Ageless Energy and Endless Opportunities with Mark Victor Hansen

Hey, opportunity makers. Welcome back to another amazing episode. And I know I say that a lot, but you know, they are all amazing. I'm having an fantastic conversation today that you're really going to enjoy one of the legends of the, of the book space of author space of the personal development space. Mr. Mark Victor Hansen, Chicken Soup for the Soul theme with that series and along with a plethora of best selling world class authorships in books and stories, he's so well connected and has so much attachment anatomy, an attachment to his attachment, but his connection, the direct connection to legacy and success for so many others, soon to be me, as we were working on on my book, but I want to share with you just I'm just really honored to bring them to you. Exciting being around them. 75 years old going on 25 He's got the excitement and the energy of people half his age. And in his in just the with the intention and the smarts, the experience and the expertise from billions of dollars worth of transactions and ventures and business opportunities that have come along the way. And you'll see exactly what I talked about as an opportunity maker as you listen to him because he's going to be sharing the the true essence of opportunity making of creating opportunities for yourself and for others of building solutions that come from simplicity solving a simple singular problem and turning it into something powerful. And then, of course, you know what my my perspective on that is, no matter what idea you have, you have never been closer from idea to execution and implementation than you've ever been in the history of the world. That technology exists. The people exist, the resources exists, you have entire networks of people just waiting to help you bring whatever your solution is to bear. All you have to do is share the opportunity, create the opportunity, put it in front of people, and then be the glue pull in if you don't have all the details to be able to make it happen. You pull in people like me get pull in people like market your hands, you pull in people like like Kevin Harrington, or anybody else that you're going to hear and see on the show. But bottom line is you never have to do it alone. And you're literally one step away from your next great opportunity. So enjoy the interview. And then let me know how things are going make sure that you please rate review and subscribe, let us know you're here. Go to the show notes. We have all of Mark's contact information as well as some prizes and resources from us so that we're always looking for ways to be able to serve you and help you become one step closer to creating great opportunities. Right, enjoy the episode. All right, so welcome back to another awesome episode of the opportunity makers podcast, as you just saw with the formal introduction that we had there for Mr. Mark Victor Hansen, I want to present to you the the man the myth and the legend himself right here. And Mark How about in your own words outside of the formal bio introduction that we just shared? Tell people a little bit you've got such a huge, credible record in your your business and in life, which parts of it do you want to highlight? How do you define yourself now as as a person of success?

What a fascinating way to ask that question because it became to me sort of in my meditation at you'd want an abbreviated thing right when I was my wife and I do a prayer meditation together for an hour every morning, because I think when you're in tune with the infinite you're in tune with life. And what it came to me is that I'm supposed to say you know, I was a speaker that wrote right I was a professional speakers starting 55 years ago it's a little hard to believe and getting paid for it and appeals are bad you're the best selling author I've ever heard you got to put it into books or the first book I did was this one stand up speak out and when not available anymore, but we sold 20,000 copies in little itty bitty audiences of six or 10 and I said this in the New York Times bestseller is not a world bestseller, but it's my best seller now let me sign it. And I sold 200,000 Sorry 20,000 books made $200,000 The first year I was doing books and then isn't even write more so he did more and then most people know that I'd be went from a speaker that writes to a writer that speaks then did the whole chicken soup of the Soul series which now we're somewhere between 500 million and 600 million books USA count. And look when you're number one in Greece number one in Vietnam you get paid once a year, nobody knows but they keep sending me checks so I know that we're pushing the edge of that envelope My goal is sell a billion books, which is outrageous and crazy and nuts and but then I'm outrageous crazy and nuts and do original books and people like to read them. And then because it COVID the book industry got crushed. We went from 19,000 bookstores to something like 400 right because it couldn't open and you can't sell books and they weren't good bye bye so and in great houses like Random House, which I'm with and you know, I did like this book with Random House, woman and millionaire oops, sort of three and a half million In copies, it's a great book. And it's still the number one book in finance that in a couple of years. So then we became a publisher of Martha Canton library. And we've taken 18 books to number one, and we're, this year we got 100. And we're hoping to do one one or several with you, because we believe no one should write a book, they ought to write sequels and prequels and like I was talking to somebody this morning, they said, Well, who do you read for fiction? I said, Well, my neighbor is Clive Cussler. And I've read everything he writes it guy, I'm reading that right now. I'm reading his Atlas book. I said, Yep, that's exactly it. Because once you find somebody you love that touches your heart and soul, you want to go with him or her or them.

Outstanding. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm also I am looking forward to, to putting some books together with you. Because I know, I got several stories to tell. But I just, you know, being able to do it in a manner that creates opportunity, you know, I mean, so that's a big theme for us. That's why the podcast, that's why I do this, what the books gonna be, and the opportunity makers, and we're very, we're both wanting to honor and celebrate those who have bastard creating opportunities. And we're looking to create a movement of people who are desiring to become opportunity makers. So this is a multifaceted podcasts intent. And part of the reason that they brought you here is because you have you know, through think if you were to think through those through that lens, through that lens of creating opportunities for yourself and others, you probably be overtaken with all with how many, how many ways you check those boxes in your career. Because when you write a book, you're creating opportunity for yourself. You're creating opportunity for people who wrote it, produce it, edit it, read it, people who get re read and implement and execute and then in turn, create new directions in their life. And then as you turn this into an empire of book building, and creating and then building machine that creates and builds books and tell stories for so many people in the world to the tunes of millions and hundreds of millions. And as you said, billions. What is it being an opportunity maker mean to you?

Right? Right. Yeah, I love that perspective. I'm really glad you embrace that. If, you know for people who are listening, and people who are tuning in here, people are looking for I think people work too hard to try to find the opportunity instead of just embracing opportunities that are all around. So let's talk to them. Go ahead. What's your thought on that? So

Exactly. That's the whole that's the thesis of this entire podcast, the deal is all these problems that have people feeling doubtful, anxious, unsure, uncertain, and they're pulling back and circling the wagons and retracting when really all that's doing is it's raining down opportunities, every single one of those problems is an opportunity for a solution. And for somebody to lead the way. You know, you're talking about all these amazing solutions and things that you do and I love, you know, I get very excited the Bronx, Puerto Rican me comes out and I go, but the end of the day, I'm just super excited about life. And I can hear that in you. It's like you're sometimes you're talking so fast, because you're just trying to get to the next thought, because you're gonna see so many things that are coming. And I love that. But what about what do you say to the person who's listening right now who is like God, but I don't know how to create a garage door or build a solution or I'm just a simple guy. You know, where's the opportunity for me?

Let's just do the garage door. Everybody that comes in meets Tommy Melo and he'll train you for free for six weeks, he gives you a truck that's painted with a one garage door in his face on it. And he's opened up in 35 states because I know his numbers really well. And I've been to his his headquarters. If you come to Arizona, I'm going to ask you to go Jim, and get interviewed by him. But cuz he's got a big podcasting studio. He's got 38,000 square foot studio. But so far, he's given up 400 trucks to people that they had no money, they end up making 100,000 a year and they paid for the truck earnings. So there's a lot of businesses that you can start with nothing except your own sweat, equity. And yours. I'm just giving you an example a two. I can name 100 off top my head. But this isn't a podcast about them. It's podcasts about opportunity is infinite because God's infinite problems are infinite. And if you stop looking at problems as Oh, dang, I can't solve that problem. If you have a problem. You need to get out of the human sense of perspective, go into a higher perspective look down at and say, what's the solution to my problem? And could I sell that solution?

Amen.

Yeah, that's, you know, it we do we make it so much harder. And you know, I remember my high school economics teacher, Mr. eliminator never forget him. awesome guy. Super, super smart. And he his biggest regret is that he carried around this burden that he couldn't stand it couldn't get over. He had two PhDs one of the most educated people he had ever met. And his neighbor down the street. The people there had the parents had died and their young son in his 20s Whatever some apparently some lazy pot dope smoking kind of guy was doing was going nowhere and doing nothing literally spent his days sitting out in a lawn chair, sunbathing himself in the front yard, and mist eliminators that he drove by that house every day and just couldn't stand watching this guy wasting his life and wasting his youth. And he he had sunglasses on, and he was so lazy in his desire to just chill that he didn't want to put his sunglasses on the ground when he took them off. So he invented what became the paper keepers. And so in his laziness, he became a multimillionaire, because he was simply solving his own problem. And then someone else monetized it. And he made millions off of it. And so and then, so Mr. laminator went from frustration for watching this guy waste his youth to frustration for this guy making millions off his laziness. But it was, I always think of him as an opportunity maker up just like he created opportunities for himself and others simply by solving a small problem.

Yes! That's, you know, and that's that's the essence of this is like I just want people to see so many different ways and some ways to, to execute so many ways to think about it. So many ways to just sit in the reality that exists here. Because bottom line is what's happening in the world is happening. It's always going to be there. Your choice is do you let this stuff take you out? Or do you let this stuff be the launchpad this spring pad for springboard for your success. And it doesn't mean you have to create the you know, you don't have to be the one who created the paper keepers. You just cook Create a solution, and then somebody is going to find it and you create another solution and you create another solution. And then somebody else these days, it's so easy back then close to when you started, right? You, you share a message right now. And within minutes, you can find somebody who can market it, who can build it, who can sell it, who can get it launched and done. Whereas it used to take years to make that happened.

That's why the publishing industry is in trouble because they take three years, you give them a book today, it's three years old, and we get it done like a baby in nine months. Right? It just, it just could you. If you're in business, the three questions are asked generally, and you might have different questions, but can you make it better? Can you make it faster, and can make it cheaper? Those are the three basic questions. And the answer is that like, take peepers keepers, somebody made a heck of a lot of money marketing, somebody else made it distributing. And all that guy owned was one thing, which is everything, which is a trademark, which was the idea that it trademark patented or registered, I don't know what he did, because I don't know. I never looked it up and never heard the story before today. But it's like the guy who were doing the story in a new book we got coming out called the money wants me that I've written and the guy that created God, what is the band you put over your nose and stretch your nostrils, he couldn't sleep at night. And he and his wife, you know, complained and complained and complained. And then he put that little band together. I'm gonna call the Nose Nose. It's got a better name than I did. And I lost it. Anyhow, the point is, he's made a fortune just because he had the problem, solved it for himself. And we you solve it for you. You solve for everyone. You just do a little prototype That's cheap. And if you haven't got any money, you go to university and say do you have a research department you haven't here I live in Arizona and Scottsdale but we affiliate with to the two biggest population University GCU, Grand Canyon, and ASU where our kids went some orchids, Arizona State University and an innovation bar, you can go in there and they will help you create your innovation. They will even pay it they both got all the tools. They got the 3d printing. So anyone who gives me stuff, I say look, you go talk to my friend Jim because he owns opportunity makers. He doesn't believe in any excuses. I don't believe in any excuses.

Exactly. So that's a perfect segue for I was gonna ask you how how can people cultivate the mindset that we're this is natural. Versus this could have only happened to me one time or I missed the opportunity or I missed the window? What's the mindset that needs to be cultivated here? How did he do it?

What's what is the boldest opportunity that you when you look back? You're like just so glad you were part of

Amen. And I just wanted to show you that I actually have my my card here as well, same card. I am so happy and grateful now that I am earning in excess of $100 million annually through multiple sources in a manner that's pleasing to God. Yes, that is my daily mantra.

So, on that note, what do you see as the future of opportunity making for people? So what if somebody shows up right now and say, Man, I'm just late to the party.

There's no such thing as late to the party. We're doing books with eight to eight year olds right now. And we're doing books with kids as young as four years old. This kid is just asking all the questions of universities parents are writing it down, because somehow this kid came through precocious his name's Austin. And his dad said, Hey, would you publish a kid's book? And I said, Well, unfortunately, Scholastic, which my kids used to go to, and I had a lot of money. So I said, you can buy anything you want. And I did. I said, but it sort of doesn't exist because schools were closed for two years. So it's having a big hiccup. So I said, look, let's do it all over again, but we're gonna do it and do it bigger, better and stronger and for less expensive and make sure every kid in the world and every language gets a book and then all sudden, you know, Nick, the cystic the guy with no arms and no legs. Do you know who needed an appeal? We don't go on there typing the armless guy and watch his videos, but he's a close friend. We're doing his book called Give me a hug. He says that 7 million people hug him and he wanted to kill himself. When he was six, because he felt so handicapped, like he could never do anything. And his father said, don't be a victim to a victor. And he was going to lay himself down two inches of bath water and drown. And then he went through his head that his dad been praying for him and said, No, no, no, don't kill yourself. Now he's created a brand new product that's out now called multitude. And we're going to be one of the first use it. But is when we do books we do it is a electronic hard bounce off bound. And audio because 70% Of All books are now audio, drive into work or exercising on your elliptical or whatever. And he does it in 85 languages. 98% accurate, because his own mind nobody, like when he met. Kevin Sorbo is also a dear friend of mine, Hercules, and he didn't move guides not dead and all that I love Kevin and he said, Kevin, I'm stronger than you. I'm gonna hit you with my bicep and tricep. He said, Oh, yeah, I don't have any.

That's great. Yeah, you know, so much of that. I mean, you How much stuff do you actually manifest when you are so clear on the thought and the vision, but then you put the action that way that's with it. And then you started attracting all the right opportunities.

You're gonna have self determination, action. And today, we're, as you know, we had this young kid come up to us, we're done talking to 700 people at the collective down in Houston. And kid comes up to me shaking and trembling and go with me. You can see how smart he was. I said, What are you shaking about? He said, you intimidate me. I said, I can intimidate anyone, especially somebody start like you, kid. What's your story said, Well, I'm 14. I'm worth $843,000. I passed a real estate test at eight years old out in Ohio. Eagle Scout, and I'm, and I'm just finishing my black belt and Akito. I said, can we add to your story how we did his book, and it is this his book, Devin. It has been number one last 14 weeks, and we had dinner with him on Sunday. His dad flew him in. But now he's 15. And he's a millionaire. I don't see awesome. Yeah, that's great. So you can't give me any stuff. Well, I'm a kid so I can't do it. Now we ghost writer ghost edited a book. If somebody's got a book. We'll edit it in Brophy. And if they don't we listen to their whole story, we interview him intensely. And we we craft words that are irresistibly compelling to read.

So obviously, this is going to change based on every person because everybody is in a different environment and all the opportunities exist in your environment. But you can also reach into other environments and solve problems there. But just what would you say to somebody right now who is looking for the opportunity? How would you go about finding the right opportunity for you? Do you have a strategy and process?

Yeah, first of all, go deep inside and Okay, so I told you our Ask book is the best seller of our time. And the reason is, is that we teach exact I've never had you ask the question as to well, but what you do is you go deep inside your mind right before you go to sleep 101 times you say God what's my money making opportunity? They'll make me million god what's my money making opportunity to make me millions God towards my money making opportunity? Make me millions now? Why do you do it? 101 times and you push back sleep, push back slumber, God watch my money making opportunity. They make me millions. Here's what here's what happens. You got a consciousness which makes the decision now you're going to make millions and have an opportunity. Subconscious which you're over endowed. You're born with. The number I'm given as 18 billion, it could be a trillion brain cells, I don't know it's a lot more than you were all born over and dog. But you got to get by the noise you got to get by the garbage. You got to get by everything and go deep penetrating into your mind 101 times and all sudden, it'll click because you were born with opportunity. You were born. subtitle of the book is the bridge for your dreams, your opportunities to your destiny. When you came into life, you had a destiny code intrinsic. I don't know what it is. Jim doesn't know what it is. I'm gonna take anything away from my dear friend, Jim. I'm just saying hey, look, it's there. It is in the pattern of your 3.5 billion gene code. We now know that for the first time just in last year, so you've got it. But you can't get to it until you program your mind possibly incorrectly. And the world goes out of its way to hold up a mirror and say you're not good enough. You're not tall enough, thin enough good looking enough, smart enough. You are glasses and they don't girls don't make path to that guy to wear glasses is what you and I heard when we're in fourth grade right? Which is idiotic, but that's why they make contact lenses, which is another problem solved right? And then they made throwaway contact lenses and then they made ortho k and then they sing reshape the cornea. All that stuff is compounding ly good idea. So every one of us got an idea that you can harvest and if you can't ours are the fourth principles. You got to have two together to move the mountain and Jack and I created after all the region Action that anyone could possibly stand. We said nobody will publish us or agent for artists who will sell ourselves and we made a billionaire out of our publisher HCI health communications.

Mark, I appreciate you sharing all this man I can I can sit here and talk to you about this stuff forever. Obviously, I want to put people in front of you. So you know, what's the way for people to be able to connect you and get more of this. You're you mentioned the YouTube channel. And obviously, you've got a lot of ways to help people. And you can't help everyone. So who's the who should be coming to you seeking some support and guidance? Okay, well,

Okay well, if you want to do books, which is part of our biggest business, because we're now making movies and all that, but you go to Mark Victor Hansen library.com. And you just fill out the little thing, and then we'll get back to you and try to help you do a book and you know, we charge 29,900 If we ghost write it with you with all your words, your thought your name on it, your book rights, if we just got to edit it, if you get something great, and all we got to do is fix it. It's only 18,000. So those are the two charges that if you're hiring me for a speech, which I literally still talking all around the world, like the last couple days, we've gotten hired to talk in Ireland, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and Iceland, all you know, in a couple of coming days, but I've been in 80 countries and paid but in America, we're starting to do seminars a lot again and MIT domestically is 35,000, internationally as 75,000. And I'm thankful that my name and fame gets an audience. And that's why I say everyone ever wanted to write a book because it gives you automatic credibility, it makes you the word authority has hidden in it, the word author, and everyone's got a story that they ought to author because somebody will buy your signature. The old joke is no buy your book, they just want your signature. And this I'm willing to give my signature all day long. And I've signed long as I've ever signed books is 12 and a half hours I talked to 38,000 people in an Amway meeting with the president united states and we had great singers, we had great family, everybody there, but I just was in line so long, I couldn't believe it. Holy God, I think we sold 16,000 books that day, or something like that. It was just it was mind blowing really fun. And I hugged all the people took pictures is great. There's, I don't think there's a more fun book than the business in the book business. But I love a lot of businesses. I mean, fogged in, like I said different businesses. So there's everyone's got more opportunity. And if you need to get to me, the email address it gets to me as reception@markvictorhansen.com, reception@markvictorhansen.com. But you got to be very specific about what you want. Because we get a gazillion emails a day and we go through and fast. And if it's if I can help you, we help you. And if we can't, we can't. I mean, and I'll tell you I'll be honest, because I got no vested interest in dragging you forward. I'm not here I'm making. I'm making a lot of friends. But I really, let's go to the bigger question that you asked. The bigger answer is inspired by Buckminster Fuller, we can make the world work for 100% Humanity physically, chemically and spiritually, for the first time in human history. We got the technology, but we got to have the right ethics and the right morality. And today people are either God full or God less and I'm obviously I'm a God full seemed. And somebody who said, Will you talk about God too much. I said, Look, God made the universe he made all the opportunity, there's an opportunity without God. So if you don't see it the way I see it be an atheist. But here's the problem with atheism. I learned this from a guy you got to watch on YouTube called John Lennox, Dr. John Lennox, from Oxford in England. And he said, Look, he argues with atheists every day, and it shows he's brilliant, but he says, You can't take nothing times nothing equals nothing in math. He's a math scholar. You got to have some time something to get some.

Right. That's pure wisdom. You know, I love seeing you go. Can you share how old you are?

There you go. And that's why part of why I share this I get at your age, you know, you're just getting started. And I think one thing, that one common trend that I see as an opportunity maker as one who works with a lot of opportunity makers and connects the opportunity that exists around you, and increase your lifespan. It doesn't give you hope. It can give you a purpose, it can give you a mission. It can give you things ways to serve people that you never thought of. And all of that is the thing that drives humanity.

Oh, your I love it. You know, I mean, I want the insights and that's what people are looking for here. Like I said, we're definitely going to have you back because I appreciate you and what you're sharing and who you are. And I definitely look forward to you know, getting the opportunity to makers book as well as the rest that are inside of me that that you know, you will help cultivate and curate. So, I'm just going to you know, we're going to send people off right now. We're for the on the opportunity makers podcast and I would just, you know, what's your parting thought? What's the last thought you want them if they don't if they forget everything else from today? What's the one thing you want to hang on to?

I forgot To say, yeah, go to the book club af.com. Go to the book club ask.com. It's free. And we want to help you become a master asker. Because if everyone learns to ask, the Bible says clearly asking you a wish to receive, but there's two parts, most people say, I asked, I didn't get anything. Well, no, no, no, no, the big guy says you got to be in a receptive mood. And we teach you how to do that. Just like we said, look, here's how you ask for opportunity. 101 times where you go to sleep. And the opportunity is going to come. And I forgot to say one other thing. And that and I thank you for letting me have one more bit of airtime here. You got to have a pen and paper next to bed or your dictating machine or your computer, because the ideas are going to come but they're like wet, slippery fish. If you don't nab them, immediately, they're gone forever. And you're gonna go, I have the best idea last night, you'll tell your wife or your husband, or kids, and I can't remember it. Well, no, no, no, that doesn't count. I get up out of bed, get my little lazy butt out of bed, because I'm isolated very deeply. But God gives me ideas in the middle of the night I go, yikes, that's illuminating. That's Reville revelatory, I've got to go do something, and my wife does the same. So it's not a surprise when we wake up with in the morning with each other and says, What happened last night? Well, those are the stories that came to me, and I'm gonna do them. And we did get it done.

Perfect. So we'll have those in the show notes for you, along with marketing, Victor Hansen, library comm as well as the email to be able to reach out, we'll make sure you get connected and just just do reach out connect you. I mean, you're dealing with somebody who's got all the experience in the world that you even if you just glean a little bit of the insights, a little bit of the energy and the passion and direction, that's the number one thing I want you to look for, show up every time you you're in one of these engaged experts space, whether it's virtually or otherwise or on these calls. Look for the thing, look for one idea. And I want to always encourage you to capture the mindset capture the energy, the beliefs, it just like the master asker that is a common thread that I'm hearing from, from opportunity makers from millionaires and billionaires on a consistent basis, the ability to ask is so important and the ability to ask clearly, right when you master the art of the request, you can win just about anything you need in life. And it's super important ask with intention and with with expectation to receive, and I just did a video on it yesterday, I firmly believe that it has been be a tool and a horrible hallmark of my success. So Mark, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate and honor the time, and I know we're going to have some great reviews from from this episode. So go check out mark and go become an opportunity maker. Take advantage make serve the world change life for you and those that you serve. We'll see you soon.