title and author: The principles of success by Jack Canfield

Content Synopsis:

It is very difficult to summarize the content of this 460+ page book in a few lines here. Canfield has put decades of study and experience into a fundamental success manual. It is one of the best writings in the last two decades. Like many great works of this nature, Canfield touches on every conceivable element of success, and the reader can get a little lost in the complexity and volume of it all.

The book is organized into 64 chapters, although most of them are short. More importantly, the chapters are divided into 6 main parts that describe the areas covered in the book: the fundamentals of success; Transformation of the Being for Success; Building a Team; Creating Successful Relationships; Success and Money and finally the need to start Success Now and how to do it.

You will recognize many of the tips and success principles in this book from other works by leading authors, both classical and modern. Canfield isn’t being terribly original here. He collected disparate ideas about success and formulated them into a single compilation with a bit of glue to hold them together. It offers real life examples of people who have shown that these principles work. The book is equally informative and inspiring.

Readability/Writing Quality:

This book is very readable. The writing style is easy and yet strong. There are short chapters and many subheadings that help to organize the material very well. Most chapters end with some suggestions on how to put the principles to work for you today.

Notes on the author:

Jack Canfield has established himself as an author beginning on a large scale with the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Canfield combines a kind of erudition with a softer philosophy of success and fulfillment in life. This contributes to the broad appeal of him. While his overall approach is solid, he has dabbled in some areas that could be considered fringe, such as his appearance in The secret movie and book Canfield is a staunch believer in the law of attraction and the concepts laid out in The secretHowever, even if that aspect of his teaching doesn’t impress you, SuccessPrinciples willpower. He is also an accomplished personal trainer and emphasizes that service on his website.

Three great ideas that you can use:

Even Canfield has a hard time boiling this book down to a few key concepts. Here we will look at three of his principles that you will find most useful, however there are many more in the book of equal importance.

Canfield emphasizes the benefit of really taking full responsibility for your own life and its results. He teaches that you need to end the blame game as it gets you nowhere.

Success leaves clues. You’ve heard that before and here he takes it further. In many ways, his entire book is about those clues. Canfield passes on the lessons he has learned from both his experience and the experience of so many others.

Finally, perhaps the best financial advice he gives is another one you’ve heard before, pay yourself first. He emphasizes here the lessons learned from the successful about the importance of disciplined saving and investing.

Publication Information: Copyright: 2005 by Jack Canfield. Published by HarperCollins.

General ranking:Very good