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Chicken Soup for the Soul Unlocking the Secrets to Living Your Dreams
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Chicken Soup for the Soul Unlocking the Secrets to Living Your Dreams
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Overview
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781453280591 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Chicken Soup for the Soul |
Publication date: | 09/18/2012 |
Series: | Chicken Soup for the Soul Series |
Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 371 |
File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Jack Canfield is co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, which includes forty New York Times bestsellers, and coauthor of The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. He is a leader in the field of personal transformation and peak performance and is currently CEO of the Canfield Training Group and Founder and Chairman of the Board of The Foundation for Self-Esteem. An internationally renowned corporate trainer and keynote speaker, he lives in Santa Barbara, California.
Mark Victor Hansen is a co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Hometown:
Santa Barbara, CaliforniaDate of Birth:
August 19, 1944Place of Birth:
Fort Worth, TexasEducation:
B.A. in History, Harvard University, 1966; M.A.T. Program, University of Chicago, 1968; M.Ed., U. of Massachusetts, 1973Website:
http://www.jackcanfield.comRead an Excerpt
In our dreams we all aspire to be, do and have great things. Yet most of us
simply aren't creating the results we want. We don't have enough money, romance,
success or joy in our lives. What we need to understand is that greatness exists
in all of us, but it is up to us to pull it out of ourselves. It is true that
we all have genius. We just need to learn how to apply our genius.
This book is divided into ten sections that parallel the ten strategies that
you will need to employ to successfully live your dreams. Each one is an important
piece of the overall system that will take you from where you are to where you
want to be. Let's get started.
Step 1. Decide What You Want
The indispensable first step
to getting things you want out of life
is this: Decide what you want.
—Ben Stein, actor and author
In order to get what you want, you must first decide what you want. Most people
get stuck at this crucial first step because they simply can't see how it's
possible to get what they want—so they don't even let themselves want
it. Don't sabotage yourself that way! What we now know about how the brain works
is that you must first decide WHAT you want, before your brain can figure out
HOW to get it.
Be willing to dream big dreams
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.
Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try
to be better than yourself.
—William Faulkner
When the two of us decided to write Chicken Soup forthe Soul,
we had a big dream. We wanted to create a book that would change millions of
lives. Our dream was to sell 150,000 copies the first year and a million copies
by the end of the following year. We were thinking number one on the bestseller
lists from the very beginning. We wanted to touch as many lives as possible—to
make a big difference in the world. Our corporate mission statement is to inspire
and empower people to live their highest vision in a context of love and joy.
Through the Chicken Soup for the Soul books we wanted to heal and change
the world one story at a time. It was a big dream.
Later, after selling 50 million books, we decided to make the
dream bigger. We created what we call our "2020 Vision"—to
sell one billion Chicken Soup for the Soul books worldwide and raise
500 million dollars for charity by the year 2020. So far we are approaching
70 titles with almost 90 million copies sold in 39 languages, and almost 4 million
dollars contributed to charity.
Two years ago, we set the goal to sell one million books in one
day. The main purpose was just to stretch our thinking. We realized if we were
going to sell one billion books by 2020, we were going to have to pick up the
pace. Only a few weeks later we were at the Book ExpoAmerica in Chicago. Jack
was riding the bus taking people back to their hotels when he learned the woman
sitting next to him was the head buyer for the WH Smith Stores—the chain
that sells books and magazines at airports.
When Jack shared our goal of selling one million books in one
day, she quickly said, "I can help you do that!" She then helped
formulate an elaborate plan of creating book signings in all of the airport
bookstores across the country. It would start early in the morning in the East
Coast airports—O'Hare, JFK, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Dulles, Atlanta,
Miami and Orlando—and then follow the sun first to the Midwest and eventually
the West Coast. We would find an airline partner that would fly all of the Chicken
Soup coauthors from airport to airport taking advantage of the peak rush
times, thus reaching millions of potential buyers in one day.
We have learned that as soon as you commit to a big dream and
really go after it, not only will your creative mind come up with big ideas
to make it happen, you will also start attracting the people you need into your
life to make your dream come true. Big dreams inspire you and others to want
to play all out. So let your dreams be as big as you want them to be.
Set Goals That Will Stretch You
Another value in giving yourself permission to go after the big
dreams is that big dreams require you to grow in order to achieve them. In fact,
in the long run, that is the greatest benefit you will receive from pursuing
your dreams: mastery over your life. It is not just about the material benefits
you receive (the car, the house, the money), but who you become in the process.
As we all have seen many times over, the outer symbols of success can be easily
lost. Houses burn down, companies go bankrupt, relationships end in divorce,
cars get old, clothes go out of style, bodies age and fame wanes, but who you
are, what you have learned and the new skills you have developed never go away.
These are the true prizes of achieving success. Our friend Jim Rohn advises:
You want to set a big enough goal so that in the process of achieving it, you
become someone worth becoming.
In the process of building what has become the Chicken Soup
phenomenon, we had to stretch and expand in many areas. We had to learn
about publishing, marketing, PR, radio and television. As our staff grew from
four to sixteen people, we had to learn new business and management skills.
As our opportunities and projects grew, we had to learn how to better balance
our work life and family lives. We had to hire consultants, take courses, attend
conventions, read books, listen to tapes and ask for advice from many quarters.
Through all of that, we gained valuable skills, learned many lessons and gained
a lot of wisdom. We are better and stronger for it.
2003. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Chicken Soup for
the Soul Living Your Dreams by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen. No part
of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted
in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher.
Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach,
FL 33442.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments | xi | |
Introduction | xv | |
Share with Us | xix | |
1 | How to Live Your Dream | |
How to Live Your Dream | 2 | |
2 | Dare to Dream and Set Goals | |
Together, Achieving Our Olympic Dream | 58 | |
Follow Your Dream | 64 | |
A Chicken Soup Contributor Responds | 66 | |
New Directions | 68 | |
Finding My Wings | 71 | |
Glenna's Goal Book | 75 | |
The Little Girl Who Dared to Wish | 79 | |
One Person Can Make a Difference | 83 | |
Standing Tall on a Surfboard in Midlife | 88 | |
3 | Believe in Yourself | |
You Can't Afford to Doubt Yourself | 92 | |
Discouraged? | 97 | |
A Salesman's First Sale | 99 | |
Batgirl | 103 | |
There Are No Vans | 108 | |
"If I Were Really Important ..." | 112 | |
The Professor and Me | 114 | |
The Interview | 120 | |
A Chicken Soup Reader Responds | 124 | |
Tommy's Bumper Sticker | 127 | |
A Chicken Soup Reader Responds | 132 | |
Trash Bags Are for Trash | 134 | |
A Chicken Soup Contributor Responds | 141 | |
4 | It's Never Too Late | |
Never Too Old to Live Your Dream | 144 | |
Teacher at Last | 147 | |
Is Fire Goddess Spelled with Two Ds? | 153 | |
Never Too Late | 157 | |
How I Got into the Movies | 161 | |
Grandma Moses and Me | 165 | |
5 | The Power of Support: You Can't Do It Alone | |
The Drive of a Champion | 171 | |
Riding Tandem | 178 | |
Hall of Fame | 184 | |
A Chicken Soup Contributor Responds | 188 | |
A Hundred and One Atlantic Nights | 189 | |
The Kindness of Strangers | 197 | |
6 | Be Willing to Pay the Price | |
Willing to Pay the Price | 204 | |
A Little Courage Goes a Long Way | 208 | |
The Price of a Dream | 212 | |
A Perfect Skate | 214 | |
Dreams Have a Price | 218 | |
7 | Take Action | |
One at a Time | 222 | |
When Dreams Won't Die | 226 | |
Look Out Baby, I'm Your Love Man! | 230 | |
Ask, Affirm, Take Action | 234 | |
Ask, Ask, Ask | 238 | |
Ask, Ask, Ask ... The Story Continues | 241 | |
How Prayer Made Me a Father Again | 242 | |
Why Wait? ... Just Do It! | 247 | |
The First Step | 251 | |
A Chicken Soup Contributor Responds | 253 | |
8 | The Power of Determination | |
Ryan's Well of Life | 256 | |
Unstoppable | 262 | |
The Impossible Just Takes a Little Longer | 266 | |
Dare to Imagine | 271 | |
18 Holes in His Mind | 274 | |
Against All Odds | 276 | |
The Cowboy's Story | 289 | |
Baby-Lift | 295 | |
A Cowboy's Last Chance | 301 | |
The Day Mother Cried | 308 | |
The Power of Determination | 315 | |
9 | Never Give Up | |
Consider This | 320 | |
Begin at the Beginning | 325 | |
Embassy of Hope | 329 | |
Opportunity | 332 | |
The Magic Skates | 337 | |
A Little Girl's Dream | 344 | |
How to Be New and Different | 348 | |
More Chicken Soup? | 355 | |
Supporting Kids Living Their Dreams | 356 | |
Who Is Jack Canfield? | 357 | |
Who Is Mark Victor Hansen? | 358 | |
Resources to Help You Live Your Dreams | 359 | |
Contributors | 360 | |
Permissions (continued) | 369 |