The Man Behind Chicken Soup for the Soul on Going Broke and Building Back

0:00Hey, back to affirmations. I'm worthy. I'm important. I'm here to make a difference. And you are. If you try to yourself, we have 3,000 people committing a day cuz they don't feel worthy. We teach their seven limiting beliefs. And and we did the whole chapter on it cuz everyone's got to know what they are.
What's the mindset? You know, what's going on internally from doubt?
You're going to do affirmations which you become what you say to yourself and believe, think about, act upon, it becomes you. Is your first affirmation is I am rich. And you need to say it 50 to 100 times a day. The best promotion hasn't been made yet. The best sale hasn't been made yet.
I could not be more excited for today's be wealthy episode. I am joined by the one and only, and I'm not going to tell you his name yet, but I'll let you start guessing who it might be. Uh, this person has more new bestselling books than I could possibly think about. We're gonna get into a story uh of how my wife was reading some books to his kid and he doesn't know this, but there's one of his books career uh that had a massive

1:04impact. So, we're gonna get to all of that. But without further ado, Mark Victor Hansen, welcome to the Be Wealthy Podcast.
My pleasure. And I'm glad to hear impact because what I want to do is have impact stories that bring people to full life and transformation to be be all they can, do all they can, have all they can, save all they can so they can give all they can. How's that? That is well Mark I mean I I can't think of someone who's done more of that than you and I want to jump right there. I'll jump right in. You've been called right I did a lot of research prepping you. So you may get questions from me hopefully that you've never had before. I hope um but one one you've been called America's ambassador of possibility. And I read that and I thought that was what you did for me. It created possibilities. So what I want to ask you to start is when did you first realize that the possibility wasn't just an idea for you but your responsibility? I mean you wear this like it's a responsibility.
First of all thank you that I haven't heard that question before. So I go bankrupt 1974. I've been in graduate

2:08school the smartest guy on the planet as far as I was concerned. The fourth smartest guy according to Time magazine. Dr. Buckminster Fuller had 110 honorary degree degrees. lots of inventions like geodessic domes and I tried to be Bucky which was a terrible mistake. My best worst experience I lost $2 million in one day. I was building domes like New York Wall Street racket club botanical gardens aviaries but I was building out of PVC. Now that's petrochemicals and the Arabs said we can write check so bigger banks in I went bankrupt so fast I had to check a book out of the library. How to go bankrupt by yourself at the world's biggest library, New York Public Library. And it was my best worst because for six months I'm sleeping in front of another guy's room in a sleeping bag in Hicksville, Long Island, New York. So you can see I was no longer styling and profiling. So I in in a book Crystal and I wrote, my beloved wife, who I call the goddess of exquisitness. Ask the bridge from your dreams to destiny. We say you can only ask three ways. You ask yourself, ask others, ask God. So I asked God, God, what do you

3:11want me to do? What do you want me to do? And God said, what do you want to do? I said, "Holy cow, I was ready to kill myself." So, I want to talk to people that care about things that matter that make a life transformative difference in their life. So, go do it. And I go down to my roommates at in Hicksville. Uh there are four of us at the time. So, three of my roommates, I say, "Hey guys, any of you know a young speaker, not a cotton top like me, a white-haired person, not a Broadway star, a celebrity, a lawyer, a doctor, somebody I can relate to, preferably young guy." Said, "Yeah, here's my ticket. I'm He's in real estate. He's 12, 20 years older than you, but you'll relate to him. And I go see this guy Chip Collins. He winds up a dead audience now because his real estate back then it was 18% interest. So nothing was selling. Right.
Right.
Unless you buyer owner carry back all the kind of stuff we can talk about because I was buying then the once I started making money again. So fascinating. I say I want to do what you do. He said, I know you won't believe this because you're so young, but lavalier mics have not been invented yet. So he had to shout at 500 people. So his voice was

4:15all burned out after three hours and he made him laugh, made him joy, beat in their chest, feel good about this and go out and profoundly because it's done on you according to your belief. So he got him to believe again that there was a market and it would come back and they could make money today. So he said, "Look, go do this. Go do a real business. A thousand chance you'll make it." He became my master, my partner. Long story short, he taught me to do the life insurance business and and you know only Tony Robbins and I did a thousand talks a year and and what happened is they said, "Man, you are a great storyteller. Do you have a book?" So I wrote a book. My first book was Stand Up, Speak Out, and Win back in 50 years ago when I'm starting this business. It was $1 a book and we sold them for 10 cash. The other thing you won't believe, there's no credit cards, so everything was cash.
And so that's 1975 when you wrote that?
74. Yeah. So, okay. Wow.
So, that was the start. So, it started with that seminar going there. You saw him. You love what he did and that was was that the the launch point for the the bookw writing and then that career.

5:18
So, let's talk about waking up possibility. I think find somebody that you can relate to that can be your mentor. You be the mentee and and they could be alive or dead. They could be a book. They could be an audio. Could be a YouTube video. But in this case, luckily, I had Chip Collins every Friday. We met at four o'clock to ask questions. But everybody's got to attend shows like yours or seminars to wake up the possibilities because the school system teaches you to be obedient, to be a servant, to be a slave, to get a job, which is, you know, my acronym is it means you're just over broke. I want you to have I want you to have a real MBA, a millionaire's bank account. And that's why we wrote, you know, one minute millionaire, which we teach you how to make a million in 90 days. And Bob had written 50 ways to buy real estate for nothing down and sold 50 million copies. And we did a book, Universal Symbol of Freedom, as you know, is a butterfly. And and what we did when we Random House gave us a million dollars to do this book, but as you can see, I don't know if you can see the butterfly in the bottom of this.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

6:19
Yeah. First of all, they said, "You can't do an interior decoration with color." I said, "Look, my corporate colors, pal, are golden and because I gold and purple because it's God's highest color." So the butterfly flies off to freedom. By the time you finish reading the book, you know how to get free because you want to be you you want to have to earn financial freedom, which is what you teach. So you can save a lot, earn even more, invest wisely, which is what you teach, and then create, contribute, and be charitable. Mark, isn't that But that's what we're all chasing, right? what you just described is what when everyone wakes up regardless of their age, whenever they have that awakening moment, that's what they want.
Yeah.
But they get but they but they get they get stuck, right? And we're going to get to that, but I want to I really want to go from so you you start on this road. When did you get the idea for Chicken Soup for the Soul? Like when did pre before it comes out before this massive franchise, what was the genesis? How do we get from

7:21the first book in 1974? How what was the line to get to there?
Yeah.
Even the idea.
Yeah. Jack, Dr. Canfield, Jack Canfield, third in his class, Harvard, all that good stuff was speaking and I was speaking on on a company called Mandala. 6,000 people in the audience. He was a kickoff and I didn't get it was down in San Diego and I was in Newport Beach at the time. I didn't get there on time so I didn't get to watch Jack work. I'm the tieup. And he sees me sell so much product because I did short stories that are heart touching, soul penetrating. Jack said, "Will you teach me how to do that?" Because Jack was doing the teacher market because he's an educator and I'm in the business market. Totally. I had four marketplaces. Life insurance, real estate, um the big churches, the mega churches because you go where the money is, right? And make part of it yours is the deal. Serve the uh masses and then eat where the classes the the principal is. And then and then uh you know the direct selling business was so good to me. I mean just amazing. Anyhow, so he said, "Teach me how to do that." I said, "Well, you got to do this, this,

8:23this." His wife was a doctor. And I had him put all of his goals on the ceiling over his bed that he'd make a million a year because he'd never made over 100,000. I said, "Jack, it's one zero." If you make 400 a day times 250 work days, that's 100,000. If one of your kids, and he had a bunch of kids then, and I had, you know, we've got five kids, six grandkids, like I told you a second ago, add one zero. If one of my kids needed to make 4,000 or the kid had to die, could I do it? Or let me put it on you. Could you do it if you, you know, or and now because you're working on your dad even whose health is coming back. Um, if you had to make four grand and you had never made that, could you figure out how to do it?
Yeah. I mean, if I was I would have to figure it out. I mean, if it was the goal and I had to do it, I would do it.
Yeah. Because you all of us are born overindowed. We're born with 18 billion brain cells or more, whatever the real number is. But they don't come to work until you give them a big goal. The principle is called uma uh teological meaning it it's a Greek term but it means telos meaning you're sending out a message to the universe you know and in science it's called

9:24frequency and and Bob proctor was one of my partners and and you turn up your frequency you turn up your frequency to change your life doubling your money from 100 grand to 200 grand is hard work tenfolding from 100 grand to a million is easy because you got to just change the model and say who's making a million in my business whatever they're doing and I can do and what we did in answer to chicken soup once Jack I gave him 65 stories and he we came to a breakfast at a meeting at the inside edge we're both on the board with Wayne Dyer and Deepo Chopra and all of us he said I want to do this as a book I said you can't do it I wrote all those stories that original creation's mine pal so we were 50/50 in it and then as you know we've sold over a half billion books and still going
and so that that idea was born out of a meeting with you two you had the stories and then you guys came together and that Was the
did it in and then did it did it launch just like that or was there in the beginning we had to get
get traction or was there or was it just lightning in a bottle from day one?
No lightning in a bottle. We had 144 people say hit the road Jack as that old

10:27metaphor goes and I I jokingly say they didn't like Jack. Jack's totally a lovable, wonderful guy. It just I think it's funny and he'd do the same thing if he was on the show teasing about me right now. So yeah. No, we got everybody to reject us. We finally uh took backpacks with three uh spy uh three- ring binders with our books in the back to ABA, American Book Association. First I get there and a guy with a Santa Claus beard and a Santa Claus body comes up to me and kisses both cheeks. I have no idea who this guy is. And he said, "You're really going to make it here. I read your book. I'd endorsed it and I really think you're going to make it." I said, "I I apologize to you, sir. I don't recognize who you are." I said, "And Bob followed you." I said, "You're Dr. Robert Fulgum. Everything I need to learn in kinderg I get goosebumps telling you that." And he said, "Yeah, yeah, kid. You're" And we still got turned on. And last third day of the thing, Health Communication says, "Look, boys, we'll take it if you buy 20,000 at $6 each." We had to sign up for $120,000 in book sales. And so we had to pre-sell

11:29them before they give us distribution. The book business is a tough business, but after being in it 50 years and now owning a publishing house myself, I teach people how to go through it without getting crushed by it.
So, so Mark, I think that's so important. You guys, the story was you were turned 144 times. 144 nos. Is that is that right?
Yeah. Yeah. We got a lot of pink slips. We did not show them to our respective ex-wives cuz you want to get cut off from life. Boy, that's the way to do it, I'll tell you. You know, so but once it started making it, oh, I always supported him, you know. Oh, good. That's not exactly the way we both remember it, but okay.
That that Well, that I want to go because I think a lot of people watching this right now, we're in this season where things are a little weird in the market and totally,
you know, they haven't they haven't seen this since, you know, for those that haven't been in the game a little bit. You know, it feels to me like 2007, right? Still a little euphoria, but still weirdness. And people will ask one time or two times or three times and

12:32they get shut down and they're if they even get there, walk kind of the audience through as you're getting shut down 144 times, right? I mean, just hey, no thank you, no thank you. What what's the mindset? You know, what's going on internally from doubt? We've all got a partner, you know, money. Just kind of speak to that a little because I think it's such a remarkable story and every successful person I know has been through a journey. I don't know about 144 times, but kind of speak to what were you thinking? Was it just it's not a fit and I know I'm going to get it. I just I'm going to go long enough until it's yes. Like speak to that a little.
Okay, let me look at a couple perspectives. First of all, I always taught and still teach one clean four-letter word, ne next. we have to keep saying next and not get stuck in the problem because you're either in the problem or you're solving the problem and you go to an an alternative fourth dimension of thinking which is what Elon Musk does and that's why right now he's worth 800 billion pretty soon a trillion dollars eight multi-billion dollar because he never

13:35looks we can't go into for 54 years NASA never went back to the moon now he's colonizing the moon because there's no gravity and he can fly to Mars I'm a he's one of my heroes right I because he doesn't gets stuck in the physical. He goes to the metaphysical, the higher level, the spiritual level and says, "What is it that we could do?" Because all things are possible in spirit, right? And if you go to a higher dimension, you look down on he is now making cars at Tesla in 17 seconds with humanoid robots that he is building called Optimus Robots. Just coolest stuff ever. Now, back to rejection. I read a story that I taught every day by Ross Pro, who is one time presidential candidate. Ross Pro is the top salesman at IBM. They would not listen to him because companies get complacent, they get lazy, they get fat, they get stupid. It it is the model unless you are on an S-curve. You've always got to have the next innovation behind the last. That's why you need minimum in writing fiveear goals what you're going to do because some you can accomplish in a month, some in a day and but you can't tell what

14:38they are because you don't know what your real frequencies are until they show up. At least that's how I see it. And if you disagree with that, you asked me to answer originally before we got on and I'm telling you what I'm experiencing today because I I'm going to go to 127 with options for no. But Ross Pro starts this company called EDS, electronic data system, knocks on 80 doors, cold call, and the 81st door said yes to $4 billion. So you divide 80 rejections into four billion. He got paid $50,000 every time he said no. I said, 'Jack, we're going to get paid more than $50,000 for every time we said no. I don't know how it's going to work, but you got to trust me. I've been selling successfully since I was nine years old. My parents had no money. None. None. None. And I wanted a bicycle and I sold more greeting cards than any kid in America and became number one greeting card salesman. 40 years later, when we I start the licensing business, same company comes back and we sold 897 box of Christmas cards that I wrote uh for us and Jack. Okay. And it just kicked ass. Oops. Sorry. Is that okay to stay in your show?

15:40
Yeah, that's totally okay. Yeah.
Okay. I I I don't want to offend anyone's butt out there. Except I want to kick it whether it's got one T or two.
So, your approach was just next. Just we're just I'm getting paid to say no. We're going to get there and keep going. We know we've got something special here and we've got to get it out there.
Yeah. And everyone watching now, the tens of thousands of people, they've all got enormous talent. Not little talent, enormous talent. But they got to take off all the withholds. Whether it's spousal, whether it's business, whether it's their and back to what you said, if you stop at one, you're not going to make it. Right? Because everyone, what universe does is it tests us. Do you have more belief than we have not believe, right? And Allah has 100% belief. I have 100% belief. And and then the other thing you said that I said I want to do a different perspective. I um on Sundays I went to two different churches every Sunday um in New York uh when I was breaking through. One was Norman Vincent Appeal, the power of positive thinking. The guy who got one of the two guys along with Think Grow

16:43Rich got us out of the depression. The other was in the afternoon I went up to Harlem to Reverend Iikes Church and then when he died he was one of my best friends, biggest black minister ever. Um he had 16 Rolls-Royces, eight mansions, all kinds of cool stuff. And but he and I were very close. His wife calls says, "Mark, you're his best friend. I need you to write his biography because his story is too cool because he healed people. He was a healing minister. I mean, he broke more crutches, got more people out of wheelchairs because it's, you know, it's a belief system and and he was in an astrally projected cosmically consciousness awareness. And if you haven't read the book, my wife and I wrote his biography for him and you'd love it along with his son uh Xavier.
What was the name of what's the name of that book?
It's called Reverend Ike.
Reverend Ike. I will drop that in the show notes and I'll put a link to that. I'm gonna grab it as Reverend Ike is Frederick J Iiko III, but you won't need that. You just need Reverend Ike and and but he funded guys like TD Jake and all that. I mean, so every industry needs somebody to mentor them to greatness, right? I mean, whether you're an artist, there's no master without a masterpiece.

17:47There's no masterpiece without a master. Sorry, I know my own lines.
It make it Well, it makes total sense. So, the book I want to talk to you about, uh, I read when I was early in my career was The Aladdin Factor.
Oh, cool.
And I grew up I grew up in middle of nowhere, Colorado, poorest county, great parents, hardworking, but it's the country, right? I mean, it's And I remember grabbing that book and I read it and it was basically what I got. I mean, yeah, that there. Yes. And I read that book and it was kind of the idea, well, I could ask for anything, right? I could literally in my life ask for anything. I had no clue I was going to get it. But I started just asking for what I wanted was what I and and Mark it you already know where the story ends. It's it started working out. I told my my team in prepping for this today I said I read I've read this book so many years ago and it works like you you start asking these questions of what you really want. So where did the idea for the Aladdin factor come from? Like I mean a lot of your work kind of is

18:49around let's figure out what we want. Let's ask big questions and let's go live really amazing lives. Where did the aladding factor where did that idea come from?
Okay. So I'm doing all these seminars and at the front end I'm doing four a day a thousand a year and only Tony Robbins are that crazy. But I knew that figure you got to figure out what number one the first question in life is what do you really really want? Number two is you got to put it in writing. Three you got to visualize. You got to see it before you get it. That's why Christ said pray is the thing for which you're praying. has been received. I had to be the world's bestselling author before I was 59 times number one. Sold two billion dollars worth of re billion in licensing because nobody had ever done licensing and I said I want to become the biggest. If you're going to do something, why not become the best at it right now factor this has an interesting story. Jack and I are sitting in my jacuzzi and we're starting to smoke it with uh
uh we were when we were trying to sell and everyone was turning us down. I'd written a book called Dare to Win and and we met a woman at Berkeley Press, which became Putnham, which became Random House. But be that as it may, she said, "Look, you

19:52guys, you believe series sequels and prequels are going to be the future, right? Once you got a name, you want to exploit it." It's called positively uh exploit it to the cash flow of you and the benefit of the reader because a reader wants more of you once they find you, right? And um I I follow a lot of people so I've you know read 50,000 books or at least touched all of them. Anyhow, so
we're with Berkeley and a lady says, "Well, we and Jack and I are sitting in a jacuzzi and we wrote down we want to we'll take Dare to Win, then we'll do Dare to Lose and then we'll go to number 14, Dare to Know God." But the third one was Dare to Ask. And she said, "No, no, no. You can't do Dare to Ask. We'll call it the Aladdin factor." because the Aladdin movie was coming out and Robin Williams is still one of my heroes even though he's passed away because he's tormented. But I won't go there. But the point is we wrote this and and what happens is they came back to us. We had the number one and number we had a the dare to win was right behind uh Chicken Soup One and Berkeley comes back and says we got to have that book and we got to have it right now and your contract says we can ask for it in two months. I

20:55go to Jack and say they're going to sue us to oblivion. And they said, "If we don't have this in two months," Jack said, Jack's exact line again and again is always, "Well, what are you going to do about it?" And I want to cover that in a minute. But I said, "What am I, Jack? We're 50/50 on this. If they sue me, they sue you, and we'll both lose this. You can't fight these giant publishers who are omnicient and and oligarchical, I guess." Anyhow, um he said, "What are you going to do?" So, I said, "Well, I'll interview the 101 best by telephone." I just done that when Chicken Soup originally came out. Um the publishers used to take a book and not publish it for two years. Talk about dumbass squared, right? It just they're they're the big word is anti-dolubian. They're before the flood, right? They're sort of before the flood in a lot of their thinking in the publishing business. It is it they're not up to date. That's why I had to create a publishing company that was that Hawaiian term is aai. It knows what to do and and it clicks. Anyhow, so um I interviewed the 101 best guys because in I chiropractic was one of the place I

21:57got three honorary doctors out of 10 in chiropractic and all the doctors 77,000 knew me. 50 250 25 million patients a month. And I said, "Wow, I I'll just inter I interviewed all the chiropractors on how to do a million- dollar practice because Bill Clinton had taken away all their insurance money and they didn't know what to do." And all these guys running a cash practice where you pay $25 or 50 or 100 for an adjustment were making it and they had little simple ideas and I interviewed them all in a week. I said, "Jack, I could do the same thing for Aladdin." And I interviewed all the superstar Oscars in America. And then we orchestrated and organized it with a little genie in a bottle because we knew Robin Williams movie was going to, you know, it made like 50 million the first weekend or some crazy number like that. And um we did it and then the book sold 3.6 million and Berkeley was exceedingly happy and and so were we. But boy did it it's it uh it sidetracked us cuz we were already doing the second helping of chicken soup which we're number one number two for 58 weeks in a row because of a different reason which I will tell you in one second. I said I'd get back

23:00to it. So this is the time of OJ trial. Are you old enough to remember the OJ trials?
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Okay. So the OJ trials owned the media the front page front of news stations ABC, NBC, CBS, every newspaper, Wall Street Journal, everything. It was everywhere all the time. You couldn't you couldn't leave. You you couldn't avoid it. It was everywhere.
Right. So Jack, we we meet three times a week when we weren't talking and and writing on all the books were writing on it. He said, "So what are you going to do about I said, Jack, it's again, it's we, not me, right? But I'm the promoter, right? I only do four things, right? I I really speak pretty well. I write pretty well. Um I'm a heck of a promoter. But I also see holes in markets that nobody else sees for myself and all the people we work with, all the companies I'm part of and all the books I write with other people. I see I see everyone's got a a book that could sell millions of if they just could see what I could see. They can't go here because they haven't right. The inner work is what most people don't do.
Christ said kingdom of heaven is within but it's shows up out here. You're Deepo Choper tells me look if I cut into your

24:05mind as a neurosurgeon I can't see your dad's image in your head. I can't see the car you got. I can't see the house, the kids, the your your desires or dreams. They're out here somewhere in the cosmos. Would you agree with that?
Uh totally completely.
Yeah. There's no images visible. It's sort of amazing. Anyhow, my I said, "Jack, I saw it already." He said, "What did you do?" I said, "I run I wrote Judge Ito." And I said, "Look, judge, you got these people sequestered for 6 months. They can't go anywhere. They can't watch TV, read a newspaper, talk to their wives, or use a telephone. I got a book that has no stories about OJ in it. You read it this weekend and have your wife read it and then tell me what you want." Well, he calls me on Monday and says, "Mark," I said, "You want 12 books?" He said, "No, no, no. I want I said, "What do you want?" He said, "I want 13." I said, "Why?" He said, "We got a extra juror in case somebody breaks a leg, gets sick, or dies." So for six months, everybody's walking into the jury stand like this. We were the best seller of all times because nobody it all it takes to get rich is one idea different than

25:10anyone else. One possibility different than anyone else, one thought form that nobody else ever saw, one connection that no one else saw that it is waiting for you. Does that make sense?
That is Well, it makes total. But but people aren't, you know, they're not thinking like you. They're not going, well, first of all, you know, they're not thinking about how do I get the judgment and if I have the book, they're what a great Well, what a great gift though for you, right? They're reading things that are improving their lives while they're sequestered. So that's just awesome and who you are as a person.
But then the promotion side, so you're helping people, the promotion side kicks in and to your point on Media everywhere, you've got your book out in front of just the world. I mean, it's not just and people are watching. This is a this was a worldwide thing. It wasn't just you know our country. I mean it's everywhere. What a brilliant I mean promotion. I that is that is such a great story.
But let's bottom line it for you and everybody listening.
The best promotion hasn't been made yet. The best sale hasn't been made yet. The best marketing idea hasn't even been

26:15conceived of. And that's why I'll keep going to Alain. Nobody can go to the mood. Brett, who the hell you think you are? I'm NASA. I've been doing this 54 years. I've squandered two billion a year and done jack zero.
Right.
By the way, I'm not shouting at you personally. I'm just saying that's what they say.
You're completely wrong. I am Elon's big Any person that wakes up and says, "I'm going to make us a multilanetary species that species. That's my mission." I'm rooting that guy on, right? I'm I'm just I'm I'm I'm I'm team Elon all the way. Um, so when you think about did this shape anything financially for you as you're going through, you know, you've had some rejection and through and through that all came massive tremendous success in a lifestyle and an empire. How do you relate some of that as you were making these investments? How any is there any correlation if the way you think about financial risk as a result of having maybe more rejection than most? I haven't heard of 144 turndowns and then turned this amazing empire. Is there any you relate any of that to anything financial like in terms of risk?

27:16
Well, by the way, we were at total risk here. We're signing up to sell a book that isn't going to come out for two years. We've sold it. We finished it. And that's why I had to go to the chiropractors because what what you do is here's how you got to look at it from my point of view. You you know in mathematics because you're good at math. A negative times a negative equals a
uh a positive, right? I mean, yeah. Negative goes the other way. Yeah.
Yeah. A negative times a negative is positive. So I I am the spokesperson at that time for uh American Red Cross. Ly Dole was head of it and brilliant woman. Would have been a great president I think. Anyhow, she said, "Hey Mark, you have all these crazy cockami ideas. We're out of blood and there's no such thing as false blood. There's no doctor. We got the best doctors in the world. I'm not questioning the quality of our medical and PhD. They're smart, but we cannot make blood, right? the only blood. If you or your kid or your wife or your dad needs blood, they got to have a a compatible blood. That's it. There's no substitute. So, she said, "I need blood." I said, "Well, let's go to the medical doctor." She said, "They've already vetoed it, so I can't." I said,

28:18"Good. I'll go to the chiropractors. Chiropractors just lost all their insurance. We need to reactivate the patient." So I back then just remember this is uh 94 or five and um emails just started but I had every email of 77,000 doctors. They all knew me because I did every one of their trainings on how to build a million-dollar practice. I and we sold those tapes. I made the tapes by interviewing 21 guys that did million dollars with one idea each and and one guy was in Colorado because I was a professor out at CU for a while. Anyhow, but the the Dennis Nicotau in Denver, the biggest practice there, said, "Look, all I do is carry rubber bands around, Mark, and and I'm sitting in the airport and they say, "What do you do?" I said, "I'm a chiropractor." Said, "Explain that." He said, "I take a rubber band and I put it around their finger like this till it becomes a tourniquet and it starts turning color." Brett, what color does it turn? Go fast. What color?
Oh, yeah. Purple.
And then what?
Uh, I think black.
And then what?
It falls off.
How the hell do you know that? See, but

29:20everybody there, no one taught you that. Never. And yet, you know exactly what happens. That's what happens when you're subluxated. And he says, so what I do is I take the rubber band off. Now, here's the next three questions he asked because everything's a question. That's why Chris and I wrote this ask book. Whoops. Looks like that. Ask the bridge from your dreams, your destiny. Because if you learn to ask, you win the world. So, um, can a medical doctor get rid of a subluxation? Yes or no? Uh, I don't know what a subluxation is, but
your spine's out of alignment.
Maybe, but not really. I think you got to go to the person that that the chiropractor's got to do. That's the person that
That's right. Yep. Yep. Yeah. A PT can't do it. A nurse can't do it. Only a chiropractor can do it. So therefore, you know, he built this giant practice where everybody comes and all he does where carries rubber bands in his pocket. Well, every doctor started to carry rubber bands and got giant practices and and I sold $3 million worth of tape. So yeah, I was out of money, but I created a new product in one week by calling 21 doctors that I knew. You can do that in every industry. Every back let's go back to what you

30:23said to begin with. There's more turmoil. There's more chaos. Everybody that can think right. Right. The we're finishing a book right now called Proverbs, which is 31 chapters in the middle of the Bible. And we're just extricating that with a chiropractor as it turns out. Dr. Jerry Fox, my friend 40 years. He did it. And I said, "This book will blow up. We're gonna sell tens of millions of copies. It just because no one's ever done that. They always do the four gospels, but they've never done Proverbs. And and what he's saying is read one a day for 31 days and get wise. What is there better than wisdom? Solomon got wisdom and then got to four trillion dollars, got famous is still remembered 5,000 years later, 6,000 years later, whatever the time is. The point is, same thing here. All I did is went to the wisest doctors. You can go to the wisest anything in your I don't care if you're in a machinist. I don't care if you're We just finished this book. a guy made 17 million using the same principle. He uh is a um air conditioning guy and all he did is learn how to sell air conditioning. Made 17 million his first year by hiring all the other guys to do the work. He sold it by interviewing all the best air

31:26conditioning guys. Everyone can. This isn't a maybe. This is a guarantee if you decide to do it. That's a good title, isn't it? Fetching millions.
That is so That is so good. Yeah, because we believe I'm a Horatio Alger award winner, which means I came from rags to rich has been a little excessively philanthropic, but we 35,000 kids get scholarships from us, you know, and we all spend a week together with the who's who. Uh, but we say, "Look, um, you get an academic scholarship, a trade scholarship, or a tech scholarship. We need all three of those in America today. We don't have enough tech. We're building 7 trillion dollars worth of hard buildings." Like I live in Arizona and Scottdale. We're doing the biography on the biggest guy ever. He's doing a $200 billion Taiwanese semiconductor plant where one chip is 180th the thickness of your hair, Brett.
It is. It is. It is so wild. It's so wild. And I I love the I love that you're saying that the three different I love the three scholarships, by the way. What a what a what a gift. And the trades today, by the way, the trades are

32:29overlooked. to your point, your AC person. You know, I've got a 17-year-old, a 14-year-old, and a 12-year-old. And I tell them, I said, I don't sleep on the trades as a business to go into. It's a wonderful business today that is going to be needed because we're building so much stuff, whether that's AC, electrical, roofing, that is needed more than ever today. Uh, and especially on the technology side. But I I love the book that you're taking an entrepreneur and and getting people to realize that number one, that they've got more and their story, to your point, could sell millions, but they got to ask different questions. That's right. Let's define an entrepreneur because a lot of people say, "Well, is this word or that way?" No, no. An entrepreneur finds a problem. Now, remember, there's 8.4 billion of us. So, there's more problems than ever before. So, find a problem that you're supposed to solve, solve it, scale it, make a vast profit, and then be charitable. That's it. It's that simple. Everybody's got problems, and they're mental, they're social, they're physical, they're spiritual, whatever they are. All you got to do is look at your own problem. God gives you problems to solve. as far as I'm concerned. Now, the people who don't believe in God, I feel sorry for them because you go to

33:32nothingness and that's not like a cool idea. When the game's over, eternity is a long time. You don't want to be there, I don't think. But you everyone gets their choice, right?
That is very well said. It is absolutely true. So, I I want to go to you've you've got you're a master storyteller and you've said stories create wealth.
They do. Why why do you think that stories are such a powerful economic tool and why do people underestimate them?
Well, first of all, there's because I'm dealing with a lot of companies that are going IPO now and they're saying, "Help me tell my story better." The story's got to be hard touching, soul penetrating, and emotive. But these guys come out with these powerpoints and say, "Here's how much money you're going to make." Well, money is interesting, but if you can get them with a story that something's going to change, now you're home. And and I told you one of the four marketplace I did was multi-level marketing and and uh I I'm doing this one meeting and these two ladies come up to me and say, "Look, we got the product that's changing the world right now. America's constipated because they're so stressed." And I went, I know that because I did a PBS show and it scared

34:34the crap out of me and my sending colon went like that and I I didn't go to the bathroom for a week and boy, if you want to get scared and your system's backed up, you get scared. I'm going to be as gentle as I can with this. But anyhow, they did a product. It was called Enrich International. They're gone now because they sold to Europe and they changed the formulation, screwed it up. But they had a product called Life Fiber. I s I made $3 million in one year selling that because I would talk about it in every seminar. I said, "Look, if you eat three meals a day, you're supposed to go to the bathroom three meals a day. Three choo choo trains in, three choo choo trains out. It's pretty simple. That's a story." And everybody wrote the story. So, I'm doing mortgage superstars and and every year I did them for like 20 years. the Jones uh Deborah and Doug Jones husband and wife own this company. We did ski trips every year in Aspen, which that's why you got to have a book to get famous and and speak. It's just so much fun. So, but then they also had a a port of Yarda or a Latin American trip. We're down Latin America and we're out on a yacht and and I'm telling this story to Doug and Deborah before I'm going to talk and she said, "You ain't not going to believe this, but my little

35:35son Andrew, I've got the permission to tell the story. Six years old. He goes to the bathroom once every 10 days and sometimes he has an accent in class and it's totally embarrassing and he hates it and can't handle it. I said, "Well, I got the solution. Come back to my room and it's life fiber and and she looks at and says, "Looks like sand." I said, "It tastes pretty good here." Andrew said, "You call me Uncle Mark because remember I worked for him for six years since before he was born." So said, "Mix it up. I'll chug it and you chug it and see how it is." Well, the next morning at six o'clock in the morning, he's pounding on my door. Uncle Mark, Uncle Mark. It was that long
because you a girl needs 50 grams of fiber a day. A woman 35. Now that's the story. But that story sold and made me $3 million. I didn't own the company. I was just one of their I became their presidential won all their contest. But I my goal was I didn't think anyone should be constipated then, now or ever.
And you I mean and you created the story around around constipation. I mean, so you've used stories though throughout to educate someone, help them, and then

36:37ultimately sell, right? I mean, stories do sell,
right? And you only need a paragraph to do a good story. Like right now in in because we're concentrating on just doing biographies, we say to we only are selling them to the ultra rich that sent millionaire and billionaire class, but and they cost $200,000. But I said, "Look, a biography is the only lasting gift of love and legacy. They give your family, your friends, the future in the world that's permanent. Now, you think because you had $100 million and you're going to go give it to your kids, they're going to remember you. They're not going to remember you. Two generations from now, you're dead gone. Look at the people who wrote their biographies and wrote their expectations and the values they had and their kids had to get to be part of the family. the Purdue family, which I'm My biography was written by Mitsy Purdue. So, oh, it's right here. So, and you can get it online. It's called Legacy. Now, you know Mity Purdue is Purdue Chicken. Do you ever get your chicken at Costco? The pre-cooked chicken?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've had many.
Yeah. It's $4.99. If you buy it

37:40uncooked, it's $1.99. Same chicken. Well, here's Mity. She's 84 years young. Looks great. and and uh she her company does 22 million chickens a week at Costco
and she asked to write my biography which we published of course I'm not so I believe everyone's got to have a biography she's got a biography her she did one on her daddy who started the Sheran hotel chain this fits for your listeners during the depression Ernest Henderson started it during the depression he said we're going to have a hotel where I take care of the people so the staff takes care of them. We'll have free meals every day. That's exa exactly the same thing that's happening with John Paul Deoria, right? He takes feeds all of his people at all of his here's a guy homeless twice, so he knows what it's like to be hungry. Now he's worth 8.4 billion. But he's got 37,000 beauty salons in 103 countries. He did Patron and everybody said nobody's needs a tequila especially from a barber which is pretty demeaning to a guy that's the

38:42most powerful entrepreneur in America and my close friend for 40 years. Anyhow anyhow so he did 100 million bottles a month and then JP calls me up and he's on a on a cruise with his best friend is RFK Jr. and and he says, "Mark, for 40 years, I he came in and talked at my mega book seminars and my enlightened millionaire seminars and you can't pay a billionaire, but he was my friend and he talked and he but he said, "I want something." I said, "What do you want?" He said, "I got to bring my entourage." I said, "Tell me because it cost me $500 to feed these guys for three days, right? Because we are in the VIP session. They're all getting steaks and everything." He said, "Oh, I think 20 will come." I go, "Holy cow." Okay. Oh, it's a great deal for me. Anyhow, he's in in he's in Greece with RFK Jr. and says, "I've written my book. I'm g I said, JP, the best thing is I'm a publisher now. I want a publisher book no matter what." He sends it to me. It's 19 pages. I said, "JP, I love you. I love you, pal, but that ain't a book." In our business, we call that a chapter. And again, Jack's type question. He said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to interview you,

39:44right? To do a biography just to get the foundation. I need four two-hour interviews where I go deep from beginning to end and what's working. Well, it turns out that he like the guy who's building Taiwanese semiconductor don't have a little, they got a lot. And I said that's why we do sequels and prequels because you got too many stories and they're phenomenal. They're not even like can I do one?
Of course. I was going to say that guy's story is incredible. I mean from the what he did in Paul amazing but then the Patron story and how he did it with getting it in in the different you know getting in the wine sense it's a spirit not not in the with the liquor his story is incredible I would love to hear his story so first of all I want you all to go get the book it comes out April 3rd and some of you are going to be listening to it after that but order it now pre-order it at Amazon or wherever fine books are sold but JP is on vacation and goes to Barbuda which had got wiped out by the hurricane and he said somebody should do something. But the government's not smart enough, so I'll do something. Remember, government's not smart. Entrepreneurs are smart. Entrepreneurs solve problems. We need

40:46you watching to master entrepreneurship, salesmanship, marketing for you and whatever your area, whatever your zone, whatever your category is. But he hires the top ichthyologist fish doctor in the world. Devon Dr. Brazen brings her down there and said, "Let's make it hurricane proof." They made it, they raised it 19 ft. They made it so hurricanes can't def. They brought back the turtles, the fish, the 100% employment. Made it the best island ever. And now he's doing the whole Caribbean to make it hurricane proof. Nobody ever thought of that because people I got to be careful here. People in the environment go, "Well, this is all theory. It's not practice." You take a guy like him as an entrepreneur. I'm all practice. I'll listen to theory, but I got to reduce it to practice. And that's what an entrepreneur does. He or she reduces to practice, and they do it young. Can I do one more story?
Oh, yes, of course. Yeah, I love this. It's so good. So,
so where you live, uh, three of my grandkids live in Gilbert, and our little 12-year-old last year was student body president at at u the learning, you

41:49know, the learning school there, and it's just great. And eight little hund 800 little girls go ever and ever. He's very handsome, I got to admit, and he's gifted and all the advanced classes, but he's a superstar basketball. He does a 100 free throws a day consistent. And so I in that thinking, Brett, that he had an answer. I said,
Everett,
um, what do you want to be when you grow up? He said, 'Oh, that's easy. I said, ' Really? He said, 'At 18, I'm going to play for the Phoenix Suns because, you know, we're here and that's the big team and I'll make 30 million a year. I said, whoa. I said, then what? He said, I get goosebumps telling you. He's my grandson, but I love this kid. He said, at 35, I'm going to manage the Phoenix Suns. I said, and then, not thinking he had an answer, he said, at 45, I'm buying them. I said, "Son, do you know that's 4.8 billion? This isn't chum changing. Grandpa's not helping." He said, "Don't worry, Grandpa. I'll have the money by then."
I love that.
And he will.
I love that.
I mean,
yeah. I mean,
well, it's the power. It's the It's the power of asking a question. You tell a

42:50kid everything's possible. And for some reason, most people in the course of their lives just they lose that ability to dream.
Exactly. That's why we wrote ask because we said, "Look, it's squished out of you." Your mother says, "You ask too many questions." Then you go to school and you raise your hand. The teacher doesn't know the answer. Says, "You just look that up." Right? And then you go in the military and the military says, "No, no, you just be obedient to whatever the general says or whoever is the leader." Right? And and we need more people to think outside the box as they say, which is a redundant cliche, but I'm saying go into the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh dimension of your awareness because all of us are limited by I only know what I know. I'm a dentist. I can fix teeth. No, I got I go to a dentist now that's figured out how to open up your airways so you don't have sleep apnnea. Nobody ever looked at it that way. It's an airway problem. It's not a sleep problem, right? Your airways contract over time because I guess God built us to be for live 40 years like you know. But Moses did three shots at 40. He did 120 and his eye was not weak nor breath

43:53baited or any gile in his mouth. I mean the boy was a healthy camper is what it meant. I hope you're okay with all this.
I am go I'm to this you're going where I want to go. I want to go to the psychology and the millionaire thinking. Right. You wrote the book Cracking the Millionaire Code. You studied self-made millionaires. You know, I want to talk about the difference between people who have income because I think a lot of people watching this, they've got,
you know, they've got income, right? They've got maybe even high income, but they don't have real wealth, right? They they actually never translate. So, can you what's the belief that stops people, right? They've they're making 200,000 a year. They're making 800,000 a year, but yet their wealth is doing this even though their income is doing that.
First of all,
yeah, we're one of the books we're doing is uh Richest Man in Babylon 2.0 with John Anton, a guy weighing Anton Sports. If you got sports outfits in Arizona or nursing clothes, he makes them. And he said, "Look, Mark, I love this book and it made me rich because it teaches the 12 principles, but the first one is doesn't matter how much you make, how

44:55much are you saving? And then of that saving, how much you investing?"
Yeah. Part of what you earn is yours to keep.
Exactly. That's the first principle. But we've rewritten it in English now. And and we start the book in in it's such a cool book and it'll be out in the spring. I I am forgive me for loving my book so much but this book we started in Babylon Nebraska and and there is no such place but the point is this guy goes in and does a seminar and teaches the principles in in modern linguish English and everybody's resisting and at the end of the week everyone believes they can be a millionaire because they said wait you know I'm only earning 500 a week but I'm now saving you know 10% of it 50 and and if I keep doing that and then invest it wisely. And then the other thing in answer your question, everybody has to ultimately become an owner of something. Everybody has to become an owner of something. Now, I own a lot of businesses, but the fact of the matter, and you say, well, you don't have to work. Look, I wrote this book with Art Link letter. Do you remember that name?

45:56Are you old enough to remember Art Link?
I I remember Art's name. Yes.
He kids say the darnest thing. People are a funny house party. One of the first billionaires, but I wrote this when he was 96 and no publisher wanted. They said, "Nobody 96, you know, is going to sell a book." Well, we sold a heck of a lot. How to make the rest of your life the best of your life. We said, "Don't retire from something to nothing. Retire from something to something better." And now this week, we're doing one with uh Dr. Jeff Life. He's the 88-year-old guy that's buff, who's a medical doctor who at 60 had a massive heart attack. They put in seven stints, right? And then he started exercising. Now he exercises because what we're learning about longevity is you long I'm going too far with this. I'm sorry. But there's chronology, you know, how old are you and what's your age? There's biology. How good have you taken care of your body? Like I take 78 herbs and vitamins at breakfast in the morning. And then third, what is your functional health? How good are you with your oxygen? And like I, you know, we live here in Arizona, but I climb mountains here. And I' I've also climbed

46:58Machu Picchu and and Fuji and Kilamanjaro and and Whitney here in America. So, you know, I'm in really good shape for a 78-y old young person.
Yeah, it it is a what I'm hearing you say though, Mark, I think so much of it, it starts in our mind, right? It's in our mind first,
all of it.
Well, so so what's the internal when we think about our finances, you know, you often say that wealth begins long before the money shows up,
right?
What's that first shift, right? Because everything you've talked about so far, it starts here and then we're going to see it in the real world. Where do we got to start with our financials? What's the financials? What's the first internal shift we've got to make?
I love that question. If you're going to do affirmations, which you become, what you say to yourself and believe, think about, act upon, it becomes you is the first affirmation is I am rich. And you need to say it 50 to 100 times a day. And then if you do a subset, uh I learned this from John D. Martini who learned it from Dr. Paul Bragg, the guy with apple cider vinegar, which is another little product that made billions of dollars just one product. But Paul Bragg said, "I'm a genius and

48:01I'm applying my wisdom." If you say that to yourself 50 times a day for a month, you're going to become a genius in whatever your zone is. And every zone needs a genius. We don't need stupos. We don't need foolish people like Solomon said. We need geniuses that are applying, "I'm a genius and I apply my wisdom. And I'm rich and a genius and apply my wisdom and I'm going to get massively wealthy." It just and and then you can do a lot of good because there's a lot of people that can't do it. So for the look, I'm making up the number now, but let's say 10 or 15% of us can really do it. We create that wealth. We can create fundamental abundance and and make everybody physically, mentally, emotionally better off and no one worse off for the first time in history. And it's because of technology that we're getting free. Because of technology, the wheel you could start to transport. because of the railroad. Carnegie, who's one of my heroes, created that. And now we're going to have floating cars starting at the end of this year thanks to Tesla. And if you've seen him, you go, "Holy cow." You understand? There'll be no more traffic jams.

49:04
It it it's the W. So you're It's completely wild. And it So you're saying I I I couldn't agree this more. I've lived it. That it it is all here. what we put in here, what we say, the affirmations. And and there's this an anti-affffirmation vision board movement with the quote influencers online. And I I'm one that says, "Look, vision boards changed my life." Like writing affirmations down and putting what I wanted for my future on a wall across from my desk that I stared at every day. All became a reality for me because I was staring at it. And once I accomplished it all, I kept it and put up a new one. Right? And what am I now thinking about and what's driving my life? Um, I couldn't agree more. I think it starts with do we believe it? Are we actually thinking about it? And even maybe not do we even know what we want. I think most people can't actually define what they actually want.
100% correct. When I was doing all those giant seminars and we still took do some seminars. Um is it I would have everybody pair bond two people and they 50 times in a row they'd go Brett what do you really want? You'd start Brett what do you really want? Each one's got

50:05to be a new answer. So you'd start well I want a car. I want a house. I want new rugs. I want new windows. I want, you know, I want to be financially free. I want to have 100,000, a million, 10 million, 100 million, whatever it is. But by the time you get to 50, you're deep into it. And I've had a medical doctor come up to me and said, "That was more important than all the medical school I ever went to." Because for the first time, I found out what my true passion is, what my right livelihood is. Like my right livelihood is communicating, writing, speaking, turning on other people to the inspiration of their aspiration to add a little perspiration to get to their destination. I don't know what their destination is, but they at depth. We believe and the reason we wrote ask is that everybody's got a destination that is magnificent, that's fun, that's going to be joy. Because you say, "Well, when I get 10 million, then I'll be free." No, you're not free unless you know where you're going and what you want to do with it. Because you go buy an island, you're going to I owned a $4 million house in Kona, Hawaii. Loved it. But you know what? Am I going to drink pinina coladas every night and watch the sunset? Not me. That's boring after you do it. It's a that's called a vacation.

51:08A week, two weeks. I get bored quick. I need to use my mind like you and I are we've covered a a smorgusborg of topics. But it's all been linear enough to understand, hasn't it?
Oh, it's Well, it it's completely there's principles in everything, right? In every single thing from from promotion to wealth to what you ask. Um it you've just you've given so much good here. I I want to go to you. You know, I've got my analogy I always use when I've been teaching at one of our events is I've got really I've got friends that are really intelligent, like genius level, zero wealth. I've got friends that are I mean so far down on the intelligence spectrum, it's scary. Ridiculously wealthy, right? Like so I have never drawn a connection between intelligence and raw wealth. Like I just haven't seen it in my life. Why do you think so many smart people struggle financially knowing kind of what I just said? Is that Well, first of all, has that been your life experience? You've seen maybe people that aren't really gifted super achieve people super gifted, they don't do anything.
Well, the the difference is, do you have

52:12a mastermind? One of the principles that Andrew Carnegie taught Napoleon Hill and Andrew Carnegie, which here's what most people don't know, and and I did create, as you probably know, Chicken Soup for the Soul Bible. and and we sold 70,000 a week at Walmart and my publisher said that'll never work. I said sign this. I'm going to go to Thomas Nelson and get them to publish it and they did and they went we went crazy with it. We're doing something new now with the Bible which is even going to be more crazier. But because there's in it's infinite markets but here's the point. Andrew Carnegie is reading the New Testament and said, "Holy cow, Jesus." Now remember what I said is you got to go to a a higher dimension of thinking. You read the words and you got them and you understand them and you think you're smart. You're not smart. You're smart, but you're not wise. We're talking about how do you get to wisdom? Remember the Solomon, go for wisdom and you get everything else. Right? The point is he said, "What is the principle?" The principle is he had 12 disciples before he did his first miracle, water in the wine of Canaan. 12. He said, "Wait a second. I'll get 12." Andrew Carneg's first mastermind partner is Charlie

53:14Schwab senior senior three generations ago. Second is Frick and and I've been to the Frick Museum in New York. up in a frick house in Pittsburgh, you know, because I'm a scholar on these guys. I want to know what the hell they really did. But he had I name all 12, but you don't need that. What you need to do is say, "Hey, wait a second. The the guy with a lot of money and and uh a lot of self- inspiration to destination action. He needs to put those geniuses together and get them to take just a little piece because they'll all do it and go create new things, which is what I'm doing now. I've, this sounds braggadocious, but we're working with the top guys that used to be with Microsoft uh for 25 years, head of innovation, and they're all coming to partner with me to because we're going to sell books to the whole world. Now, you say, well, that's a heck of a destination. That's an interesting goal, but why you? Because the publishing industry is is not thinking like Mark thinks. And they're we got 17% of the market. We

54:16sell all the books in London. We s all the books South Africa all the books in Australia big deal that's 17% of the market I want all 8.4 four billion reading it and should somebody read the stuff and listen to the stuff we're saying now in Swuahili and Hindi Erdu and Kennedy's Ju there's 647 languages in the world and and Hobby Lobby who we had dinner with the green the other night and and he's putting all those languages with the you saw the chosen I hope
uh I have not seen that
oh everybody's got to watch the chosen it's the story of taking notes really
yeah chosen it's done by Angel Studios out of Utah originally Uh, and Delos Jenkins shows you the struggle struggles this guy went through and it really it'll illuminate. You're going to you're going to be a a binge watcher. I predict everybody watching the chosen. But he's now taking it into every language around the world. So, it's the first time people are going to really know the no. But I'm saying what he's doing for a movie I want to do for books. There's nobody Look, I was on the biggest show in in

55:19200 million people in Africa just now. And that lady says, "Look, everybody speaks Swahili and you won't put it in Swahili." I said, "No, no, I'll put it in Swahili because I because all these people that we're publishing books for say,"I want to be New York Times bestseller." I said, "Wait a second. Do you want to help the most amount of people that maybe are in Africa that'll never make the New York Times bestseller list or do you want to be just in America and sell this many books when I can take you around the world and sell that many books?" So, oh, you mean I don't have to be New York Times bestseller? Well, I you are. I said, "Yeah, but I didn't have this idea then yet. I'm transcending myself because you are supposed to forever transform and renew your mind and be a bigger, better, stronger, healthier, smarter, wiser, more money-making person.
Mark, it is it is just listening to you. I'm getting so far. I'm taking notes. I'm like, I'm ready to flip my desk over and go, you know, into my day." And you're you're you're so inspirational. And I think people watching this and listening to this are going to say, "Gosh, that works for Mark, right? That works for Brett, but they didn't grow up in my

56:23town. They haven't had my situation. They they've almost got what I'm going to call anti-wealth beliefs, right? And they're and they're running around with it without even realizing it." Like, what do you think the most common ones you see people that they need to free themselves of to live their best lives? Just their their their limiting beliefs that they carry. And you've taught I mean millions of people, millions and millions of people across the world. When you look at all that in this body of work of yours and you say what are the what are the biggest limiting beliefs you see people carrying right now? We Okay, so back to ask. We teach there seven limiting beliefs. Uh and and we did the whole chapter on it because everyone's got to know what they are and we're putting it into the movie that I told you we'd talk about. But we say look unworthiness is it. I'm not worthy of being rich, they think. And I I want all of you to know, you got to tell yourself 50 times a day, back to affirmations, I'm worthy. I'm important. I'm here to make a difference. And you are. If you try to kill yourself, we have 3,000 people committing suicide today because they don't feel worthy.

57:25And it's not, by the way, let me do it from my point of view only. And and you're going to object if you're really feeling ready to commit suicide. But the the fact of the matter is you are important. God, you wrote in the book of life that you are going to come here and do something. And that's why we're we're doing a book on death. We're doing four books on death and dying right now. It's fascinating. I want to tell you a little bit about those if you want. But when you die early and go to the other side, Big G tells you, "Whoops, you're not supposed to be here yet." And say, "No, no, the music's better. The color is better. The sound's better. I want to stay." Said, "No." And you go back into your crown chakra and you're back in life. And you got to do what you're supposed to do. But that comes back to the lack of worthiness that so many people feel. Next is naive. They don't watch your show enough to buy the story. Remember what I said. Not only did I listen to audio tapes when I went bankrupt around the clock when I was in the car, but I also went to two Sunday churches that taught the same thing. And I dragged all my friends, most of whom didn't get it. And it's not that it wasn't there to get, it's that they

58:27weren't ready to say, "I accept to see what my greatness is, what my destiny is." Next is self-doubt. I'm not I I couldn't do what Mark does. No, that
I want
Let me just do the opposite. I want everyone to outsell me. If you can outsell me, go do it. I want somebody to sell a billion books. It's going to happen. I can't tell you who and how and when, but it's a four-minute mile story with you. Remember who ran the four-minute mile?
Roger Bannister.
Bingo. A+. You're A+. But the week after he ran it, 117 people ran it because it broke the image. I'm here to break the dis. Oh, nobody could sell more than you. No, somebody's going to sell. I want fear. The underlying fear that you're not able to fear is false evident here real. Then pattern paralysis because you got to recognize you got a pattern. And the pattern is poverty. And and Reverend Ike used to say, "Look, I could take somebody out of Harlem, put them in a Fifth Avenue mansion, and in a week they would make the Fifth Avenue mansion in Harlem. I can take somebody

59:29from Fifth Avenue mansion, put them in Harlem, in a week they'll have it become a mansion. It's state of mind, state of consciousness, state of awareness, state of thinking, all of which you can control. But you got to read positive stuff like I write or listen to or or make on YouTube. And then disconnection. Most people are so disconnected they and they're disconnected the wrong way. Like we just read Charlie Kirk's book and he said, "You got to stop in the name of God it's called." And and Charlie and I are friends before he got dusted. and and uh too bad. But you know, he's become bigger in death than in life as a martyr. But the point is he's saying you got to take a Sabbath. You've got to disconnect from your social media. Don't you know, so on Saturday night at 6:00, we shut off our phone, shut off the TV, shut off all messages until 6:00 Sunday night. And and nobody's died, nobody's gotten hurt, nobody's feeling worse. But we feel right now it's for you and I are making this on a Monday. I don't know when it's going to get aired, but I think you can see my energy is back at 100%.

1:00:30
How long have you been doing the what I'm going to call the digital Sabbath? How long have you been turning that only been practicing that?
We've only been doing it about a month, but it really everyone needs to do it and then be with f be with people because you want to get reconnected. Remember we said seventh uh problem is you're disconnected and you're not present time available and and we need to be present to other people. Like I I unless you tell me I've looked I've only looked away to pick up books. I've been present time available with you 100%.
You know and that's what you know what Mark what's lost today is presence. You know one of our good buddy of mine uh wrote a book called the business owner's dilemas. Ollie Nasser is his name and he says the greatest gift that you could ever give someone is the gift of your presence.
Just talk when you're out at dinner. But when we go to dinner what do we see? We see everybody looking down at their phone and they're out at dinner. I'm like what are you doing? Like we're here at Mark. If I go to dinner, I want to talk to you. I'm there to experience it. I want to be in it. I want to help add value. But I only do that if I'm present, not when I'm distracted looking

1:01:32at my phone, staring at social media or it's just it's so well. I love those those questions are so valuable. And everyone needs to number one, go get your book. When is it coming out? When is that book coming out? The Ask.
Oh, no. Ask is out right now. And and what we did is
when did that come out, by the way? When did it come out?
A short time ago. So what happened is that Crystal we only do stuff three things you got to do in a book. It's got to be original. It's got to be transformative not to you the writer it will be because it transforms you but it's got to be transformative the reader right so they go wow like what you did with our Latin factor. This is the advanced Latin factor. And then number three it's it's got to be inevitable such that like what did you do the minute you got on we booked this show? You said that book changed me and you told all your team about it. That's that's inevitable. You're going to it's called in the book business we call a pass along value. In other words, our average chicken is read by 12 people. So, I've had a billion plus readers minimum. You know, because we have ministers every he we go to three churches, but we go to the healing

1:02:34church once a month here and that lady is forever using our story and saying came out of the chicken soup of the Christian soul or the prisoner soul or the teenage soul. And people go out and buy the book like crazy. So, the books are still selling. That's and book sales are way way up again because people are starting to get tired of social media which is really exciting to me. I'm because have you ever been in a bookstore or a library and not met nice people?
It's a it's first of all it's the most peaceful place ever. You go there, you meet someone who's on your same journey who's looking for in a way to improve their lives. So, no, I I I'm the guy that goes to the bookstore, gathers everything I'm going to do and starts sorting through it and then I act like I'm going to pick and then I just buy everything and leave. I'm the I can't not buy I'm my wife jokes when I walk around Mark I have I go on vacation I bring a separate suitcase for books because I'm going to get into stuff and then I won't read them all but I just can't not be there with what I need. I'm literally packed went to Hawaii for two weeks probably 35 books and no I didn't read 35 but I read a lot. Um but I just don't know what I'm going to need. So I'm that person that uh you're speaking my language. I I am like your I bet I've

1:03:38put more money into the things you've written than probably anyone else that's ever interviewed you. Uh I bet I've met first person.
Thank you.
Listen, my my kids in their shoes. Thank you.
Yes. So Mark, I want to go So you've helped entrepreneurs, you've the chiropractors, you you've done so much. I want to think about what's the most overlooked income stream that entrepreneurs and thought leaders are missing. You know, you've been so good with promotion, ideas, stories. What's that income stream that entrepreneurs maybe just don't even think about? You mentioned one which was you went in the licensing game, right? You went and publishing and all these other you're tons of different companies. When you see the average entrepreneur today, you know, what are they overlooking?
Let's talk about licensing.
So, one weekend I'm reading two biographies in a weekend. I read George Lucas and Stephen Spielbergs. Both of them said the same thing and it just The lights went off for me. They'd made 800 million on ET, which I'm sure you saw or your kids saw. But they made a billion and a half in licensing,

1:04:40twice as much basically. And I went, "Holy cow." I went into Jack. I said, "Jack, we're going into licensing." Jack's correct statement was, "What do you know?" I said, "Nothing." But what we learned from Earl Nightingale was I learned it actually from general systems theory when I was in graduate school with Bucky Fuller. But there's a circle around this thing called licensing. And I'm on the outside, but I'm going to be on the inside. And it only takes a year. You study an hour every day, seven days a week. And then you go to their meetings, whatever the meetings are. I went to city meetings, state meetings, local meetings. And I had all my questions to ask. And I said, "Who's the biggest? Who's the best? Why are they? What do they do? What are the zones that they do?" Because there's licensing everywhere. Well, licensing is the best business because it's clean, it's neat, it's you don't get any returns, nothing comes back. Like we licensed with uh uh the biggest dog food is Pyina, but they had come out with a product and I just talked they paid me 20 grand to do a talk with Jay Leno and they had come out with a product that went up and went down because the dogs hated it. So all of a sudden uh the the dog food company flies in into the Gulf Stream to meet

1:05:42with me uh Diamond Pet Foods and and I say, "Well, look, my little daughter is becoming a vet and I got four dogs and 88 animals in one acre. You've got to do four things before I'll accept it." Number one, the dogs have got to like it. All four of my dogs got to love whatever you're doing. Next, it's got to be organic. Anyhow, I came up with these ideas and they said, "No, no one talks to us that way." And then the fourth one was, "You got to put one of my books in every package." Well, we sold $157 million worth of dog food month. We get 15% of it. We don't have to manufacture. We don't have to package it. We don't have to store it. We don't get returns. And it's just pure cash. There's no better business than licensing. But make yourself a uh give yourself a brand name and everybody's a brand and it's up to you to make your brand take command. So you you so licensing and an example who would I mean I can't imagine who's thinking I'm going to go promote books and this this media empire through dog food and somehow you saw the absolute connection. That's just that's

1:06:44remarkable.
Well I I did 101 licensed products. We did a billion dollars in one year of licensed products. So I I really understand and it's it is a great fun joy. The people in licensing are nice people and they want new products but you you and I got to come up with them. Remember the people in an industry can't solve the problem. Let's just do the Ford, GM, and Chrysler and and Jeep. They didn't invent the they invented electric car and killed it. Tesla comes out and Elon Musk kills the car business and does more than all of them combined because he's saying, "I'm gonna start at zero. I'm not in the business, so I don't have any of the limitations thinking that they're all stuck with." And and now he's creating a car 17 seconds, but he's going to get down to 5 seconds. He'll make a car every 5 seconds and then sell them any less than anybody's ever sold a car for price-wise. It it it I just you are such a great storyteller that people could take so much out of that whether it's I love the way you just described how you learn things like hey I went out I read these

1:07:46I read these two books that that gave me the idea and then I went and spent an hour a day for 365 days to learn every single thing there is about licensing and then you started applying it and I I I just love the way that that model you broke down there. everyone could go take that model and and change what they're doing and improve their life on any topic by using what you just outlined right there.
And by the way, I want them to and if if they end up doing a book with me, I'll tell them, "Hey, here's where your hole is for licensing that no one has ever seen before." I mean, let me just do one example here. Let's see if I can do it. I'm finishing a book that's coming out shortly. Won't be out until spring called America's Golden Age. And this guy comes who makes hats. And I said, "Well, let's do American gold hats." And then he came to my office here and I've got somebody made so much money they gave me um a little tetra heater. It's on my desk over there of gold, real gold, an ounce of gold. And I said, "Why don't we make a gold pen, right? I don't know if you can see that or not. It says America's golden age."

1:08:47
Oh yeah.
It's got gold leaf in it and it really works and it's a great pen and everybody wants it. And then we said, "Well, wait a second. What if we really did it and we made a whole series of hats the likes of which no one's ever seen before like gold hats. So you really start and then we line extended the products. Well, you can go to America's golden age.ai. America's golden age.ai and you buy these pens and it's a this is a killer business. This is This is going to make billions of dollars just an ink pen because everybody who gets it says, "Oh my god, that is the best inkpin I've ever had." And I never thought that I could. This isn't real gold, but it's gold leaf. And you know, you pay $20 for. But so what? It's from my point of view, it's an exceedingly product profit of product and it's and it's fun. I mean, has anyone ever tried to sell you an ink pen before? Probably not. But if does it fit the book business? Absolutely. I say go write a billion dollar book with your ink pen. It it is all it is it is so good to think about the way your mind works

1:09:49around the business of the promotion to tie it back to the product create ancillary products that drive additional revenue. Um as we're thinking about wrapping up here and we're thinking about I want you to think about our audience entrepreneurs what are the first three principles you would want them to internalize they're leaving here today about money and success. What three principles should they just have in their mind when they leave here today? Okay, first of all, you got to figure out exactly what you want. You got to put it in writing and you need to spend a little bit of money. I I'm not selling journals anymore, but when I sell journals, this is Mark Trans. Pay 50 bucks. Get it done so you journal what you want and come up with 10 new things you want each and every day. Like you want one customer, 10 customers, 100 customer, a thousand customer. You want somebody that'll get you the customers. If you're not good at getting it, if you can't sell and market, partner with somebody who can sell and market. If you don't have the right idea to build an enormous business, I'm going to find the right person that I can build their business. Like I told you about the whole the joke was colon blow stuff. [1:10:52]
So, so first thing is get a journal. Write down 10 things you want every day. First thing,
every day for the rest of your life. And keep the journals. I got 50 years of journals. And when we moved from my giant business and warehouse in California, Chris said, "Can we get rid of these?" I said, "Absolutely not. That's my gold mine." I mean, I I won't be able to exploit all the ideas I've written down. I've got only John D. Martina and I have over 6,000 wants written down because you've got number one, if that's the only one we could cover, what do you really want? And got to have it in writing.
All right. So, write down every day 10 things you want every day for the rest of your life. Put in a journal. What's the second principle you want to instill with them? What do they got to do next? What are they gonna try?
Is it the who is the who that can do the how that you want done? Like because we're going to make the the first story in ask is a fable Michaela. My wife totally wrote it from her prophetic vision. We've always known we're going to create, you know, we're creating a uh we own Mark Victor Hansen Library, a publishing company.com, but we're going to create, we're created, all right, Crystal Mark uh entertainment, and that'll be the first film we make. And

1:11:55we wrote down who is it that can give us $30 million because we want to do three all at once. And she's written in three planes. So, I'm showing you that once you write down what you want, then you got to detail the who that can do what you want. And like when I won the Horatio Aljur award, which you get in the Supreme Court, it's the highest award you can get as far as I'm concerned. 10 of us win it. In my class was little unknowns like a guy named Tom Celich. I think you know that name. And Philip Anutsz, if you're from Colorado, you know Philip Anutz. Well, Anuts owns a value foundation. We're going to go to Phil in a short time because we're friends. We were in the same class uh winning in in Horatio and we're going to ask him to invest in this. And whether he does or not doesn't matter. Remember, if it takes me 10 or 100 people, we're going to find somebody to invest in it. That's the point. You got to know that it's done before you start is what we said. You be at the end before you begin. We know that we're going to make these movies. We've decided we're going to probably make them in in Malta is our first decision. Morocco second, Canary Islands a third, uh Istanbul a fourth because they got castles. And this is

1:12:57takes place in 1544 where a girl is stuck in a rock quarry. Her parents have been indentured servants. She owes money she doesn't really owe. She teaches a couple people to read and long story short, the king sees it and says, "Can you make everybody in my kingdom literate and then she starts doing that for everyone." It just it it's so heart touching. You go, everyone who reads it says, "Oh man, I need to see that movie." I yep, that's the point. Remember, it's got to be inevitable. I I could imagine the scene in Malta. I was just in Malta a year ago. I could imagine for the castle scene you want that that that is the perfect there is a perfect picturesque spot for that there. I could I could
you know this Malta is 120 mi long if I remember right the same as Long Island and yet there's 39 great castles that are wellkept and that's where that's where uh my hero the best speaker ever probably Winston Churchill went and wrote all of his stuff and did his artwork. I don't know if you knew that. I did not know I could I I mean I could not but I could imagine that that location to write and think and just be it is it is gorgeous. So hold on I want

1:14:00to go back to the third thing. So the first thing we're writing it down 10 things you want every day. Second we're finding the who that can end up doing the house. And what's a third principle you want them to do?
You got to have a mastermind where like Jack and I were two together created a third new mind that makes you invincible. In other words, it didn't matter that somebody says stop. That's just pushing a little pressure on you and you're going to go find a person that'll say yes. You're going to have a mastermind where two or more come together in a spirit spirit spirit of cooperative harmony, Andrew Carnegie said, and then you become invincible. He had the spirit that he was going to make America work with the railroads. And here's a guy with a third good education that said and then I'm going to spend the first half of my life doing it good. Second half of my life giving it away to do the most good. And he said, "Where can I do the most good?" He benefited 4,812 libraries in America because he said, "Everybody's got to learn to read." Now, the only mistake Andy made, and I'll tell him when I get to heaven, if I meet him, I've been to his house at 5th 901st and Fifth Avenue in New York. I want everyone to visit. Or if you got

1:15:01a lot real money, go to his castle, 30,000 acres in Door Knock, Scotland. But what Andy should have done is charged a dollar for a library card. Then everybody would have one instead of just 1% of us.
So it it is so it is so good. I want I ask every every guest Mark, three quick questions.
Same question, right? Best purchase under $200 that's most improved your life recently.
Any p books? Okay, I love it. Uh, second question. Top three books that can't be yours for this that that impact had the biggest impact on you. Three books that had the biggest impact on you.
Obviously, Think and Grow Rich early on and I've read it a lot of times. And number two is resurrection by Neville. Um and what he what Neville says is obviously the Bible has got to be number it would be number one. I should have put at number one but you know it takes interpretation of the Bible because it's it is there's four levels to it. There's the book there's the words in the books the understanding but then the ex of Jesus. What does that mean to you? The

1:16:03ex of Jesus what that's when it matters. But that's why you got to go over it a lot of times. So all a sudden you go I get it. I get the parable of the towns. I get how that operates with me and my kids. I get it. It takes a while to get it, so to speak.
I love that. I love that. And I'm most excited for you to answer the third question, which is you get to talk to your 18-year-old Mark, knowing everything that you know today, and you got up up to 60 seconds to talk to him. What do you tell 18-year-old Mark?
Well, the cliche is think bigger. But I didn't know how. I I now written a book how to think bigger than you never thought you could think and it's a great bestseller. But the the point is is is to think bigger is is get mentors early. Like at at the time I was 18 at 16 I saw the Beatles. I started a rock group. We were making 5,000 a night. I didn't understand I could go to the next level if I got a real mentor. I didn't get a mentor. Nobody remember my parents didn't have any money and they they could not advise me. And and I'm not beating on my parents. They're wonderful. Loved my my brothers. I've

1:17:05only got brothers and myself. But they didn't know to say, "Hey, go get somebody." What what the Beatles did is they got the right promoter and they got the right mu, George Martin, to do their music with them. And it took them to a whole level. See, I didn't know that. I was just doing our own music. We wrote our own songs and we we could have done that. I didn't that wasn't my right livelihood anyhow. But it was just, you know, um I didn't get enough mentors early. I I in intrinsically knew it, but I didn't um have it. So, it's verbally as one of my goals in writing. Now, my goal, everything I do, I find whoever the best is. And there somebody the best and they'll always help you if you're honest, sincere, and are trying to help them. Also,
Mark, that was absolutely incredible. I know everyone's going to go out and get your book. Ask, right? We're going to drop show links in the show notes that'll come in all our things. Where else if they want our listeners and viewers, if they want more mark, where should we send them to go? Yeah, we we got videos and everything at askthebook.com. Just go there and you can watch videos

1:18:06by Crystal and Mark and you'll love it. And then number two is if you're going to write a book and have a little bit of money and want to invest. And by the way, remember I had a it cost us 120,000 to get chicken soup out. So you know I'm we charge 30,000. Do fiction, non-fiction. If you're doing a biography, it's 200,000. Just go to mark victoranssonlib.com. And I think I'm library 3.0. Library one was Alexander the Great. At 28 years old, he created the wisdom of the whole world in Alexandria. And I you know what happened to that if you watch videos on YouTube. Number two is my hero Andrew Carnegie who I said he gave us libraries. My best friend, one of my best friends is Dr. Ben Carson. His wife Candy. We spent a lot of time with him at different places and and he was out of his mother was one of 28 kids. I can't even start to believe that. and she was illiterate and kept checking all of Ben's papers and grading them and his little brother, but said, "You will go to the library. You're in the bottom of the class in third grade. By fourth grade, you're going to the top of the class. You're going to read two books

1:19:07every week at the public library. Come home." And she couldn't even read and was highlighting, but he thought she he was really correct. And he went from the bottom of the class, top of his class, got a scholarship at Yale. John Hopkins became the world's top neurosurgeon. You can read his book, which I wrote the Ford to uh called Gifted Hands. He's a lot of written a lot of books and we've endorsed each other's books. He endorsed my book uh The Miracle in You. But the guy's just, you know, he did 15,000 pediatric neurosurgeries. One where he conjoined twins, cut them apart, and they're both alive and healthy and well now, which everyone said couldn't be done because you and he are here that and that was his right livelihood. One of several because you're not limited to one right livelihood. You're not limited to one destination. You're here to be passionately on purpose until you master something and then go to the next thing to master. Does that make sense?
That it makes Mark, it makes complete sense. And I uh I you are such a treasure. You've done so many incredible things. And your passion today, like as I'm sitting here, like I told you, I'm ready to just run through walls. It's

1:20:10been such an honor to get to do this. You've had such an impact on me. Thank you, sir. Uh we will get this out every everyone. We're going to put show links in there on all of Mark's uh the ask book. If you want to write a book, but reach out to Mark. Mark, we need more people like you. I'm grateful for you, sir. Thank you so much for your time. All of our listeners, go out there, take his advice, do the three things, write those down every day. Get the journal, write down the 10 things you want. Who is the who? And lastly,
create a mastermind alliance with people that can deliver the goods.
I wrote, you can see my mastermind scribble. Create a mastermind. Mark, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much, guys. Go out there and be wealthy.