With Mark Victor Hansen, #1 New York Times bestselling author and co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul, a legacy of inspiration and entrepreneurship continues to impact lives worldwide. Having sold over 500 million books and achieved 59 New York Times bestsellers, Hansen has helped millions achieve personal and financial success. As a dynamic speaker, he has delivered over 7,000 keynotes, sharing wisdom on big thinking, wealth creation, and personal growth. His 320 books, including The Aladdin Factor and One Minute Millionaire, continue to empower readers globally.

Beyond his literary and speaking achievements, Hansen is a passionate philanthropist and business innovator. He co-founded Natural Power Concepts, supports sustainability initiatives, and works with organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Horatio Alger Association. With numerous accolades, including ten honorary doctorates, he remains committed to helping entrepreneurs and changemakers turn their dreams into reality. Hansen lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife, Crystal Dwyer Hansen.

Join us in our conversation as Mark shares his journey from overcoming dyslexia to becoming a global bestselling author and entrepreneur. He dives into the power of persistence, visualization, and strategic goal-setting while emphasizing the value of intellectual property and ethical business practices. Tune in to discover how asking the right questions and surrounding yourself with the right people can unlock new levels of success.

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Takeaways & quotes you don’t want to miss from this episode:

• Why persistence and rejection are key to success.
• How to turn adversity into an advantage and learn from failures.
• The biggest mistake aspiring authors and entrepreneurs make.
• How to write a bestselling book and why storytelling is essential.
• Why you should focus on impact over income to create lasting success.

“If you want to change your life, change the questions you ask yourself daily.”

-Mark Victor Hansen

Check out these highlights:

• 02:15 Mark shares how he got started in the publishing world and his journey to selling over 500 million books.
• 10:12 Why most people don’t succeed—fear, lack of action, and small thinking…
• 23:30 The power of asking the right questions and how it can change your future.
• 35:40 What are the daily habits that lead to success?
• 01:00:20 Hear Mark’s final takeaways for listeners—how to take action today.
  

How to get in touch with Mark on Social Media:

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below:

GGGB Intro  00:00

Here’s what you get on today’s episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®…

Mark Victor Hansen  00:05

Well, be real clear what you want, and look out at least five years. Put it in writing, and then write down all the details that you can see, and then try to live through it. Visualize, put the goals on your mirror, because every time you’re shaving or doing makeup, gonna look at the goals, and it goes through the portal of the pupil into the depth of your mind, soul, right, your subconscious, heart, and you got to own it before you get there. That’s why the line is pray as though the thing for which you’re praying has been received.

GGGB Intro  00:33

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:00

Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington, supporting online information entrepreneurs throughout the US and around the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®. I am so excited about our guest today, I would like to extend a huge welcome to our guest today. Mark Victor Hansen. Welcome Mark.

Mark Victor Hansen  01:30

My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you. I’m honored to be on. I were on the phone, and it was great. Now there’s going to be even better. How’s that?

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:37

Yeah, it sure will. I know. I was just reminding you that we chatted a few years ago, and you had a super busy schedule of time, and we did talk about what your publishing company was up to, and we will talk about that again today, because I know you’ve got some exciting updates, and even though you require no introduction, let’s get you introduced, because we are beyond excited to Have one of the most iconic voices in personal development and motivation, Mark Victor Hansen. Mark is a world renowned inspirational speaker, author and trainer, best known as the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which has touched the hearts of millions worldwide, right? And if you’re watching the video on YouTube, Mark’s holding up the book. It’s funny because my assistant was with her family over the weekend in a store, you know, and they saw the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and she said to her kids, Mark’s coming on the podcast this week. And they were like, they were so excited. It was very cute. So with over 500 million copies sold in 54 languages, Mark’s books have become a global phenomenon, making him one of the most influential figures in modern publishing from humble beginnings in Waukegan, Illinois, Mark’s journey has been one of resilience, vision and unyielding passion to uplift others. So appropriate, you’re on a podcast called Guts, Grit and Great Business®. So beyond the chicken soup series, Mark has co-authored best sellers like Cracking the Millionaire Code and Cash in a Flash, where he shares invaluable wisdom on wealth building and success. His work has earned him numerous accolades, including the prestigious Horatio Alger award and recognition in the sales and marketing executive internationals Hall of Fame. But Mark’s impact extends far beyond books and business. He is also a philanthropist, actively supporting charities like Habitat for Humanity, Operation Smile and the American Red Cross. Today, Mark is here to share his wealth of knowledge, insights into his extraordinary journey and the timeless principles that have guided him to success. Mark, welcome. I’m so excited to have you.

Mark Victor Hansen  03:55

Wow. Nice introduction. Thank you very much. My mother, I wish you were alive. She’d thank you.

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:02

Well, good job, mom. I know wherever you are and you’re everywhere. Good job for for bringing up Mark, talking about your early roots. Mark, I’m curious, because I know your parents were immigrants, right? And you had like, the intro said, pretty humble beginnings in the Midwest. How did that shape your view of your life, the world? Opportunity? Can you talk to us a little bit about your viewpoint as a kid?

Mark Victor Hansen  04:31

Well, first of all, my parents were the greatest. They totally love, I’ve got three brothers, so they’re four of us, and they totally love the boys, and we’re dedicated to us. But dad was a little Danish Baker, and wanted myself and brothers, any of them, to take over the bakery, because that’s Danish tradition. And I said, Dad, I don’t know what’s true, but I think I’m a white glove guy. I don’t even know what one is, but I’m sure I’m not going to be a baker. And he said, that’s good, because you don’t know what into the hammer to hold. And he wasn’t trying to be critical. He just, not mechanical. I am mental. Totally. I’m a today, you’d say, I guess I’m an intellectual, having written 321, books, but and more coming, of course. So the parents were great. They gave me a lot of freedom, but they didn’t have any money. So two issues, one is we didn’t have books in the house, and they spoke Danish, which I can do. But the point is, when I went to school, I was in remedial reading, because that wasn’t something you came through with, right? I knew the stories of hands Chris Anderson, but because he did 147 fables, and I saw the Disney movies, Ugly Duckling and the king has no clothes, all that good stuff. And now my wife’s a fabless, amongst other things. But it didn’t dawn on me why I was in remedial reading. Which other kids would say, well, he’s not very smart, which that the truth is, or a lot of people now, we’re doing a lot of books with people that are dyslexic and have ADD and ADHD, all of what everyone’s got infinite capacity. The question, the statement, I think everyone needs to repeat, which comes from Paul Bragg. Doctor Paul Bragg is, I’m a genius, and I’m applying my wisdom. Because if you keep programming that 10 times a day, forever, your whole life long, you’ll figure out where your genius is, and then you figure out how to apply your wisdom. So it’s like, and I’m still doing that. So it’s like a great affirmation, to affirm you into a bigger, better future. I wish I’d known it when I was a kid. A kid. I really did well selling greeting cards as a number of greeting card salesman in America. At nine years old, I sold 370, 67 bucks of greeting cards in one month. And nobody had done that. And then 20 years later, when chicken soup is going the same company flies in in their little jet. They’re not American greeting it’s the other guys, uh, Gibson. Gibson flies in and said, Hey, we want you to do greeting cards. So I wrote them and we sold because I’m the seminal writer in a mark injecting. He’s a brilliant inside I’m the outside, marketer, writer, thinker, interfacer, and I believe your network creates your net worth. So I’m good at with people, generally speaking. And we sold 897,000 boxes of the Christmas cards we wrote the next year. It was just amazing. So, you know, decades later, the company I did a lot with nine could never predict that they would come to my office and say, one, because you’re an IP intellectual property attorney. Some people, they’re listening, don’t know what an IP is, but ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you this because Heather and I are friends. Everybody has IP and everybody has an intellectual property if you’re born you got excess talent, and what you got to do is ask, what God, what’s your destiny for me, and then figure it out. And I did a billion dollars at licensing, so I’m really good at it, but when I decided to do it, I just do this ever so quick. But one weekend, I’m an omnivorous reader. I read Steven Spielberg book, George Lucas book that made 800 million with it and a billion and a half in licensing. I came into Jack’s office, Dr Campbell, my partner, I said, we’re going into licensing. He said, what do you know? I said, Nothing. What do you know? Nothing. Said, then, why are you so pompous, pretentious and arrogant? I said, Look, when I was in graduate school, Bucky Fuller, the smartest guy of last decade, you know, said, Look, everything’s a system, a general systems theory. It’s called there’s an outside and an inside. I’m the outside. In one year, I’ll study everything, read everything, talk to everyone, go to every licensing meeting, and I’ll meet whoever he or she or they are that are the best, the best. And we got the best woman. We did 101 licenses. And like a dog food, we did 157 million. I don’t have to package it and I have to wrap it. I don’t have to smell it. I don’t have to take returns. Licensing gets 15% plus what you paid to your lawyer or and in this case would be something like you. And it just totally worth it. And because you all are, by and large, Zoomers and podcasters and media people working with her, you know, have talked to her about how you can license some of your stuff. Mind helping Heather?

Mark Victor Hansen  06:07

That I appreciate that shout out. You know, it’s a big deal, and people, if they know the long game, they can work towards it, right? Like I have one of my clients who is a long time doctor just creates phenomenal he shifted into like, basically supporting mental health and longevity of other doctors, right? How do we keep people from burnout? How do we keep our medical profession healthy? And he has this amazing body of work. We began licensing it to hospital networks, where they would pay for the licensing, and then all the people inside their networks have access to this amazing database of resources, meditations, mindset support. It’s just phenomenal, but like, you really have no idea how far reaching your work can go, right until you start thinking about it in terms of the world of licensing.

Mark Victor Hansen  09:53

Two things about what Heather said everybody, just because we’re thinking out loud with you, but number one is the long game. Our books are a long game. This book came out in 1993 June 28 and it’s still selling, and I still get checks on that’s a long game. In the book business, they change the name they call a long tail, meaning you get paid, then you get paid, and then you get paid. It’s called royalties. In the film industry, it’s residuals. And advertising, it’s residuals. The point is, all of you have a long game, and you want to set it up so you don’t get paid once. You get paid again and again, because now we’re writing biographies, and even they will get paid forever and ever. It just because a book is permanent. Your YouTube, you’re going to get paid. But you know, no one’s going to go back and listen to I did a whole YouTube I’m Mr. Beast, and I think he had the most at the time. And then there’s a great woman that Adele, who has a million views a month, but that will fade unless they keep doing something new. And with the book business, the S curve, if you know that, that is everybody out there, where you put in money at the front end to get a business going in our chicken soup or the solar go sell a million and a half a year and a half. And then we had the second helping come out and that. And people would say, Well, do you mind a circle and sell more than the first? I get paid the same on both. And we’re number one for 58 weeks in a row in New York Times, USA Today, and all that. And so the point is, you want to play a long game, and then you want to have a game that has appendages. So you have, you know, Bob Proctor and I did an IP on MSIS, LPO stolen. We’ve never gone after him, but we created MSIS multiple sources of income. And then when I wrote One Minute Millionaire with Bob Allen, and this is interesting, because that’s the universal symbol of freedom, and I think everybody should read it, because I’d say first line is, there’s a million ways to make a million. There’s one right, perfect, easy and acceptable way to you, right? So we’re talking about the doctor burnout and Dr burnout. The problem is you gotta grow rich in your niche. And that doctor was so smart that he keeps fine tuning the niche to finally with a great lawyer. You Heather, you figured out, how do you go to the hospitals get them to pay for because you can get the institution to pay now you got not a little but you got a grand slam home run, because once institutions start to pay, they have a tendency to forget that they’re doing it, and they just automatically send a check every month. Isn’t that correct?

Heather Pearce Campbell  12:12

Totally, and they’re incentivized to find resources because they have a budget. Right? Most organizations and institutions have a budget for their employee assistance program. They have to provide them with additional resources. They have to bring some of this additional support into the world of their people to create a robust workforce and have happy people at work. So they’re looking for good resources. That’s the other thing.

Mark Victor Hansen  12:40

So that’s the 2.1 is go to your niche, and every one of you has a niche. There’s 8 billion people in the world. And when you’re going to be an entrepreneur, or what I teach in one minute, millionaire and everybody book is find a problem, and you have plenty. All you got to do is find a problem. You got solve the problem, then scale the problem. That means do more of it. And in Chicken Soup, a half billion books, pretty cool, and I’ll sell a billion books during my lifetime. And that’s why we got rejected by 144 publishers. I’ll take the total hit, because the first thing I wrote is I interviewed the hunt. Whatever you do, do your homework, but I did the interviews of the 101 best selling fiction and non fiction authors and fiction, everybody from Daniel Steele to Clive cusser to Sidney Sheldon and non fiction, everybody, Wayne, Dyer, Barbara deanas, you name it. They’re all and all of us are friends. It’s a relatively deep box over a small business. But I didn’t ask, how do you write help? That’s the mistake every dumb beginner makes. I said, How do you market? How did you sell a million books? And I wrote what was called a wow of a business plan, and you’re submitting it to companies that later on, gave me, like, I got a million dollars before I started to write this book. One Minute Millionaire. And because I say, look, a book has got to be three things. It’s got to be original. This is totally original because it’s a fiction, non fiction book number one of both lists at the same time, we melted down Amazon by selling 3.6 million because Jeff Bezos was beginning. I wish I’d anyhow, we sold so many books so fast it crushed him, and because he was on his arrogant high horse in in your city, no one could sell more books than I can deliver. Well, Bob Allen had just written a book called challenge. He’d written sold 50 million copies of nothing down, 50 ways to buy real estate for zero or nothing. Down, anyhow. But I said, Bobby Jeffy is just saying that we’re not that smart and nobody can melt them. Let’s melt the monitor, anyhow. He calls up the next day after we melted him and said, Okay, how many of you? There are you? I said, Well, it’s Bob Allen who wrote it with me. He’s an astrophysicist, an MBA and all that. There’s me, and then there’s our marketing guy, Tom painter. He said, Good, you got three tickets waiting at the airport flap here and see me. And if I’d been smarter, I would have brought a TV crew. I didn’t know he’s going to be the richest guy, right? And he wanted to say, how do you guys do that? Well, what we did is, remember, if you’re going to make a lot of money, you’ve got to do a lot of work, but you got to out. Think about work them out, strategize them out, deliver them out, produce them out, everything and go over on. To run or through winners a hiccup, and we just figured out how to do it. And we partnered then with Paul Allen. Not Bill Gates, is Paul Allen, but the guy who’s chairman and founder of ancestry.com and he had just 3 million emails, and we said, Hey, Paul, you’re our buddy. We’re your buddy. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll send it out to your 3 million it’ll make you look good. It’ll make us look good. We’ll sell our book. And if they buy the book at exactly this time when Amazon back then, they were only open six to 11 at night comes online, everybody will buy and they if they buy the book, they get $250 worth of stuff, electronic stuff from Mark and 250 from Bob. Well, that’s 1200 $500 worth of stuff. I’m trying to do too many numbers in my head. I do know math. I got a degree in synergetic.

Heather Pearce Campbell  15:47

]I can tell being the mom of a kiddo with ADHD who has a very fast processor, you have a very fast processor, right? Which shows up in your language. Thank you, yeah. Well, you can pay attention to the way people speak, and some people just are processing way ahead of other people, and their mouth just can’t keep up. So I got you, we’re following you, by the way.

Mark Victor Hansen  16:10

People used to go like I said, if I talk too fast, because I’ve done 7000 talks in 80 country, I said, just go like this. I’ll slow down, or I’ll try. I just get wound up, because I can see how like we just did, as I told you, ASU, Arizona State University, and Peter sing like that. And these are some of the smartest people ever. They’re young and they’re all hungry and they all got they’re all little questions, and they’re gone. I never heard any of the kind of stuff you’re talking about. You’re saying everybody can be have because I teach there’s constitutional capitalism based on free enterprise. My daddy taught the free more enterpriori, but it’s based on you. You’re the base of the triangle, right? We got a great constitution. We need to abide Biden and free enterprise. This is the only place it doesn’t work this way in Europe. And I’ve talked in China 80 times and never again, but because they know no longer like us, the CCP wants to steal and shut us down. And I’ve talked to Russia and Moscow and all that. So I’ve been everywhere. Had a great time when it was capitalistly oriented, but now they’re maoistically and communistically oriented. I hope it’s okay that I say that.

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:14

I think so, you know, I don’t tend to vet people on like, you know, screen out what they say. But you know, we do have significant opportunities in the United States, and I think so much of it about whether or not you end up actually being able to do anything with that opportunity. Is like you said, Are you focused on the right thing for you, right riches in the niches? But also, I want to still go back to what you said. I am a genius, and I’m applying my wisdom, if it is about focusing on and I know I’ve read tons of your stuff, and even in your BIOS all over the place you know about what is it that makes you happy? I can see a thread through your life. You mean you studied communications, right? Like back in the day and like it has become the thread and the thing of your life between your speaking, your writing, right? It’s all about communications. On that point, though, did you expect when you did, like the Chicken Soup for the Soul and some of these early things that ended up phenomenally successful? Were you expecting that level of success? Did it take you by surprise? Walk us through what was actually happening for you at the time.

Mark Victor Hansen  18:28

Yep. So I teach four basic things, figure out what you want, and Crystal, my wife, and I wrote the whole book on that. That’s a best seller, and it’s now going to be a movie. Ask the bridge from your destiny, because every one of you has a destiny, and it’s a great destiny, but you gotta go in your inner door and say, God, what’s your destiny for me? God, what’s your destiny for me? 101 times before you go to sleep, you wake up the night, I recommend you get a purple pen, if you can. It’s God’s highest color, top of the electromagnetic spectrum, and write whatever it says, and get your little bum out of bed, you know. But you do it right before you go to sleep, because the kids technically are supposed to be asleep, the husband or wife isn’t interrupting, the dogs aren’t barking, the phone isn’t ringing, hopefully you’re smart and shut it off. But when you wake up in the middle of the night, that’s God talking to you and said, Look, this is a destiny, what you were coded for a burst. So you got to ask yourself, number one, what do I want? Number two, and ask yourself, God’s Destiny before you go to sleep, right before you go to sleep, because then you go, I can go through the stages of the mind, but basically you’re in a hypnagogic state. Number two, you’ve got to put it in writing. This isn’t Mark law, spiritual law in Habakkuk, anyhow. Number three, you got to visualize it so you see it. And number four, you got to get a team to get your dream one. And one equals power of 11. As you look at what are my two fingers are doing, right? And Jack and I were perfect mastermind team. And we wrote down that we’d sell a million and a half books in a year and a half. And then we carried it around a three by five card that said, I’m so happy, grateful. I’m selling a million half chicken soup of the soul books. We came out the 28th of June, 1993 by. Christmas, December, 25 and and by that time, we’d sold 1,000,003 we didn’t hit 1,000,005 like we said, we’re 200,000 short. But next year, I wrote down you’re going to have five because you need 10 year goals, because sometimes it starts slow, like you would tell me in business. I bet most of your people would tell you that. But when it hits right, that whole S curve when it goes it goes vertically, straight up. It’s not maybe. So we went from a million and a half to 5 million to 10 million to 15 million, and nobody’s done that, and we’re still rocking.

Heather Pearce Campbell  20:32

All right, let’s pause for a moment and hear from today’s sponsor. Are you an entrepreneur who is on track to make a million or more in revenue this year in your business? If so, your business is likely facing a host of legal issues that are ripe for support. And if you are, like so many of my clients at this level, you are likely tired of taking unnecessary risk and a DIY approach to legal support in your business. You’re ready to tackle the mess of legal documents, fix legal gaps that you have, you want to take care of your IP, your clients, your business, and avoid unnecessary conflict and risk in the process. If this is you and beyond just being an entrepreneur, you are a catalyst and are committed to your mission and your impact in the world. I invite you to get in touch. You could be a fit for my catalyst club, a small business legal support program that I designed for my high level clients, just like you. You can find out more at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com. Just click on the Work with Me tab to learn more about the catalyst club and other ways that I support my clients, a fabulous group of world changing entrepreneurs, I might add, you’ve done the initial legwork in your business, and now you want to soar, and you know that you can only go as high and as far as your legal foundation lets you go. So get in touch today. Hop over to www.legalwebsitewarrior.com, click on the Work with Me tab, and if you have any questions, get in touch through the Contact link on my site. I look forward to connecting. It would be a joy to support you on your path.

Heather Pearce Campbell  22:16

Combination of the mindset, the work behind the scenes, but also a huge part of what you just said is the persistence, the sticking with it right, the sticking through those early days of the slower part of the S curve. And it’s absolutely, I mean, they’ve shown out statistically, time and time again. The folks that get successful, they’re not what people think of I mean, a lot of people think, oh, there’s just these folks that luck out and have overnight success? No, it’s not a thing. It’s That’s right, it’s the persistence and the showing up and the paying attention along the way. And I know you’ve got, you know, a bazillion stories you could share as part of this theme around persistence and grit. I mean, you’ve had tremendous success, and I’m sure you’ve also had, like anybody does, some setbacks. Can you share with us what you’ve learned through some of the setbacks? 

Mark Victor Hansen  23:07

Well, like I said, you gotta think everybody so when we’re selling more than enough books to be number one in New York Times, which is sort of a critical thing, because that’s where everybody in the whole world buys from, and and they wouldn’t take us. So Jack, my partner, Dr Campbell, was third in his class at Harvard. And his classmate, there’s only 500 you know, was a woman that runs Harvard, one person runs the book thing, which really annoys me, because it’s that makes it political. It’s not, it’s not meritocracy, which is the way I believe all worlds should be meritocracy, not equity based, equality based. You’re equal in general ability, but not equal in application, is what you’re just saying. Like I said, Jack call, but Jack’s basically an introvert and a great one, but and smart and brilliant and all that. But he said, I can’t, I can’t do that. I said, you know her. I don’t know her. I said, Look, I’m not afraid of anyone because I’ve had to grow up selling my whole life and marketing. So I called her up and she says, Sir, she was pompous, arrogant. I’m going to add sophomoric. And she says, You don’t recognize New York Times. We don’t take multi authored books. Oh boy. I love that question. I didn’t know that was going to be it. I said, you’re sure? She said, I’m positive. I said, My dear, the Bible has 66 books, unless we add maps, then it’s 720 she said, You’re in next weekend, you know?

Heather Pearce Campbell  24:36

And I know that obviously, for all of us, we’re going to try some ideas that are really good and take off are successful, and some that aren’t. What do you think is the most crucial element of turning an idea into a successful outcome or a successful business?

Mark Victor Hansen  24:55

Well, be real clear what you want, and look out at least five years, put it in writing, and then write on all the details that you can see, and then try to live through it visualize. But you gotta visualize from the end result. You gotta be the world’s best selling author for I got there and then we say, put the goals on your mirror, because every time you’re shaving or doing makeup, you know you’re going to look at the goals, and it goes through the portal of the pupil into the depth of your mind, soul, right, your subconscious heart being right, with a lot of languaging for cosmic consciousness. Point is you get into a level of awareness, and you got to own it before you get there. That’s why the line is pray as though the thing for which you’re praying has been received you. It’s godly Good. Can you go, What do you mean? I gotta have it before I get it. If I had it, then I would have it. No, you’ll get it because you even when I was nine years old and won the bicycle, I said, I want the bicycle. My father said, Look, equivalent. It’d be a trek bike. Today, $12,000 my dad was sure a nine year old can’t turn around that amount of money. Did he know? Anyhow, I think an avid or myself, finally, after beating on him endlessly and fruitlessly. He said, Yeah, go ahead. And then I got the greeting card. Sold the crap out of them. Sold a lot of stuff. Shovel snow. Made the money, but he took half it, put it in my college fund, which, at the time he not being educated. He couldn’t explain to me why that was like a super good idea. Later on, I was real glad for that, because I I was my own scholarship.

Heather Pearce Campbell  26:19

There you go. I love it. I love it.

Mark Victor Hansen  26:23

I work three jobs, going through school, because I just like to have money all the time. I didn’t, you know, it’s not okay not to have money.

Heather Pearce Campbell  26:32

No, no, no, every everything is harder without money. Yeah, everything is harder. You talk a lot in your journey about the power of asking. And it sounds like there’s multiple points to that, right? The power of asking from the Big Vision standpoint, and consolidating down like what it is that you want talk to me about, what else that means, though, just in everyday life, because I do think a lot of people have a hard time asking, right?

Mark Victor Hansen  26:59

Really good question. Heather, so our book asks the you know, it says, so clearly, the bridge from your dreams. Because all of us have dreams to your destiny. You’ve got a destiny to fulfill. I don’t know what it is. And if you ask, God, what’s my destiny? God, what’s my destiny? 101 times before you go to bed, you’ll know in the morning, if you’re smart enough to write it down. The point, though, is that once you know your destiny and you’ll go take the action steps, you’ll go get it. But what we say is there’s three levels of asking, ask yourself, ask others, ask God. So 1974 in graduate school, I’ve been with Bucky Fuller. I tried to be him. That was a mistake, but I was building $2 million worth of buildings, houses, Botanical Gardens, aviaries, geodesic dome structures as as, uh, tennis courts, and I built the Wall Street Racquet Club, all kinds of cool stuff. And 2 million back then was a serious amount of money. So the problem was I was building on a plastic PVC polymonium chloride. The Arabs came along and said, we can write checks for bigger banks amounts. Well, I get called by the companies supplying me who I didn’t like then still don’t like monzano and said, You’re doing 40,000 a month, but you’re out of business because we’re not going to supply you anymore, because you’re just and I go, what? And and I it was my best, worst experience for six months. I’m sleeping in a sleeping bag in front of another guy’s room. Now I finally am smart enough to that’s why we made it as a principal. You got to ask God. I said, Okay, God, what is you want me to do if I got to commit suicide here? Because I really because you lose all the money, you lose your self esteem. I lost where I I lost my car. They took back the Eastern court district used to take away your clothes. They were really lucky. We’re talking about 1974 so 50 years ago, and I don’t mind judging them. This is not like a good idea. It wouldn’t bankrupt maybe for some people listening, a good idea, and it’s honorable and something to do, and there’s a lot of ways to get through it. So I’m sleeping in a sleep bank from another guy’s room. I say, Okay, God, what do you want me to do? And God does the opposite. He says, What do you want to do? And I said, I want to talk to people that care about things that matter, that would make a life transformative difference for them. Next morning, I’m having breakfast. Show you how fast this system of asking works three guys of breakfast. I say, hey, any of you guys know somebody, not a Broadway star, not a celebrity, because we were in New York, right? Hicksville, not a cotton top of white hair like me, not a lawyer, not a doctor. They said, yeah, yeah. This kid, maybe 10 years older, he’s on the hawk all going Island New York. I had a little $400 pitted window, permanently air conditioned Volkswagen that rattled and shook, and it was tragic, and I had to wipe off the snow off the windshield. But I drive out there, and there’s 500 people in the room, and back then it’s for you listening. You’re going to think Mark’s lying about this, but there’s no microphones back then, so he had a shout to the room. And by the time that he’s done three hours, they started out despondent, Wisconsin burnout and but by the he’s funny, he was light. He was bright, he was entertainment. He said, If you do this, this, this, this, this, you’ll be massively successful. They’re all bouncing off the walls. I go up to chip, who became my mastermind. But. Partner, friend, I said, Chip, I want to take your lunches. Because his voice was burned out. I said, I want to do what you do. He said, No, you don’t go get a real job. You don’t want to do this is hard. Long story short, he tells me 10 questions to ask and stay in life insurance business because he owned real estate into five boroughs of New York, and he said, You’ll call on 10 people. One will say yes, it’s 630 at night the next day after getting beat up by nine people. And it’s an old, wonderful Italian guy that weighed 450 pounds if he naked with his own path half empty. He was just big boy anyhow, and there’s nobody in the office except him and myself. And he thought I came to try to get a job selling insurance, but we had a great talk. I did the questions. I said, Chip gave me the last question, which was killer. Do you want to cut the check or have your secretary cut it and shut up. He said, I’m a big boy. I can cut the check. I said, thank you. And he wrote me a check back. Then it was $25 for four seminars, prospecting, presenting good wood Graham’s club. I had I was going. I got a business. I don’t know what I’m going to teach, but I got a business. Could do the thing and have the power to do the thing. Emerson taught so and I’m ready to leave. And he said, Wait a second. Mark, here’s a directory to everybody at Metropolitan now. His voice was sort of grovelly Italian, and he said, You got to understand, I’m the one by one guy and the number one insurance company in the world, not their problem. You call all those guys. They don’t say yes. You tell them, call back to big Tony, because you and I are friends forever. You got a kid. I thought, God, you just released me. And that’s what will happen, you know, you put one foot in front of the other, but you got big goals, and I wanted to, back then, I was so naive. I thought I could talk to everyone. You can’t even podcasts and YouTubes all the cool stuff I do. All the big TV shows have been on Oprah and everything else you there’s no way nobody gets to do it, although I had it written down, and I do it. And today we got four we’re doing books with four people in AI that are doing the coolest things. And AI today can take my voice and my voice can do Swahili that quick. It can do Hindi Urdu. It can do talent candidates, Telugu and 85 languages, and it’s not very we’re going to have the exclusive in my company with this guy, who’s an AI guy. We’re doing two books for him to begin with, just because he wanted to get him done. And he said, Look, you got the company that knows how to do what you do, and I own the AI company do this stuff. I said, good, the guys in New York aren’t going to accept you. Let me just tell you in advance, they are toned by their no offense intended to you, Heather, but their lawyers say, if you say no, we don’t get in trouble. We don’t get our butt kicked. If you say yes and it goes south, you get fired. I get fired. We get fired. And that didn’t like a good idea. So when guys like Mark come to you with these crazy, idiotic ideas, just say no. So I said, Look, we’ll do it, and we’re going to get by the way, 50 years ago, and I wrote that crazy goal. And I’m telling you, this is the first time I’ve ever talked about it, because we now have four people doing different AIS with it. We write our own books. If you do any AI in your book, Amazon, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  33:08

And you can’t get a copyright protection. This is the thing that I shout at people from the rooftops. Keep shouting, right? It well, and it’s AI is good for a lot of things, right? We can use AI effectively. And people want you for your thought leadership. They don’t want an AI version of you, right? And if you’re an expert and you’re writing a book, do not outsource your thought leadership. I mean, you can outsource it to somebody, somebody who can help you legitimately write it, but I’m saying don’t outsource it to a machine that’s not thought leadership, that is scraping what lives on the internet. And let’s be clear that all of the AI machines that exist right now are trained on large language language models, most of which they did not have approval for, right? So there’s costs and benefits to that as well, but you have to be aware. This is why AI is a tricky world, and you have to know how to use it the right way. But please do not use it to write your book.

Mark Victor Hansen  34:12

Yeah, to tell you how to market and do stuff, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  34:17

Ask it for a brainstorm list. Ask it for things that can help make your life easier in in small, obvious ways, where you are not inputting your thought leadership, because then guess what it does? It will output your thought leadership to other people who come to that AI tool. So I’ll put you, yes, that’s right. Output you. That is not what you need. It’s not anyways, that’s a whole separate conversation.

Mark Victor Hansen  34:43

I love it, though, and I’m thankful that you’re willing to go there, because there’s so many people right now. There are, like, 10 million books, is the number I just saw on Amazon, and 8 million of them are all AI generated. Those people don’t get it. Yeah, exactly. And. Whatever they’re getting in their little fat wallet right now. They’re falling off their wallet. They’re going to fall off the wallet permanently and be excommunicated from this business because there’s, there’s no competitiveness Amazon yet, and I don’t think Spotify says I’ll do it, but And God bless them, if they do, and that is yet to be seen, and you may be excommunicated through all social media, because social media knows AI and AI knows itself. By the way, I’m making this up, and if I’m wrong on any of those three ideas, you know, correct me, because I study AI at least a half. I think everyone needs today needs study at a half hour a day, because the world’s changing that fast because of AI.

Heather Pearce Campbell  35:41

Yeah, it’s changing very fast. We do have to be aware of trends. We have to be able to participate in the conversation and also influence, from the standpoint of personal ethics, how this all turns out. And there are a lot of people that show up and outsource not only their ideas, but their ethics to either other people on the internet to machines and like that is just not it’s not what we can do. We have to, and it’s the same thing in business, right? You have to, from a perspective of longevity and Where is this headed, also be having very real conversations about what it means to do that ethically versus unethically.

Mark Victor Hansen  36:26

We talk to to that because, you know, I’ve been in so many businesses now the way crystal my beloved wife, who I call the goddess of exquisiteness. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  36:36

There’s going to be a lot of people that are envious of that title The goddess of exquisiteness. 

Mark Victor Hansen  36:41

That’s because I write my own stuff, like I said. Anyhow, we now check out everybody. Because we had a guy come to us, it looked perfect, and then all sudden, we checked it out, complaints, legal, fraud, and he had eight page rap sheet, and I went who? And we almost hired him. We hired him, and hired him, and we’re gonna let him into our computer, and that’s like a dumb ass, square, dangerous. Let me go back to the goddess of exquisiteness, just for one second in chicken soup. This is the 20th anniversary issue. After 20 years. You know, for those you that are single and looking for your ideal other person, most people say, well, from a girl’s point of view, at 16, I want him to all dark handsome, and if he could be rich, all the better, right? And from a guy’s point of view, I want good looking eye candy, and that’s enough and superficial. I wrote down, I don’t know if we can see that or not, but like, two, 267, things of what you need in your ideal other person, and you gotta be it to get them. That’s the deal. Yes, he likes me and likes my business. Beautiful takes care of herself. We’re each other’s number one priority. Slender and radiant, fit, superb conversations, wise, witty, wonderful, then things she can’t be. She’s gotta be a non smoker, because I’m not kissing an ashtray. That’s not something I’m okay with, right? And I don’t want to make a long…

Heather Pearce Campbell  37:58

Me, neither, Me, neither. Just FYI.

Mark Victor Hansen  38:01

Alcoholic because all of us knows. Look, every one of us can get addicted. And I’m addicted to positive things like reading too much, talking too much. You can see that I can’t shut up and and, but I got it. I understand my problem as a non drug user, because, but that. So that’s a 20th anniversary, and you get them cheap today. There’s so many of them out there, like 10 or 20 million of these out and you can get them at thrift books for like two or three bucks. So I’m not trying to keep you from eating. If you don’t have any money, go to library. I don’t care where you go. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:34

Well, that’s right, I just went to my local library the other day and checked out a whole slew of books and made sure that all my information was updated. It was fabulous. We have to support our libraries. Anyways, I love that. 

Mark Victor Hansen  38:46

Let me talk to that two ways. Number one is we teach our kids and now our six grandkids 10 minutes reading as a family every day together. And libraries, for those without a lot of money, is a perfect place to go. And libraries were funded and founded by my hero, Andrew Carnegie. And if you do get to New York, you want to go to his house. In New York, if you get to Scotland, you want to go to his house. I’ve been to both in door knock Scotland anyhow, but in New York on the market, here’s a guy with a third grade education became the first billionaire. And what he says is, authors are the wealth of the nation. Now I’d edit it to nation to world. But remember, we’re talking about 1865, you wrote that. Number two is that no man or woman gets rich, which fits your show without enriching all others. Now, because what? What are we got idiot politicians now saying they’re stealing all the money. No, no, they are creating massive value, which gets massive reward. If you create no value, you deserve no reward. The system it you know, the spiritually, it’s so when you reap no sowing, no reaping, right? And and the greatest line, as far as I’m concerned, in Luke is the harvest is great, but the labors are few. Back to what you said about persistent, consistent, insistent, right? And somebody says, You’re too driven. But look, I go into best vacations in the world and with my family, and we’re going in a short time to I’ve wanted to go to Nepal for a long time. We’re going to Nepal and Cambodia and Thailand. And, you know, I’ve been a lot of places, but I haven’t been there. And I want to go to all the countries when they’re safe, to go to and take the family, and then make sure they go every all the grandkids got to go to every one of the presidential libraries that exists and stuff like that, and go through all the cool stuff at Smithsonian, which, if you really did all of it, it would take a lifetime, but And at one second an event, I have a book at the Smithsonian now, they got chicken soup at the Smithsonian, amazing. And our book here, this one, we just opened up the Smithsonian in the in the African American Museum. I wrote the biography of Reverend Ike with his son, Xavier, and that we had a big exhibit there. I mean, he’s a guy with 16 rolls. Royce. When I was bankrupt, I went and heard him, and he said, Look, if God’s rich and you’re made in the image and likeness of God, then it’s your obligation to be rich and create, contribute and be charitable. And I thought, way cool. So he died. His wife said, look, here’s best friend. And he helped you, inspired the riches. And you know, you taught at university, the sign. Anyhow, I did all that as a professor there. So would you write this book? And I said, Oh my gosh, what a great assignment. And the book just and everybody, everybody needs to read it because everybody’s spiritual, whether they know it or not, and they deserve to. The trouble is, most ministers are underpaid, so they preach poverty. Poor people can’t help poor people get rich. It doesn’t exist. And you say, Well, can I get rich if I’m not a lawyer like you or a writer like you? Well, absolutely. What you and I said is that you do service businesses, which I like you to talk to now a second, and forgive me, I’m going to switch that, because crystal are teaching, look, half of us, maybe we’re really good at school. I’m good there. And you were obviously, but we just did a book called Elevate with Tommy Mello. Well, he’s a guy ADHD, can’t make it the number one audio in America for last three months. And he made six $50 million do garage doors. And then he hires everybody that’s like him that can’t get an education. Then he invented a garage door spring that last 20 years, rather than five years. And he’s kicking it. And he’ll do a billion dollars this year and open up all 50 states instead just 35 so it doesn’t matter what you haven’t been, haven’t done, haven’t thought, haven’t thought, but some of you out there have great mechanical skills and can create a service business. Heather, would you be so generous as to talk to that and why they need an attorney when they do it? So they go from personal service to macro service and franchising or whatever you want to tell them.

Heather Pearce Campbell  42:40

Oh yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think that first of all, I want to speak to what it takes for people in a service business, and why I love them so much is so often these are truly heart oriented people, right solving real problems. I mean, whether you look at anybody from we’ll call it licensed professional side, in the healing space, you know, in the therapy space, all the way over to somebody who is a service based, like physical brick and mortar, like the guy that you just talked about, right? Delivering actual product. Yeah, that’s right, garage doors, right? It is. It is really about connecting to a problem that you know how to solve that makes other people’s lives easier, better, faster. You know, whatever it is, whatever the goal is, and and we all have our unique zones of genius. We all have our areas of interest, right? It’s different. And, you know, I think the part of your message that I love is like really leaning into, what is my niche, what is my zone of genius? What is it for me? And, yeah, there’s massive opportunity in the service world, from the standpoint of creating essentially a concept, a business idea, that then, you know, you test in the marketplace and and, you know, it takes off. I mean, even when you think of a saturated market, like, there’s somebody that I know of that started a sandwich shop, you know, I think somewhere in California, and you would think, how on earth could there be room for another sandwich shop, right? That could just take over? And they went through, like, really creative naming of all the sandwiches, and the way that they build them so different than what is out there, and giving people all of these healthy options. People love this sandwich. I need to go look up the name. And now they’re franchising all over the West.

Mark Victor Hansen  44:39

Oh, you called Ike’s love sandwiches. Yes, his book comes on February, and Ike is a great friend now. I mean, he’s attended my seminars forever, and Bob Proctor said, What do you want? Because we were doing goal setting, and he said, I want to be bigger than subway. He said, Then write it down, and he’ll be bigger than subway in about two years. And Ike’s love sandwiches. What he did is he failed a couple times, but what he did, that really smart, is in San Francisco, you’re right. He started here’s Oracle with Microsoft. He put it in the middle between it, there’s three mile three hour lines waiting to buy very expensive sandwiches. All the sandwiches are named. They’re named after somebody famous in where we live here. They’re named after Booker, who’s number one on on and, or Mark Victor Hansen’s got a sandwich, of course, and, but he names all the sandwiches. So the people come in and say, I want a booker like my grandkid would eat only Booker number one sandwiches, because Booker is this amazing. He’s the next Michael Jordan, probably right and right now they are winning every game, so he’ll probably be number one this year, Phoenix Suns. So but it’s so cool is that he does that everywhere, and he’s got every store makes about 6 million a year. So these are really profitable, and he will join venture with the other one do it, and then that did so well. He’s doing Ike’s love donuts, and he’s under pricing everybody else’s donut to $2 to buy the market. And he’s kicking it everywhere he goes and Dunkin donut. Better watch out, because this guy’s gaining on him. But, but his name’s Ike shaheeden. He’s a foreigner who came here and just had guts and grit, and everyone thought, well, you’re not that smart. No, he’s brilliant. And I said, Hey, we got to do your biography. And that’s what we do, is we ghost write biographies for people that can afford us, because a biography costs 200,000 an average book we ghost write is 30,000 fiction, non fiction, and fiction outsells non fiction. So but Ike said, no, no, I gotta have a biography, because nobody, everybody should be able to do what I did, and he’s going to take it around the world. When he does, he’ll I predict, right? I’m not in this business. I don’t own it. I just write for him and help him get his story done. And he has got so many genius ideas and things. And when he opens it up, you know, he opens up where a famous person lives, and that famous person comes out and gets the sandwich first, and then gets take pictures with everybody, and he didn’t pay him. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  47:05

So it’s like, a genius strategy, right? 

Mark Victor Hansen  47:08

Yeah, yeah. Like, if you are into basketball, like Mike Ranson, this is my friend Ike. This is my friend Booker, sorry, and Ike, right? So he’s getting a double hit. The kid

Heather Pearce Campbell  47:19

Totally well.

Mark Victor Hansen  47:21

For the sandwich, that’s not a problem.

Heather Pearce Campbell  47:24

It’s such a great example. First of all, I love that you and I are connected, and you’re doing his book and, like, it’s so funny because I couldn’t remember his name, but I knew it’s like a short name, like, easy name, anyways, but a great example of, like, so many people would count themselves out of that marketplace, right? Like we just don’t need another one of those or whatever. But it is really about your unique ideas applied to whatever it is that you’re doing. And it’s anyways. It’s so fun. It really makes exploring business ideas so fun. I want to be respectful, because here we are, almost the top of the hour, and I feel like, you know, there’s 8 billion other things I could ask you, what? Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for being here. I wanted to grow up and get smart, right? Well, you know, I think.

Mark Victor Hansen  48:14

Reading to world’s best selling authors. Pretty good transformation there.

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:17

I mean, proof is in the pudding. Like what you did, yes. So what is your very favorite thing right now about what you’re doing? What do you love most about it?

Mark Victor Hansen  48:28

So much every day we get something exciting happening. I mean literally, if I can give an example, you know who Doctor Jordan Peterson is right. Two weeks ago, we’re all buying a brand new Mercedes SUV, M, AMG, and the general manager comes up to us, this is the number one dealership in the world, here in Scottsdale, and says, Hey, Mark, best selling authors here. Would you want to meet him? And generally, the person sold one book. And I’m not, I don’t know him, so I don’t care. I’ll go meet him and say hello and shake hands and be polite. But I just, I said, who is he? Said, Jordan Peterson. I said Jordan Peterson. He’s on my goal list because, remember, I said, you got to figure out who you want to meet, then play with, grow with, expand with, and write down 200 names of people you want to hang with, right? Because you need a macro list, and they’ll show up in the most amazing ways, like this. So Jordan Peterson’s overlooking at a new mob, and he’s playing with all the switches, and his bodyguards there with him, and Crystal and I are very polite, and we just wait. And he looks up finally from because these new cars are actually computers with tires on them, and so, like my new car, drives smoother than a Rolls Royce, and if the an accident hits the brake pedal and the gas pedal go up so you can’t hurt your legs, just, and if anyone bumps you, they get a video of the whole person, so they’re in trouble. Legal is game? Is change going to change like that? And so is insurance, thanks to lon Mosque, even though he’s got the Germans changing it. So he gets out of his car, meets us. I can send you a picture after we’re done, if you want. And we just, he said, Well, I got to take you to dinner. And we went to dinner on Friday night. And then at dinner, we just, we had a, you know, the term Vulcan mind meld. We just, and his wife, Tammy, and my wife, all four of us got along and said, Well, you’re going to come to our house. I got to be gone for a week, but a week now you’re coming to the house here, because now I live here, he basically got kicked out of Canada for being smart, right? The Prime Minister can’t stand him because he’s a free enterprise or he’s a constitutionalist, even though they don’t have a constitution up in Canada, and he’s honest, and that guy’s dishonest. From my point of view, I don’t mind stating my political beliefs about wrong Prime Minister, wrong president, or anything. Anyhow, we just, and this is the most listened to guy in the world today in 192 countries. Is 200 plus million people watch every one of his shows, Jordan. And he’s just written a new, great book called We all wrestle with God, which is really big and thick. And he said, Can you help me? And that night, I went to bed and I did my 101 questions about him, and I came up with 10 ideas that’ll take him to the moon on a pretty hard unless you’re a deep theolog Or a man of the cloth, or a woman of the cloth, or a guru or a change who you want to read this heavy duty book. But I said to him, you’ve done an ex Jesus on hold. I know one book at a time, and I wrote Chicken Soup for this whole Bible, and we sold 70,000 a week at Walmart. So I have kicked it myself, but I never tried to synthesize the Bible. If the Bible’s got one word, he said, it’d be sacrifice. And I thought, What a cool idea that is, because every story has sacrificed, whether it’s Joseph in a mini color code or the whole story of Jesus, right, sacrificing for total humanity. And I thought, What a cool idea. I’d never thought of anybody exercising. I teach that you got four things, you got the book, you got the words in the book, the story in the book, but then what’s your understanding of the book is what I taught. But now number five is, what does all that mean to you? And then more six is, what does it mean to the whole world? Is that interesting. His wife said, You sure you’re dividing exege Jesus, right? I said, I promise you, I am. But go, we’ll look it up. And we lived up in the phone. And I was right. It means, what is your interpretation of what you just read? A big word. A lawyer like you would obviously know that word, probably because you gotta do exegesis of every court case, but possible for sure, case studies isn’t that cool. So the best thing happened is that whoever you want to meet with is not only available to Heather and Mark there, but if you put it in writing, you’re violating spiritual law. You’re not violating Mark Law. You know, you say, Well, I don’t need to write it. I go to my and you don’t have it in your head the minute you write it down in purple. It’s the truth of you. All you do is catch up to it, because you’re living in a very advanced simulation. You’re living in AI, whether you want to or not.

Heather Pearce Campbell  52:50

Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, on that point, oh my gosh, I look back at the roots. So I’ve been practicing law since, oh two right? I graduated University of Washington law, and have been here ever since, and launched my own career right away, like my own practice. Didn’t know what the heck I was doing, but I knew I did not fit the mold and own it.

Mark Victor Hansen  53:11

You gotta own it. You gotta own it, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  53:13

And nobody understood my path from the very beginning, like what you know, and still, now I have attorneys that do not understand my business model, because I’ve got two parallel businesses. I have Pearce law, my practice, and then I have the Legal Website Warrior, which is my online legal support and education business that reaches the online information space, reaches the people that I’m here to support. And when I launched the Legal Website Warrior, I didn’t have a website. I didn’t have any I had a concept, right? I had a a different way that I could do law. And I was working with a business coach at the time who said, you know, you know who you’re here to help. Just go help them. And I was like, Yeah, that’s right, I can do that, because I’ve never been afraid of people either, like you. And what did I do? Wrote down a list. I do an exercise that is like a big and you can do it, you know, whenever you want to. I try to do it at least once a year, multiple times a year. That’s like, what’s next for me in my next six months? Who do I want to work with? I put people down on the list like Daymond John and Lewis Howes and folks that I was aware of in the space of entrepreneurs that I could serve, I did a whole list. And would you know that within a very short period of time, about 80% of them had become my clients, including those guys at the top right? It was such a dramatic example of what you have just described, about the power of intention and writing things up. I had no idea how I would cross paths with Daymond John. He just published a new book. I thought that’d be fun to support his work, right? And then a month later, at a at a conference in Phoenix Down, down by you where you live, I. Met his director of digital operations, said, what do you do? I said, I’m the Legal Website Warrior. I protect online businesses for industry leaders. He was like, give me your business card.

Mark Victor Hansen  55:11

Oh, that’s a good closing line too, because, and that’s the point is, all of us, if you read science getting rich with Wallace walls, all of us are impressing the infinite stuff, and you’re either impressing it. I’m not good enough. I’m not worthy. I can’t do it. I can’t go there. I’m not tall enough, short enough, fat enough, thin enough, man enough, woman enough, whatever the issue is, get your butt out of the way. One tier two and butts, plural and go forth and multiply. That’s the law, right? Be fruitful, multiply. Subdue the earth, which just meant, control your part of it. And then last, but not least, then replenish, which is like we planted a quarter million trees up at Yellowstone you drive in by sign, because somebody’s got to do it. And then one of the kids that we just wrote a book with, who’s worth a million dollars at 12 years old, he said, What story do I need to know, Mark here, because you said we could get rid of naturally pollution. I said, Well, yeah, we’ve got to plant a trillion trees. So we did the book called the tree house with Ethan win, and Ethan is flying a drone and planting 100 fruit trees because we talked it through. And I said, Look, Ethan, we don’t just need trees. We need trees to feed people that are hungry in places that they don’t have it. So let’s do apples to I don’t remember what the Z was, but I’ll do Mulberry. But he in a book, he wrote all of it, and he did his homework at 12 years old. He said, No one in school believed I was writing a book with you, but I just, you know, I have money, and I’ll pay you, and we’ll do the book. And it’s, he’s going to plant a trillion trees during his lifetime, and I think he’ll do it.

Heather Pearce Campbell  56:41

I love it. Oh, I love it so much. Ah, okay, well, I’m so grateful to you for this conversation. People are going to walk away, I think, with so many things that they can go do right now, the list, the the going to bed at night and asking 101 times, right? What is my purpose? Or that’s good too, yeah, what the whole mission, and I just think, you know, it’s about putting one foot in front of the other, and taking the right next step, right. And you’ve just given our audience a tremendous amount of things to think about that will guide them as they move forward and and tuning in, and, you know, finding some new ideas. So any final thoughts about what you’re up to, about what’s next for you? How about where can people connect with you? Where would you like them to come find you?

Mark Victor Hansen  57:31

Two different places if you’re ready to do a book and everybody’s got a story in them, I wrote a little $10 book called you have a book in you. But if you want us to help you with the book, go to markvictorhansenlibrary.com, because I’m addicted like you are, to a library, and that’s a wonderful place. Take your kids once a week, every Tuesday night, my kids were little, we faithfully marched off 1000 town to the library, and they could get anything they wanted. And obviously we took them books, drawers, rich so I could buy anything they wanted. And they’re a little addictive, and they’re both. All five of our kids are really smart, and six grandkids are coming up the same way. Then so Mark Victor, Hansen Library, if you want to do a fiction, non fiction or biography, and everybody needs to do Biography at 40 or 50, it just that is, is literally critically important. My biography, which won 10 awards last year, written by Mitzi Perdue. You ever get your chicken at Purdue at Costco? Yep, she does. 22 million chickens a week at Costco. She’s 84 that’s Mitzi. Doesn’t she look good?

Heather Pearce Campbell  58:31

That’s amazing. She wrote, she wrote your biography. 

Mark Victor Hansen  58:34

She did, yeah, she was head of her class at Harvard. We met. She was intimidated by me, and I said, and so was Ethan. He met me, he said, Do you intimidate me? I said, I couldn’t intimidate anyone, but especially somebody smart, and you’re smart. Anyhow. She said, I was intimidated, but I think you got the best stories. Mark, so we wrote the book. She wrote the book, relentless. We got 10 awards last year. You know, everyone needs she’s a double error. She created, her daddy created a shared No Tell change during the Depression. Her husband Frank Purdue created Purdue chicken, which you and I have grown up with, and you get Costco cheaper cooked than if you buy it raw. It’s 499, at least you’re cooked and it’s 1199.

Heather Pearce Campbell  59:16

Why is that funny? I know that’s funny.

Mark Victor Hansen  59:18

It’s a loss leader. It gets everybody in to buy their dinner. Totally, yeah, and we love their chicken once a while. And then number two is it go to askthebookclub.com. We give you a bunch of free books, a bunch of free stuff, and we just want everyone to learn the power of asking. I want you to become what Crystal and I nominate you to become. If you fill out the little thing, we’ll ultimately send you an invitation to test yourself and become what we call a master asker. Because either and we in our book, ask, What we teach is we teach. You know, here’s all the reasons that you don’t ask, lack of worthiness, naivete, you know, excuse ology, you know, disconnection. And we just teach how to overcome each. Want them because it’s a skill, and it’s a learnable, transferable skill, and you need it as those of you that are parents, you gotta have it before you give it to your kids. Taught me how to sell. My dad was in the back of the bakery. Mom was ran the front and and, you know, I know all those little technologies, not as she wasn’t as sophisticated as I am, of course, but she did the best she knew how with very limited and bakery did fine, and they fed us. And her goal, have a roof over the head and feed you. You guys are on your own after that, go make money. Buy your own pants and clothes, shirt and underwear. I go, Okay, I thought everybody had to buy their own clothes at nine. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:00:38

I did at 12. Yeah, yeah. 

Mark Victor Hansen  1:00:41

And you’ve done a good job for a couple days now.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:00:44

A couple days, couple days, we’re sorting it out. Yes, I love it, folks, pop over to the show notes. We’re going to share links to Mark Victor Hansen’s website, the Library link. We’re also going to share one over to his book, right? The book ass.com so pop over there, legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast, find Mark’s episode. We’ll we’ll link to anything else you want to link to mark. But I so appreciate you. I know you’re a wealth of resources. You’re a wealth of information. I’m so excited for people to get a glimpse of you know what you’re up to currently, and reconnect with your messaging. So I big thank you for being here today, and I really look forward to being in touch. I hope in the future we get to do this again sometime.

Mark Victor Hansen  1:01:26

Absolutely and hang on after a minute after you should all please. Awesome.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:01:29

Thank you will do Okay, folks. We’ll see in our next episode. Thank you so much for being here today, signing off.

GGGB Outro  1:01:37

 Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.