Chicken Soup for the Soul: Life Lessons & Mindful Change W/ Mark Victor Hansen
Welcome to Journey to the Sunny Side, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and of course, your own mindful drinking journey. I'm honored today to sit down with my friend Mark Victor Hansen, co creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul and author of dozens of life changing books. Altogether, he's sold over 1,000,000,000 copies worldwide. His newest release, Ask, The Bridge From Your Dreams to Your Destiny, dives into how life's most powerful transformations often begin with a better question. Mark's a master storyteller and a true force for change.
Speaker 1:In this conversation, he shares how he transformed challenges into purpose, built habits that empower rather than numb, and helped shape a life lived fully and intentionally. Get ready for heartfelt stories, practical tools, and a mindset that can change your life for the better. Hey, Mark. Thanks for coming on today.
Speaker 2:My honor. Thank you. I it's a pleasure. I thank the world of you and and the great work you're doing, sir.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you so much, and that that means so so much to me. And you know what? I love our story how we met, like, the most random of ways, but I think you and I both agree that there was nothing random to it, but I'll share it with the audience and that we were both at the gym getting changed. You were just getting there. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You were pumping your iron, looking fit. How old are you again?
Speaker 2:77 years young.
Speaker 1:And how many push ups?
Speaker 2:I do. A 100 a day. I figure it's a minimum just because I want to, stay robust like you. I mean, you're a hunk of solid iron. Any friend of rocks or friend of mine.
Speaker 1:Well, I love you, man. You know? And we're just, like, randomly chatting in the gym, and it's not like something I normally do, and we strike up a casual conversation, and we trade a little bit. And I realized, hey. You know what?
Speaker 1:This is Mark Victor Hansen. And so we got to talking. We got coffee. We exchanged ideas. And now here we are.
Speaker 1:You're here to share on Journey to the Sunnyside. So so glad to have you.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. Because so many people watch me on YouTube and and listen to, my audios with Audible and all that stuff. It's amazing. Crystal, my wife and I, who I call the goddess of exquisiteness, will be sitting at a restaurant. People call up and say, you're him.
Speaker 2:I know your voice. How
Speaker 1:does that feel? It feels good.
Speaker 2:The only other joke like that is that we're in Hawaii with my kids and the whole family and the extended family, and, of course, I get to pay because they think I I deserve to do that. And I went paying, and six guys came up to me. The whole family left. And they said, you're him. And I thinking they knew me because my picture is that big in the back of all these book.
Speaker 2:Right? And and or they know my name or something, and they said, boy, we've never missed your movies. Would be.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it. Well, you you have great stories. You're a master storyteller, and I'm gonna give you the floor here to do some sharing. So you shared in the past in your college years, they're a little bit challenging, which includes alcohol. So can you take us back to that time a little bit?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I just wanna go right there. I in school, I didn't have any well, I had money when I got into college, and I burned it all up and and had to work three jobs to get my way through. But during that time, I was home once. My mother who had empty nest syndrome.
Speaker 2:She had four brothers. We all look exactly alike. The teachers in school that always say, I know your big brothers. They were here before you, Mark. I go, yep.
Speaker 2:Yep. That's me. And but but empty nest syndrome, back then, there's no such thing I don't think as how I got the wrong name. Whatever it is, a person that does hormones, she was in pain, so she started to anesthetize herself with juice booze. And so I took her to a place and and with my dad's permission and and got her to dry out, which was very painful because, you know, when you're, well, you know, if you got a probably a five finger liver and you're drinking way too much and and all she was trying to do is anesthetize the pain, and she didn't know any other way to do it.
Speaker 2:And that was seemingly acceptable, but pretty soon you get addicted. And and I guess any addiction has got its problems. So and the only way to get rid of a bad addiction, according to my friend, Og Mandino, who wrote The Great Salesman in the World who lived here in Arizona like we do, said you gotta switch it with a good addiction, a positive addiction that is equally penetrating to your physical, mental, and spiritual being. And and luckily, I got her into that, I guess. So it was really good.
Speaker 2:And that's what's so important about, you know, all the books we've done like chicken soup or ask or any of that is because it wakes up your inner being to ask start asking yourself and thinking a new way, changing your perception, changing your paradigm like Bob Proctor talked about my partner in a lot of businesses and and and become the new you. And by the way, as long as I'm Bob Proctor, he was drinking too much after he got out of the military and was earning 4,000 a month and owed 4,000 a year as a fireman in Toronto, Canada, and he owed 6,000. Luckily, the guy said, look, Bob. You're wasting yourself here. Read Think and Grow Rich, which is other than my book, one minute millionaire and Think and Grow Rich.
Speaker 2:Two books have made more millionaires than anybody. Bob said, well, when will it happen? He said, well, look. Have you ever seen me when I'm happy, and prosperous, and rich? And he said, no.
Speaker 2:I guess not. So he said, you read that book, and Bob got addicted to reading Think and Grow Rich every day, changed his mind, changed his heart, changed his business, made millions. First year, he made 25,000, extra 175, and then a million a year. Then he had businesses in in Canada, Atlanta, Georgia, America, and London, and somewhere else. And he had you know, and it was a window washing business, you know, because he never graduated high school.
Speaker 2:He had was a sophomore, but he had become an alcoholic and then traded alcohol for being addicted to, studies of the mind, body, and soul.
Speaker 1:Ain't that cool? Absolutely. I mean, I talk about that a lot in when we talk about habits. You can't just remove something that you do that even is part of your routine for maybe decades even. You have to replace it.
Speaker 1:And even better, the ones that stick the longest are ones that are either giving you satisfaction. They're pleasurable. They're fun. Something like that or sort or in that case, you know, changing trying to change the world.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah. And changing the world is a big addiction. And and while Bob died just a few years ago at 87, his new film is on. You can go to bobproctor.com.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna try and sell Bob except that I'm you know, we're best friends for forty, fifty years. So it is an amazing, brilliant human being that overcame all those struggles. And like his wife said to me the other day, Linda, you know, he never admitted to any of his pain, and yet he went through as much pain, torment, travail, and and yet came out on the other side in triumph. And everybody saw his triumph, and I said, well, gosh. You're about a perfect person.
Speaker 2:Right? You do really well, and you never had an education or the self education, a monster good self education. And he had great friends and studied with the best people in the world and became, you know, probably the most famous seldom artist of the last decade.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'm curious to know because your entire story has shaped some of your works that have just gone on to influence. Well, we already know at least 500,000,000 people. So take me to to that time when that challenge with your mom around alcohol. How did that feel?
Speaker 1:Because a lot of the time that we're talking about is our personal experience and our direct, relation to alcohol, but there's also a bigger story for a lot of people. Of course, alcohol, sometimes you don't have to have a problem to actually wanna make a change. You just wanna do better. But in the cases where, like, with your mom where it was a challenge and it was a problem, how is that sort of how did that shape your view when it came to alcohol?
Speaker 2:Two or three points, I'd say. First of all, it was embarrassing to me that she had become a lush. Like, she came down to watch me graduate undergraduate. I stayed down at school and and went on to grad through grad school, but it was so painful to to see her, you know, just squander who she was because she was if I am a good storyteller, it's because of mom. We would go on a family vacation.
Speaker 2:We'd come back, and I'd listen to her on the phone to her friends, and she had a better vacation than I did at five or six years old. I thought, wow. What a she was a recon tour and a great superstar story teller and a and a great woman. I mean, my parents had a very loving relationship, but the relationship when when, you know, your hormones are off, endocrinology is a word I was looking for earlier. There are no endocrinologists there that could have balanced your hormone with where today, my wife and I take bioidenticals.
Speaker 2:Right? And and you need them. I mean, because all black everybody's human, like, trans physicians a little bit, and I wanna go to a really high level of that in just a second. She didn't have that, so she used whiskey and and Shendley's and had bottles hidden all over the house. I saw, oh my god.
Speaker 2:You know? And I you'd take them and throw them out, and she'd go buy more. So that didn't do any good. So that's why I said I had to find a dry out center that I took her in, and and she was profane and shouting at me that I shouldn't have done such things. What she didn't know is there were crash doors at this place so she could have always gotten out.
Speaker 2:But it was it was I know I shouldn't be embarrassed, but I was embarrassed for her and felt bad because here's a great woman who everybody loved, who was a superb dancer, a terrific mother, a phenomenal cook, the joke my little brother younger brother, he's not little, said was, you know, the reason dad never takes out mama's because the food she makes is better than anybody else at any restaurant that we can go to. So it it's amazing. And and, you know, good person doesn't mean to despoil themselves or ruin themselves, hurt themselves, or hurt their those that they love, but they just wanna get out of pain. And and today, we're getting a lot of ways out of pain that are different than ever before. And I said I wanted to go there just because, as you know, I started as speaker, became a writer, world's bestselling writer according to Guest Book of Records, half billion books you alluded to a minute ago.
Speaker 2:But then now we're a publisher of Ork Victor Hansen Library dot com. And it's amazing that we just had a book come in from a guy in Silicon Valley who's got a way to take your stem cells out of your liver and your kidney and your heart, grow you a new heart so when you need a replacement, you'll have it. And and what he said about early alcoholism, which I I don't think anyone on your shows ever talked to this, and this just happened two days ago, so I don't think I told you yet. Is it let's say that when your liver's still semi healthy, you take out the stem cells, grow yourself a new liver, then if it's totally identical, you know, assuming you screwed up, you put it back in, and then you figure out how to stay dry with all the, you know, the good stuff that you've got in your company.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean That that didn't exist before. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. No. The the science is just, like, exponentially going to new places. But, you know, one thing that you said about your mom, which is is the whole reason I wrote my book, which is probably the reason you wrote your book, is you identified something that was a challenge for yourself in a way out of it. And, you know, fortunately, now, it's it's recognized that hormonal imbalance and pre and perimenopause that women a lot of times turn to alcohol, unfortunately, to self medicate.
Speaker 1:And now there's so much more conversation around that and support to realize, like, what's going on, which unfortunately, you know, in your mom's time, that was not probably something that was commonplace.
Speaker 2:It it like I said, I don't think it existed. I I and by the way, let's go to the now and say that I think for a lot of people, they don't, a, know that endocrinologists exist or RNs that are endocrinologists, you know, or life ex I'm talking at at the RADFest here a couple days. Now people are gonna be watching that. And but that's the longevity guys. And one of the longevity principles is obviously you can't cannot be abusing yourself with anything like alcohol or or drugs and expect to live long and prosper.
Speaker 2:Is it and and my goal is, as you know, is to live a 127 with options for renewal. So that causes me to have great self discipline, great self love, great self control, and and we're just with a guy a year ago who was an alcoholic who's a relative of ours up in Idaho when we're on vacation. And I said, how did you get over it? And he said, what I had to learn was total 100% self control minute by minute, which is really what it is because, you know, all of sudden you go, well, I'll just have one when nobody will know. Well, nobody might know that one second, but they're gonna know a little bit later because one turns into two and turns into 10, and, you know, suddenly, you don't own you anymore.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:That's when you're leaving it to sort of willpower and no planning and just hope for the best. And we all know that as soon as you have a couple of prefrontal cortexes down, your decisions are down, and all of a sudden, you know, you're finding yourself maybe repeating habits or regretting what you did the day before.
Speaker 2:And regret's not you know, it Jim Rowan says it so well in, you know, one of my self help buddies who just passed away also. But Jimmy says, either you pay the price of discipline or you suffer through the regret.
Speaker 1:Well said. Yeah. So
Speaker 2:how do I love the price of discipline. I mean, you and I got together, and we're both you know, we've exercised together, and it just you know, you feel better when you exercise because your body is detoxing. It's not in as much need. You feel really good about yourself. You like looking at your own body, which is you know, people get into alcohol and let themselves oh, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Nobody cares about me. Yes. Somebody cares about you, but you gotta care about you. God cares about you. You gotta care about you.
Speaker 2:And then companies like yours help them understand, hold up a mirror and say, look. There's a lot of self worth in you. You've got to take care of your self worth and keep acknowledging it and raising your self esteem, your self image because it is a thermometer. You're either raising your thermometer, the heat, and the goodness of you, or you're lowering it. And and, it's all a personal choice at some levels.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's dig into that for a second. So you see that in order to move forward, you've gotta change your thinking, which includes things like habits that are creating negative self talk. So how do you how do you step out of that? What do you have some inner monologues that you tell people?
Speaker 1:Like, it's hard to say just don't think bad, you know, and and for the result to be different. So what do you suggest in that case?
Speaker 2:Well, you got to I didn't bring one of my little three by five cards, I'm not carrying my wallet. But Bob and I taught you get a three by five card, and you're right. I'm so happy and grateful that I'm doing x. Now because I wanted to become the world's best selling book person, nobody ever written that as far as I know. So I wrote, I'm so happy and grateful that I'm world's best selling author.
Speaker 2:I gotta sell over a half billion and then on onto a billion books by x time, and I've done that. And then I signed it. My publisher signed it and and before I published myself now, but or and I got doctor Canfield, Jack Canfield, my partner, to sign it. And then you look at it four times a day. This is reigniting the habits in you.
Speaker 2:So it's a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and before you go to sleep, but you could do the same thing for alcohol. I'm so happy and grateful that I'm never gonna touch a drop of alcohol to my lips again starting today, and then you put in the day and forever forward, and then you gotta sign it and get one other person signing. That's why AA, which I think only works for, like, twelve percent of the people is what I heard or read or heard you say. You know, you gotta have a buddy, a a dried out buddy that wants to talk to you whenever you're starting to slip. Right?
Speaker 2:Yes. And and that could be male or female. You know, find somebody that you really love and that wants to have high because here's what I've discovered about most alcoholics. And and by the way, I never said this to you, but I talked at all the 12 step churches in America, like the church of today in Detroit, which always had 5,000 people per service. And I talked there.
Speaker 2:Wayne Dyer, who used to be an alcoholic, who was alive then and talked, and and Les Brown and a few of us. So I named very famous names in our industry, but we'd all talk there, and they they now you had a a church service we talked to, but then they had out rooms where the person is getting off alcohol or off of tobacco or off of drugs could sit there and not feel ashamed. And it was just it was an amazing thing for me to watch. And and, obviously, I had to get rid of all the drunk jokes that I used to think were funny, and then, you know, you gotta quit using them. So it's sort of an amazing experience, but the guy the minister there was Jack Bolan, and Jack was just terrific.
Speaker 2:He dried out, and he gladly did stories in every sermon about how you get dry, you stay dry, and you have a spectacular life because you feel good all the time. And your mind, your whatever the real number is, 18,000,000,000 brain cells can really go to work on your behalf.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, you know, I'm curious about to go back before we move on to some more tactics. I wanna know about how that shaped also your your history with your mom and going through college and going through some challenges at that time. How did that make you view alcohol and, like, what is your view on that for in your own personal life?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't drink very much right now. And and if I do have more than a glass of wine even once or twice a week, I can feel it the next day. I mean, my body is that sensitive and so is my whites. It's incredible because we talk about absolutely everything because I think that's what a great marital relationship's about is. The height and depth and breadth of it is is magnificent deep communication with a person that you love, and and we adore each other.
Speaker 2:So that we say, hey. Look. It the cause of not feeling good the next morning or having to come out of grog is just not worth it to us. So we we don't do it very often. I mean, once in while because we we own four or five companies and are doing well.
Speaker 2:Tonight, we're meeting with one of our company people that is really cool. We have this company that we're writing the books for called America's Gold Liner. I'm writing the book actually, but one of the guys makes most of the clothes for Costco, and the other guy makes and sells, like, 3,000 hats a month. Isn't that a cool hat?
Speaker 1:Trying to see it. Looks cool through the camera.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know what to do. It was still priced. Got it, but America's golden hour. Is that now clear?
Speaker 1:Nice. Nice. Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and what we say is that one of the things about America's golden hour is you gotta decide that you gotta be sober and dedicated to being passionately on purpose about something bigger than you. To get out of alcoholism, you've gotta have some passion that's bigger than you, bigger than you know, because if your own passion is, man, when I get off work, gotta go get toasted, which is and back to what you asked, the question I hope I'm answering it what you asked, but, you know, what you see on TV is is the men of Madison Square Madison Avenue. What they do is they all go have martini cocktails at lunch, and then they go home and get trapped. Sloshed, I guess, would be the word.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and, you know, the James Bond movies, I always show cocktails and drinks. So the assumption is and it's a wrong assumption. Is it is it once you've finished work, what you're supposed to do is go get drunk? Well, that anesthetize you.
Speaker 2:And based on everything I know, because one of the companies I own part of is called NuCom, n u, capital c a l m, dot com. And we deal with the four frequencies of the brain to get people into deep sleep, and it's thirty five year old company that's booming. And and what we're saying is you can't even go to sleep for two hours and when you've imbibed in a lot of alcohol. So that's why everybody's sleep deprived. That's why in India, they call it getting sad pakku where you get bags underneath your eyes.
Speaker 2:Right? Most alcoholics have that, and then they get a red nose, and then they don't feel good unless they have another drink to wake them up again. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Was that helpful?
Speaker 1:No. That I mean yeah. So, I mean, you're saying a lot of the things that people that listen to this, the majority of people, everybody has their own relationship with alcohol, you know, in-depth of their, of that relationship with alcohol, whether they're just drinking on the weekends and not even that heavy, but it's just it's beginning to make them feel off like you just said. Maybe they're nightly drinking like I used to, and they either wanna take, take a break. Maybe they're on a path to quit completely.
Speaker 1:Maybe are they on a path to readjust and see if they can get to their to their goal? Whatever it is, everybody is trying to get there. What's your perspective on how people can figure out what's right for them?
Speaker 2:Well, good question. I I wanna go to the question, but, first of all, you gotta have some goals. And and if you don't know what your goal is, we did this whole book called Ash, the bridge from your dreams of destiny. My wife and I wrote it, but what we teach there is what you just asked because everyone has a divine destiny. What you gotta go to, if you don't mind my using a god metaphor, we can do it without we can do it secularly if you want.
Speaker 2:But god in me knows exactly what my destiny is. God in me knows exactly what my destiny is. Do it a 101 times before you go to sleep. God in me knows exactly what my destiny is. You gotta have your little ink pen, and you gotta have your little notepad or something next to the bed, and you literally write down whatever it is that you're saying you want.
Speaker 2:But get up out of bed and write it in detail because, oh, I'll remember that. I was with the the great comedian, Red Skill. And I don't know if you know him or not, but he said one time he went to bed and he came up with the greatest play ever, and he wrote down right play. The next morning, he couldn't for life remember what the play was. Well and and that's why we do book titles.
Speaker 2:When Jack and I created chicken soup for the soul, I don't know why my nose is itching. I guess I gotta kiss a fool is what the Irish say. Anyhow, dude, we didn't have the right title. We sat in my one night and wrote a 134 titles, and none of them were wrecking. And then, you know, that night, we said, well, let's use a thought command.
Speaker 2:Say, we got a a mega best selling title. We got a mega best selling title. A mega best selling title. Mega best selling title. Well, he calls me at two fifty eight in the morning.
Speaker 2:This is 1989. This is before the Internet, before cell phones. And and my little daughter was becoming a vet veterinarian, and and we had 88 animals in one acre because she's a horse whisper, can heal anything, and and amazing little young woman now. Anyhow, but all the animals went crazy. 88 chickens went crazy for dogs, started barking, and and Jack says, chicken soup.
Speaker 2:I said, where's the Zola? I said, got it. Then a 144 people still turned us down. Right? And then we had a little publisher take us in as a hybrid publisher sort of like I am called Health Communication.
Speaker 2:They're retired now because I helped make them a billionaire. But he said, well, we'll do it if you buy 20,000 books at $6 each. Well, that's a 120,000. Jack and I had gone home and told our respective wives, we just signed an agreement for a $120,000. We would have gotten hung up.
Speaker 2:I promise you. But the the point of matter is is that you can figure out anything you want because the subconscious never sleeps. The big languaging is it's tele teleological. Teleological means back to your quest statement of goal. Everybody's got goals whether they know it or not.
Speaker 2:Now if your only goal is that I'm gonna drink all day long or I'm gonna go get drunk after work or I'm gonna drink for a whole bottle of wine before I go to sleep or Shenley's or cocktails or whatever it is, that I'm saying that that is a sub level goal. Whereas if you have a real goal that is believable, desirable, attainable, something you really want, like, I'll I'll just go to myself. We got six grandkids that we adore and love, and I said to him, look. I'm gonna take you places you can't ever go by yourself probably or even with your family just because as world's bestselling author, I have the keys to the kingdom at level of knowing people. You know?
Speaker 2:Everybody's read me and likes me pretty much. So we got we took the grandkids, and we got them in the White House. We got them in the capital. We got them to all the monuments in Washington. Then in New York, we got them into Sardi's, the restaurant of the stars up to the Second Floor where the stars are.
Speaker 2:We got them to the Aladdin, then we got them into the Empire State Building to the very top, which is rare, and to the Statue Of Liberty and to the Metropolitan Museum, which blew them away. I mean, this is something that even though they're the twins are 11 and their big brother's 13 who's a superstar, but back to goals, you gotta ask everybody, what is your heart's desire? What is your goal above goals? And if you don't mind, I do one little brag or Everett. I said, what's your goal?
Speaker 2:Because he's a superstar little basketball player, does 103 shots a day. Right? And loves all the top basketball players here in the Phoenix were area where we live. We go to the sun. And he says, well, at 18, I'll make 30,000,000 a year, and I'll be a Phoenix Sun.
Speaker 2:I said, really? Then what? He said, then I'm gonna manage. I said, woah. Then what?
Speaker 2:He said, then I'm gonna buy them. I said, son, do you know that that's 4,600,000,000.0? That's spelled with the b dollars. He said, yeah. I said, I'm not helping with that.
Speaker 2:He said, that's okay. I'll have the money by then.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:then the point is is that the chance of him getting addicted to juice is zero. He knows that guys like LeBron James. He he can tell you everything about every basketball player, but he knows that LeBron James goal is to stay superbly healthy in his forties and keep playing until he's 50, which is pretty August goal because no one's ever done that before. And he pays a million dollars a year to stay fit. Right?
Speaker 2:Wow. Now that that is a whether you like him or hate him, that issue is what is it worth to be a 100% healthy? What is it worth to be a peak performer? Like, most people say, well, you've been rich since you're 31, and you're now 77. Why would you keep working?
Speaker 2:Work is for me is joy. I mean, I loved writing. I loved talking. I'm doing a giant seminar, like I said, a couple days here in Vegas twice, you know, because there's too big an audience to fit in one venue. Not because of me, the promoter who I talked to this morning.
Speaker 2:Again, he's he lives here in Phoenix, but he's really good. He's a good guy. And and, you know, Rad Fest is everybody wants to live long, and nobody did a seminar before him, and he's become the biggest long he's a he's a radical longevity in us. He believes God lives forever, so man should probably be immortal. I said, well, the Bible says nine hundred and sixty seven years.
Speaker 2:So, it's possible to live forever. I think spirit lives forever, but I don't think the chili con carne of the human body. But I'm not arguing with them. I'm just saying that's, you know, I I never thought about living forever. I don't know that I wanna live forever.
Speaker 2:I just wanna live a hundred and twenty seven years with options for renewal. And if I'm in a bit like, well, you've been with me exercising, so you know of you know another 77 year old that could do all I could do?
Speaker 1:No. You're pushing it. And and, it sounds like you have your goal a hundred and twenty seven years already preplanned for yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And and what I remember back when I was starting learning about goal setting when I heard W. Clement Stone said, you ought to have goals to at least a 100, and he was gonna have he died 99, so his birthday didn't come off. But he was gonna have a million people on his birthday, and I would have gone. I was one of his friends. You know?
Speaker 2:And and it just it was amazing what you can do if you have goals. It just, you know, he did he came through a time, you know, like an 18 o 98, so he didn't have quite the shot that I got. I mean, you and I, back to what we said a minute ago about how fast it's changing. We've come into the age called hyperchange. And hyperchange, in ten years, we have a hundred year experience.
Speaker 2:It's like today because of ChatGPT, which we use to check things. ChatGPT, I can ask it a question, and it would take me hours to find if I could do it in hours. And if it finds it in, like, thirty seconds to three minutes, you just go. And we're doing we're doing four books on AI, artificial intelligence, artificial general intelligence, reality, and, you know, we're doing all those kind of books right now in my publishing company. And it because our our publishing company says, we wanna take your impact story and bring it to life.
Speaker 2:So there's some people watching here like you that we're gonna do your book coming online sometime. Is it you've got a book in you. You've a story in you, and and you need to codify it because what the Navajo Indians say here in in Arizona is that if a man with a story dies without writing the story, a library just burned down.
Speaker 1:Yes. I I I a 100% believe that everybody has a book in them. And that Yeah. Even if they don't wanna share it, they should get it out there, but they should share it. But, like, if that's if that is causing the roadblock to writing it because they're afraid to share it, then just start writing it anyways.
Speaker 1:You know?
Speaker 2:So three things about that. Number one, I did write a book called You Have a Book in You, so you can get that every Amazon or wherever. I'm probably requoting you. No. No.
Speaker 2:No. It's had no. And then number two is that you can write it and keep it to yourself because we do biographies. And I say a biography. If you're rich, you've got to do a biography because a biography is the only gift of love that you give your family, your friends, the future, and the world that's permanent.
Speaker 2:Now you say, well, wait a second. This podcast is permanent. You can you and I don't look. Podcasting is a new art form of four or five years old. Whatever the exact time is, I don't know.
Speaker 2:We don't know that Amazon's gonna keep its its cloud up forever. Whereas right now, we're reading books like the bible, which is 40 is is 66 authors in the bible, which is a great story. I like to tell you about that. But anyhow, the bio and and we did when we're in Washington, see both There's only 30 Gutenberg Bibles ever printed the first time through when Gutenberg made it, and two of them were in Washington. One is we went to the Museum of the Bible, which I recommend to everybody.
Speaker 2:Biggest museum in the world paid for by the guys at Hobby Lobby, the Greens, who I love and think the world of. And then the other one, was in the Library of Congress, which is the other place I took the kids. And, right before our friend Abe Lincoln, my one of my four heroes as president died, he had checked out a 125 books out of the Library of Congress. He wrote the Gettysburg Address, and it only has whatever it is. 127 words on the envelope.
Speaker 2:But he'd been thinking about it and writing notes in his brain by reading all those books for two years before. Ain't that cool?
Speaker 1:I mean, it doesn't it doesn't surprise me. That's what I was gonna say. But you know what I wanna know about is the history because you mentioned it and we were talking about goals, and I'm gonna go a little off script of what we were kinda wanting, or we we talked about covering, but I think that this would be a really interesting story. And, you know, I've read some of your biography, but I read sort of the later years, and I don't know all the little ins and outs of the story of, like, where you started in the origin story as far as writing chicken soup for the soul, how you met Jack, how you guys pitch those books. Can you share a little bit of that with me?
Speaker 1:I mean,
Speaker 2:I've to. Yeah. So in nineteen seventy two and three, I'd been in graduate school, the smartest guy on the planet as far as I was concerned.
Speaker 1:That's it for today's conversation with Mark Victor Hansen. I hope you're feeling inspired by his stories and the wisdom he's shared so far. We've still got plenty more to cover. So join us tomorrow for part two, where we'll dive even deeper into building lasting habits and living a life you truly love. You won't want to miss it.
Speaker 1:This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform, having helped hundreds of thousands of people cut out more than 13,000,000 drinks since 2020. And in fact, an independent study showed that Sunnyside reduced alcohol consumption by an average of 30% in ninety days. And as one of our members shared, Sunnyside helps me stay mindful of my drinking habits. It's not super restrictive. So if I'm craving a glass of wine with dinner, I just track it and I move on with my week.
Speaker 1:If you could benefit from drinking a bit less and being more mindful of when and how much you drink, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free fifteen day trial. You'll get access to everything that we offer, including tracking and planning tools, coaching from our experts, a vibrant community of people just like you, and the motivation and advice to stay on track with your health goals, all with no pressure to quit. That's sunnyside.co.
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