Ask Jack #4 | Achieve Greater Success with One Word! | Jack Canfield

Hi, I'm Jack Canfield, this is Patty Aubrey. We're doing these Ask Jack and Patty videos and this is one of them. And as you may know, if not, Patty's been working with me for 30 years. President of the Campfield Training Group, President of Chicken Soup for the Soul enterprise, co author of about 12 to 14 Chicken Soup for the Soul books that were New York Times bestsellers and is a master coach and leads all kinds of mastermind groups around the world. And we're here to answer your questions. We've had a number of questions submitted to us for this video we're gonna do today. So I'm gonna let you read the first question.

Alright? So the first question is what happens when there is. When you have a really hard time saying no and you end up saying yes more than you should and then at the end of the day finding out you have no life of your own.

That's the answer to the question. You have no life of your own. No, listen, I understand this. I had a huge wound as a child that I was not enough. And therefore I had to say yes to everything in order to have people love me and like me and adore me and all that good stuff. And as a result, I overwhelmed myself for years over committed myself, didn't have enough time to take care of my body, my family, my kids and so forth. So the bad news about that is exactly what's in the question. So the solution obviously is two things. Number one, you've got to start saying no. And if you've been saying yes your whole life, it's out of fear of what's going to happen when you say no. You know your family's going to say, what do you mean you've got to take care of mom or you got to go do that or whatever you say. No, I don't. You know, you have a choice all the time to say yes or no. And if you have no no, your yes actually becomes meaningless and you become trapped as this codependent person doing everything for everybody else and not taking care of yourself. So that's the big fear. And will some of that happen? Absolutely. There will be some people that will be upset with you, but after a while people will go, oh, she really means no. And they'll have to start figuring out to do some things on their own. And the other thing I learned recently as exploring all this in my own life is when I'm taking care of you beyond what you need to take care of you. So I'm saying yes to all of your needs. I'm not really serving you. I'm not serving you because often I'm taking care of you in ways that you should be taking care of yourself. So it's important to learn to say no. It's important to know that you're going to know it'll be uncomfortable. Everything that's new is uncomfortable. You know, my seminars I teach, just fold your hands like this. And then I say, which thumb is on top? Now move all the thumb, the fingers up so the other thumbs on top. Don't just move thumbs. Everyone says it's uncomfortable, it's awkward, it's weird how, however, if you held it this way for about five minutes, it would stop feeling uncomfortable. I have gotten pretty good at saying no recently. No to forwards, to books, no to testimonials, no to requests for my time, no to do things for free. I do some things for free, but I was doing way too many. And no to things that I don't want to do. And so we all know when we're saying yes, when we'd rather say no. And the key is to just have the courage to be brave enough. I was in a seminar recently, and this guy said, my life's amazing. I could never figure out, I was feeling guilty. Why is my life so amazing? Everyone else is not amazing. Then he said one day I realized I always do the brave thing. I always do the courageous thing. And out of that, someone was in that conversation. So there's actually a quote that says, the universe rewards bravery. The universal words, it's brave to stand up and say no. And there are a lot of things we need to say no to. We need to say no to all the destruction of our environment, the things that are creating global warming, the people that are destroying our natural habitats, the people that are allowing children to be killed in our schools, the people that are allowing all the things in the world that are not good. We need to stand up and say no to that as well. I'll share something really weird. I was doing this workshop and we're doing this deep guided visualization work, and I realized I've had a low, bad back problem for years. And this inner guidance said to me, I will give you your back back so you won't have to experience pain, but you have to use your backbone and start standing up for the things you know are right and for yourself. And I went, whoa, that's really powerful. And when I started to do that, my lower back stopped hurting. It was radical. And so we have to have A backbone and say no to the requests that are beyond our ability. I now have on my computer a little phrase from Immarle Lindbergh. I don't know if I'll say this exactly right, but it said the desires of my heart are greater than the abilities of my life to say yes to everyone the desires of my heart would like to say yes to.

Right.

And so I had to realize that I love some of the projects you guys are doing and what you're about, but I'm not able to say yes to every request and to find that balance. And you know when you start to feel overwhelmed, tired, no time for yourself, it's time to say no.

Yeah. Well, there also then resentment comes up and then you can't follow through because in that quote, it was like at some point you run out of time, then you don't follow through with the things that you said yes on. And that affects your self esteem and your own self talk. And then you have more stress and anxiety and every time you say yes to someone else, you're saying no to yourself. And that's your famous thing. It's like, it's not against you, but.

And you're right when you say yes to too many people, you have to go back and break your agreements. And then you people don't trust you. Right. They resent you and it doesn't work out very well. So it's. I would just say learn to say no. So a couple things I've done, I have two calendars. One is digital in my phone and my computer. Another one's papers back up, still old school, afraid that's going to break down, I'm going to lose it anyway. I took a yellow highlighter and on my calendar I wrote in big letters on each month, no. So the first thing, I looked at my calendar to see if I can do it or not, I see no. And so Abraham Lincoln had a great technique he used. He said, give me a day to think about it. Because often we want to say no in a moment so they won't be mad at us. They. But if you think about it for a day, you go, I really don't have time to do that. I don't want to do that. And then you can always go back. And as you said, I love that phrase, which I teach, which is, it's not against you, it's for me. You know, I think your PTA project is important. I think your peace project, your Feed the Children project, whatever it is, is important. But I've already Overcommitted myself in terms of my time or even my money. And so therefore, I'm gonna say no. Not against you, project. Wish you the best. But. But for me, the best thing to do now is to say no. Most people respect that.

I agree. Okay, great. Thank you. Next question. This one's a little chunky, not perfect. How can you change your state of mood when you're mad or angry? I find meditating at the moment just pisses me off even more. Any suggestions on how to handle stress of deadlines and having too little day for the amount of work? We almost just kind of COVID that level. Say no.

Well, yeah, exactly. But I find. And this was something I didn't do, and I think it was not a good thing, is I was always Mr. Positive. Never get angry. All anger is created by having expectations are unreal. Who's in charge of the expectations? You are. All that stuff. But given that you've gone down that road and you're now in the rabbit hole of anger, give yourself permission to feel the anger. What you don't want to do is act it out in a way that's destructive to yourself or others. So don't be banging your hand on a desk because you hurt your hand. But if you want to take your hand and bang it on a couch or a bed, if you want to, just go outside and scream for a moment. If you want to pace back and forth, Anger gets dissipated primarily by movement. That's why people hit people, throw things, whatever. It's just you want to do it in a way that's not destructive to your property. You're not throwing something through a window. I remember, God, years and years and years ago, my first marriage, I got really mad at my wife. She had. She accused me, oh, something about spending money. I spent. She wanted money. And I was thinking, you're spending too much money. I took my wallet out. I just threw her. I said, here, take all my damn money. And I threw it at her. And I broke the window right next to her. The next day, I'm sitting there and I'm taking the putty out and pulling all the glass. I'm putting the glass. And I'm thinking, that's a lot of consequence for one little action. You know, I think I've only seen.

That from you about four times in 30 years.

I know. Well, I used to build up and then explode occasionally.

Well, that's the. That's part of the point.

Let off steam when it happens. So, you know, if you're angry, be angry. It's a human emotion. Just don't express it in a way that hurts someone else or hurts property. As I said, go for a run, go dancing, do some aerobics, jump up and down. You know, Rumpelstiltskin, when he got mad, jumped up and down, you know, or you could lie down on the bed as they teach in some forms of therapy. You know, lie down on the bed, put your hands on the. Have a temper tantrum like little two year olds do. Two year olds have temper tantrums. Why? The stresses build up so much, they just have to get it out of their system. But once they're done, they're done.

But they do it much more quickly.

They do.

And then we start to bury all those feelings and so then we let them go further down and further down and then we have an outburst or we're that angry that we can't get it together.

Right.

And so the question, the deeper control.

It'S out of control. We do road rage, we get in a fight in the bar, we hurt people.

Well, or we get passive aggressive at home or at work or with friends or whatever it is. So it's like, what are you not telling yourself the truth about sooner so you don't have to go through that for you? You said here, handle the stress of these deadlines. Well, could you change those deadlines or are you again, are you saying yes to things? I mean everything always takes longer than we expect, right? So where are you showing up? Where actually for me, when I'm pissed off, I'm really pissed off at myself. I didn't speak up, I didn't keep a boundary. I over committed, I put everybody before me. I did something so I can go into victim mode, where I can go, huh, I gotta look at this, you know, and then I can look at that anger and say, hey, this is here for a reason. It's gonna allow me to grow. And, and, and sometimes it's more fun to be angry just like it is to have a party.

I mean there's people that do that. There's actually people that experience road rage every night. And they do. They found that the body gets addicted to the chemical reaction that occurs. Just like you get addicted to. Or was it about the three year period where every night around 10 o' clock I craved peanuts? I later learned that peanuts actually have things in it that are good for the brain because I was working too late into the night. But the same thing happens with, if you're used to getting angry every day at 5:30, you'll find some reason to do it. But here's a metaphor, because I think we're saying two different things, but they actually. They actually go together. If a cow. If you came home every night and you found cow pies in your living room, you know, that's what cows excrete, cow pies. And the first thing you do is you clean up the cow pies. And that's called. If you have the anger, let yourself experience it, let itself move through. All emotions will dissipate if you allow yourself to fully feel them and observe the feeling of it. But eventually you come home and you say, every night there's cow pies in my living room. Where's the cow?

I was gonna say that was my first question.

Then you start looking for the cow. And the cow is the work we talk about with the Byron, Katie questions. It's the beliefs you have that something shouldn't be the way it is, that you shouldn't be overwhelmed, that you shouldn't, you know, this person shouldn't do what they do. The president should be acting different. The Congress should be doing something different. Your kid shouldn't have made a mess. Your husband should have come home on time. Whatever it is, that's what's creating the anger. Now we can get rid of the cow so we don't have to keep cleaning up the cow pies. But you don't want to be storing the cow pies and creating stress, anger, ultimately things like cancer in your body if you're not expressing and releasing these feelings. So it's a matter of feeling the feeling fully, letting it go, and then start to realize, how am I continuing to create the same feeling? That's the thought you have about it. Change those thoughts, then you're no longer angry. Change your behavior, you're no longer angry.

I just had this flash of working when we were doing the books and we were really, really busy and the kids were little, and I would go home and clean on the weekend and I would be screaming. You know, I have three boys, my husband and the two kids, and both my boys. I'm like, would you just put the toilet seat down? Or they'd pee on the seat or whatever it was. And my husband's like, we're never going to change. Just get somebody else to do that. It was one of the most liberating moments of my life. Like, oh, my gosh, I don't have to clean the toilet. Changed everything for everyone.

There you go.

So, yeah, but it's a simple stuff. I think that we Just keep doing. And then we. It's those little tiny things and anyway, I like your answer and let's go to the next one. So this is our last question of this segment. Says my brain wants to organize every detail and I get into perfectionist mode and I get paralyzed. Any tips for getting out of my own way, staying sane and still be productive?

Perfectionism is a symptom of fear of not being enough. And so my fear is if I don't do it perfectly, everything's going to fall apart. Usually comes from childhood. Again, I had a very domineering father who expected perfection from a six year old, which is ridiculous. And so to survive, I had to become the six year old that did stuff perfectly right. And so as a typical six year old who wanted to run around, mess things up, get muddy, play, that was not going to work in my family. So we're afraid if we don't do it perfectly, we're going to lose. We're not going to get the love we want, the money we want, the contracts we want. The book won't be loved, you know, and sold and all that kind of stuff. So really encourage you to. It's kind of hard to kill the perfectionist part of you, but to begin to realize that things don't need to be perfect. Some things just need to be good enough to be good enough. Like for me, when I was in graduate school of education, working on a doctorate in education, I thought I had to write the perfect dissertation. The fact is you don't. Nobody goes back when you're 40 years old and said, did you get an A or a B on your dissertation? As someone once said, what do they call the guy who graduated at the bottom of his class in the Harvard Medical School? And the answer is doctor. And so the reality is it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be good enough to get the job done. Now, there are certain things where high standards of quality are important. Airlines. I like the planes to work perfectly. You know, if you're going to get an operation from a doctor, we'd like that to happen with perfection. But there's so many things in life that don't need to be that your carpet doesn't need to be cleaned perfectly every week. So many of the things we do, filing our tax papers, as long as they're in order, we can retrieve them. They don't have to be perfect with everyone filing all the files, tablet, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, going across all typed neatly. So I would just encourage you to do some things to break out of that. I remember Georgia, my ex wife, we were leading a seminar and she realized that she was trapped in this thing of perfect. So she decided on a Saturday to come there and wear all of her clothes inside out. And so here she is with pants with the pockets hanging out, the shirt with the pocket inside and the buttons are all buttoned wrong. And she found out no one liked her less. Everyone said, oh, what are you doing? She said, I'm just practicing being not perfect. And I went, okay. And she survived. Michael Hesse, who you remember is one of our first employees way back when, was working on this in his life. Fear of making a mistake, fear of not being perfect. And his therapist sent him into a gas station to ask where the nearest gas station was, and then to go to a 711 and ask where the nearest 711 was. So afraid that if he didn't already know and he was looking slow stupid, that his whole life would fall apart. No one yelled at him, no one screamed at him. Everyone was very nice and polite to him. So we can begin to realize that we don't have to be perfect to be loved. And so just experiment, maybe with not being perfect, what would happen if you purposely put your tie a little skin or didn't wear a tie or didn't shine your shoes next Monday when you go to work and discover that nothing bad happens.

So can I tell a little story about that?

Sure, go ahead.

I remember when we were doing the success principles and you. We had the book proposal and I said, okay, it's time, you know, it's time to go to New York. You're like, I'm not ready. It's not done. I'm like, it's done enough. And so even I think it was important too, because you do want it to be perfect. And the thing that pains me for people that are have that perfectionist mode is perfect is good. It's. There's no such thing as perfect, for starters. But there's certain things that need to be really done well, right? And so I'm like, you have to go do this, because this is the next big thing. We need you. So these smart, amazing people that have that trait, and most of them are really amazing, have so much to offer. I would rather have them reframe. Like, I could take this opportunity to get my own way, or I could let the rest of the world have what this looks like. Because imagine if you had kept wanting it to be better and you didn't have any.

Here's the Problem. It never would have been perfect. I mean, that's the whole point. It's never been perfect enough. And you can.

People wouldn't have gotten the success principles exactly.

I mean, I was a victim of perfectionism for years, no question. And it came again from my sense that I wasn't worthy as a child. I had to do everything perfectly to be worthy.

Just wanted that confession over.

You got it. Now you all know you got it, you got it, you got it, you got it. But it's much easier for me now. I don't prepare as much as I used to because I know. I know enough now.

Can we talk about that too today?

Cause that's.

I want to acknowledge you about something.

Okay.

Typically, we wouldn't do this together. And if you were doing it, you would spend a lot more time. And in the last few weeks, you've done a ton of personal work on yourself. And this is the first time I've seen you come in and just talk from the space that you're in without having anything done. So you're now a whole new level of trusting that you know enough. Right? So I just want to acknowledge you to the whole world out there. Because you've been studying for 50 something years. And. And what was it like for you to just let go of that today and have that experience? How different was it for you?

I was very relaxed. I was very relaxed yesterday. I did do some preparation, but no, not nearly what I would have done in the past. And I went to bed relaxed. And once I realized that I'm enough, that I know enough, that I know more than most people. And you know, Mark Victor Hansen used to always say to me, I'd say something, you need to write an article about that. I said, mark, everyone knows that. He said, no, they don't. And so you'd be surprised how much you know that most people don't know how many talents you have that are being underutilized because you're waiting to be perfect. So I would just say, don't wait as long as I did. I'm 75 years old now. Has that perfectionism served me in some ways?

Sure, yes.

But did it cost me a lot in other ways? Absolutely. So whenever you're giving up some habit, some way you used to be, just appreciate it for what it did give you. It's allowed me to build this big platform now to tell everyone, you don't have to do what I did, whatever. But the main thing is Brian Tracy always has this thing. Whenever you're thinking about doing something and you put it off. You put it off, you put it off and then you finally do it. The only question you ever ask yourself is, why didn't I do that sooner? Why did I wait so long? And I would have to agree with them on this as well. All right, very good.

Good answer.

Thank you.

Well, that's all we have for today. And if you have any questions about being perfect, ask him. Don't ask me. I've actually benefited quite a bit from your perfectionism, which I really appreciate. But seriously, if you have anything that you want to ask us, please send it in. Feel free to be as transparent as you would like to be. The more transparent you are, the more detailed, the more we can really dive deep with you and help you get from where you are to where you want to be.

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