In a recent teleseminar held by Steve Harrison of Reporter Connection, Jack Canfield spoke about how he managed to make a household name of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series of books after he was rejected by 144 publishers. And even when he did convince someone to publish it, it still took 18 months before it hit the best-sellers list!

He shared his mission statement, “To inspire and empower people to live their highest vision in a context of love and joy,” and spoke about how often we hold ourselves back because we don’t think its “spiritual” to sell our product, service, etc., or to market ourselves with the intention of selling.

“You have to believe in the work your doing and believe what you have is extremely valuable, and that you are depriving them by not letting them know about it,” Canfield explained, advising we come from the approach of “I have a solution to the problem you have,” even if it’s just an entertaining book that will take their mind of off things for a while.

Here are some of his tips for getting ourselves into the mindset of success, and helping to remove some of the resistance that may be holding us back:

1. He took the New York Bestseller’s List and put white out on the name of the No. 1 book. In a similar font, he typed in “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” to remind him and his co-author to close their eyes throughout the day and visualize themselves as No. 1. “I visualized us a No. 1 and having sold 150,000 books. I saw the store window filed with our books, and would spend eight or nine minutes a day, every morning visualizing at least 10 different images like that,” he said.

2. When he was writing the book, he always referred to it as “best-selling,” and actually told people he was in the middle of writing a best-selling book.

3. Dream big. Canfield said it doesn’t take any more time to dream a big dream than to dream a small one, so aim high.

4. Canfield currently uses a vision board as his screen saver, and has images running by to represent all of his current goals.

5. “If you are going to be successful, you have to be a giver,” he said, explaining he often designates a charity to receive a portion of his book sales.

Canfield’s newest book is being released this Friday called “The Golden Motorcycle Gang,” based on a vision he had early in his career on why he is a teacher in this lifetime.