#180 Mark Victor Hansen: how asking the right questions can transform your life and the 7 roadblocks that stop you from asking (and getting) what you want.

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Episode Transcript

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Agi Keramidas  0:02  
Welcome to the personal development mastery podcast. I am Agi Keramidas and my mission is to inspire you to grow, stand out and take action towards the next level of your life. I interview leaders, authors, successful entrepreneurs, spiritual teachers, exceptional people who will inspire you to improve your life. Tune in for two episodes each week, and make sure you subscribe to get them as soon as they are released.

In today's episode, I am speaking with Mark Victor Hansen. Mark Victor Hansen is best known as the co author for the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, setting world records with over 500 million books sold. A prolific writer speaker passionate philanthropist and humanitarian, Mark worked his way into a worldwide spotlight as a short after keynote speaker and entrepreneurial marketing maven, creating a stream of successful people who have created massive success for themselves through his unique teachings and wisdom. With his charismatic style Mark captures his audience's attention as well as their hearts, having spoken to over 6000 audiences worldwide with his one of a kind technique and master full authority of his work. Time and again, he continues to receive high accolades from his audiences as one of the most dynamic and compelling speakers and leaders of our time. Mark and his wife, Crystal, have co written the newest book released in 2020, called Ask: the bridge from your dreams to your destiny. Mark, it is a great joy and a privilege to have you in the show today!

Mark Victor Hansen  1:55  
I'm delighted to be with you. I love people who want to think and do into self development and self growth. Because I believe everyone's got to get into learn with our little book, ask the bridge from your dreams, your destiny, starting with self awareness to self expression to self mastery to Self Realisation.

Agi Keramidas  2:15  
That's amazing. And the mastery, the Self Mastery is actually the title of my podcast is personal development mastery. So it's, it's great to see that we were both in the right place here. And you showed me your book, I will show you the the other one the more classic when you said they asked book and I only share very briefly that most people myself included, know you from chicken soup of the soul, the book and I remembered read the neath back in 2006. I was in Greeks. So I read it, I read the Greek version of it. And it was after I had watched the secret who was it was presented there. So I got it and read it. And you in the conversations in the podcast, they always start with a question about my guests journey or four story if you want. And usually it's kind of a key defining moment, a milestone something of that short, and I know it's a broad question, but if we narrow it down to Chicken Soup for the show, and maybe the the impact it created, would you like to give me some brief comments on that to start with a little bit of that kind of background?

Mark Victor Hansen  3:34  
I just say that Jack and I got together we had what we call a Vulcan mind meld two people come together mastermind third new mind. Yes, 144 publishers all actually said hit hit the road jet. Dr. Canfield graduated third in his class at Harvard. So I'm teasing. And I'm making fun of serious thing. But then after 144 publishers kicked us out and gave us what are called Pink Slips saying that Apple will never sell nobody wants your short stories or short stories, so we'd sell them. Then our agent wrote us this long letter saying, Look, you guys, I've taken you everywhere and you're not going to make well that's cost him at least 15 million because we sold a half billion books. We've done 2 billion at retail. And then as you know, I'm the Marketing Maven of the two of us, Dr. Canfield myself, and I created licencing for books and we like just chicken soup of the soul dog food we did 167 million last year at 15% because I teach in a book, you got it, you've got to have a business then you got to have a market then you do the book. Everybody does it backwards. It doesn't get it right. They do go in I did a whole book on just that called you have a book and it's one of my 318 books because I want everyone to get it right. I want everyone to write a book. I want everyone to think I want everyone to grow. I want everyone to expand like you're saying and everyone has a story in them they need to share so you know chicken soup. We sold a half billion and my goal which is one of the reasons we got kicked out all those places I wrote the goals, right? And because I say a goal is defined, Eggy is a dreamy destination, with a deadline that makes your life bigger, better, stronger, healthier, and sources and serves the most magnificent amount of people, which I think everyone should try to figure out in this decade. What are they going to do to serve a billion people? Well, I want to serve a billion readers. And because I believe, I know there's an answer to your party, your question was, I think you've got to read to be freed and includes whether it's Greece or Africa or India, and half the people 4 billion to 8 billion can't read. So we got to even change that equation. He said, Well, that just because you want to sell no more books, number of book is the most screaming, good, inexpensive deal in the world. I mean, as a former Busy, busy dentist that did a big practice, having books changed your life again, again, positively?

Agi Keramidas  5:57  
100%. Absolutely. That's why I do the show. Yes, and you said about people not being able to read. And I will also add to that the people that know how to read, but they don't use this skill that they have acquired, or at least they don't use it to read self development or books that can actually make a change. They use it to read other newspapers or some other things.

Mark Victor Hansen  6:23  
So first of all, Jim Rowan answers that Jim Rohn, Mr. Rohn, and I did great seminars around the world when he was alive, he just passed away. But Jim would say if you can read and don't, you're no better than somebody who can't read that's a B is, is that what's happened is that I own a company now called Mark Victor Hansen library. And what we're doing is we're going to do fiction books, because fixed 95% Of all the books written are fiction. But we're going to hybridise, it will do fiction to teaches whatever we're trying to teach. And then we'll do the How to at the end. And that's brand new, it won't be out until next year, but we've already got 28 books in the SKU that are going to change the world. Because what you know, because of your country, is a Plato who's, you know, we can go through the whole hierarchy, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, I think you'll, as an outsider, I look at Greece is the citadel of Western learning, at least in being but Plato said, whoever controls the story, the narrative controls the world. I decided with you and with all the authors that want to work with us to change the narrative to be positive, uplifting, inspiring. And at the height of heights, which Socrates was trying to do is his game. have everybody do wisdom and in the Christian, Judeo Christian term, Solomon, is it wise, this richest man of all, he had $4 trillion with the gold if you believe the biblical story, and and some people do well, that's a myth. Well, I don't think so. Because he controlled the whole Middle East. So he was controlling the whole joint, no war odds, x, and he only had 20,000, Venetian ships and 12,000 Horses. So the guy had a monster operation going, but he didn't go for money and wealth and beautiful, he ended up with all that stuff. But he went for the wisdom, which is what we're talking about in your show. And this is too deep, I can go more general.

Agi Keramidas  8:18  
No, not at all. I like it. And when Mercer already thinks like the, the controlling the stories, and actually, let's talk about stories a little bit, and because you use stories very much, and they're very powerful. And they what is it about stories as a teaching tool, in specific that makes them show so powerful? Do you think?

Mark Victor Hansen  8:44  
Well, let's just do what we did is I only do books that are three things, they got to be unique. They got to be transformational, the reader, and they got to be inevitable, such that they're so powerful. The person says, he's read this book, it just changed my life. So what we did in in this book different than any other book, ask the bridge, reduce your destiny. My wife and I wrote this together, and she's brilliant and wise and wonderful and uplifting and the most extraordinary woman I've ever seen and met and bandwidth, but she started with this great story called The fable of Mikayla. And it's sort of the fable of our time because you asked about stories and everybody gets they start to read this fable and they go, we had like yesterday we had 121 letters this guy says Insert read I couldn't stop I woke my wife up I should grew up I read then I went into my teenage life. And what happens is so the books gone because most authors is how do you get to so many people to read your book? Well, you got to write a book. That is what serves like I did. I did the subtitle on Chicken Soup for the Soul light. It's hard touching, Soul penetrating stories. And then Jack and I had seven modalities in our story. The first one is it you know, discern It's got a cause God bumps goosebumps chilling bone. And if the story didn't do that for Mark and Jack, we didn't have the test group do it. And if the test group that didn't do it for them then didn't matter if it had I wrote it or Jack wrote it, it doesn't cut the mustard if it didn't hit the metric if, like if your heartbeat isn't somewhere around 72 Right now, if you exercise maybe being good on 230, but, and you look like you're really good shape, see me you run seven miles a day, and you got a really low heartbeat. And you live long with low heart rate. But basically, most Americans would be damn lucky if it was at 72. I exercise at 73 Every day, and I'm really solid as a rock. I think you can see that. But and I want to live to be 100.7 with options for renewal. But the story is, the story's got to go through in your mind, in your heart in your soul, and then come out and change your world make it better or what good is the story, right? And that's what Socrates did. He was going for truth and wisdom and insight asked penetrating questions such as he had to drink the hemlock. So, but at least he stayed in integrity.

Agi Keramidas  11:05  
Yeah. Who was it? I don't remember that said that quality of the questions you ask is more important than the quality of the answers?

Mark Victor Hansen  11:14  
It asked. That's exactly what Einstein said. Einstein said, give me a hard problem. I'm going to spend out of one hour I got one hour to solve it. I'll spend 55 minutes making sure I got the right questions. Yes, and five minutes solving it. And now the guy who's going to be the that I predict will be the first trillionaire Elon Musk's partner Peter Thiel says, Look, everybody's asking the wrong questions. And I'm considered a contrarian. Well, when I listen to his questions, I go, No, no, no. Peter Thiel is doing the right questions. He wrote a book closer to one, but Peter Thiel is one of my heroes. Because if you're not asking the right question, you're going to get the wrong answer. When I in 1974, I went bankrupt because I was, I was with the smartest guy in the planet, Bucky Fuller, a guy who finished Einstein's Unified Field Theory. We're doing a concept when I was in grad school, getting my doctorate, how to make the world work for 100% of humanity. But it make everybody physically and economically successful. But I tried to be Bucky. I'm building the wall street Racquet Club Botanical Gardens aviaries in New York City, if you make it there, you may anywhere the problem as building out a plastic Well, you know, 1974, America had an oil embargo. You may not have been, I don't know what year you were born. I'm not asking you. But the point is, is it? I said, What if I go bankrupt, I go to the world's biggest library in New York library, check out a book, How to go bankrupt by yourself. I asked the wrong question. Of course, I got the wrong result. Now, but it turned out to be the best worst experience. And now I'm, you know, then I descended to goals and self help. And it says write too many goals where everybody else teaches right one goal and they're wrong. You can 18 billion brain cells you need I got 7000 goals. Now. Am I gonna hit them all in my lifetime? Probably not. But I've hit 1500 86. So I'm doing pretty good. I mean, if I if I close down with the last breath now, I'm really happy but I'm not anywhere. I'm really jealous, exuberant, happy, joyous. I think you can see that.

Agi Keramidas  13:08  
So luckily, again, I was about to say it shows that it actually comes through to the other side of the ocean as well. That we

Mark Victor Hansen  13:17  
hope so. I'm holding up a mirror not saying as Mark Great. I'm saying every one of us great. My teacher, Buckminster Fuller, Dr. Ford said all of us are born geniuses, and we get on plugged in what happens with asking is, I don't know what happened in Greece when you went to school, but in America, you know, parents, the little kids born who, what, where when? Why, right? All that stuff, everything. Then you go to school, they say, Eggy, you just sit there and you just learn. I'm going to tell you what's what, no, no, hell no. Education comes out a Latin, it's educar. It needs to draw out then you go to military, you go to business. Wrong. No, we need to have more questions, not less. Question two, we're saying an Ask. Ask yourself. Ask others ask God. What? That's the only three channels and you go wow, once you know the channels, you start to do that. And we're preventing more suicides with kids because they're being locked down with his COVID confinement. I'm gonna call it nonsense based on all the information I got, because it's a ploy against humanity. So, and you're gonna see that very shortly, I think.

Agi Keramidas  14:21  
Yes, it's not a topic that I was prepared to discuss. But I would say very briefly that I agree with you 100%. And, yeah. So so some people have realised it earlier, others, virtually everyone will suddenly go back and I wanted to ask you more about asking, actually and asking the right questions, which is very important. And you have a story in your book about the power of asking the power that asking, I will start with that which, and you talk about children, you have a story of your grandson Everett, I think that asked you whether he can be an author with the book with you. So you talk about the way that children asking their innocent way without fear of being rejected and also been very resilient. Even if, if they have a no, they will keep asking. So I want to go through. It's a big topic. It's a topic of your book, of course. But can we go through some of those things about asking, effectively asking in a way that is more beneficial, and maybe also what prevents us from asking the right questions in the first place? Or am I asking too many questions all at once.

Mark Victor Hansen  15:57  
There are three but I'm going to hit them as fast I can't have that. Perfect. First of all, we got five kids, six grandkids, and we love them and we'll probably have 12 kids before all the kids are done having kids so but little Everett is six years old Chris and I this before COVID Two years ago, we're sitting in Hawaii on a beach because I own that energy company in Kona in anyhow in Oahu, Hawaii, natural power concepts. Calm, anyhow, little Everett for Christmas and been given a great, we call it a Dick Tracy watch. It's actually called a gizmo. And you call anyone you want, but he was only allowed to call his grandparents and his parents. So of course my cell phone goes and it says gizmo, like that's Everett's I say, what is it? Oh friend, and he says Grampy and you can just hear him looking around? Are you alone? I said, Yeah. Are you alone? I said I'm actually with Graham. He called me me. He says no, I'm gonna cause I gotta talk to is really important. I said, Great. I love I have told the kids and it's important. I don't know if you have you have any kids? No. Okay, well, those listening with children, it's important that you really listened to the children with your heart and soul and give them prime time, as far as I'm concerned as a parent and grandparents even easier, because you only get them for short windows. And so what is it? He says you still write in all those important books? I call? Yes, sir. You said, you know, I want to write the next book with you. Would you let me do that? Now remember, he's six years old. And of course, we put him in front of the book. Because what a courageous thing to do. Because little kids haven't had their spirits crushed. They haven't been diminished. They haven't been demolished. They haven't been squished. So of course, we did that we put him in and he's helped. And now this kid is precocious. And he's so precocious that I just do one thing. He can do a Rubik's cube the first time he got it in one minute. Wow, this kid is really, you know, he's enlightened. And I'm very thankful that he's ours. And but he is going to make a giant impact in the world. I could go on and on and on. But okay, so that's that part. The reason people don't ask is we wrote in the book or research within 80 countries took 7 million people, great people, but they live below their means because they're afraid to ask. And so we discovered the seven reasons we call roadblocks for not asking is, number one is his sense of unworthiness. fear, doubt, excuses. Pattern paralysis, we keep doing the same thing. And Einstein always said, If you keep doing the same thing and picked a new result, you're cool, you're crazy. And then last, but not least, number seven is disconnection we can talk about any one of them or none of them. But all of us have some of them at different times. And what happens is, the reason we do the book, in fact, in a story is because one of those three things is going to hit you and you're going to look at and go, Holy cow. That's his story. But that's my story. And that's my disconnect. That's my withhold. I really have a sense of unworthiness. I don't feel competent to do blank. And all of us are here, I believe we believe in the bottom line is that we have a destiny. We believe you're coded every one of us a birth with a destiny. So that's 8 billion destinies, and if you go Manifest your Destiny by learning to ask which is not a given, the Bible says asking you receive but it doesn't detail how to do it. So we said look, this book is now chicken soup on steroids. It's selling like crazy literally around the world and just I can't help but do it. But a book I wrote 20 years ago One Minute Millionaire just got bought in by all the licences in all of Greece and all your allied countries. I thought what the hell took them 20 years. I'm not beating up but I just I want Greece to get out of the pits and out of the problem of Eve and all I knew and I know more about geopolitics and most of you are listening so that's probably too far. So I apologise if I OB

Agi Keramidas  19:57  
that's all right. I will say home bring you back to those. There is one roadblock out of the seven that I would like you to expand a bit more. And this the first one that sense of unworthiness that prevents people from asking the right questions. So tell me a bit more about that mainly in how can one recognise that? Because it is a more subtle feeling, I think, I don't know if you agree with me, it's not something that is obvious in front of us or I'm not. Most people don't say, Oh, I'm not worthy, but it is there on the background dictating the leaners dialogue and their inner thoughts. So, again, I will I will stop because I'm going to ask another layer of questions.

Mark Victor Hansen  20:49  
Agi you did it perfectly. First of all, it is subtle. Second of all, it is hidden. Third, we don't recognise it because everyone suffers at some level, somehow, sometime. So the story I put in there is by Bob Proctor, who has been my partner in two companies, and Bob was born during the Depression. He's now 87. He's going to have the biggest birthday party on his 100th birthday. With a million people coming good. He has 2 million people listen to him every day. And he's in the secret. He's one of my he and I are like that, I mean, we just best best best friend. So Bob is is out of the military in Canada. He lives in Toronto, Canada on proctor lane, and this way before that, but he is a fireman, he's making $4,000 a month and oh, 6000 a month and drinking every night because that's whatever we did. And all sudden he's looking around and says these kinds of drunks, they're useless. They're not going anywhere. So it goes to the richest wives is his buddy Ray Stanford said, Look, your rich, healthy, happy. And wise. What do I need to do? He said, You need to read this book Thinking grow rich. And he said, Look, I can't read these. You learn how to read because you read that book. And then you'll be healthy, happy, rich, and Bob has now read it. Whenever I tell you is wrong, but 400 600 times, you know, we've both of us read a lot and own the principles because there's never really shows how to get wealthy to teaches the principles and philosophies, success and achievement. Well, Bob starts cleaning windows goes, it writes a little three by five card which he teaches that you carry and I still carry in my wallet that says I'm so happy and grateful I'm blank. And then you sign it get your most important business partner or spouse sign in. First year, he made 25 grand and 175 grand and a million a year. And he ended up doing window cleaning in Toronto and Montreal in Atlanta, Georgia, UK. And then all sudden everybody came to him and said, Hey, wait a second. How is it that this is so different that you're different than anyone else? Would you teach us he started teaching it and then that's about when I met him and we started doing seminars together literally around the world and had a ball teaching people how to make a million a year because both of us were doing it. And it's easier to make a lot than a little so but it was all because he had low self esteem and low sense of self worth. And his mother said, Bob, you asked too many questions back to your subtle. He didn't know that in by the way. I met his mom when she was still alive. A great woman came to our seminars and said I didn't know that I was doing that. And I'm not faulting her. It is, you know, parents, my own mom, God bless her and dad, you know, they said God market you have all you do is ask questions. Can you don't you? Can you go do something or figure it out or shut up? Right. But the mind that's healthy, whole complete and self actualizing has endless questions. Don't you have endless questions? Yes, I do. That's why you're doing this show. And that's why everybody that's eavesdropping. What are we doing? I know I'm waxing on here, but we're opening up their mind because you're supposed to ask questions. You're not supposed to be a drone you're not supposed to. I go to work from nine to five I come home and have dinner and then I watch TV and go to sleep and do the name thing the next day. You're not a damn robot. You're here to be a human becoming, which is what we do a whole chapter on human. You're a human being no, you're a human becoming.

Agi Keramidas  24:09  
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I like that very much. And I was actually meaning to ask you to get a comment from that, changing the the question, what will I get from it? To the question, what will I become by going in that direction, because it really changes the perspective. And one thing that it was a realisation of mine a few years ago when I started my personal development journey, as I call it, that it is not about me, I mean, the term personal implies that it is about me as a person. And they took me a while to realise that what I'm doing personally has an impact on the collective. So it is the my own personal growth is my own. It's the contribution to whatever it is out there that I meant to contribute to there is, as far as I can tell, there is no other way of doing that, apart from bettering or improving with the lows, the lows meaning of these words, who I am,

Mark Victor Hansen  26:49  
that's correct. Because whatever you add to the word I am you become so the first question we're asking is, what Who do you want to be? Next is what do you want to do? Then it's what do you want to have? What do most people do? They say? Well, if I have it, then I would do it. No, no, no, that backwards you got to be it before you can do it before you have it. I wrote down when I was bankrupt and upside down, I was going to become the world's best selling author. I wrote in a while business plan a market jack that I was going to sell a billion books. And looking at it with hindsight after all these years and selling half a million books in route to a billion. I can see that the publisher would look. I don't know what Mark's doing. But he must be smoking. I don't do any dope or drugs rain that but I don't know what he's doing. He's a little weird thinking he sell a billion books. And now I have people say, Well, you're like Roger Bannister. Do you remember Roger Bannister was absolutely the first guy to do a four minute mile. I said, that's correct. But what you don't know. Maybe Is it the next week? 119 people did it. Now what does that mean? That means he physiologically, I mean, you had to study physiology, anatomy and all that good stuff that Dennis, you know, physically after Bannister, who's a medical doctor, as you know, in 1953, we're no physically we're no different. But he broke the barrier. I'm breaking the barrier. I'm saying, you're saying well, you're hogging the list. Hell, no, I'm making the list bigger. I want everyone to read. I want a billion people to read. I want to free reading. You got to be you got to read to be freed. And I don't care what language you read. And that's not my issue. My issue is today, we have enough technology to get everyone in there. And I'm going to work as hard as I can to get that because what you said about personal is impersonal. And the way it works is what Christ said the greatest amongst you at the Last Supper is a servant of all right? How do we serve everybody? And pewter saying, Well, I'm hogging lists. I said, No, no, I'm setting a new standard. So people quit saying, I'm going to sell 5000 books out of my garage or keep No, no, that's no good. 50,000 500,000 readers get a half billion. And you say, Well, how does that work? Well, the minute somebody did a trillion dollar company only three years ago, well, now we have $5 trillion companies and $2 trillion companies in America. So you get you know, two to $2 trillion companies that goes to it. Right. The point is, it is a new Hurrah. Does that make sense? Yes. And it's really exciting.

Agi Keramidas  29:20  
I will ask you a bit more about what you said about Bannister and that mental barrier or some people call it a glass ceiling. That it's not it's not real there but in our mind or in many people's minds they are it is very real and it stops them in many ways restricts them from tapping into their potential or anything like that. So your comments shown on that mental barrier and how to break it was the

Mark Victor Hansen  29:56  
first of all it is you got to get definite with the Infinite, I got definite within the Infinite is infinite. And you and I are made any image and likeness of the infinite. Therefore we have infinite stuff in us. Right? I mean back when all the stuff that we're doing right now like flying. You know, Leonardo da Vinci drew pictures of a helicopter. Now, I don't know whether he went to an altered state whether he, you know, met with an ex crustal. I'm not interested and worried about any of that. What I'm saying is all the stuff in the earth was there, then just like all the water on the earth exists right now. Now we're misusing it. But let's we can talk about all that too. But the fact of the matter is all that putting all the electricity existed that but they didn't know how to do it. So they had candles. Don't I'm not making them wrong. I'm just saying today, we get to break through all these limitations. And we now have the technology to do that, for the first time in history and enough of us are thoughtful innovators are like minded, and that folks are willing to mastermind where I said one in one like Bob Proctor and I get together have the power of 11. And my wife and I are perfect mastermind. And we're two hearts that became one giant so called instead of soulmates or twin flames. It's a higher level. And that's where, for the first time in history, we can go and I hope I can inspire like Socrates did. I mean, that would be our goal. I mean, we used him throughout the book, as you can tell. I mean, I like to use nickname sock name.

Agi Keramidas  31:31  
I don't think it would actually fit with how the grip is cutting it like that. That's fine. I'm sorry, he doesn't mind.

Mark Victor Hansen  31:41  
No, no, cuz here's what he said. Truth is truth. No matter who says it. Yes, no, this truth is the truth whether he said it Plato said the Christ said the Buddha said it doesn't. The truth is always going to hold up the mirror of truth. And so hopefully, you're seeing that I'm doing everything I can to be on truth and anything you want to say. I don't agree with your just say I don't agree with or will get letters back from people. And if you want to write write a

mail No, you won't get a complaint letters this because what happens is, what we're doing is waking people up. And that is your job God gave you. As far as I'm concerned. I don't know you that well, but your new assignment is helping other people get to their destiny, which is destiny. And I've never said this before. There's a brand new revelation as I'm having it. So if it's not correct, Tony, but destiny is always a one off meaning that an individual destiny is always Omni beneficial, so that always serve other people, as far as I can see it. And number three is at the front end, it's going to be a struggle and stress. And it's gonna be hard. But once you break through, you're going to source and serve a lot of people like Elon Musk is perfect. The Tesla car, he almost he sells 12 homes to stay alive and arguably the richest guy in the world. I'm going to do as far as I'm concerned, the most good with energy. I'm a fan.

Agi Keramidas  33:12  
And actually, let's, you gave a nice bridge, there marks to talk a bit more about something different. You mentioned technology you mentioned and we were discussing before we started recording this conversation about your your passion about the health of the planet, I actually read the comment, you said it that the soul of the world is in trouble and I I like very much this kind of description. So I was very interested to find out that you are passionate about the planet and the need to create sustainable energy solutions. And actually, that there is going to something specific with that there is a topic I want to discuss with you. And he also mentioned him earlier, Buckminster Fuller, he has a famous quote, that you never change things by fighting the existing reality to change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. So for me, in this time in this era that we live, if I take that that phrase, the existing reality is, you know, these institutions that we have given the power to the government, the corporations, and in I don't believe they will be able to solve the problem. So it is up to us to stand for ourselves and build that new model that that the phrase says, first of all, my question is, do you agree that this is a matter of all of us, there is this phrase that It's been said that we are the ones we've been waiting for. So it's up to us. It's not up to an organisation, a government or a corporate to save us, it is up to us.

Mark Victor Hansen  35:13  
Yeah, it's up to us to ask the questions and understand a crisis and John tenten I've come to you might have lightened up more abundantly because he could see 2000 years later, where we are now, technology for the first time can make it easier, better, faster, and free us now, technology is a two edged sword like everything right? Match can either warm the house or burn it down, right fire can go either way. Same with technology. And AI is the top example. I mean, I love that I can punch in an address and get to your house wherever you live. Right? If you live in the United States, what you do now. And the fact of the matter is, it does amazing stuff. But I'm in the alternative energy device business where I found this genius the Leonardo da Vinci our time and we started a company called Natural Park concepts. We put the first couple of million dollars in and we still put money in. But it's suddenly ready to burst after 12 years. So back to your question about is there a time frame? Everything has a timeframe? Right and not right now is the right time, because we cannot keep using petrochemicals we were talking about Bucky would say 100 million, your old resource. I mean, it's wonderful. And all you do is punch a hole in the ground and you hit one and 103 wells you dig. But But I'm saying look we're going to do we're writing a book right now, I will not do the title publicly because it's we haven't had a trademark that registered yet. But if I told you earlier, it just is so kicked, asked that we're going to change the world we've got a windmill that does have a patent on it called Wind charger, they're making them in Pennsylvania right now they'll go 360 degrees, it'll be urban wind, not the big stuff like in Palm Springs, but are you see in Hawaii, sorry, in Holland, but little stuff that everybody can have their own wind generation because you know, equals MC squared, E is all the energy of physical universe either congealed as matter hard stuff, or radiant. But radiant is two forms of sunlight. And then it also creates the wind and the wind, we're going to take the wind when you're not using solar panels. So suddenly, we'll get green, clean, sustainable energy, because right now we're polluting ourselves out. And then we'll have enough energy to clean up the whole ocean because one of the devices we got is going to be hydrogen, which is you know, you take water and you break h2o, And oh, and ah, and the point is, we'll have plenty of light energy, because and we're gonna have it all clean and green and run all the cars that way too, as far as I'm concerned and trucks, buses, boats and aeroplanes. I mean, I've even talked to Richard Branson about that. He's one of the guides, it's totally in alignment with you and I on exactly that.

Agi Keramidas  37:52  
Mark, would you say that? There are few people that envision or work, never mind about envisioning work towards that direction of the better future rather than the dark future or the dystopic AI or however you want to call it. Do you think there are enough people out there? And I don't talk about the pioneers. I don't talk about Elon Musk or Richard Branson. I'm talking about more. More people like in terms of an amount of paper.

Mark Victor Hansen  38:32  
Here's what's amazing. Two things. Number one, first of all, the big guys in energy, know that it's we're in a transition period. And a transition I know is going to happen like that. It's like ATT did not see the mobile phone coming. They did not see that Steve Jobs at D materialised photos and phone and everything else. So they missed it. Right? Da, and would have the energy guys are saying, hey, wait a second. Mark, you and your partners are all telling the truth. So we're only interested in energy, we don't care where the kilowatt kilowatt hour energy comes from, whether it's wind or solar, or geothermal. And if yours is clean, green and sustainable, and it doesn't have any pollutant, it doesn't have an energy credit were switched in are coming to us in droves. So it is going to switch as fast as a phone. We're talking about a decade to two decades, but it's still that's fast enough to save the planet. And everybody will have energy, just like right now. 10 years ago, there's no such thing as a cell phone, and now 8 billion of us have one. Now, obviously in Africa and India, they're $15 are not expensive like this. But you know, I got the best that exists because I can afford it. But the point is, everybody's going to have this stuff and the price keeps coming down. And the volume keeps going up because technology is anything that changes a world makes it better. Just like your seminar, this is a technology. You and I are dealing with the Zoom technology or spatial stream yard or whatever we're on right now. I'm not biassed, I'm just saying that didn't exist before the problem. So COVID is waking us up to new solutions.

Agi Keramidas  40:04  
Absolutely. That's about technology aside for a moment bringing back asking again about the people, the human beings, let me ask you in a aspect as clearly as I can show, what do you think it would take for more people to stop feeding their energy to this system, these institutions that would have given power to the can solve the problem, and take that energy and start feeding it to a better future more beautiful future regenerative future?

Mark Victor Hansen  40:43  
That's exactly what I said, as our company is now taking people like you and saying, Hey, look, author with us, because we're gonna change narrative, the story of the world, and we're gonna change the world. It's gonna happen fast, because people are going to read, we're doing mini books that are like 105 pages. So they're instant read, right? One hour, I mean, for a slow reader of 250 words a minute, they go, Wow, I can read that. And books aren't going to intimidate me. And then we'll also do an audio, we'll do video, we'll do it in movies, we're gonna do everything. So I'm dedicated to serving humanity at the highest best level and then use instant translate to go into every language that exists because look, like I've told you, I've been to Greece four times loved it. And the joke, of course, for an American is they see all the signs and say, it's Greek to me.

Agi Keramidas  41:33  
Mark, and I would like to also ask you some quickfire questions to start wrapping this conversation. So my first one is what does the term personal development mean to you?

Mark Victor Hansen  41:44  
It means everything to me because I was bankrupt upside down, started reading self help action books, and listening to tapes, meeting the people. And it totally transformed my life from being broke upside down, unhappy to being happy, positive, passionately on purpose to make the world work. Now written 318 books done lots of YouTube videos, and I got 6000 More I've written down and I want to do so we're gonna pull off some stuff to help people for free. I mean, I just I just want everyone to catch the message. Because it is. It just makes my heart glow.

Agi Keramidas  42:18  
Imagine from this conversation we had today, if you were to give to the listeners, one actionable items, something that can pick up for what we said and implement in their lives to improve what would you say?

Mark Victor Hansen  42:32  
My cliche is what you think about comes about which comes from the Bible, which says is a man or woman thinketh in his or her heart, so is he or she? So you got to control your thinking? You own your thinking, your your opinion of you and God's opinion of you. That's it.

Agi Keramidas  42:49  
And one last hypothetical question. Let's say you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self, what piece of advice you would give him

Mark Victor Hansen  42:58  
is a curious meeting that you'd so I would say write more because I started writing at 16 years old. And and back to the sense of unworthiness. I wasn't sure anyone was reading then yet the people that read me in even in detention all when I started doing that, because I was in trouble because I skipped school and went to see a play in Chicago, Illinois, and came back and somebody snitched on eight of us at skip school went to play together, because we thought we were so damn smart. Anyhow, I would say right, more. It just in I've written a lot. But just think how much more I could have done if I didn't if I wasn't afraid if I wasn't scared, if I didn't have a sense of worry that I'm not good enough.

Agi Keramidas  43:38  
Mark, what's the best place for people to find out more about you, I will put Of course your book, links in the show notes.

Mark Victor Hansen  43:46  
We want everybody because of our ask. It's going so fast we've created ask the book club calm. And if you go to ask the book club.com It's free. We want to teach everyone to become a master asker. That's one and then you can go to any of my websites like Mark Victor hansen.com, or go on YouTube. And you can see all that stuff. Right? We get tonnes of stuff, and we got a lot more coming because but I want everyone to create whatever they're supposed to do. Because, again, this is my zone. And I hope every one of the little things I do in Teach wakes them up wakes every individual up because it you know the cliche you asked about earlier is if it is to be it is up to me. government's not going to change the world make it work. So it's up to us.

Agi Keramidas  44:29  
Absolutely. And the how prolific writers you are is I think it's inspiring for others to, you know, to look and do something like that. I hope I want to thank you very much for our conversation markets been illuminating in many ways and thank you very much. Any last parting words?

Mark Victor Hansen  44:54  
Just I'm very thankful to you and I look forward to doing it again with you sir.

Agi Keramidas  45:03  
I hope you enjoyed listening. If you have, please share this episode with someone who you think will benefit from it. If you want to know more about what I do, visit my website AGIKERAMIDAS.COM

And until next time, stand out don't fit in!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai