Jack Canfield

Jack Canfield (born August 19, 1944) is an American author, motivational speaker, corporate trainer, and entrepreneur.: 453  He is the co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which has more than 250 titles and 500 million copies in print in over 40 languages. In 2005 Canfield co-authored with Janet Switzer The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.

Canfield was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on August 19, 1944. He spent his teen years in Wheeling, West Virginia, and graduated from the Linsly Military Institute in 1962. Canfield received his B.A. in Chinese History from Harvard University in 1966. He received his M.Ed. in 1973 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Canfield received an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Santa Monica in 1981.

Canfield began his career in 1967 when he taught a year of high school in Chicago, Illinois. He worked at the Clinton Job Corps Center in Iowa and the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation in Chicago. In 1976, Canfield co-authored 100 Ways to Enhance Self-Concept in the Classroom. He ran a residential Gestalt center called the New England Center for Personal and Organizational Development. He was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of America (TOYA) by the U.S. Jaycees in 1978.

Canfield is the founder and CEO of The Canfield Training Group in Santa Barbara, California, and the founder of The Foundation for Self-Esteem in Culver City, California. Canfield hosts a radio program and writes a globally syndicated newspaper column. He holds a Guinness World Record for having seven books on the New York Times best-seller list at the same time. In 2006 Canfield was featured in a self-development film called The Secret.

His best-known books include The Power of Focus, The Aladdin Factor, and Dare to Win. In 2005 Canfield co-authored The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. He is a founding member of the Transformational Leadership Council. Canfield married Judith Ohlbaum in 1971, and they had two sons together, Oran and Kyle, before divorcing in 1976.

Canfield left the family and moved in with a masseuse in 1976 while his wife was pregnant with their second son. His son Oran has written two memoirs, Freefall: The Strange True Life Growing Up Adventures of Oran Canfield and Long Past Stopping: A Memoir. In 1978, he married Georgia Lee Noble, with whom he had one son, Christopher. They divorced in 1999. He married Inga Marie Mahoney in 2001 and is stepfather to her children, Travis and Riley.