a science (and insurance).
- [00:21:35] Stone’s challenge: Take 100% responsibility and stop watching TV (a 14-month year hack).
- [00:22:40] From visualizing $100,000 to a million.
- [00:25:42] Chicken Soup origins.
- [00:27:35] Mark Victor Hansen joins.
- [00:29:15] 144 rejections later.
- [00:31:28] The ABA miracle.
- [00:34:05] The Rule of Five.
- [00:36:05] Selling The Soul and splurging on sweaters.
- [00:37:27] The Soup sourced from the universe.
- [00:39:33] The big break.
- [00:41:22] Word-of-mouth magic.
- [00:45:37] Lessons from live feedback.
- [00:47:27] The burnout years.
- [00:49:25] Life after Chicken Soup.
- [00:51:05] Late-night typing marathons and pun-laden chapter transitions that led to The Success Principles.
- [00:54:02] How Jack’s love of transformation beats any royalty check.
- [00:55:07] Retirement reflections.
- [00:59:32] Jack’s longevity formula: Laughter, organic food, love, and letting go.
- [01:02:10] An ayahuasca awakening.
- [01:03:39] The story of Rythmia Life Advancement Center and how it’s affected Jack.
- [01:06:43] Breaking belief loops and understanding community as medicine.
- [01:10:06] E + R = O and strategies for taking 100% responsibility of one’s life.
- [01:22:27] Why “clean up your messes” is first in Jack’s list of productivity tips.
- [01:29:27] Where to begin if you’re unfamiliar with Jack’s work.
- [01:31:08] Ken Blanchard: “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”
- [01:32:13] Parting thoughts.
Show notes for this episode: https://tim.blog/2025/10/29/jack-canfield/
*
For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.
For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors
Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.
For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.
Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.
Follow Tim:
Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss
Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss
YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss
Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#593: Richard Wiseman on Lessons from Dale Carnegie, How to Keep a Luck Diary, Mentalism, The Psychology of the Paranormal, Mass Participation Experiments, NLP, Remote Viewing, and Attempting the Impossible
Brought to you by UCAN endurance products, Headspace easy-to-use app with guided meditations, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses. More on all three below. Richard Wiseman (@richardwiseman) holds Britain’s only professorship in the public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. He has published over…
#592: Dennis McKenna — An Ethnopharmacologist on Hallucinogens, Sex-Crazed Cicadas, The Mushrooms of Language, BioGnosis, and Illuminating Obscure Corners
Brought to you by Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business. Dennis McKenna (@DennisMcKenna4) has spent more…
#591: Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine Fame — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss
Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life. You’ll get…
#590: Tony Fadell of iPod, iPhone, and Nest Fame — Stories of Steve Jobs on “Vacation,” Product Design and Team Building, Good Assholes vs. Bad Assholes, Investing in Trends Before They Become Trends, The Hydrogen Economy, The Future of Batteries, and More
Brought to you by LinkedIn Marketing Solutions marketing platform with ~770M users, LMNT electrolyte supplement, and Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating. More on all three below. Tony Fadell (@tfadell) is an active investor and entrepreneur with a 30+…
#589: In Case You Missed It: March 2022 Recap of The Tim Ferriss Show
Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life. This is…
#588: A.J. Jacobs — How to Be Less Furious and More Curious
Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 770M+ users, Helix Sleep premium mattresses, and Headspace easy-to-use app with guided meditations. A.J. Jacobs (@ajjacobs) is a bestselling author, journalist, and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers, including The Year of Living Biblically (for…
#587: Terry Crews on Masculinity, True Power, Therapy, and Resisting Cynicism
Brought to you by Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, Gravity weighted blankets, and Allform premium, modular furniture. Terry Crews (@terrycrews) can do it all: author, action-movie hero, sitcom star, children’s book illustrator, advertising pitchman, playable video game…
#586: The Random Show with Kevin Rose — Current Books, Men’s Groups, Tuna Helper, the Latest in NFTs, Fierce Intimacy, and More
Brought to you by Wealthfront automated investing, Ascent Protein premium protein, and Shopify global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business. Technologist, serial entrepreneur, world-class investor, self-experimenter, and all-around wild and crazy guy Kevin Rose (@KevinRose) rejoins…
#585: Professor Donald Hoffman — The Case Against Reality, Beyond Spacetime, Rethinking Death, Panpsychism, QBism, and More
Brought to you by FreshBooks cloud-based small business accounting software, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and JuneShine organic hard kombucha for a brighter buzz. Donald Hoffman ( @donalddhoffman) received a PhD in computational psychology from MIT and is a…
#584: Bo Shao — His Path from Food Rations to Managing Billions, the Blessings and Burdens of Chasing Perfection, Building the eBay of China in 1999, Pillars of Parenting, and Pursuing the Unpopular
Brought to you by Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, Four Sigmatic mushroom coffee, and Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating. Bo Shao is a co-founder and the chairman of Evolve, a philanthropic investment firm composed…