The secret of relationship success is not one single element. It is multifaceted.
Some people feel stuck in their relationships at some point in their lives.
They have read different types of books and gone to all seminars, but still, they’re not making any progress in letting their partner know or understand their struggles.
In this interview with Jack Canfield, the founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul, seminar leader, corporate trainer, and entrepreneur, he shares his proven success formula and principles and how these can be applied in our daily lives. He also shares several exercises that can help shift your life and lead to experiencing a successful relationship.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
There are various reasons why people aren’t making changes in their relationships:
- People don’t have the complete system of what they need to do to enjoy a successful relationship.
- People are missing an emotional element, the why, or the purpose of relationships. They don’t have the drive to build trust with a partner, or relationships aren’t their top priority.
- The secret of relationship success is knowing the combination of a lock. If you know what the relationship means to the other partner, you can build mutual respect and enjoy a healthy relationship.
If you understand the Universal Law and you apply that correctly to your relationships, then literally, you can achieve anything you want. That’s the secret of relationship success.
People unconsciously think of limiting beliefs, affecting how a relationship means to them. Breaking through all the limiting beliefs is a secret of relationship success.
Partners don’t take 100% responsibility for every aspect of their life.
- Everything you’re currently experiencing in your relationship is a result of how you respond to your partner and their feelings.
- E + R = O (Events plus your Response to that event or those events equals the Outcomes that you get.)
- Emotions are an outcome of thoughts you’ve had, the meaning that makes sense for you out of the events, and also the actions you choose to take.
- Most successful relationships are operated by a universal set of principles that include no blaming, no excuse-making, and taking 100% responsibility for upholding open communication between you and your partner.
An exercise you and your partner could do is ask yourselves these questions:
- What did I do or not do that’s producing unrealistic expectations in the relationship?
- What can I do differently to keep our relationship healthy and thriving?
- What do I get for keeping our relationship like it is?
We’re addicted to comfort.
We’re addicted to comfort, but the reality is that growth occurs when you’re uncomfortable. Discomfort and fear in relationships affect how partners talk and make sense of even the small things like affection and intimacy.
We all have to be taking risks, therefore every relationship can’t grow if you and your partner are not taking risks.
The secret of relationship success comes down to trading comfort with exploring new and different things for partners to spend time together.
Everything you want in a healthy relationship that you currently don’t have is outside of your comfort zone. That’s where all successful couples are and obviously the secret of relationship success as well.
If you’re not a little bit uncomfortable every day, it means you’re not growing. The secret of relationship success lies in getting uncomfortable to encourage growth and good communication.
Successful relationships are vibrations of good communication.
- Every relationship is a constant balance of going back and forth. It’s a vibration of feelings, negative and positive thoughts shared between two people.
- When partners stop vibrating, partners stop being alive. When we stop being a little bit uncomfortable, then our desire to live long, healthy relationships dies as well.
- You need clarity about your purpose as a romantic partner, and you get that by engaging in thoughtful, open communication with your partner. In doing so, we let our partner know about our insecurities, needs, and wants to become enlivened and vibrate at a higher level.
- Nature is always vibrating. If you get your bare feet on the earth, you pick up the vibrational frequency of the earth as well, which is really important in tuning to our innermost self.
- We’re connected to that God energy, not only through vibration but also through meditation and prayer. Another secret of relationship success is sharing a relationship, with God at its foundation.
- We find ways that work best for our relationships when we’re plugged into a higher energy source like God.
Adverse reactions impact a healthy relationship.
- When you experience fear or negative reactions, your body and energy field contract.
- Relationships work better when both partners are calm and relaxed. A sense of calm is one crucial relationship success many successful couples recommend.
- If you’re not one for practicing meditation, it can take you a while to get back to a normal state. If you meditate for 20-30 minutes daily, you have better control of how you react and respond to your partner.
We have control over where we put our bodies.
- We should surround ourselves with positive thoughts. A positive environment where partners can thrive and spend time together is the secret of relationship success.
- Some romantic partners are stuck because their habits are so strong, giving rise to hurt feelings. Partners must recognize that habit-breaking is challenging but is worth every effort to stay in loving relationships.
- It takes about 66 days for most things to become new habits, and for some things, as much as 120 days.
- Create at least one new powerful habit with your partner a quarter every year, which is a well-proven secret of relationship success.
Your partner is afraid to ask questions because they fear what they will hear.
- Feedback and open communication are essential to a successful relationship.
- A successful relationship also requires keeping tabs on accountability. That’s the secret of relationship success.
- One of the real secrets is having an accountability system built in. That can be a coach, a mentor, or an accountability partner.
- Let your partner know they will be your accountability partner.
- Every relationship has its fair share of fears and uncertainties that partners must work on together to move forward.
You aren’t in a successful relationship because of fear, lack of accountability, and limiting beliefs.
- We all have shadows inside us, like your decision that you couldn’t be comfortable and indulge in happy relationships.
- When you start loving yourself and complimenting yourself, it’s going to surface things long buried because the love is going to start vibrating all that is not aligned.
- What we have to do to heal is to allow the buried past to surface.
- Being in a workshop with people or being in a coaching experience will give you more energy to vibrate your system and loosen up the stuff that’s stuck inside you. The secret of relationship success lies in having better coaching.
Transcript: The Secret Of Relationship Success – Interview With Jack Canfield
Luis Congdon
Today’s guest is Jack Canfield. I’m sure you’ve heard of the book that sold 500+ million copies.
Translated into over 40 languages, Chicken Soup for the Soul Series has over 250 titles now published.
Jack Canfield has made a big imprint with his work on success, the secret of relationship success, and success principles. He’s also a seminar leader, corporate trainer, and entrepreneur.
I’m truly honored and inspired to bring to you Jack Canfield and to welcome him to the show.
Kamala Chambers
What does it take to be in a successful relationship? What does it mean to have effective marriage communication with your partner? What is the secret of relationship success?
Maybe you’ve had this experience where you’ve read all the books, you’ve gone to all the seminars, and you and your partner are still not making the progress that you want to make with your relationship.
Well, today, we’re going to uncover from the success guru himself the secret of relationship success and how to apply success principles to your daily life for accurate results.
Welcome to the show, Jack Canfield! It is so fantastic to be here with you.
Jack Canfield
I am ready. Thank you for having me.
Kamala Chambers
All right! One thing that we noticed a lot, and I believe you’ve seen this a lot too, is couples go to a lot of seminars, they read a lot of books, but then the change doesn’t happen in their relationships. And I know you’re a master of success and teaching relationship success. And I would love to hear why couples aren’t making the change.
Defining the Secret of Relationship Success in Real, Raw Terms
Jack Canfield
Well, I think there are several reasons why couples aren’t making the change in their relationships.
- People don’t have a complete system of what they must do to be the “perfect partner.”
I’d like to think of relationship success as knowing the combination of a lock.
It doesn’t matter what your IQ is. It doesn’t matter if you live in Paris, Texas, or Paris, France.
The secret of relationship success has nothing to do with this.
If you’re missing even one number in the combination lock, it doesn’t matter how hard you move all the other numbers around.
The lock’s not going to open.
So if you’re missing a number or you have the numbers in the wrong order, let’s say you know a lot of right things to do but do them in the wrong way at the wrong time in the wrong sequence, you need to find a system to success to get familiar with the secret of relationship success that involves mental behavior, spiritual behavior, physical actions, etc.
If you understand the Universal Law and apply it correctly to your daily life and relationships, you can achieve anything you want.
I have had people take my seminars who were homeless and had no money.
Three years later, they were millionaires; they were running groups, and they had their TVs.
They worked with the 15-year-old who was flunking out of school, getting in trouble, his mother was hating him, and he was doing drugs all the time.
And I taught him this success system, and he then went ahead and got all ace graduated doing fine in college.
It really doesn’t matter. What we can do is dive into some of those things that make that system work, which you have to know to know the only secret of success.
Couples can use the same system to enjoy harmonious, successful relationships.
The problem is people, couples, in particular, are missing an emotional element, the why or the purpose of relationships. They don’t have goals, visions, a support group, and a mastermind partner. They’re not taking the proper actions, not responding to feedback, and they’re not persevering in the face of obstacles.
Limiting Beliefs Affects the Secret of Relationship Success
2. The biggest problem is people have unconscious limiting beliefs.
They don’t even know they have them.
What’s stopping romantic partners from being able to do the things they need to do to enjoy loving relationships?
Imagine this:
You were getting on a plane, and you saw a 6-year-old getting on the plane with the pilot; most people would get a little nervous.
And yet, most of us are running around as adults guided by decisions we made at six years old to protect ourselves, to compensate for abuse, for being bullied, for being teased, having failure experiences, having parents who are uncomfortable around money, around success, around rejection, etc.
That’s a long answer, but we can delve into the specifics throughout the conversation. In fact, the secret of relationship success lies in breaking through limiting beliefs.
Kamala Chambers
Defining the Secret of Relationship Success in Real, Raw Terms
Jack Canfield
Well, I think there are several reasons why couples aren’t making the change in their relationships.
- People don’t have a complete system of what they must do to be the “perfect partner.”
I’d like to think of relationship success as knowing the combination of a lock.
It doesn’t matter what your IQ is. It doesn’t matter if you live in Paris, Texas, or Paris, France.
The secret of relationship success has nothing to do with this.
If you’re missing even one number in the combination lock, it doesn’t matter how hard you move all the other numbers around.
The lock’s not going to open.
So if you’re missing a number or you have the numbers in the wrong order, let’s say you know a lot of right things to do but do them in the wrong way at the wrong time in the wrong sequence, you need to find a system to success to get familiar with the secret of relationship success that involves mental behavior, spiritual behavior, physical actions, etc.
If you understand the Universal Law and apply it correctly to your daily life and relationships, you can achieve anything you want.
I have had people take my seminars who were homeless and had no money.
Three years later, they were millionaires; they were running groups, and they had their TVs.
They worked with the 15-year-old who was flunking out of school, getting in trouble, his mother was hating him, and he was doing drugs all the time.
And I taught him this success system, and he then went ahead and got all ace graduated doing fine in college.
It really doesn’t matter. What we can do is dive into some of those things that make that system work, which you have to know to know the only secret of success.
Couples can use the same system to enjoy harmonious, successful relationships.
The problem is people, couples, in particular, are missing an emotional element, the why or the purpose of relationships. They don’t have goals, visions, a support group, and a mastermind partner. They’re not taking the proper actions, not responding to feedback, and they’re not persevering in the face of obstacles.
Related Reading: 5 Ways An Online Marriage Course Mends Relationships
Limiting Beliefs Affects the Secret of Relationship Success
2. The biggest problem is people have unconscious limiting beliefs.
They don’t even know they have them.
What’s stopping romantic partners from being able to do the things they need to do to enjoy loving relationships?
Imagine this:
You were getting on a plane, and you saw a 6-year-old getting on the plane with the pilot; most people would get a little nervous.
And yet, most of us are running around as adults guided by decisions we made at six years old to protect ourselves, to compensate for abuse, for being bullied, for being teased, having failure experiences, having parents who are uncomfortable around money, around success, around rejection, etc.
That’s a long answer, but we can delve into the specifics throughout the conversation. In fact, the secret of relationship success lies in breaking through limiting beliefs.
Kamala Chambers
That’s fantastic stuff. The fact that you’re setting couples up for success by having the accountability, by having the action plan, and by having the support in place makes all the difference.
I know that we’ve seen that with our clients and that you’ve created systems to make that possible for people. I’d love to hear some more success principles, the secret of relationship success from you, and things that you feel are vital to the secret of success in our lives.
Taking Responsibility
Jack Canfield
One of the biggest things couples don’t do is take 100% responsibility for every aspect of their lives as romantic partners. I teach that everything you’re currently experiencing is a result of how you responded to everything else that happened earlier in your life.
The secret of success aligns with self-responsibility. There’s a little formula I teach:
E + R = O.
E stands for Events plus your Response to that event or those events equals the Outcomes you get.
So an outcome might be you’re overweight. The result might be you don’t have enough money. Another consequence might be you don’t have friends, and you’re lonely.
Another outcome might be you’re unemployed. Another result might be you’re wealthy, or happy, or healthy, etcetera. So, what is it that allows one person to be successful when another person does not?
When they grow up in the same conditions, the same recession occurs, they live in the same town, and often, they’re identical twins; one’s successful, one’s not are the thoughts we think concerning an event.
The secret of relationship success is just more than what we experience daily.
People think thoughts like, “I’m never going to be successful,” “I’ll never find somebody,” “I’m stupid,” “There’s no man in this town for me,” and blah blah blah blah.
And so we have our thoughts, we have the images that we hold in our head like I say we’re going to stand up and everyone’s going to dance.
Some people get excited and see themselves having a good time with their partner, and some people imagine they’re going to get up and look like a fool, and they feel uncomfortable.
The law of attraction is a relevant aspect of the secret of relationship success. All feelings are outcomes of thoughts you’ve had, the meaning you’ve made out of events, and the actions you take or don’t take.
So, the only thing you have any control over is your thoughts, the images you create in your mind, and the actions you take, which include the things you say and do.
The secret of relationship success lies in controlling your thoughts and responses to your partner.
A lot of relationships are suffering because there’s a pay-off in settling down with a whole other person. They get commiseration from your friends. They don’t have to take a risk. They avoid loss of face, loss of friendship, loss of money, etc.
But usually, it’s just comfort.
We’re addicted to comfort.
The more you are addicted to comfort, the less likely you can find the secret of relationship success.
However, the problem is growth occurs when you’re uncomfortable, and the secret of relationship success lies in the fact that you are out of your comfort zone.
It occurs when you’re engaging in effective communication and building trust with your partner.
It occurs when you and your partner discuss hurt feelings, past relations, mutual respect, affection, desire, and intimacy with your partner.
And so we all have to be taking risks, but you or your relationships can’t grow if you’re not taking chances. So we’re addicted to that comfort zone where we find ourselves.
Jack Canfield
And so I teach people if you’re not a little bit uncomfortable every day in the relationship you have, it means you’re not growing.
Bob Dylan had that in one of his songs, “If You’re Not Busy Growing, you’re Busy Dying,” because there’s no static point.
Your relationship is a constant balance going back and forth.
It’s a vibration between two united individuals. For something to vibrate, it has to go right and left, up and down, or in and out.
And so, if it stops vibrating, it’s dead.
When we and our partners stop vibrating, we stop being alive.
When we stop being a little bit uncomfortable, then we’re dead.
The Secret of Relationship Success is Establishing God as the Foundation of Most Successful Relationships
Luis Congdon
For some reason, that reminds me of a quote from Osho.
I don’t remember the verbatim, but he said something along the lines of something about being closer to God.
Somehow, people are also more productive or creating more in the world, and he’s trying to make this connection between being spiritually sound and the productivity that comes out of people.
And that was a beautiful quote about productivity and how there are spiritual rules that, if we follow them, really help us.
The secret to relationship success is for both partners to be on a spiritual path. I’m also thinking something personal about you.
I’ve heard and read somewhere, so I don’t know this personally, so I’m asking you.
I will find out now. I’ve heard that you don’t like to watch violent films. You don’t want people to gossip around you.
You work hard to filter that out of your life. When I read that, I started to wonder how a father does that, how a busy businessman does that, how a man who lives in a world very much in the world does that. Do you think this is an essential part of the secret of success?
Jack Canfield
First of all, I agree with Osho.
I teach individuals and couples they have to have clarity about their purpose, and they get that by looking inside and getting connected to what we call God-self, the universal intelligence, God, source energy, and infinite wisdom.
God as the Energy Core of Successful Relationships
Knowing God is the secret to relationship success.
We all have a connection to that universal spirit. When couples connect with that, several things are happening.
They become enlivened and vibrate together at a higher level.
Luis Congdon
Beautiful.
Jack Canfield
If you’ve been around Osho and some of those teachers, there’s this thing called Darshan, where you change your energetic vibration by being in their presence, whether it’s the Dalai Lama or Sai Baba or Jesus Christ or whoever, if you could get in their space.
The energetic vibration that comes through spirituality is an integral part of the secret of relationship success.
Luis Congdon
Or a tree or something that lights you up. I want to make sure that everybody knows that this is accessible at all times and it’s around you everywhere.
Jack Canfield
Absolutely. It’s in nature.
Connecting to nature is so important to know the secret of relationship success.
One of my best friends has been this uptight businessman for many years, and I finally got him to hug a tree.
We took a picture of it. What happens is there’s energy that’s vibrating in this tree, and you can get that.
The idea is to get in nature.
We connect to God’s energy – a core element of the secret of success, not only through vibration but also through meditation and prayer.
Every relationship works best when partners spend time together and plug into energy called source energy or God.
So, I agree with Osho to have a unique connection with God to recognize the secret of success.
Negativity Does Not Contribute to the Secret of Relationship Success
Jack Canfield
Secondly, we return to negativity, which does not contribute to the secret of relationship success.
Whenever you contract, they give you a hose.
If you want to cut off the water supply of a hose, you bend a hose, which contracts the hole that the water is moving through and slows down or stops the flow of water.
The secret of relationship success is that you and your partner share positive thoughts.
When you experience fear or a negative reaction, your body and your energy field contract.
We can see that with advanced technology, we can see bio-magnetic fields.
So basically, when you’re in fear, the energy goes back to the part of your brain called the amygdala.
What happens is you’re no longer in the prefrontal cortex, which is where creative thoughts, rational thinking, executive functions, and spiritual insights occur.
This is why the Third eye is located in the front of the forehead.
The symbol of the unicorn’s horn, which makes it a mystical being, comes out of that area.
Staying away from negative energy is essential to know the secret of success.
So basically, we don’t want to be in fear in our relationships.
When you hear about ISIS and all these things going on in the world, and you watch negative movies, war movies, and horror movies, your body is contracting.
It’s also increasing adrenaline sometimes, and some people are adrenaline junkies.
That’s why they steal cars and jump out of planes. But the reality is that you work better when you’re calm and relaxed.
Your calmness is the secret to relationship success in your life.
This is why martial artists, whether Aikido or Kung Fu masters, study meditation because you must be mindful in the present moment, or you’ll be distracted by your thoughts and get whacked on the side of the head or hit in the stomach.
Mindfulness in Successful Relationships
Luis Congdon
This leads me into this other space, and I remember reading The Power of Intention with Dr. Wayne Dyer.
He talked about some studies where people watched violent films.
Whether people are accustomed to watching violent movies or not, their bodies would still respond in a fearful state.
How do you cut some of that off?
What if, while you are away from your partner, your friends, and family members want to see an action film, or what if someone around you is gossiping and diving deep into this negative state?
What do you do?
How does a hostile environment contribute to the secret of relationship success?
Jack Canfield
Well, I’ve seen a few action films.
The key is something that Abraham said through Esther Hicks not too long ago was that “The thing about negative news and movies, action films, and all that kind of stuff is your reaction to it.
It’s your reaction to the action.
If you can watch the negative news and stay neutral, that’s fine.
Some people could do that. Staying away from negativity is the secret to success in business and living an amazing life.
If you go back to the Wayne Dyer stuff you were talking about, one of the things they watched with meditation research is that if I show you a film of a guy in a sawmill and all of a sudden, he cuts part of his hand, and it bleeds excessively.
If you’re not a meditator, it takes you hours to regulate how you’re feeling.
If you’re a meditator and you meditate for 20-30 minutes a day, then what happens is you’ll have a quick reaction, but you’ll go back to neutral quickly.
So you don’t stay in that disturbed state all day, which many people do.
Let the negativity go if you want to know the secret of relationship success.
One person can get caught off in traffic in the morning on the way to work, and at noon, they’re still upset about it.
Whereas if someone else can have it, 10 minutes later, they’ve let it go.
So I do watch a little bit of news because I can afford to walk into a room in New York and run a workshop and have 9/11 just happen that I don’t know about it.
Luis Congdon
I get what you’re saying, and I agree with what you say about the secret of relationship success.
I just wanted to know if that rumor, how true it was or what an extreme. I tried to gauge where I was at.
Jack Canfield
The truth is I limit that. I don’t watch a lot of news.
I get most of it from reading things like The Huffington Post and CNN online.
So I don’t watch a lot of that.
The other thing is I limit the amount of movies I watch and television.
My wife loves to watch The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.
Quite frankly, I don’t get into that though. I don’t see the point.
But the reality is that I want to spend my time focusing on things that lift my spirit and give me more wisdom.
Things that lift you and your partner are the secret of success in your relationship.
The other thing is I don’t get engaged in gossip and rumors, and I don’t spend a lot of time listening to negative music.
The secret of relationship success is how much joy you share and experience with your partner.
As much as I like country music, you have to be careful.
Have you heard about the joke that you get when you play a country music song backward?
Luis Congdon
Yes.
Jack Canfield
Get their car back, their wife back, their truck back, their farm back, all that stuff exactly.
You want to surround yourself in a positive environment as much as possible because we used to tell our kids, “Don’t hang out with her. Those kids are a bad influence.”
Well, people and things don’t stop being a bad influence when you’re 21 years old.
So, the one thing we have control over is where we put our bodies to spend time together with our partners.
You can put your body in a monastery, and you can meditate, or you can put your body out on the street in a gang-infested neighborhood.
You’re going to have two different reactions.
The secret to relationship success is how you and your partner choose things.
With much freedom, we should exercise that to surround ourselves with positive thoughts.
Find Ways to Get Unstuck in a Relationship
Luis Congdon
All of you listening that come back to the show regularly. We’re not just creating a mask so that you’re tuning in.
We’re bringing Jack because Jack has a way of working with people and shifting them, and all of our guests have that ability, and each of them has a different approach to the secret of relationship success.
The more that you tune in, the more that you’ll find your change.
Here’s a question I have for you, Jack, and it’s been burning inside of me since we began to have our pre-chat.
I used to be one of these guys who would go to all these different seminars searching for the secret of relationship success.
I had all these programs on my computer, and I was consistently stuck.
It felt like, more than anything else, I was addicted to buying the programs and studying and knowing what the new, latest terms were.
I was going into Eckhart Tolle, Abraham Hicks, Dr. Wayne Dyre, and all these people to know the only secret of success, but I wasn’t making a shift.
I’m curious to learn what is necessary to be on just this education piece for us to make that transformation, like knowing the unique secret of success.
Why are people in relationships stuck, and how can they get unstuck?
Why do they even fail to know the secret to maintaining the most successful relationships?
Jack Canfield
Well, there are many reasons to learn the secret to the most successful relationships.
Some couples are stuck because their habits are so strong, and they have no technology to overcome and replace those habits with good new patterns, just to talk about that for a few minutes.
A lot of times, experts say that if we could do something for 30 days, it would become a habit.
There’s new research about London that says it takes about 66 days for most things to become new habits, some things as much as 120 days.
So what I teach my students is they want to create at least one new habit a quarter, every year. These habits are powerful in knowing the secret of relationship success.
They are powerful, like drinking more water, exercising, meditating, being grateful, doing good, writing your goals down, and visualizing the night before so your subconscious can work on them.
Visualizing your goals as achieved every morning with a vital emotional component so your subconscious gets really behind it, and so forth.
If we do that every year, we have four new habits.
So think about this: in 10 years, you will have 40 new productivity habits, health habits, and healthy relationship habits.
My wife and I make sure we talk to each other at night and clear up anything that’s not clear between us. We appreciate each other every day.
Every Friday or Sunday, depending on if I’m traveling for the weekend or not, we will do the following exercise.
I’ll tell her, “On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the quality of our relationship this week?
Anything less than a 10 gets a follow-up question: “What would it take to make it a 10?”
I’ve gotten as low as a 4. I’m bad.
A successful relationship creates positivity in our lives.
I remember when the NBA playoffs were happening.
I usually like to watch the basketball playoffs, and my wife said, “If you want a 10, you got to put that grandkid to bed without me asking.”
“You have not to interrupt me when I’m telling a joke because you think you could tell the punchline better.”
She went on to say a lot of things.
A lot of partners are afraid to ask questions because they’re afraid of what they’re going to hear, but you can’t get better without feedback, and so that’s the habit that I built into my life and our relationship.
Now, it’s true, though, because it’s usually some little thing, but if you don’t open up the space for it, it usually doesn’t come out.
Then you can’t improve the quality of the relationship, and I always tell people, “If I don’t ask my wife that, I’m the only one who doesn’t know because she’s told her best friend, her sister, her mother, people in line at Starbucks. They’re the only ones who know, and they can’t fix it.”
Accountability is an Essential Aspect of the Secret of Relationship Success
Jack Canfield
But anyway, talking about habits, the other thing critical to change is that you need to have an accountability partner. So many people are what we call Solo Entrepreneurs today.
They’re massage therapists, coaches, authors, speakers, etc. And so they don’t have a boss who tells them what to do.
If I tell my staff, “Call Hillary Clinton’s office,” they might be afraid that they’ll never get through, but they’ll do it because I told them to.
But I could sit there all day long and be afraid to pick up the phone because no one held me accountable.
So, one crucial real secret of success is you have to have an accountability system built in.
That can be a coach, a mentor, or an accountability partner where you get on the phone every morning as I teach.
You and your partner can be each other’s accountability partners.
Every morning, 5-6 days a week, I’m on the phone with you.
Let’s say you tell me the five things you will do today to accomplish your breakthrough goal or whatever you just committed to in some workshop you just took.
Then I’ll tell you the five things I’m going to do.
I need to do new things that are a stretch, which is critical in knowing the secret of success.
Not just things on a to-do list but going to move you forward because most of us tend to do what’s comfortable and not critical.
Then tomorrow, we get on the phone again, and you tell me if you did those five things, I’ll let you know if you did mine.
No excuses; just prove how you’re willing to recommit.
If it goes 3-4 days, we start looking at what’s the fear or the block. Maybe I don’t know what I need to know.
I may need someone to hold my hand, or I need an introduction.
Whatever it is, I break through.
Now, I do five things daily toward my breakthrough goal.
A breakthrough goal means every week, I’m doing 25 action steps toward achieving them.
To me, that’s the secret of successful relationships.
If I had a tree out in my backyard and I went out with an ax every week and took 25 swipes to that tree, even the largest oak tree would eventually have to come down.
And so, that’s a critical piece that most of us in relationships tend not to do the things we’re afraid of.
Then, we have to look out what’s the fear.
I’m sure you know all fears are self-created by imagining scary things that haven’t happened yet happening in the future.
We need to realize that overcoming fear is the secret to relationship success.
And so I imagine I’ll get rejected, I suppose I’ll lose my job, my boss will get mad at me, and my wife will say I’m a two on a scale of 1-10.
So, the reality is that we have to learn how to handle our fear. I use tapping where we tap on these nine acupuncture points while we say these fear of rejection or this fear of humiliation, fear of loss of money, or whatever it might be.
We can disappear most fears in 5 minutes or less.
If you don’t have that technology, you can get run over by fears and phobias your whole life.
Powerful Processes for Successful Relationships: Tapping
Luis Congdon
I just want to jump in real quick because I know that people are listening and they’re going, “Tapping, that sounds amazing.”
I want to let you guys know that Jack’s work, his contribution to understanding the secret of relationship success, some of the communication classes he teaches, and also we’ll have a link to some of the training by Nick Ortner, who’s one of the leading experts and teachers on tapping.
Continue, Jack.
I want people to know that these resources are there and there are a lot of free fantastic resources. So tapping doesn’t have to be this big mystery.
Jack Canfield
Well, tapping is simple.
The first time you do, you must look at the diagram and see where to tap about.
Do that about 5-6x.
And then it just becomes second nature.
I use it several times a week in my own life.
I use it with my kids. I have them tap before they take tests, my grandchildren, etc.
So tapping is simple.
Nick’s an excellent friend of mine. He’s one of the guys I recommend.
I also wrote a book called Tapping and The Ultimate Success, where we look at one of the tapping protocols for each success principle I’ve been discussing.
So whatever comes up in terms of guilt, or fear, or shame, or whatever it might be, concerning applying that principle.
I worked with a woman named Pamela Bruner, who’s a tapping expert, and we co-authored that book, but Nick was the guy who inspired me to write it.
It’s fear, lack of accountability, and limiting beliefs.
And you can also use tapping to get rid of limiting beliefs.
Overcoming the Limiting Beliefs to the Secret of Relationship Success
Jack Canfield
My favorite exercise for limiting beliefs is because you have to surface what they are, and often, you don’t know, so I will just do a little outline of an exercise and people listening.
You could take some notes as you go along, and then later, after the podcast, you can go ahead and take yourself through it.
But the idea is to close your eyes and think of something in your life that you want to manifest, but for some reason, it’s not displaying.
It could be money, a good relationship, loss of weight, stopping smoking, a better job, whatever it is, but something you feel frustrated about or feel stuck.
And then, with your eyes closed, notice how you feel when you think about this stuckness or this lack of manifestation.
And then you scan your body from head to toe, looking for any place that’s extremely tight, uncomfortable, or painful, and something will stand out. Then, just focus on that sensation in your body.
And then ask yourself, “Is there a feeling inside of that sensation?” like fear, upset, anger, shame, resignation, hopelessness, or whatever it might mean.
Then go back to the earliest time in your life when you can remember feeling that same feeling and the same sensations, the physical and the emotional.
Honoring your emotions is an essential aspect of the secret to relationship success.
Everybody that I’ve ever done this with, Luis goes back to sometime between the ages of 3 and 8 years old, and they find an event where something was happening they didn’t want.
Maybe they’re being ignored, bullied, teased, made fun of, sent to a room, physically hurt, abandoned, or whatever it might be. Then look at what you wanted you didn’t get.
And then, what was your decision at that point in life?
Most people made a decision like, “This will never happen again, and to assure that, I will never speak out in public,” “I will never ask for anything,” “I won’t share my feelings,” “I won’t laugh,” “I won’t be sexy,” “I won’t dress up,” whatever it was that got them in trouble.
Luis Congdon
Make some decisions to be safe, to play it safe, and never to go back there again to avoid the pain. Some decisions do not help us know the secret of success.
Jack Canfield
Exactly.
Luis Congdon
But then we become like that hose that you were talking about because there’s a natural flow for us to maybe I am naturally inclined to be a jokester or I love speaking.
Still, I made that choice, so now I’ve created a kink, and the flow of who I am is now getting shut off.
Jack Canfield
Well-said. Yes.
Absolutely. And once you do that exercise, then you could see that.
Then, what I ask my clients to do is imagine a wise, older person coming down.
It could be Jesus, it could be Buddha, it could be a grandmother, it could be yourself as an old wise person, and to tell you a new decision and explain to you why you’re not responsible for what happened to you.
You’re a good kid. They didn’t mean it.
They would have done that to any child.
That wasn’t personal to you, etc.
And then the new decision, and then go into the future and advise the current self, sitting in a chair, what would you tell your 42-year-old self or your 50-year-old self concerning this?
When you finish that exercise, I’ve had people come out of that.
One guy did that recently, and two days after the seminar, he made a fifth of his yearly income and went on to triple his income the following year because he’d made a decision around money and his father that he forgot that he made when he was young.
The Secret of Relationship Success Comes Down to Self-Love and Appreciation
Luis Congdon
I want to jump in and say that I’ve had that personal experience too when, at one point in my life, I was feeling very excellent.
I was doing this practice where I’d look in the mirror every day, and I would just say, “I love you, Luis. I appreciate you, and you are successful.”
Now, when I say this publicly, I’m more confident about it. I used to feel embarrassed to share this with people, but it worked very powerfully for me to look at myself in the mirror and give myself compliments.
Appreciate yourself for who you are.
The secret to a successful relationship comes down to self-love and appreciation.
I did this for several weeks, and my energy and vibration, as we’ve been talking about, went up.
It skyrocketed. I remember just for several months feeling entirely in love with pretty much the whole world.
It felt like it was just perfect.
And I remember one point, I was about to go in my exercise where I was going to compliment myself, and I felt this knot, this pain in my throat, and I thought for a moment that I wanted to release this.
I don’t know what this is, but I want to make sure I can release this.
And I’m just asking the emotion to come up.
Whatever it was, these thoughts started to surge, and I said, “I just want the feeling, please,” the feeling came up, and this knot just got stuck in my throat.
I choked up and started crying and felt this feeling, and the voice said, “You can’t be happy because your family in Medellin, Colombia, is poor, and you can’t be rich and happy because they’re suffering.”
And I thought, “Oh my god! This thing has held me back for so long because I feel guilty for other people’s pain.”
I decided at some point, even unconsciously, that I couldn’t have more than I would or that I had to feel guilty about having more.
It reiterates what you’re talking about and the importance of doing this exercise you’re sharing.
Jack Canfield
One of the things that I teach people is to do a mirror exercise every night before they go to bed.
I just got an email yesterday from a woman named Noreen Kelty in New York and a student who has done this mirror exercise every night for 1,768 days.
I was amazed to see how she relates the secret of success to this practice.
Kamala Chambers
Wow. Amazing.
Jack Canfield
Four years, and I must say she’s now one of the happiest and most loving.
She was one of those kinds of real hard-ass New York, kind of bitchy woman, and now she’s one of the most loving, soft, fun, alive, and dynamic people I’ve ever met.
One of the things about doing the mirror exercise, and I tell this to people, is whenever you start shining light and love on yourself, if you’re in a darkened room and you turn the light on, all of a sudden, you could see the things there.
But the things that block the light create a shadow.
We all have shadows inside us, like your decision that you couldn’t be comfortable and happy because people were suffering in Columbia.
And so what happens is when you start loving yourself and complimenting yourself, it will surface things buried because the love will begin vibrating all that is not aligned.
The secret to success in your life is to align with your inner voice.
It’s like your tires when they’re not in alignment. The car starts to shake when you go over 60 miles/hour.
And so, it’s a good thing because it’s showing you there’s something that needs to be aligned, and you, because you’re conscious, you allowed yourself to be mindful and just pay attention to it and invite it to be there.
Then, allow it to come up and out. All we have to do to heal is to allow the buried past to surface.
There are things we’re talking about that will accelerate that, and that’s why being in a workshop with people or being in a coaching experience, you’ve got more energy in the room that’s vibrating your system.
So the stuff that stuck, you become more aware of it, and it could come up loosened up.
That’s why group energy, a sad song that people are meditating together to, successful couples going to ongoing groups, coming to my seminars, coaching with you, listening to this podcast, whatever, as a result of that, what happens is they grow faster, and that’s why all through history, people have joined together in tribes, in churches, in spiritual groups, monastery, etc., for that vibrational experience.
The other thing I do with our mirror exercise is telling people to start by saying their name, look themselves in the eyes because the eyes are the windows of the soul, and then say, ”I want to acknowledge you for following things you did today.”
Appreciate yourself for your actions, completions, and any temptations you overcame, like you didn’t play video games until 3 in the morning.
You didn’t play Words of Friends all day. You worked on your book.
And any discipline you check, you meditate, you run, you did the Paleo diet, and then end with “I love you.”
If you do that, I promise you, all kinds of stuff will start to move and surface.
Sometimes, people within a week or two, their whole life starts to shift because, like for yourself, you started being in a much more loving, happy place. Self-appreciation is the core secret of success.
Kamala Chambers
Those are some powerful processes to adapt to our lives.
Before we close out today, is there any last thought regarding the secret of success you want to leave the audience with?
Jack Canfield
This sounds self-serving, but if you can get a hold of my book, The Success Principles, not because I need to make another dollar and 22 cents, but because I want you to know the secret of success.
I could retire now, and so could the next two generations of my family on what I’ve already earned and saved, but what I know is this: if you read the book, you’re going to see that there is a systematic approach to these principles.
We’ve only talked about maybe 4 of them today, but there are 64 principles in that book regarding the secret of success. Twenty-five of which are critical, and it is like unlocking a lock.
If you buy that book and you don’t think it’s impressive, send it to me now, and I’ll send you a check for whatever you paid for because I know it will transform your life.
I wish.
We had a textbook in school like mine, or it could be anyone else, that taught us the principles of life and the secret of success because we all learn chemistry, biology, mathematics, and sociology.
Some were very few of which we use today.
However, if we learn how to relate to ourselves, to each other, and the emotions, the mental capacity, and our potential in school, we won’t be doing much better.
It will help you a lot with your life in knowing the secret of success.
Kamala Chambers
Thank you, Jack.
Jack Canfield
Thank you, Luis and Kamala. I had a good time. Appreciate it.
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