In this interview, host Paridhi Dhingra asks Jack Canfield how he cultivated the mindset needed to sell over 500 million books. Canfield explains that his journey began with modest, concrete targets (e.g., 150,000 books by Christmas, then 1.5 million in 18 months). Each success boosted his self‑confidence, allowing him to set ever‑larger visions, such as the 2020 goal to impact a billion lives through books, media, and philanthropy—a goal he ultimately achieved. He emphasizes that dreaming big does not require extra mental effort; it is a matter of choice and belief. Canfield shares vivid anecdotes: selling millions of copies in Iran despite copyright issues, receiving a $10,000 envelope from a fan, appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show, and speaking to audiences ranging from 35 high‑school students to 10,000 dentists and thousands of distributors worldwide. A pivotal moment came when a chiropractor’s belief‑exercise forced him to confront limiting beliefs, leading him to declare that belief is a simple, conscious choice that can be scaled to any amount of wealth or impact. The interview concludes with a call to the audience to make a deliberate choice to think at a higher level.
Chapters
Jack, if I may ask you a very important question that I've been dying to ask you for many years, and I think everybody will resonate with that question. Sure. And that question is, when I read about your goal, and which you ended up achieving, which is selling 500 million books, and I'm sure it's much more than that today amongst all your books together, how did you even cultivate that level of thinking? Like, Over here, sometimes we are even scared to think that I can write a book, let alone becoming a bestselling author. But you thought about selling 500+ million books. What gave you that ability to think like that? We really want to know the secret behind that.
Well, there's 2 realities to that. Number one, I don't, I don't think that was my first thought. You know, the, our first goal was to sell 150,000 books by Christmas, and then we're gonna sell 1.5 million books in a year and a half. And then whenever you have a success, what happens? You build your self-confidence. Success is the result, or I say self-confidence is the result of a risk you took that you survived. So whenever we survive a risk, we, our, our confidence increases. And so then we set our 2020 goal. This was, we called it our 2020 vision because, you know, with 20/20 eyesight, we were playing off that. So what's our goal for 2020? And we said, we wanna impact a billion lives. You know, through books, philanthropy, trainings, television shows, etc. And we achieved that. By then we had sold, I think, 350,000 books. I know in India the average book is read by more than one person. So we doubled that number in Iran, which doesn't even honor international copyright law. I got to speak in Tehran, which you have to go through the Pakistani embassy to even get a visa because America doesn't recognize Iran. And I'm speaking there at lunch. and a guy comes up at the lunch and he hands me an envelope with $10,000 in $100 bills in it. And I went, what? I'm just like a drug dealer or something. I said, what's this for? He said, we don't honor international copyright law in Iran, but we've sold so many of your books that we printed. I wanted to give you something while you were here. So there's probably another, you know, 10 or 20, 30 million books sold there. And then, you know, I've been on Oprah Winfrey Show. 40 million people saw that. Wow. We've easily achieved that goal. And I think what happens is you have to think big. You know, one of the people I quote in the Success Principles book is General Wesley Clark, and he said it doesn't take any more effort to dream a big goal than a small goal. You don't have to scrunch up your face more. You don't burn more neurons in your brain. Well, that's— You just decide. You just decide. And the universe, as you know, will give you back whatever you affirm and visualize and take action on. And if your beliefs get big enough. And I think, you know, for most people it's a step up. It's like, I don't think, you know, I started my career teaching high school. So 35 kids in a class, you know, 5 times a day, different kids. But now the largest group I ever spoke to is 10,000 dentists in America, 7,000 Herbalife distributors in India, you know. And the last 2, I was in India not too long ago, spoke to 3,000 people in one event. Yes. 2,700 people in the other event. Well, I would've been freaked out when I was a high school teacher to think I was gonna speak to 3,000 people. But what happens is you just keep building that, that self-confidence. I'll tell you a very interesting story. So I always had the goal that I wanted my company to make $8 million in one year. That was a goal for a while, and we weren't doing it. We were making like $5 million, $6 million. And so I saw this chiropractor who teaches beliefs and works with limiting beliefs, and he held my arm out and he pushed down on it and he said, okay, I want you to say, I can make $3 million a year. I'm great with that. $5 million. Great with that. $8 million. My arm went weak. I said, that's not your team, it's you. You're the one that's not holding that. By the end of that, he had me working on, I can make $20 million, $100 million. I get all the money in the world. No one else gets anything. I was still strong. So basically that little exercise made me realize that it's simply a choice. Belief is a choice. You can choose to believe anything you want. And if you choose it, you can create it.
Wow. Belief is a simple choice. Never looked at it that way. How many of you promise to make a simple choice today to think at the level of which our mentor is teaching us today. Because I don't want you to just go away with knowledge, but take that choice right now to have that level of thinking. Thank you so much, and we are super excited to meet you on the 24th of March. Thank you.
