747. How to Write & Publish a Children's Book (and Building Self-Esteem in Yourself & Your Children) with Miriam Laundry & Jack Canfield

You have to believe that you can do it. And you have to say I can. Because when we say I can't, it stops us from even trying.

Welcome to the Earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of Light Pink, bestselling author, three time fitness world champion, and I'm a crazy, multi passionate entrepreneur. My journey has taken me everywhere, from being a broke waitress, barista, retails associate and personal trainer with massive anxiety and no belief in myself, to later becoming a multimillionaire in love with my life. In 2007, my husband and I lost everything. We found ourselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt at rock bottom. We had no ideas and I had no education to fall back on. This is when I found personal development and learned everything I could about business. Not by choice, but because I realized no one was coming to save me. The conversations on this podcast are going to let you know that you're not alone and that we all feel like we don't know what we're doing. We're going to give you the tools to help you face your fears, take action, start your business, and grow those massive dreams that are keeping you up at night. It's time to create a life that you can't hide from and put so much on the line that your higher self is forced to come out. You're going to stop waiting for someone to approve of you and you're going to anoint yourself. Because I'm obsessed about building businesses that give women a platform, I want to feature you. So if you text the word podcast to 310-496-8363, you can get your questions answered on our Q and A segment along with a shout out. And if you rate, review and subscribe to this podcast, we're choosing someone every month to get coached and featured on our show. It just might be you. So let's get started. Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. I have not one guest, I have two guests for you today. And these two people are near and dear to my heart. One of them has been one of my longest time mentors from the very beginning of my career and that is Jack Canfield. I literally went and got trained by.

Him for three weeks.

It was an intensive where I learned pretty much everything that I I know and had moved on to teach in my career. He truly is one of the most special humans in my life. He's also the co creator of the number one New York Times best selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series and he's the co author of A Hundred Ways to enhance self concept in the classroom and self Esteem in the Classroom curriculum Guide. He's also the founder and chairman of the Canfield Training Group in Santa Barbara, California which conducts workshops which was one of the ones that I went to, and trainings on how to achieve greater success in every area of your life. And based on his best selling book, the Success how to Get from where youe Are to where youe Want to Be. You can learn more about this and everything that I attended as well@jackcanfield.com and my other incredible guest is Miriam Laundrie. She is a sought after speaker at schools nationwide. She's also the author of five children's books and she co authored with Jack the Big Bad Bully book in 2019. Inspired to help children believe they can, she organized an international effort in 2014 that secured her a Guinness World Record and hasn't stopped since. More than 100,000 children and adults participated in this record with the purpose of promoting positive mental health. Her books have also received numerous awards including Mom's Choice Award and Reader's Favorite International Award. She seeks to continue inspiring people to believe in themselves and now she shares her expertise by mentoring and teaching new aspiring children's books Book authors. She helps aspiring authors fulfill their dreams of becoming authors and you can learn more about how to do this. If you have a children's book vision that you want to do. She is the person that you are going to want to learn from. So you can learn more about that@miriam laundrie.com and also on this podcast we talk about a giveaway and you can also go to miriamlaundrie.com book blueprint where you can get that children's book blueprint and be potentially a part of her future workshops. So you guys, let's get into the podcast. We are going to talk all about so many different things in life and also creating your vision and what that looks like and what it takes. And if you do have a vision of writing a book or a children's book specifically, you absolutely want to tune into this podcast.

Okay. Welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you, Miriam and Jack. I'm so excited. This is so awesome you guys. I just talked all about their bio and who they are to me and all of these incredible things. So this is super fun that we are all on here together because you guys have this awesome children's book that is out. I believe you guys have written one before this as well, but I'm really excited just to kind of talk about the Journey of where this book started, why you wrote it, how did you connect? Where's the passion for what you're doing?

Yeah. Well, thank you for having us, Laurie. I'll start by sharing what inspired me to write this book. The first draft of the book in the first place. So this takes me back to 2012. I attended Jack's week long conference, Breakthrough to Success. And I learned so many great things that week. So much positivity and great success principles. And I felt like I had discovered a new way of thinking. And on the flight home, I reflected on what an amazing week that was and what I was going to share with my children. The word can't kept coming up for me and that word can't has limited me so much in my life. I can't start a business. I can't be a great mom and be working full time. It had stopped me from going for my goals, from speaking up when I really needed to. It was important for me to explain that to my children. But for me it was the first time that that word can't flipped. And all of a sudden I started thinking I can, I can go for all these things, I can do all these things. So I decided that that's what I wanted to teach my children. And I thought the best way to do that is with a children's book to entertain them in some way. So that's when I wrote the first draft to I Can Believe in Myself. Years later, Jack and I connected again. I had written another book and I emailed him. I asked Tim to be my co author. That was for the Big Bad Bully. He said yes. HCI Publications is our publisher and when they wanted another book, we sent them I Can Believe in Myself. It's been completely redone and just teaches children to let go of the word can't and to go for their I cans.

I love that. And Jack, I know that you know, this is the, a lot of this is the root work that you do because I learned a lot of this from you and I love that you're, you know, doing it now with children's books because, you know, when I found you, I was in my 30s and I wish I would have had it a lot earlier. So where did this work start for you?

Well, for me, I think I got re excited about working with kids when I had my grandson, I have one grandson who's turning eight in a couple of weeks and it was really interesting. We were talking to him on FaceTime the other night and he said, I'm not really Happy about being eight. And we said, why? He said, well, I'm one year closer to dying. He said, I like life so much, I don't want it to end. I said, honey, you got at least 90 years left. You know, it's all going to work out. But the point is that I agree with you and Miriam and the idea is that we need to learn this in school. We need to learn it from our parents. You know, all these books that are now coming out, thank God, about, you know, emotional issues and self esteem issues, goal setting, all, you know, getting over racism, all these books that didn't exist when I grew up, they literally did not exist. And so that to me is very exciting. And I wanted to be part of that. And when Miriam came to me and said, hey, I'm taking this idea from this can't, won't exercise we do in your training. And I wrote this story for my kids because I wanted them to have a story, not just a parent lecturing at him. Would you be willing to publish it with me and maybe we'll get a wider audience because you're Jack Canfield. And I said, sure. We, she and I did some minor re editing on the book. We had it all totally re illustrated by this amazing illustrator, Eva Morales. And then we went and we. I put a bunch of exercises in the back of the book that teachers or parents can do with kids either in the classroom or at home to take the story and make it more than just a story, but to velcro the principles into their life so that they become, you know, like, you know, your name and your phone number and your address.

I loved that about the back of this book too as well, you guys. I read it this morning. I was super entertained. Loved it. The illustrations are beautiful. Definitely. Even as an adult, I was like, yeah, we do this to ourselves every single day. And Jack, you just said the can't, saying I can't or I won't. And just all of the things that we got to learn through you, Miriam and I, that we actually got to practice. And I think that that was one of the biggest things, and that's what I love about this book with the exercises in the back, is that it wasn't just someone speaking to us. When I went through courses, it was truly like, hey, you're going to listen to this now. You're going to do it. And it was like I went home a completely different person. It completely unlocked like a different side of myself, a totally confident side after your events. That's truly when I went out and then had my own event and started doing all the things that I was really afraid of. Because I also learned, just like in this book, that other people were feeling the exact same way I was. And we're kind of just running this programming until we interrupt it.

Yeah. You know, a friend of mine runs a training where he has everyone get in touch with how afraid you are to do your. The things you know you need to do. You know, to reach out, to ask for what you want, to say no, to ask for a loan to start your business, to do a Facebook live, to write your book, whatever it might be. And then he has him. He says, okay, if you're afraid, I want you to start making an afraid sound. He's got everyone lying on the floor. They are going. And you hear the entire room of like three or four hundred people all doing the same thing. And then he says, see, everybody's afraid. Everybody's in the same situation, so let's just get over and get on with it. And it's so. It's so true. And so I think once you realize, secondly, that you're the one scaring yourself by imagining bad things happening, like I always say, if there's a snake in the room, right now you're in Arizona, where there are snakes. I've been in Arizona and seen some of those. And it's slithering toward you in your office right now. If you got scared, you'd have to go into the future and imagine the snake biting you, because the snake is not intrinsically scary. It's what we imagine about it in the future. That hasn't happened yet. So if I'm afraid to give a talk, it's because I imagine I'm going to stammer and forget my lines and people are going to laugh at me and I'm going to feel ashamed and all that. The truth is, I can just as easily imagine getting a standing ovation. Imagine it working. Imagine that I can do it, and it will be successful. And that's one of the things that I think we spent a lot of time teaching our kids that. I've got three sons and a stepdaughter and a stepson, and that's why I have a grandson now. And the reality is that they learned that they have a choice. You can use your imagination to support you, or you can use it to basically pull the rug off from under you. It's the same function. Someone said worrying is just negative goal setting. Oh, God, that's good.

Totally is imagining. It's Just I do it all the time. Like you're imagining the thing that you don't want to happen. Instead, you can just as easily, like you said, imagine what you do want to happen. Miriam, I know that you, you know, you also help people write books you like, who have that in their heart and who have that in their soul. And I think that's something that's so big that people want to get out into the world. Can you tell us a little bit about your course as well? Because I think people are going to be really interested in that.

Yeah. So for me, it started off well. First switching the I can't for myself. Then teaching my children, who are, three of them are teenagers now, so helping them understand the power of their thoughts and that they can do the things that they want to. And then I quickly realized that there are a lot of people that want to write children's books. They started contacting me. As soon as you have a book, they start contacting you. Can I pick your brain? Can you tell me a little bit about this and that? So I was doing that for a long time, but I decided actually last year when all of this happened, we all had to pivot. And I like to think of, instead of pivoting, evolve into the next thing. So I evolved into teaching people how to write, how to publish and market their books. So the same principles apply for anything we want to do in life, right? We just have to believe that we can do it and we have to go for it. Find somebody to help you do it. So I started running a program. It's a course where I teach them how to write, publish, and market their books. And I also mentor people into, you know, for a full year, everything they need to do. And at the end, I publish their books for them under my hybrid publishing company. It's been a lot of fun, but I see the exact same things for children and for adults. That's why even though these are children's books, you got something out of the book. You know, as adults, we still get something out of these teachings, right?

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It's so funny because it's literally the most basic thing over and over and over again. Like when I start something new and I know Miriam, you are also in our Fast Foundations program. I see it every day as well in myself and with people and Jack, this is all the work that you do, it comes down to the I can't do that. And then we tell ourselves a reason after that. So, Jack, what have you found through all the years of people who come into your courses, who come into your workshops? I know that you have one coming up. Breakthrough to success on April 23rd. Tell me, what fears do you see and why do people normally come to you? What do they want?

Well, everybody wants more or less of something. They want more joy, more happiness, more income, more people in their downline in their MLM company. You know, they want more impact. They want more relational fulfillment with their husband. They want more fulfillment in their work. They want more, you know, whatever they want or they want less of something one, less pain, less worry, less struggle, less violence in their marriage, you know, whatever it might be. And I think just making that commitment to come to a workshop, making that commitment to take a seminar, making a commitment to listen to a podcast like yours, it's a, it's a statement that there's something I, I want that I don't have and I'm willing to invest my time, my energy, my effort and my money to get it. And so that's the first step, is just acknowledging there's something you want that you don't have. You know, research shows that something like 70% of people don't like their jobs. They're not happy in their work, you know, and I know that anybody can find a job where they can be happy because we're all here with a purpose. And so a lot of people come because they don't know what their purpose is. They don't know what they really want out of life. They may be they're an empty nester. And so all of a sudden they're, now I've got to figure out what do I do? Or I've just left my miserable job, but I don't know what the next step is. So people are in transition, or maybe they've lost a loved one or they're now a single mom and they have more pressure on them to make money. Whatever it is, they come. And when they come, you know, the common thing is to get them to believe that anything's possible. So the first thing that most people have is a limited belief about what they can do. They don't believe they can do it, just like with Miriam. And we'll come back to our book for a second. I'll give you a broader answer in a min. But when we wrote I Can't believe in myself. What happened was part of it came from her daughter who said I can't do a cartwheel. Now I'll let Miriam finish that story real quick because this is really important about how you move from camp to can.

Yeah. On that flight home, I kept remembering my daughter with the cartwheel and she attempted to do a cartwheel. She was maybe in kindergarten at the time and she fell down. She got up and she said I can't do it. And that was it. She didn't try again. So when I wrote the story, she was now in grade one around there. And I said, I told her the story and I told her how to really believe in herself and how to go for it. So the first thing I said is you have to believe that you can do it. And you have to say I can. Because when we say I can't, it stops us from even trying. So just the fact that she's switching it to I can it doesn't mean she's going to do it right away, but it opens up up the opportunities, the possibilities. So that was the first thing she started saying, I can. The second thing I said is find somebody that knows how to do a cartwheel. Who can that be? Well, her babysitter knew how to do cartwheels, so we asked her for help. So she gave her some tips and then step three is to practice and practice until you get it done. So it took her two weeks of practicing and trying to do her cartwheel and falling. But after two weeks she accomplished it and she was so happy with herself. So that's something that I remember. And I tell children and I tell adults, follow those three simple steps. Believe that you can do it. Ask somebody for help. Find a mentor. Right. Like fast foundations, like breakthrough to success, like so many other things. And then step three, practice and practice until you can do it. Until you accomplish it.

Yeah. So people show up and the first thing is to believe that you can have what you want. And so once you believe that, I have a quote. I tuck tell people a lot. It's from General Wesley Clark, who used to be the head of the allied forces for NATO. So he was a four star general in the military. He ran for the Democratic nomination for the President of the United States. Didn't win it at the convention, but he plays at that level. Very successful. And he says it doesn't take any more effort to dream a big dream than it does to dream a small dream. In other words, you don't burn up more brain cells. It doesn't take more energy. You don't have to scrunch up your face and concentrate harder. You just put an extra zero behind it. I want to sell 10,000 of those instead of 1,000. So once you believe that it's possible and it's just a choice, you just. It's an act of faith. You just make a choice to believe that you can earn 500,000 a year, to believe that you can become a TV personality, to believe that you can write a book, whatever. Then it's a matter of choosing what if you And I always say, if a genie came down and said you could do anything at all, I'm going to give you the power. What would it be? What would you choose? And people always come up with an answer. And now we say, okay, now we know what you want. Now let's look at how do we get there? And as she said, Mariam said, you know, find someone who's already done it. So there are people. Tony Robbins says success leaves clues. Whether it's a masterclass. I love this masterclass. Programs on tv, on the Internet now. There's TED talks, there's books, there's courses, there's seminars, there's mentors and coaches. Whatever someone's done what you want to do. We even know how to go to Mars now. So it's like we just accomplished that. So then it's a matter of finding out what are the barriers to you doing it, what's stopping you? And that's the beliefs, the inner, you know, the subconscious beliefs you don't even know you have that you picked up between the ages of 3 and 8 years old. It's the fears you have and the stories you tell yourself. I don't have time. I'm not smart enough. I don't know enough people. I don't have a graduate degree. I'm not certified. You know all that junk that people tell themselves? And once we can begin to look at those and then look at how do we overcome those barriers, obstacles, considerations, and fears, then what are the action steps you can take? Let's have a plan. Let's have an accountability partner that holds you accountable. Because most of the people listening to these kind of things are solo entrepreneurs. They have control of their schedule. They're a massage therapist, they're an author, they're a coach. They're, you know, they're someone that usually doesn't have a boss. And so, you know, Miriam and I don't have bosses. So no one's telling us what to do. No one's Saying, call the White House and get a, you know, appointment with Joe Biden. But if I told you that and you were my secretary, you'd call. You weren't sure it happened, but you'd call because your boss said so. So when you have that accountability to check in with somebody, it raises the success rate by 17%. There's all these things that, you know, get you up there to where now you're gonna. You're gonna achieve it. And that's. That's basically what we do in the program, is we teach people how to do all that. We help them release and replace their limiting beliefs, come up with goals, have accountability partners and mentoring groups and that it's all experiential. You know, it's one thing to tell you, don't say the word can't, don't think can't. But when you go back and forth with a partner like you and Miriam, did it start sense with, I can't do this, I can't do that, I can't do this. And then notice how you feel. So that feels pretty crappy. Now say, I won't. And you go back and forth because it's a choice. You're choosing not to. You feel pretty good. Now. We want to change the won't to I will. But we're starting to see it's not can't. It's not impossible. It's. I've chosen not to do it it. And then obviously you can choose to do it. So one little simple exercise. But we do that nonstop through the program, as you know. I like to see the workshop, the breakthrough to success is a car wash. You know, you come out shining on the other end. You're different.

Oh, my God. When I. When I came home and Miriam, I'd love to hear your experience. But you know, when. When we were doing it, it was, I believe it was three weeks spread throughout the year for a week at a time. And now you can, like, now you can get at all of it in such a great experience on your one that you're having on April 23rd. And people can join online, too, correct?

Yeah, just go to. Yeah, just go to breakthroughtosuccess.com really simple. Breakthroughtosuccess.com and you guys, if you want.

To know where I got my start, this is absolutely where I got my start. So you have to go check that out. But I know that when I came back, I was a completely different person, and I didn't actually think that that was possible. And my husband was literally like, like, who is this person that just came home? Because I pretty much got to shed so many beliefs that I carried and so many I can'ts and all of those different things that were holding me back because I.

Not only.

I think really what happened in the room is you just normalize fear. And we actually got to go through the process together. And that was a really big thing for me, was to actually do the exercises that you gave us with the fear, acknowledge the fear. It's not like we were saying it didn't exist. It's not like we were saying, you know, going to be so easy now that you change these words. It was like, yes, it's here and now.

What are the tools?

So, Miriam, what was kind of your. Some of your experience afterward? I know that. Did you go in wanting to write children's books? Oh, no, no, no.

I had never thought about being an author until the flight home.

Okay.

Yeah. I think it just opened up possibilities. I think it was first, you know, like breaking you open, like you're uncovering a little bit more about yourself. No idea that I wanted to even do this. So that was my first experience, going to breakthrough to Success. I then went back and did Train the Trainer, which is what you're referring to, the three weeks how to teach the success principles. And even then, I didn't know what I was going to do with it. I just trusted that I need it more. And it was there that for me, the biggest thing I got then in Train the Trainer was that everything was possible. I remember Jack getting us to write our breakthrough goal, our big, hairy, audacious goal. And for me, I wrote down I wanted to empower 100,000 children to believe in themselves. And he told us to set a date. I put the date within a year. And as soon as I wrote that, I dropped the pencil. I was so overcome by fear. But then he had us turn to the person on your one side, share your goal. Turn to the other person, share your goal. And these people didn't laugh at me. I was the one that was doubting 100,000 children. How will I ever do that? But, you know, as the week progressed, I started thinking, okay, I am going to do this. How would it work? How do I need to do this? And that's when I decided I was going to go for a Guinness World Record at the time, with my first book. And I wanted to empower children to believe in themselves. So. So all these teachings allowed me to think bigger and to believe that I could do it. And when you Believe that you find a way, you find a way to actually do it.

Oh my God, I'm having a moment right now, you guys, because you just transported me back in that room, Miriam. And when we had to go around and ask our question, so what we would do is we would get a question that we wanted answered to try to find a resource or help connect to our vision or our dream. And I remember my question was, does anybody know literary agent? Because I want to be a best selling author and I don't know if I got my answer in there, if I found that, but it started, it opened me up to searching for that and I found a literary agent and I'm a best selling author. So. So it just, it just opens, it does. Right?

A better question.

Instead of the questions that you walk in there with that you're asking yourself that are so. I know they're holding you back. They're the actual blocks. When I walked in the room, it was like, why am I here? What am I doing here? I'm not good enough. Who do I think I am? Well, that's not me anywhere that made me want to stay in my hotel room. So it really was just replacing, replacing all of those thoughts and questions and Jack, you've been at this work for years. I would love to know if you still you're human. So what do you experience? What are you experiencing right now at this point in your life, in your career? Do you have any sort of blocks that you're working through or do you just feel like these tools are so, so second nature that you just use them right away?

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It's kind of both. It's like I'm 76. I started this work in my 20s. I think I was 22. So I've been doing this for what, 54 years. So a lot of it now is just I don't get that upset by things. I still get afraid sometimes, but for me, I have the tools to move through it. I've learned not to let it stop me. I often say that what most people see fear and limiting beliefs and the thoughts they have that come up about, oh, I can't afford it, I don't have the time, what my husband say, you know, all that stuff, they used to see them as stop signs and now they're just. For me there's caution signs. Like when you're coming on the freeway, it says merging caution. You gotta, you gotta pay attention, you know. So yeah, my fear is telling me I've never done this before, need to be more aware, pay attention, you know, that's pretty much it. But I would, I wouldn't say I never get afraid if I'm doing something really that's kind of outside my comfort zone. Like the first time I did a workshop for the police department, you know, I'm this kind of lovey, huggy guy. All of a sudden I'm going to deal with these guys in uniforms, you know. So I learned to say pride instead of self esteem and things like that. But I was a little nervous and it worked out really well. You know, when the first time I did a workshop in the Middle east, you know, all these people are, all the women have these veils on. All you see is their eyes, you know, and all the men are over here in white and they're over here in black and you can't see if they're smiling or not. And it was always like, it's going to go down. Am I violating any religious beliefs and taboos? And turned out really well. They loved me and they wanted me to come back. So. But ye for sure. I think for me, as far as something seriously like what's a block or something to keep moving through. I think I grew up not feeling I was enough. And you know, everywhere I went was kind of a validation of that. I went to a private military school as a scholarship student because my aunt sent me there. And everyone else was rich, you know, their dads were the doctors, the lawyers, they owned the newspaper, the car dealerships. So I was. The poor kid brought my lunch. Everyone else went through the cafeteria, got a hot meal, went to Harvard again, had friends with like Larry Rockefeller, Max Factor third, John Danforth the fourth. And I was on scholarship, you know, I had, I bought my clothes at the used clothing store. They were the same tweed jackets, but they cost me $15 instead of $150, you know, so there was always that in, but not of feeling. And now I live in Hope Ranch, I belong to the country club. But every time I go there I feel like, well, they're different, you know, it's like I probably have more money than a lot of them, but the fact is that still in there a little bit. So I spent a lot of time proving myself, proving my worth, you know, And I think what that did for me was over producing, overworking, being too much of a perfectionist, you know, not taking care of myself and so that I'm not worthy, I'm not lovable, I'm not enough. I think that's the killer statement that we all have. I'm not enough. I'm not smart enough, I'm not attractive enough, I'm not experienced enough, credentialed enough, wise enough, you know, whatever, blank enough. And really I'm not enough. So I've conquered a lot of that, but I, it still shows up a little bit. I did a experience where a couple years ago I went down into the rainforest with some shamans. We did some plant medicine, which are kind of like psychedelics in a sense, but they're. It's not like man made chemical stuff that I don't think is good for you, but it's. He said you're, you're drinking nature. So was ayahuasca. And, and I had a major breakthrough where I realized I was in a car. This was just two years ago. My mother, when I would cry, would put me in the car and let me cry because my dad didn't like my crying. And so I'm abandoned. So I need something. I don't know if I needed to breastfeed, if I needed a diaper change, if I just need to be held. But whatever reason, I decided pre verbally, before I even had words, asking for what I want doesn't work. Nobody comes, comes. So I'm alone. I've got to take care of myself. I'm going to be the Lone Ranger. And for years, I never asked for help. You know, I teach that now. It's the exercise you talked about going around asking, do you know a literary agent? And I wrote a book about it called the Aladdin how to Ask for and get what yout Want. Because the genie comes down and gives you what you want. But that was still in there at some deep level, you know, And I had to give myself permission to cry because I'd given up. Crying doesn't work. Nobody comes, you know. So here I was in my 70s, 74 when it happened, and it was still in there. So there's little things that you don't even know you have. Is one of the. I think the guy who wrote Jonathan Living Seagull, Richard Buck, said, if you're still here on Earth, your work's not over. There's going to be something that might be as small as the little toenail on your left toe, but basically there's still something to do. So I'm constantly meditating. I take seminars online, I talk to coaches. I'm always wanting to get better. And that's what drives me, is constant and never ending improvement.

How do you think your work has evolved over the years since you started? I know that so much of your message is so consistent and the same because it's the root of what we need. But how have you watched it evolve? What's been shocking or an aha moment if you've had one in the past past, like five to 10 years?

Well, always what comes up is there's an easier way to do it, you know, like. Like eft Tapping, you know, is a lot easier than pounding on chairs screaming F you to your parents to get rid of your anger. You know, so we used to do that. I'd have 300 people with towels pounding on chairs and going through their feelings in a total truth process. And then along comes, you know, the guy who invented the five. The five Minute phobia cure, which turned into eft. And you can just tap on nine points, do that for about three or four minutes and the anger disappears, you know, and limiting beliefs disappear. And physical pain is. Well, that's a lot easier, you know, So I think struggling is optional. I think work is required. So, you know, meditation, I would say you know, there's a lot more meditation and guided visualization in my work because when you work at that deeper level, it's like you're working at the base of the mountain that affects everything above it as opposed to only working at the top. And the base is still kind of corrupted. So I think that's been a big piece. And I think too for me, what I've also learned is that I'm in the process of letting go, trusting other people more. So what I'm learning is to let my assistants and other trainers that I've trained do more of the work so that I can step back. That's that I've got to be the one because I do it better than everyone else kind of thing. I've let go of that and trust the work is the work. It doesn't matter who's doing it. So we now have 3,500 trainers certified in 117 countries, like yourself, teaching aspects of this work. So that's been a major breakthrough to let that happen. So those are, I think, the main things and I think the other thing is for me, and maybe it's a developmental stage in life, but it's letting go of trying to control everything. You know, we teach the law of attraction, which is to ask, believe, receive and to trust that the universe got your back. And if you just want it and you are a vibrational match by being in love and joy and forgiveness and all of that, that it'll flow into your life. And the more I trust and just focus on being rather than doing, being rather than becoming, life seems to work out better. And I don't know if that's something that happens as you get older or something you can learn at 15 years old. I kind of think it is. And just give you one example, every Thursday morning, I do a Facebook live from my network marketing, I mean a network marketing company called called Young Living. It's an essential oils company. And I have to, I don't have to. I chose to do a 10 minute business tip for people. I got 2,200 people in my organization and I didn't know what I was going to do today. And so last night I started a 45 day course on how to reach total equanimity in your life. And I thought, well, this is cool. And this guy is teaching these nine steps to goal setting, which I had never heard before. It was really cool. And I, and I went, oh, I'll teach that tomorrow morning. So this morning before I got on you here with your podcast, I taught that what I learned last night. So there was no struggle, no effort, no worrying about it, no looking for it. Just called it showed up. And the more I let go and relax, the more that's happening. So I would say that's another thing. I'm working with people to not have an expectation about how the world should be and how you should be and how other people should be, but more about allowing things to be the way they are, are. And when you do that, life works.

I need that. And I'm noticing that right now. That's literally what I'm doing every day. That's the work I'm in every single day right now. Miriam, what feels really important to you and also fun right now? Like, what are you loving talking about? Like, what just lights you up the most?

Well, the first thing you asked is what feels really important to me. And I think we're all in different seasons, right? It just depends on. On what season of life you're in. So for me, right now, I have four children at home. Three of them are teenagers. My oldest is leaving the house to go to university in September. So all of that is on my mind a lot. So how am I showing up for them as a mom and then for my oldest two being women, how am I showing up for them as a woman that can have a business and be a good mom? And I bring that up again because this was a limiting belief. This was one of the things I had to let go of, had to work on so many times. I really felt for a long time that, you know, when things got too busy, when I started writing books and the four kids got so busy with extracurricular sports and all this extra stuff, I took a sabbatical because I didn't think I could do both. But driving my daughter to volleyball one day, a conversation came up, and she told me she didn't want to have any children and that, you know, I probed a little more and I said, why don't you want to have children? And she said, well, if I'm a mom, that means I have to let go of my dreams, my goals. And it took me a moment to, like, pull my mouth back up, because I've been teaching her since she was little that she could do everything she wants to do. So, you know, after following up with that conversation with her, I immediately I started working again because I realized that that limiting belief is something that I was passing on to her, that I could, you know, just be a mom and not go for my dreams, which was to, you know, write more books and empower more people. So I immediately started the publishing company, and now I work with the. My two daughters, my two girls, and I just tell them what I'm doing, you know, the next thing that I'm doing. They love Jack's work. I took them to breakthrough, to success. They were 14 and 16 at the time. Because I want them to let go of any limiting beliefs that I may have put on them, you know, without even realizing and just anything that comes up for them. My one daughter absolutely loves you, Lori. She is following you on Instagram. We got your, you know, the last magazine you were on the COVID of, and she's the one that started talking to me about your alcohol company, actually. Of course I heard you talk about it, but she started telling me about it and how cute the cans look. She's not of drinking age. She's 16 right now. But I noticed that there was an interest there, and that's when I reached out to you to see what you were doing. Women for women. And I invested in your company. A big part of that. Well, I love what you're doing, but a big part of that is because I want to bring my girls along the ride with me. I really want to teach them how important it is, first of all, to go for their dreams, but then that women need to support each other, so. So that's the big thing that lights me up right now, is being a role model for them and for the next generation. Wow.

I literally love that. And that's so much about what, you know, exactly. What light pink is about is showing how we can support and fund each other's dreams when we have those big dreams. Because, you know, when I started looking, there wasn't a ton of women who were investing at the time. So I'm so beyond grateful for you for just making that your mission, because. Because once we make it our mission, we make it their mission, and we make it other people around us their mission as well. So, yeah, thank you so much for that. And that is just such a cool story. So, Jack, how about you? What feels exciting right now? Like, what are you really into? What feels important?

Well, I would say training trainers is one of the most exciting things for me. And we've had to learn how to do that online as well year, which we've accomplished. And a lot of people thought it was even better than a live training because there's, like, less distraction. You're really focused in on what we're doing, and we had to teach them how to do this online themselves. So how do you do zoom calls and break people into groups and do the kind of exercises you talked about? And I'm also excited about. There seems to be this buzz that the pandemic starting to calm down a little bit. You know, with the vaccinations happening, with spring happening, you know, who knows what's happening, but there's. It's in the can, feel it. I'm looking forward to getting back into the training room and doing the kind of things we used to do where we can hug each other and you know, do sit and have lunch and all that. So that's, I'm excited about that. I'm excited about. I'm working on a book on how to surface and release Limiting Beliefs with a woman named Lisa Janell. That's exciting for me. I'm also working on a book where we've taken the seven chakras in the 60s system and looked at what are the success principles that relate to those chakras and then what are the essential oils you could use to move that, open up that and move it forward. And also what are the crystals? So I'm working with a woman who's very much a shaman and she said, hey, you know, everything you're teaching, there's an oil for that, there's a crystal for that, there's a, that relates to this chakra. And I went, that's way cool. Who knew? So we're doing that. I'm excited about that. And the other thing I'm excited about, and Mary's probably tired of hearing me say it, is playing ping pong with my wife.

Love it.

We discovered about halfway through the pandemic that we had this ping pong table down in the barn we have, which we had forgotten about because the kids were all up and grown and gone. And so we brought it up to the upper part of the property of a two level property and we play ping pong at least two to five games every day. And my wife usually beats me by two to three points, which is a little challenging. I always go, well, you're 13 years younger, no wonder. But we're really getting good at it, you know, to the point where we're watching videos, trying to figure out some advantage we can have over each other online. But it's so. Because it brings you into the present moment when you're in that present moment, you know, like when you're teaching, you're in the moment, there's nothing else going on. And even though you're Busy. It's relaxing and stress reducing because you're right there. And so that's been really good for us. And I'm excited about being a grandparent grandfather. It's really a trip to watch this young boy grow up in a totally different age than I grew up. All the technology that exists, both the good and the bad of that. And he's very precocious, very smart, very bright. It's an old soul who's come in. And so I love, I love that as well. And yeah, that's, that's basically it, you know, I'm enjoying. I've never been happier, quite frankly. I mean, I've been home for a year and two months and I was never home for more than two weeks up until, I mean, for 20 years I was on the road two weeks out of the month doing seminars and keynotes. So my marriage is much happier than it's ever been and I'm more relaxed. I've actually lost weight. A lot of people do. You know this? I just read this last week. 42% of Americans say they gained weight over the pandemic and the average weight gain was 26 pounds. That is extraordinarily not good. As one of my friends said, you become a hunk, a trunk or a drunk, you're drinking too much, eating too much, or you're exercising more because you have the time. I chose to go. I'm not weight, not a hunk by any means, but I've lost about £17. So it's all good.

I was going to say when you got on here, I was like, dang, you look good. Pandemic.

Did you? Well.

Yeah.

That's amazing. Ok. And I love that there is nothing better than having a hobby or having something that just gets your mind into the present moment. I think it adds so much value to everything that you do. And I love that you're doing that with your wife. Okay. So I want to know from both of you, Miriam, what is something that you feel like you have learned or is like a secret or you've just kind of unlocked the keys to the universe because you know how to apply this in your life and you wish everyone knew it. Like, what's something that really makes a big change in your, your life?

Oh, for me it would be. I mean, the thing that comes to mind is to focus on, really focus on what's important to me. And right now it's family. I get so much enjoyment from my children. I also get so much enjoyment from building my company and growing my Business. Like, I wake up in the morning and I wake up super early, and you're always tempted to just stay in bed. But I think to myself, I'm building a million dollar company. The thoughts that come in my head, building this company. I'm impacting millions of children's lives through my books and through the books my authors are publishing. And that's enough to get me up. That's enough to get me up. So I talked about the seasons because I feel like I'm in the season of working and building, and I love it. I don't want to do anything else, but right now, focus on the authors I'm working with, on talking about our children's books. So that's where I am. That's my life right now. And I love it. Just like Jack said, I feel like I'm the happiest I've ever been. And I think it's because I'm focused. I'm really focused on this. And when people bring me other things, I just. I have to say no because I have to stay focused and true to myself. And what's bringing me joy right now.

I literally just recorded a podcast on that. Just staying focused on your purpose. And like, sometimes when we get anxious or distracted or we feel. Feel frustrated, it's because we're. We've kind of, like, strayed from, you know, that thing that makes us feel really good. So. Oh, I love that. Okay, Jack, how about you? What is. What do you feel like is kind of something that you've unlocked for yourself that really helps you in life?

I think the biggest thing, and there's a couple corollaries to it, one is that I'm responsible for my happiness. I'm responsible for anything I experience. It's how I respond to reality, not the external reality that's causing my happiness, my joy, my upset, my frustration, frustration, whatever it might be. So once I really take that to heart, then I realize that I am responsible for everything I experienced. So that was a big shocker at first. Nobody really wants to hear that. Wait, I'm responsible for my cancer. I'm responsible for my divorce. I'm responsible for the fact that I'm not making a lot of money. I'm responsible for the fact that I'm unhappy. Wait a second. But once you get that and you realize that the world just is the way it is, when I stop having a demand on how it should be, how I should be, not letting me be me, you know, ultimately, we are unique, and we all grow up trying to Fit in. We all grow up trying to be that thing which is going to make our parents love us, make our friends love us, make our husband love us, you know, whatever it might be, the reality is we sacrifice parts of ourselves. And so when I allow you to be you, I allow me to be me, and I realize I don't need you to be different than you are for me to be happy, then the news doesn't upset me because it's just people doing it. They've been doing it for centuries. Liberals and conservatives go all the way back to Rome. You know, it's back and forth. It's how the system balances itself out. Despots come, despots go. You know, Hitler didn't live forever. Neither did Pol Pot or, you know, whoever you can think of all the different yamin in Africa. You know, I think it was Gandhi said, you know, in the end, love always wins, you know, so it's like. But we have challenges and so it's a school, we're here to learn. And so when I just realized, if I'm not happy to ask myself, how am I making myself unhappy? How am I making myself overwhelmed? I overwhelmed myself. No one did it to me. No one over scheduled me. I said yes too much, you know, so why did I do that? Let's take a look at that, let's release that. So I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned and everything I teach comes out of that. That formula V plus R equals there's an event, I respond to it, I get an outcome. If I don't like the outcome, I can't change the event, just is. Can't change the pandemic. It just is. Only thing I have control over is me. How I think about it, that determines how I feel about it and then what actions I take about it. So I know that's simple, but it's so profound and most people, they, it takes a while to grok that one, you know, to really get it because it's a confront. You know, most of us grew up blaming, complaining and excuse making. And we get a lot of value, a lot of feedback because everyone else does it. So we have pity parties, you know that, you know, you're talking about alcohol. Why do you go to the bar? You go to the bar at the end of the day to bitch about how bad your boss is. Everyone agrees, you know, the whole hospital staff meets at the same bar and bitches about the head of surgery, you know, and it's just, it's what We've been conditioned to do, but it's not what makes us happy and ultimately doesn't make us successful. We're not good parents because of it. We're not good employers or employees. It's. It's not easy, but it is simple.

So good. All right, so we're starting to wrap up here.

So what?

This just popped in my head. I would love to know if you could only write one more book. That's it? You're just writing one more book because the universe has run out of paper. All you can say in this book.

What happened to ebooks? Come on.

Those are gone, too. We gone.

I get it.

What would be the thing that you would want to write about Miriam? I'll have you go first. What would be that topic that you would just like. This is the topic that you want to make sure everybody knows.

Oh, that's tough. I want to write a lot more books.

And you're going to.

But, you know, the. I think it's. I would say that it's the golden rule, right? Like just. Just to be kind to others and be kind to yourself. I think that's one of the most important things. We bully ourselves, right? We've talked about this before. That's our last book that Jack and I did. We become our worst enemies with our negative self talk, our doubts, all of this. But if we were kind to ourselves, if we just really believed in ourselves, if we loved ourselves, if we said all those kind things to ourselves, then that reflects on other people also. And it's how we show up in the world to support each other. So I would be writing a book about that. If there was just one last book to write. It would definitely be on that. Being kind to yourselves, but being kind to others as well.

Oh, I love that. And you know what? That's how you stress out an author. Just ask them that question.

No, it's terrible.

Okay.

Jack, how about you?

I think I would write a book called Choose Love. And it's not too different from what Miriam was saying, because I think it's the ultimate choice if and when you can truly choose love and be love, which is who you are anyway, but really in every aspect of it. And as Miriam said, loving yourself, loving your emotions, loving your body, loving all your quirks and what other people see as foibles and weaknesses. Loving the animals, loving the flowers, loving nature. If we love the ocean, we wouldn't throw all the plastic in it, you know, so. And loving. Loving each other and loving spirit, loving everything. So I think the opposite of love is not hate, it's fear. So we're afraid of being conned, afraid of losing, afraid of death, afraid of so many things. But I think love is the ultimate answer to every question and it really simplifies it at some level. So that would be what I would write about is I would want to write it in such a way that people would really get it. I wouldn't want it to feel woo woo. I wouldn't want it to feel soft. Someone wrote a book once called Love is the Killer App and that everyone was called Love is Good for Business that someone wrote. So it's getting into the. It's getting into the mainstream a little more. This is not soft, it's not feminine. It's really, you know, Jesus was love, you know, Buddha was love. These were guys, you know. And so I really think that that's what I'd want to. I want to write it in such a way that people would get it and go, oh my God, this is the answer. This is what we need to do. So that's what it would be.

When love slaps you in the face.

That'S a great.

Just thinking of love, like kind of beating you up, like, good for you. Okay. So grateful for the both of you. And just to wrap, I really want to have people know where they can find you. Follow you. Miriam, I know there's people like just dying, waiting to hear about how they can enroll again. And Jack, I know that people are going to be going over to your breakthrough to success. So let's just do that one more time. Miriam, where can we get that?

Yeah, so right now my focus is on teaching aspiring children's book authors how to write their books and how to publish their books. And I've come up with a blueprint, a formula on how to write your children's books. And people can go to miriamlaundrie.com bookblueprint and they can get a video and a PDF and start writing their books. They can get it written, that first draft within a day. And I encourage everybody to do that because we really need more great, amazing children's books out in the world.

Awesome.

Tell them how to spell laundry because it's not the way like a laundromat is spilled.

It's like clean laundry. Miriam, Laundry. L A U N D R Y bookblueprint.

Very good. Yeah, I just want to remind everyone, go to Amazon.com and get the book I Can't Believe In Myself. Just as you said, it's good for you. Good for your parent, your children as well. And then for me, it's just jackcampfield.com if you want to learn about all my work and if you'd like to learn about the three day seminar we're doing, it's live, it's virtual, but it will be live. And we already have about 300, 400 people signed up from all over the world. One of the exciting things about the Internet is that we now can have people in a virtual seminar from like 40 different countries making friends with you. So that, that'd be breakthroughtosuccess.com so jackcampfield.com for the general work, get on our mailing list. We do a lot of free things, of course, throughout the year and also then for our training. Coming up, BreakThroughtosuccess.com, which will, as you've heard, is a transformative experience. You will come out the other side so much more able to achieve everything you want. Everything from happiness to more wealth and all those kinds of things as well.

We're going to do a book giveaway in one second. But I will say, you guys, Miriam, I'm so grateful for you and just having our paths crossed and getting to spend time and all of your support with Pink and all of the things and just getting to know you even better. So beyond gratitude for that and your beautiful books and all that you're doing to help people get their books out into the world, because that's a big thing. It will keep people up at night if they are not living in their purpose. So I'm glad that you are essentially freeing people and helping them live into their purpose. And Jack, I'm so grateful for you. I literally do not know where I would be without you. It was the most, probably one of the most life changing things that I've ever done. So you guys definitely head over there. I always, I probably reference you every week. If not, you know, who even knows whenever I'm talking? Because so much of what I've learned and what I do is rooted in your work. So beyond grateful for you and you guys. We are giving away away books. So Miriam, you have sent me 10 books to give away. And what we're going to do is you tag Jack and Miriam and myself. Okay, so we're going to link up the handle. So Miriam, what is your IG handle?

It's Miriam Laundry Publishing. Okay.

Miriam Laundry Publishing. And then Jack, you're just Jack. You're Jack Canfield, right?

Correct.

On Instagram. Okay, great.

So tag them both and let us.

All know what your biggest takeaway was, like if you had an aha moment or if you're going to do one of the courses, whatever. So you know that I love to see who's listening to this podcast. And what we're going to do is the first person to tag or the first 10 people to tag and share your biggest takeaway. I'm going to be sending you one of Miriam's books. So you guys, if you want her book for free, make sure that you tag us. And I'm going to be sending that book to you. So Miriam and Jack, thank you guys so much. And until next time, everybody earn your happy. Thank you you so much.

Bye.

Bye.