The Success Principles: #3 - chapter review

I'm reading the latest book from best-selling author Jack Canfield, titled The Success Principles, which comprise 64 different lessons that Canfield has learned during the past three decades as as a highly-successful entrepreneur, instructor, best-selling author and keynote speaker.

My goal is to write a summary review for each chapter, every day until I'm finished with the book. You can access yesterday's summary here: Chapter 2 - Be Clear Why You're Here

Here's Chapter 3 - Decide What You Want
The previous chapter helped establish the reader's intended purpose in life. In this chapter, Canfield reiterates that the purpose of the book is to help the reader get from where they currently are in life, to the "place" they really want to be.  That place is a multi-faceted existence that encompasses the following areas:

• Work and Career
• Finances
• Recreation and Free Time
• Health and Fitness
• Relationships
• Personal Goals
• Contributions to the Larger Community

All of us desire abundance and fulfillment in the aforementioned areas that make up our lives, but those areas are vague and unattainable in their nebulous definitions. To help solidify the vision of what you truly want in life, the author offers the following exercise to help you focus.

The Success Principles: #2 - chapter review

I'm reading the latest book from best-selling author Jack Canfield, titled The Success Principles, which comprise 64 different lessons that Canfield has learned during the past three decades as as a highly-successful entrepreneur, instructor, best-selling author and keynote speaker.

My goal is to write a summary review for each chapter, every day until I'm finished with the book. You can access yesterday's summary here: Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life. 

Here's Chapter 2: Be Clear Why You're Here

Canfield starts this chapter with the premise that each of us is born with a purpose, and that truly successful people acknowledge, identify and work towards their respective objective.

He states his own life purpose in the following way: "To inspire and empower people to live their highest vision in a context of love and joy." The author goes on to stress that each of us has been born with an inner guidance system that helps us know whether we are living toward or away from that idealized purpose - even if you can't articulate it.

To catch a clue of your purpose, Canfield suggests that the things that bring you the greatest joy are in alignment with your purpose. He then encourages the reader to make a list of the times in their life when they've felt most alive and joyful - then try to identify a pattern that connects those events. That pattern points toward the person's purpose.

Basketball legend and author Pat Williams is quoted in this chapter and offers this bit of wisdom:

"Figure out what you love to do, as young as you can and then organize your life around figuring out how to make a living at it."

The Success Principles: #1 - chapter review

I'm currently reading a book by Jack Canfield, co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul series, titled The Success Principles, which comprise 64 different lessons that Canfield has learned during the past three decades as as a highly-successful entrepreneur, instructor, best-selling author and keynote speaker.

At the same time, I'm currently participating in a few different blog writing challenges to improve my writing and traffic to this site. To achieve those goals, I'm going to write a summary review for each of the 64 Success Principles highlighted within each chapter of the book.

My intent is to provide content that's interesting and beneficial to you. Please let me know if you find this extra information helpful!

Chapter 1 - Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life


As the chapter title suggests, none of us is entitled to blissful personal relationships, a meaningful career, unlimited happiness or physical well being. Each of those attributes of life are conditional according to our individual efforts to secure or achieve them.

Canfield stresses that anyone with a successful mindset needs to accept their personal responsibility for every aspect of their existence including: income, fitness, debts, feelings, relationships - everything! Unfortunately, many of us are conditioned to blame our situation on a series of externals, which shifts responsibility away from us onto "others" whether it's parents, teachers, the media, the church, employers, the government, spouse or any number of other things.

Canfield rejects the premise of that blame game by introducing an elegant formula:

E + R = O
(Event + Response = Outcomes)

In a direct quote from the book, Canfield describes the underlying basis for this model.

The basic idea is that every outcome you experience in life (whether it is success of failure, wealth or poverty, health or illness, intimacy or estrangement, joy or frustration) is the result of how you have responded to an earlier event or events in your life.

The author encourages the reader to apply the formula to any area of their life to help change the desired outcomes. The bottom line of this chapter is that each person is in charge of their respective feelings, actions and outcomes. If you want to be more successful then it's up to you to act in ways that produce more of what you want.

Question:
Do you agree with Canfield's premise that you ultimately control your ability to succeed and levels of success?  Do you think his formula (E+R=O) is useful?

Don't Go It Alone!

I’m not sure about you, but fall is my favorite time of year. The air seems cleaner and crisper; leaves start to turn brilliant shades; skies appear a clearer blue while every cloud-enhanced sunset is breathtaking.

It’s also the time of year that animals take such cues from nature and begin migrations to warmer climes, including geese flying in their distinctive “V” formation (see photo inser}.

Aside from its visual splendor and role as harbinger of autumn, the unique flying “V” has an important function – without that aerodynamic structure, virtually NONE of the geese would be able to make the grueling trip alone.