Jack Canfield - Pearls of Wisdom : 30 Inspirational Ideas to Live your Best Life Now!

PEARLS

of

WISDOM

30 Inspirational Ideas
to Live Your Best Life Now!

JACK CANFIELD

MARCI SHIMOFF

JANET BRAY ATTWOOD

CHRIS ATTWOOD

Hierphant publishing

Copyright 2012
by Jack Canfield, Marci Shimoff,
Janet Bray Attwood, Chris Atwood, et al.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

Allison Jacob, Editor
Text design by Jane Hagaman

Hierophant Publishing
www.hierophantpublishing.com
www.pearlsofwisdomthebook.com

If you are unable to order this book from your local bookseller, you may order directly from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011941640

ISBN 978-0-9818771-5-0
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed on acid-free paper in the United States

Contents

Creativity:
The Recipe for Awakening

Pardon Me:
Finding Authentic Forgiveness

Just Being You:
The Secret to Inner Bliss

Awful Gifts:
Blessings in Disguise

Visualization:
See It to Be It

Relaxed Intention:
A Pathway to Peace

Fractals:
Seeing the Patterns in Our Existence

Just Sit Down:
A Premeditation Routine

Homes Are Like Us
They Respond Well to Love

Quantum Soul Clearing:
Three Steps to Transform Your Life

The Golden Rule:
A Universal Axiom

An Attitude of Gratitude:
The Gateway to Awakening

Finding Your Own Way:
The Ultimate Quest

Publisher's Statement

Pearls of Wisdom: 30 Inspirational Ideas to Live Your Best Life Now! is a treasure trove of wisdom and advice from some of the most well-known self-help authors and the best new self-help authors in the genre today.

These gurus of metamorphosis have each written a chapter based on personal experience that present a transformational idea to improve your life, now! There is great diversity in the chapters, ranging from the cerebral (such as recognizing the fractal patterns in our lives) to the practical (the importance of relaxation and meditation instructions), and they will inspire you on the road to success while reminding you to love yourself throughout the journey.

The ideas in Pearls of Wisdom are designed to offer keys for each of the many doors that block the road to your best life, and our sincere hope is that by implementing some, if not all, of these wonderful ideas, you will alter your life in truly meaningful ways and reveal the pearl that is inside you.

Sincerely,

The Hierophant Editorial Staff

Inspired Action Gets It Done

by Jack Canfield

I have had an enormous amount of success in my life, and I owe it all to two things. The first is that I have learned how to access my intuition and tune in to my inner guidance (which comes from both my own subconscious mind and from God); I have learned how to meditate, use guided visualization, and read the kinesthetic signals from my body (what some people call learning to trust your gut). The second is that I have learned to quickly act on my inner guidancethe sooner the better!

The Power of Asking for Inner Guidance

Asking for inner guidance through meditation has provided me with some very powerful ideas, ones that have accelerated the rate and magnified the size of my personal and professional success. When we needed a title for the book of inspirational and motivational stories that Mark Victor Hansen and I had compiled, I agreed to meditate an hour a day in search of the perfect title. I simply asked God to give me a title, then I sat in silence waiting for it. Nothing emerged the first two days, but on the third day, a green chalk board, like the ones used in schools, suddenly emerged. Then a hand appeared and wrote the words Chicken Soup on the board. I contemplated that for a moment, then I asked what I assumed was God's hand: What does chicken soup have to do with this book?

I heard, Your grandmother used to give you chicken soup when you were sick as a kid.

I replied, But this book isn't about sick people.

The voice responded, People's spirits are sick.

This was in 1992 during the recession that accompanied the first Gulf War, and many people were indeed living in fear, hopelessness, and resignation.

I played with the title Chicken Soup for the Spirit, which didn't sound quite right, and then it morphed into Chicken Soup for the Souland I immediately got goose bumpswhat Mark likes to call God bumps. They almost always seem to accompany an idea that is deeply aligned with what is for my highest good.

I immediately got up from meditation and told my wife, who got goose bumps. Then I called Mark, who got goose bumps, and our agent, who also got goose bumps. By the end of the day the full title had emergedChicken Soup for the Soul: 101 Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit. It seemed we were definitely onto something.

Inspiration Must Be Followed by Action

Sometimes inspirations occur without our even seeming to ask for them. Other times, we have to ask for them, then create the quiet space within which to receive them. They can occur while lying in bed in a semiconscious dream state, while taking a shower, or while walking along a beach or through the woods. But however and whenever they come, they need to be acted on as soon as possible. I have come to believe that when they come, they come in a certain window of time that is ideally suited for the action to begin at that moment.

So Mark, our agent, and I headed off to New York City to sell our book. Unfortunately, during the three days we were in New York City, no one at the fifteen publishing houses we visited got goose bumps. Everyone told us that nobody bought collections of short stories and that our title was stupid. Our agent became so discouraged that he gave us the book back and said he could not sell it.

Action Must Be Consistent and Persistent

That is when we had to choose between believing in our dream and trusting our inner guidance or believing the naysayers in the publishing industry and trusting their judgments. Well, one of the secrets of success that I have learned is to never give up on the dreams that come from deep in your heart. In fact, by this time, our dream had become more of a divine obsession. We couldn't let it go. So we took more action. Over the next five months, we were rejected by 144 publishers. Eventually, we went to the American Booksellers Association Convention and walked the floor of the exhibit area for three days asking hundreds of publishers, Will you publish our book? It was not until late in the third day that Health Communications, Inc., a little publisher in Deerfield Beach, Florida, decided to seriously look at our book. A month later they decided to publish it.

The Rule of Five

When the book finally came out in July 1993, it was not an overnight success. It wasn't until a year later that it hit its first bestsellers list. But it was during that year that Mark and I came up with what we dubbed the Rule of Five. We agreed to take five action steps every single day, except on holidays and vacations, to promote and sell our book. One day, we called five radio stations and asked them to interview us about the book. On another, we sent out five free review copies to book reviewers and influential people. One of those people was the producer of the hit television show Touched by an Angel. She was so taken by the book that she required all of her writers, directors, cameramen, and other crew members to read the book. She said that the feelings generated and evoked by our stories were the same ones she wanted to create in their TV episodes. That story made it into