Book Review: The Success Principles by Jack Canfield

With the advent of Blogs and condensed information, deconstructed to the point it can be fitted on a postage stamp (if you remember what that is!) it is becoming quite rare to find content rich information in non digital form that doesn’t bore you to tears before you've completed the forward and acknowledgments segment.

Jack Canfield comes from the old school of authors., passionate about his work, including marketing it.  You may remember Canfield as a co-author of the phenomenally successful ‘Chicken Soup’ books. The incredible sales success of this series is testament to the utilization of the very principles that Canfield espouses.

J.C’s ‘The Success Principles’ book, has been on the bookshelves for a few years now, and recently I’ve noticed it on a few of my colleagues’ home and work shelves.

Unlike many motivational and self-help type books, Canfield avoids simply writing a book to fit a book title. With respect to some inspirational authors, it seems like some of them try to offer panacea solutions to life’s difficulties around one-dimensional philosophies. A format that seems to work very well in selling Diet books.

‘The One minute manager”, “Million Dollar Marketing”, “Success Mindset” and any other number of headline solutions, that suggest an instant remedy to all that ails us, are obviously going to be less than comprehensive.

“The Success Principles” is a simple title that states what the book is about, and expands upon the mysteries that it unravels with graphic illustrations, anecdotes, easy to read stories that we can relate to, involving contemporary people we’re probably familiar with. 

The problem I’ve found with a lot of similar type books, is that whilst they can be interesting and thought provoking to read, within a few days, the message has all but been forgotten. Like a burger at your favourite fast food outlet, it serves a purpose at the time but is rarely an event that leaves an indelible imprint.

This book however is rich with Action exercises. For those that believe in the concept of application of knowledge rather than relying on simply contemplation, there is a real treasure trove of useful action steps to follow.

Many of the Principles are less than earth shattering, yet few of us probably actually live our lives in accordance with them.

This is one of those books you could keep in your car and randomly open a page, read a few paragraphs and feel nourished and energized.

The following are just a few morsels to whet your appetite.

• Take 100% responsibility for your life and give up making excuses.
• Notice what’s working and not working.
• Decide what you want and stop settling for less.
• Become an Inverse Paranoid.
• Create a breakthrough goal.
• See what you want and get what you see.
• Take Action.
• Feel the fear and do it anyway.
• Practice Persistence.
• Exceed expectations.
• Transcend limiting beliefs.

The above barely scrapes the surface, yet every principle has it’s own profound truth. Definitely a book that won’t go out of fashion, as the lessons are timeless