105: The Power of Asking with Mark Victor Hansen

Hell Yes Lifers, today on the podcast, we've got a very special guest: author and inspirational speaker, Mark Victor Hansen. Mark is perhaps best known as the co-creator of the record-breaking, best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, which has sold over 500 million copies worldwide.

Mark's new book is called Ask!: The Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny and is co-authored with his partner Crystal Dwyer Hansen. He is also the author or co-author of The Aladdin Factor, The Power of Focus, The Richest Kids in America, You Have a Book In You, The One Minute Millionaire Series, and many others.

Born to Danish parents who migrated to the US in the 1930s, Mark grew up in Waukegan, Illinois. In my interview with him, Mark shares that he never believed he was a writer. He was even in grade school remedial classes for being a poor reader. So what took him from being a young boy who doesn't read well into an international best-selling author?

Listen in today as Mark talks about:

- Why he believes that reading is fundamental freedom for any person
- Why he believes that anyone has a destiny but just does not know to get to it
- Why he wants to inspire people right now who in a so-called Covid Cocoon
- The Roadblocks To Asking:
                   > no self-worth
                   > doubts
                   > excu-sology
                   > pattern paralysis
                   > disc-connect
- Why he believes in the practice of manifesting your dreams
- the phases of doing a deep-dive into yourself
                  > first phase: know where you are
                  > second phase: what do i want to do? where do i want to go?
                  > third phase: if the world would be perfect, what would it look like? who are you then?  
- the elements of a perfect story (that made the Chicken Soup for the Soul series incredibly successful!)
                   > story should cause goosebumps, god-bumps, or chilly-bumps
                   > should cause instantaneous behavioral changes
                   > should cause perceptional change

Here are some quotes from Mark from the interview:

"Take adversity and turn it into an advantage ... by knowing who to ask, how to ask, and when to ask, to get what you want."

"If you ask yourself the right questions, at the right time, you're gonna get the right results, right here, right now."

"Every one of us has to do that deep soul searching ... get rid of the stuff that doesn't work, and lock in and focus on the stuff that works."

"Everybody that asks flourishes; people who don't ask go down."

"Most people don't understand [that] the most important time to program your mind is right before you go to sleep."

"[We] mentally malpractice - we mis-program our mind to work against ourselves."

Check out these links about Mark Victor Hansen!

His latest book Ask!: The Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny

Get his book by joining AskTheBookClub.com

Download his FREE E-book How To Be Up In Down Times