

11 Jun 2025 · 31m · 21 chapters

Jack Canfield discusses fulfilling your soul’s purpose as the basis of true success, using joy as an “internal GPS,” taking 100% responsibility (E+R=O: events plus response equals outcomes), and aligning ego/personality with higher guidance through meditation and daily practices.
Jack Canfield (born 1944) is a success coach and co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul. He studied at Harvard (scholarship) and earned a master’s in psychological education at the University of Massachusetts. He co-authored Chicken Soup for the Soul in 1993; it became a New York Times bestseller and expanded into a billion-dollar franchise (500+ million copies in 40+ languages).
Everyone has an inborn calling; joy signals alignment; past events were “the best you could” with your awareness; success requires fundamentals in the right order; meditation and a “victory log” build mastery and love.
144 rejections before publication; writing Success Principles for 12 hours “in the flow”; “chicken soup” title arriving during meditation; selling the company after joy faded; using a “mirror exercise” and evening review to plan more loving responses.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes.
Oprah discusses Jack Canfield's background, including his early life and education.
“He was a top student and earned a scholarship to Harvard and later went to the University of Massachusetts, where he earned his master's degree in psychological education.”
Jack Canfield shares insights on discovering and fulfilling one's soul's purpose.
“I think that's an old quote by Howard Thurman.”
Joy is presented as an internal guidance system for making life decisions.
“Yeah, I believe that everything you've ever done was you were doing the best you could with the awareness, skills, tools, and knowledge you had at the time to meet a basic need.”
Jack discusses overcoming life's obstacles and gaining mastery in various areas.
“Today, Chicken Soup has become a billion-dollar empire, selling more than 500 million copies in over 40 languages around the world.”
Jack shares the journey behind the creation and success of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
“and they're not resisting you so much when they underestimate you.”
Learn about the fundamental spiritual principles necessary for success.
“That's why you call, you say at the very beginning of the book, learn the fundamentals.”
Explore the E plus R equals O formula and its implications for personal outcomes.
“they're complaining about their outcomes.”
Discuss how responses to events shape our experiences and emotions.
“it's the Wall Street, it's the weather, the traffic made me late, as opposed to saying it's my response to the event.”
Understand how negativity affects our energy and outcomes.
“You say gossip and judgment affect you, too, because you end up releasing a poison into the river of energy.”
Learn about the relationship between ego and fulfilling our higher purpose.
“What are the qualities you want to be experiencing?”
Discover various meditation techniques for tuning into your soul’s guidance.
“Well, a laser light is just coherent light.”
Hear the story behind the title 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' and its significance.
“Sometimes I sit, I do a tree of life meditation, which comes out of the Kabbalah tradition.”
Learn about the practice of keeping a victory log and self-acknowledgment.
“And so you also believe that there is power in measuring or listing our successes and our goals.”
Understand the significance of visualizing goals and positive outcomes.
“And I'm working on a quality all the time of love, compassion, joy, courage, whatever.”
Explore why consuming negative news before bed can impact your mindset.
“And I think, too, the other thing I teach people to do is to visualize the next day the way you want it to go before you go to bed.”
Delve into the ideas of love, wisdom, and their ultimate significance in life.
“You know, I used to think there's one answer to that and I used to always look for what is the one answer and find that one teacher.”
Discuss the qualities of love, joy, and excellence in others and their impact.
“I was in graduate school, and I said, this needs to be taught.”
Learn about the journey to embrace your authentic self and the role of meditation.
“who does that with such a joyful spirit that you can't wait to go pick up your clothes.”
Understand the importance of self-work and personal growth through training.
“If you were to meditate for 20 years, this is where you'd finally get to.”
Discover how personal workshops led to significant growth and self-discovery.
“When I first got into this, I was living in Chicago, and I met a guy in a laundromat, and he talked to me about this workshop that was happening.”
Explore the concept of God evolving through us and the importance of fulfilling one's purpose.
“And so he's evolving, he, she, it, through us.”

Get the gist, explore an idea or ask about something said.
On Oprah's Super Soul, what are the key points of this episode?
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.
0:00I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time. Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. Success coach and co-creator of the enormously popular Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Jack Canfield, is here. Born in 1944 to Elmer and Ellen Canfield, Jack's parents divorced when he was young. His mother remarried, and to help make ends meet, Jack worked summers at the local pool and at a shop alongside his stepfather.
0:46He was a top student and earned a scholarship to Harvard and later went to the University of Massachusetts, where he earned his master's degree in psychological education. Jack's true passion is sharing a path to success that can only be achieved by embracing the highest vision each of us has for ourselves. In his book, The Success Principles, Jack says a huge step towards fulfillment is figuring out what makes you come alive. So you've been studying the principles of success for now nearly 40 years. You know a few things about it. I think so. You do. And one of the things I think that we talk about on Super Soul all the time is being able to honor that calling and follow whatever the path is for you.
1:30And what you teach is a path to reaching what you call the fulfillment of our soul's purpose, which is exactly what we talk about here. And everybody has that. It's the same as a calling, right? True. It's totally a calling. Yeah, the word vocari, vocation, means to be called in Latin. Yeah. And I believe we all have an inborn purpose that we were born to fulfill. And when we fulfill that, then we achieve fulfillment, we achieve success, we achieve happiness, we achieve contentment, and we serve the world. I believe each of us is programmed to be of some service that the world needs for the world to work perfectly.
2:03So what is the best way, Jack, you have discovered to what you call tap into our essence and therefore tap into our success? I mean, because wouldn't the world just be such a more fulfilling and joyful space if everybody were doing exactly what they came here to do? Absolutely. Every need would be fulfilled. Every service would be there. Everyone would be happy. Everyone would be, you know, everything would be handled. People would be mechanics that love to do mechanics. People would be bakers who love to bake. People would be cameramen who love to be cameramen. So my point of view is that we have the capacity to tap in.
2:39There are many tools for doing that. There's something called a passion test. How do you rank order your passions? I'm happiest and most fulfilled when I'm. And then you can rank order those and find your passions that way. Your passions are your purpose. I love the quote that says, don't look to do what the world needs. Do to see what makes you come alive because what the world needs are people who've come alive. Yeah. And so for me... I think that's an old quote by Howard Thurman. Howard Thurman, that's exactly right. And I think that each of us, you know, we're all born with qualities, Oprah.
3:10Like my two qualities are love and joy. And my wife's are spontaneity and authenticity. You know, she's just the most spontaneous, authentic person. And she gives people permission to be themselves by being authentic and spontaneous herself. I inspire and empower people to live their highest vision in the context of love and joy. That's my purpose. And I've been doing that since I was a kid. It's always been about inspiring people and organizations to live their highest vision. That's what I do. And when everyone finds that thing that they do, then they fulfill that purpose. So my definition of success used to be being able to create whatever result you wanted.
3:45Now it's fulfilling your soul's purpose. I love the quote that says, you don't want to get to the top of the ladder and find out it was leading against the wrong wall. And a lot of people spend their whole life climbing that ladder and get to what they call success. They have the money, the fame, the fortune, the power, the influence. and they're not happy because they climbed the wrong ladder. They were pursuing the wrong goals. How do you know what is the ladder for you and that it's up against the right wall? If you're experiencing joy as you're climbing it. Ooh, good. I believe that joy is your internal guidance system.
4:16Yeah, that's what you call it, our internal GPS. GPS, exactly. And so we're either on course and we're experiencing joy or off course and we're feeling frustration and anger and headaches and resentment and all of that. And there's some of that in every job at some point where you have challenges. But you're right. I just, you know, doing what I'm doing here with you now, all those years of the Oprah show, it didn't matter what the show was. There was a level of knowing that in that moment you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. Exactly. That doesn't mean there's no effort in life.
4:49It doesn't mean there's not times when you're going to have to do some difficult things. I know when I wrote this book, The Success Principles, I would start writing at 7 at night after I ate dinner with my wife and I'd go out into the office. And sometimes the next thing I'd know, I'd hear birds singing. And I'd go, oh, my God, dawn's coming up. I've been writing for 12 hours. And it was work, but I was loving it. I was loving the craft. You were in the flow, Jack. I was in the flow, exactly. In the flow. I like actually how you even begin the book because I think one of the things that I've discovered that holds people back is them holding on to the past.
5:23And you start out in the introduction of Success Principles sharing that everything in the past has actually been perfect. Now, when you first hear that or read that, it sounds, I know to a lot of people, ridiculous because they're thinking about all the things that have gone wrong in their life. You say everything in your past has led you to this transformative moment in time. Everyone including you has always, I love this, Maya used to always say this, everyone including you has always done the best they could with what they knew at the time. Now you're about to know more. Celebrate your new awareness.
6:02It's about to set you free. Yeah, I believe that everything you've ever done was you were doing the best you could with the awareness, skills, tools, and knowledge you had at the time to meet a basic need. You know, whether people cheated on their income taxes or some kid joined a gang or someone did something, you know, that we'd say is illegal. They were trying to meet some basic need for approval, for connection, for belonging. If they had better tools and awareness, they would have done better. You know, it's one of the big shames of our prison system is that we don't teach people what they need to know when they come out to be successful.
6:34We're punishing people rather than teaching them new awarenesses and new skills. Yeah. My belief is that the whole purpose of life is to gain mastery, master of our emotions, our finances, our relationships, our consciousness through meditation, things like that. And it's not about the stuff. All the stuff can be taken away. You know, people lose their fortunes. They lose their reputation. Beautiful spouses die or leave you. But who you became in the process can never be taken away. Never. You are mastering through the process of overcoming these obstacles that you face in life. In 1993, Jack Canfield co-authored Chicken Soup for the Soul, a collection of 101 short stories meant to warm hearts and lift spirits.
7:18Fifteen months later, that book made the New York Times bestseller list, and the world could not get enough. Over 250 versions followed, including 46 more New York Times bestsellers. Back in 2008, Jack and his partner sold Chicken Soup for the Soul. Today, Chicken Soup has become a billion-dollar empire, selling more than 500 million copies in over 40 languages around the world. So when you sat down and you all came together to write Chicken Soup for the Soul, did you imagine it would be as successful? Had you projected that for yourself? We intended it to be a best-selling book. However, we had no idea that it would become the cultural phenomenon.
8:02I mean, I have 50 cartoons on the walls of my office of cartoonists who've made jokes about chicken soup. Chicken soup, yeah. And I just learned, this is amazing, they've sold over 300 million books in China, and they're using the book in the classrooms to teach English, with English on one side and Chinese on the other. So you didn't imagine that. I couldn't imagine that. How could I imagine that? Yeah. Because isn't part of what happens to us all, you, I call it, you surrender your dream to that which is bigger than yourself. I call it God. And then the combination of your dream and the energetic force of what is intended changes it.
8:38It takes over if you allow it. But it's phenomenal. And I have to say that I, you know, the thing I take credit for more than anything in life is listening to my inner guidance. And something said, write those books. And I did. Something said, stop writing them. And I did. Someone said, write this book. And I did. Now, you also say that we're unlimited in our capacity and our consciousness for impact. Are we really, all of us? I believe we all have unlimited possibilities to become pretty much anything we want because I believe you're not given a dream unless you have the capacity to fulfill it.
9:11You won't be allowed to have it. Now, you may need to learn new things. You may need to mentor, get mentored. You may need to team up. That's a powerful super soul message. You don't even have a dream that you're not allowed to fulfill. Exactly. You have the capacity. You won't be allowed to have the dream if you don't have the ability, the talent, the skills, that you may need to develop more skill, but you have the capacity to do anything you can dream up. You know, Napoleon Hill said, whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve. And I totally believe that. It's been my experience with thousands of students.
9:44So yes, thousands of students after, what, 500 million copies of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Right. And what's remarkable is, I think I read that you got turned down 144 times? 144 rejections over the course of about 18 months. Yeah. I mean, we went to New York. Here's a kind of funny story. We all got goosebumps when we had the idea. We said, this is amazing. We went to New York and nobody got goosebumps. We had 22 publishers over about three or four days. Everyone said, stupid title. People don't read short stories. Anthologies don't sell, which more literary anthologies don't. Yes. But these were real stories.
10:20And they just thought the title was dumb, whatever. And so then we went on our own. Our literary agent gave us the book back and said, here, I can't sell it. So someone said, go to the Book Expo America. And we went to booth, to booth, to booth, to booth for three days sharing stories, telling our story, nothing. Last day, in the afternoon, a little publisher in Florida called Health Communications said, we'll read it. We couldn't even get anyone to read it. And they read it. And they called us and said, we love it. We want to publish it. and we said, how many copies do you think you'll sell? And they said, 20 ,000.
10:56We said, that's not our vision. They said, what's your vision? We said, 150 ,000 by Christmas. It came out in July. And a million and a half in a year and a half. And they laughed at us. I'm sure you've had people laugh at your dreams sometimes. Yes, exactly. And he laughed a lot. And now he doesn't laugh anymore. Of course not. I had a guy, when I first got syndicated, Roger King, King Whirl, who's since passed on, and Michael King, his brother, just recently passed, but Roger told me that when he was trying to sell the show in Idaho that a general manager at the station told him he could get a better number a better rating more audience by putting a potato in the chair and it's been one of those fantastic moments you know you should get a picture of a potato in the chair yeah and so Roger went across the street to whoever was the other guy and sold the show to the other guy.
11:51So that's, yes. It's actually wonderful to be underestimated. It is, actually. It is, actually. Because you surprise people, and they're not resisting you so much when they underestimate you. But what's interesting to me is that you had that moment that I had, actually, with The Oprah Show, where I reached a point where I thought, all right, what can I continue to say in this format that's different than what I've said before, that I can still remain stimulated and engaged. I really just want to have the conversations that I want to have. Create my own network and platform for doing that. So I just talk to people who I want to talk to and grow on.
12:31I call it growing yourself forward. And essentially you did the same thing with chicken soup. You let it go. I did. I did. About, oh, I'd say 15 years into it, all of a sudden it stopped being fun. Remember I said joy is your guidance system? Joy is your guidance. I stopped feeling the joy. I was reading stories that should have moved me and I wasn't moved. It's like I'd become jaded. Because you'd heard them. I'd heard them all, but it was good. I needed to move on. And so I just, we sold the company to a group in New York and I took a year to kind of think about what I wanted to do. And I started realizing I wanted to do trainings again and I wanted to write about success and I wanted to share.
13:11I think what happened for me, Oprah, was I had achieved an enormous amount of success. And I wanted to share that with others. Yeah. So what are your favorite principles? My favorite principle? Yes. Well, first I have to give you a large answer and then I'll answer your question. Okay. What's your favorite organ in your body? You can only keep one. I want to keep the heart. Good. But your body won't work without the liver, the kidney, the stomach, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. You need it all. So there's a system of success that I put in this book. There's 25 principles that are critical. It's about doing the right.
13:41You need one. So it's It's not one thing, it's a combination. It's a combination lock, really. If you know the combination to a lock, it doesn't matter if you're black, white, young, old, male, female, the lock's gonna open. If you're missing one number, Oprah, that lock won't open. Most people are missing numbers, they have them in the wrong order. It's about doing the right thing in the right order in the right way at the right time. That's why you call, you say at the very beginning of the book, learn the fundamentals. This is really the foundation and spiritual principle of the book is that there are fundamentals that you have to follow.
14:13They're basically spiritual principles. They are. Yeah. And they're not taught in school. And they're not taught in school. And if you follow that formula, you will succeed. Right. And there are no shortcuts to that. There are no shortcuts. Now, to go back to your question and answer it in a more honest way, the first principle in the book, I think, is the most important one. It's the fundamental bedrock, and it's called take 100 % responsibility for your life and your results. And there's a formula in there called E plus R equals O, Events plus response equal outcomes. Outcomes, yeah. And everyone in life, when they don't get what they want, they're complaining about their outcomes.
14:47My kids won't talk to me. I don't have a job. I have a headache. Look at what happened to me living in the past. Exactly. Then that's my reason for my outcomes. But what creates the outcome is my response to previous events or to current events. Events. E plus R equals O. So an event happens. So let's say that Stedman forgets your birthday. and now you go, how would you feel if someone forgot your birthday? I would actually be okay with it. You would. Yeah, you know why? Because you're conscious. Yeah, because I'm conscious. Exactly. But most people would go, oh, I would feel bad because my husband, that means my husband doesn't love me.
15:25But you could say someone who loves me forgot my birthday. Now I'm in concern, not feeling bad. Yeah. It's a different feeling. So the reality is we have choices about responses. and if we don't get the outcomes we want, most people blame the event. It's my husband, it's the economy, it's the president, it's the Wall Street, it's the weather, the traffic made me late, as opposed to saying it's my response to the event. May I just say this too? Please. I think people get way too upset over people missing their birthdays. Exactly. Isn't it about how somebody treats you or how they feel about you all the time?
16:01Really? And not just that one, I can't get the, everybody gets crazed. I actually have a friend who gets upset if you get the birthday. And I'm like, but what about all the other days? Right. What about all the other days? Yeah, it's a 365-day year. But I think that the important point of this is there are three responses you can have to any event. There's your thoughts. Yeah, that's what we're making. There's the images you have. Because fear is always created by having images of the future being bad. So if I imagine something bad in the future, I'm going to feel bad. And then finally, it's your behavior.
16:33And how big a role does our own negativity play into what the future is? I know you write about gossip. You say gossip and judgment affect you, too, because you end up releasing a poison into the river of energy. I love this. That is set up to bring you that which you truly want. It's releasing a poison into the river of energy that's set up to bring you that which you truly want. Right. And so every time we are negative about someone else, we are actually affecting ourselves. And the other thing that's important, you know this too, because I've heard you talk about it, is every time we judge someone else, it's just a projection of our own self-judgment.
17:15Parts of ourselves we don't accept or parts of ourselves we won't give permission to express. And so basically, you know, the old thing when you're pointing your finger, there's three fingers pointing back. And so I always tell people is that whatever you focus on, you get more of. So if I'm gossing about someone that I'm judging or being negative about, then I'm actually creating more negativity inside of me and I'm not focusing on what I want. What I teach in the success principles is you always want your focus to be on what do you want to be producing in life? What are your goals? What are the qualities you want to be experiencing?
17:46And if you're not doing that, then you're wasting your time. You're not going to get to where you want to go. You talk about in a way that Eckhart doesn't. You say that the ego can actually be useful. I think it can. And I think it can. I think the ego is a part of us that I don't think you can kill off. So for me, I think the ego is a part of us that we can say, okay, I'm going to retrain you now to serve the soul, to serve the higher purpose, to serve our essence. Yeah, I call that being an alignment. Yes, exactly. Or Gary Zukav says, when the personality, you can use the word ego too, comes to serve the energy of the soul, that's when you're really authentically empowered.
18:26When all of that, when you use that to line up, you use your big personality. I have a big one, you have a big one. Right. To serve whatever your calling is, whatever you've actually come to do. Well, a laser light is just coherent light. It's all the lights going in one direction. Normally our light bulbs are lights going all over the place. When you get it all coherent, you have a laser. So for me, getting the ego and the personality and all the functions, the intellect, the emotions, the body, all of that lined up in service. I use this image of an upside-down funnel. So up here is the soul.
19:01It's giving directives down to a little part in the middle down here, think of it as a bullseye, called the I. So when I meditate, I am aware of inner guidance coming from my soul. And then I choose to use my intellect, my body, my emotions, my intuition, my imagination in the service of whatever I've been directed to do. Yeah. You were talking about what your definition used to be for success. What is it now? Fulfilling your soul's purpose. And then you have to find out what is that purpose and then work to fulfill it. And that purpose can evolve too, by the way. It can grow and change over time.
19:34So you have to be constantly tuning in. My meditation is tune in, get guidance, come out of the world, fulfill it, come back in, tune in. I do four different kinds of meditation. I never know which one I'm going to do until I sit down. I might do a mantra. I know you do TM. I might do a... I do. I actually do different kinds. You do too? Okay, good. I didn't know that. So sometimes it's a mantra. Sometimes I sit, I do a tree of life meditation, which comes out of the Kabbalah tradition. I find that very powerful. Sometimes I do Vipassana, which is just watching my breath. Yeah. You know, just being there and allowing thoughts to emerge and thoughts to go away.
20:11Well, you know, the title for Chicken Soup for the Soul came from a meditation. And I literally went into meditation and said, okay, I'm going to sit here for an hour a day for five days until I get a title. and on the third day a hand came out like a green chalkboard in the school and it wrote chicken soup on it and i looked at that and i said what the hell does chicken soup have to do with this book i'm a little irreverent with god and so he's fine with it and so basically it said when you were sick as a child your grandmother gave you chicken soup and i said but this is not a book about sick people and then the voice said people's spirits are sick this was 1993 too there was a recession going on back then, first Gulf War, and people were downsizing, mortgages were being lost the same way as recently.
20:57And I went, chicken soup for the spirit. They're all in residence. Chicken soup for the soul. And that's when I got goosebumps. And for me, goosebumps are God bumps. I know that when I get those, that's, I'm on. That's a somatic intuition that says right on. And of course, no one got goosebumps in New York for a while, but eventually. Eventually. Eventually they did. After 144. Rejections, right. Rejections. And never give up. That's so important. Never, ever give up. And so you also believe that there is power in measuring or listing our successes and our goals. Do you still do that? I do. On a daily basis?
21:38I call it keeping a victory log. And I write down my victories. I don't do it every night. Sometimes I do what I call the mirror exercise, where I actually talk to myself in the mirror. So I would say, Jack, I want to acknowledge you today for the following things. And I would acknowledge myself for anything I accomplished, any temptations overcome. My big thing is surfing the internet too long. I need to get sleep and things like that. And then any disciplines kept, like yoga and meditation, things like that. And then I end with, I love you. And for a lot of people, they can't even say I love you to themselves without freaking out.
22:10They choke on it. And so I believe you cannot let in more love than you can give. You can't let in more than you can give to yourself. So basically what I do is I do an evening review where at the end of the day I say, where could I have been more? And I'm working on a quality all the time of love, compassion, joy, courage, whatever. Where could I have been more loving today? Oh, in the bank I got really upset with the teller because the line was too long. And then I replay it in my mind the way I would have liked to have been had I been more conscious in that moment. So I'm laying a blueprint down for the next day to be more loving.
22:45And then finally, I do a— Well, that's a good question. Where could I have been more? Yes. Yeah, whatever it is, loving, compassionate, patient, assertive. Where could I have been more? And the funny thing is, you'll always get an answer. You'll always see where you could have done it better. And I think, you know, a lot of us just think you just naturally are loving or naturally are this. I think you have to kind of intend it. You have to, you can want to create that. And that's where, why, where I could have been more, that's why tomorrow is another day, Scarlett, and you get another chance.
23:15Right. Get another chance to get it right. Exactly, exactly. And I think, too, the other thing I teach people to do is to visualize the next day the way you want it to go before you go to bed. Yeah. And visualize your goals. I have affirmation cards of my goals. I read through them and visualize them. Because what we know from the research is that whatever you think about, talk about, read about, watch on TV about right before you go to bed, your subconscious will play more often through the night than everything else that happened during the day except traumatic things like your cat got injured or something.
23:46And so you want to take advantage of that. I know. That's why. Isn't the news not good for you going to bed? The news is terrible. You know, first of all, what is the news? It's the same news every night with different names. There was a murder. There was a hurricane. It flooded here. There was a fire there. and then you're processing that all night long. I know, which bringing into your consciousness is just, to me, the worst possible thing you could do before going to bed. Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. Why do you think we are all here? You know, I used to think there's one answer to that and I used to always look for what is the one answer and find that one teacher.
24:19Yeah. And I think different teachers are teaching different things. You know, like the Abraham work is all about joy. Other people are saying it's all about balancing karma. Other people are saying it's about learning and mastery. and you're kind of attracted to the teachers who are teaching what you need to do in this lifetime. But I think we're here to... But isn't everybody, there's just different... You can call it success principles. I think it's all about a guide to how to lift your life to where it can be. Yeah, you know, I read a book called Life After Life by Dr. Raymond Moody when I was in graduate school.
24:52I read that book too. I love that book. And there was this one story about a guy who, you know, he'd left his body, went through the tunnel and met the being of light. And the being of light basically showed him all the places in his life he wasn't loving, and he had to look at that and feel the pain of that. And then he asked him two questions. How did you expand your capacity to love, and what wisdom did you learn from this life? And I thought, wow, that's the final exam. That is. And nobody's teaching for the final. So I made a commitment. I was in graduate school, and I said, this needs to be taught.
25:25And that was when I committed to teaching about love and about wisdom. So this book's about wisdom. The next book I'm going to write is called Love or Fear, The Only Choice That Matters. That is it. Yeah. That's a great title, too. Yeah, thank you. Because there really are only two choices, and you're either moving in the direction of love or you're moving away. You're moving away. It's a binary choice at all times. So what is the quality that you most admire in other people? I think three qualities, love, joy, and excellence. I really love people who are committed to excellence in whatever they do.
25:59I remember a guy who was a traffic. He led, you know, when there's construction and they have to wave you on or stop you. He did it with such grace, with such a plumb. He's like a ballet artist, you know? I mean, he just took it to a whole other level. The level of excellence that you've committed yourself to, that I've committed myself to, that Ick-Jock Perlman has committed himself to. I just am in awe of excellence. It doesn't matter what it is. I'm just, uh. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm like you. I really am in awe of it when I see people doing simple things really well. Really, really well. I mean, it's the person behind the counter at the cleaners who does that with such a joyful spirit that you can't wait to go pick up your clothes.
26:41Yeah. Yeah. Someone once said to me, you want to be the kind of person, if you were a plumber, that when the person that met you was walking away, they'd be thinking, there must be some plumbing I need done. That's good. Yeah. That's good. What do you see as the world's greatest wound? I think the greatest wound we've all experienced is somehow being rejected for being our authentic self. And that as a result of that, we then try to be what we're not to get approval, love, protection, safety, money, whatever. And that the real need for all of us is to reconnect with the essence of who we really are and re-own all the disowned parts of ourselves, whether it's our emotions, whether it's our spirituality.
27:23I mean, we all go around hiding parts of ourself. And, you know, I was with a Buddhist teacher a number of years ago. We were co-leading a seminar, and he said at the end, he said, let me give you the secret. If you were to meditate for 20 years, this is where you'd finally get to. Just be yourself. But be all of you. And how do we do that? By working on ourselves. I think meditation is probably one of the most important ways because when we meditate, things emerge into our consciousness that we may have buried, parts of ourselves that we've put aside. And I think, you know, human potential trainings, I'm a big believer.
28:02I've taken over 600 trainings, literally. When I first got into this, I was living in Chicago, and I met a guy in a laundromat, and he talked to me about this workshop that was happening. I went, okay, I'll go. And I took 37 weekend workshops that year. Oh, my goodness. It was as if I was living in a desert and was starved for water, didn't even know water existed. And I would assist, I would do anything so I could get in for... I was a graduate student and have a lot of money. But I was like, I grew. I learned who I was. And now you do them. And now I do them. All over the world. I do. Yeah. And so what has been your greatest reward in all of this?
28:43Wow. Watching people's lights go on in their eyes. And one of the great things about this entire book, it's like if you followed every principle, of course you would be ultimately successful. But they're layered. So you do one, then you do another, and then you add another, and you add another. And before long, you know. Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. Do you have a definition of God for yourself? I think God is all that is. God, you said that which is, I loved your phrase, that which is bigger than all of us or something like that. I think God is consciousness. and it's a sea of consciousness, and we're like a point of consciousness.
29:20I know you use the word cup of the ocean, you know? And for me, that's it. Oh, I can see you watch. I do, I do, I do. I told you I did. But basically, we're all individual points of consciousness in the ocean. And we can either identify as being a drop of water, or we can identify as I'm the ocean, and God is the ocean for me. It's infinite intelligence that manifests itself through everything. And I think God is evolving. And we are the cusp of that evolution. Consciousness is evolving. God is evolving, just like you and I evolve. And so he's evolving, he, she, it, through us. We are the cutting edge of evolution.
30:01That is a cool idea. And if we don't fulfill that, if we don't step into that and allow ourselves to be that, we are stopping the evolution. We can't stop it, but we're slowing it down. But is every person meant to be successful? Every person is meant to fulfill their purpose, yes. Now, that doesn't mean everyone's going to live in a big house. Yeah. Some people want to be poets and live in small little houses in New Hampshire in the woods. Some people want to run a little organic farm. That is a great success. Raising two healthy children in our world today, that's a huge success. Staying sane in the crazy world is a success.
30:35Yeah. Thank you, Jack, for coming over. Thanks, my neighbor. I love you. Thank you. Thank you for coming over. Let's have a hug. Thank you so much. That was so sweet of you to come. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation. Thank you for listening.
Original Air Date: December 25, 2017
How do you find your purpose? Jack Canfield is co-creator of the worldwide phenomenon “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book series, which has sold more than 110 million copies and been translated into more than 43 languages. Based on the lessons in his New York Times bestseller “The Success Principles,” Jack explains how to align our vision and goals with the fulfillment of our purpose. “Everyone has a purpose on this planet,” Jack explains. “The key is figuring out what you really want, deep inside, by listening to your internal GPS.”
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