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A Banquet for the Soul
An interview with Mark Victor Hansen
by Raz Ingrasci, President (Edited
by Shawn McAndrew)
Co-creator of the Chicken
Soup for the Soul book series, is a top-rated speaker and was
recently placed on the "Top 10 Greatest Motivational Speakers
Ever" list. A keynote speaker and master motivator for the past
25 years, Mark has spoken to over 2 million people throughout the
world.
Raz Ingrasci: Your books have sold over 60,000,000
copies and you are one of the most popular speakers in America.
From your perspective, what's going on in our culture?
Mark Victor Hansen: We've got the most prosperous
culture in human history and we've also got the biggest spiritual
hole in human history. People are saying, 'I can't fill the hole
with money. I can't fill it with alcohol, or drugs, or sex, so what
do I need to fill it with?' To fill that hole you need something
like the Hoffman Process, where you clean up your act and go deep
inside to find out that your core essence really is important, that
you do matter, and you can make a difference.
RI: So you are saying that inner development and
outer contribution - making a difference for other people - are
closely linked?
MVH: You plant a little seed and in time the fruit
comes out. An apple is way bigger than the seed and it contains
more seeds, plus you get to eat it for nourishment. Inner development
always multiplies. I teach that you have to set goals. I personally
have the most goals, I think, set in the world, which is 6,000.
Then I've got 10 macro goals. I say you ought to write out 10 outrageous
goals that are bigger than you because your life isn't meaningful
or important unless you're on purpose about something way bigger
than you are. Last Saturday my whole family helped build a Habitat
for Humanity house. By the way, when I told my staff that my family
was going to go build this Habitat House, 50 of them came to help
us. I've since inspired 100 other people I know of to go out and
buy a Habitat House, gather 50 people together and build it in a
day, then give the keys away. That's intrinsically spiritual because
you're helping people who are below poverty level and literally
can't help themselves in this way.
One of my goals is to inspire people to be all that they can be
and, hopefully, be a good example and teach some useful, interesting
principles. Perhaps I can be the key that turns on the engine in
their life, and then they can take their car where they want. One
of the places I'm encouraging absolutely everyone to go is The Hoffman
Process. I think they ought to take their little car to the Hoffman
car wash, so to speak.
RI: Your metaphors make me smile, and I recognize
that powerful truth is embedded in them.
MVH: I'm told I'm the world's best-selling author,
with one in seven books being sold at Christmastime having my co-author
name on it. I say that not to brag but because when we started 33
publishers kicked us out without looking at the book jacket. I went
to 134 more and they all said 'buzz off,' and finally one little
publisher took us and said, "We'll print it if you pay $6 for
each book." Now we've sold all those books. People say 'You
can't do more than one book every two years. We did one book, then
two books, then four books, and now up to eight books a year. And
they're all selling. Yesterday we were number one in the New York
Times with Chicken Soup for the Sports Fan Soul. One of the master
teachers, Christ, said, "Greater is He that is in you, than
he that is in the world." All of us have infinite potential
but most of us are self-sabotaging. You need the Hoffman Process
to get out of a lot of your self-sabotaging behavior.
RI: Chicken Soup for the Soul seems to represent
unconditional love for an aching soul, is that the resonant chord
you're striking in society?
MVH: That and a subset of love called hope. My
parents were immigrant Danes. My daddy once said to me, "What
does America really have written on it?" And I said, "Dad,
if I had to put one word on why you came here I'd put hope, because
you hoped for a better life for yourself, hoped for a better life
for your spouse and kids." My parents had a third and sixth
grade education respectively and were language illiterate on a lot
of levels. What they wanted for the four of us was to make it through
college. We did and all of us have what is called the good life.
But there's still a lot more than the good life. There's an inner
you, the invisible you, that has to be sculpted, that can be made
into a masterpiece. The Hoffman Institute is one of the places that
I think we've got to have millions of people go. And not because
it's the only Process, but because it's a fine process. It's been
refined. It's been tested. The results are in. Some of the most
visionary leaders of our time have been through the Process and
all of them say, "Boy, this thing is really good. Bob Hoffman
was inspired." He created something that is designed well,
executed magnificently, attracts tremendous, great and inspiring
teachers, and delivers a uniform result where people get what they
want. It doesn't tell you who you are or what you're going to be.
It helps you see your inner magnificence and the wonder called "you.
RI: Most motivational speakers want people to
change themselves, you also want people to change the world.
MVH: I think the great livers, the people who
are fully self-actualizing and alive, are the great givers. I can
pick hundreds of role models, but I'll pick three – Nelson
Mandela has just given to a whole country. Mahatma Gandhi (and Mahatma
of course means Great Spirit) was riddled through to the end with
lots of pain, and he strived to unify and free a subcontinent; and
Martin Luther King, Jr. had the guts to make civil rights a reality
in America. On maybe a more mundane level, Bob Hope traveled the
USO circuit for decades and invited other celebrities to go with
him at their own expense and often at the peril of their lives.
My understanding is that everyone who went with him felt more fulfilled.
The bottom line is that everybody wants to use their whole potential.
RI: There is a unique mission each person can
discover by going inward that, in turn, can only be accomplished
by going outward into the world. Most of us find that our inner
mission, our passion, has to do with something in the world. We
all need healing, but then we also need to make a difference in
life. Please speak about that and about the distinction between
spiritually-directed missions and materially-directed missions.
MVH: I think we're intrinsically spiritual. We're
spiritual beings in a physical universe and we are here to make
a spiritual contribution. Unless you are fulfilling your spiritual
mission (and this is my opinion totally), you anesthetize yourself
or you wound yourself. As a result, we've got a lot of wounded and
numb souls on the planet. That's why I said you've got to have a
purpose and a passion, a mission that's bigger than you are. Then
you've got to call out the team because the team that works together
achieves more. If you know somebody who you trust, admire, respect,
and want to work with, who has core competencies different than
yours, it will fulfill you to work with that person. When people
are playing flat out, enthusiastically giving 100 percent, they
are not fighting for platform space. Once you start to find out
what you can and can't do, you discover that people who have core
competencies different than yours will help you realize your outrageous
dreams.
And you need other people to reflect back to you. As our mutual
friend Dr. Ken Blanchard said "Feedback is the breakfast of
champions." Everyone needs feedback and most of us don't like
it. Because if I give you feedback and you don't have the depth
of being to really understand it to your greater benefit, you'll
take it as criticism and you'll shut down rather than turn on. What
I want to do is turn you on. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, in
Genesis 1:28, the first commandment that God gives humanity is to
be fruitful; second to multiply; third to replenish; and fourth
to subdue. To be fruitful you have to figure out what you are going
to plant to grow in your mind, your being, your soul, and your spirit.
Next, you multiply because an acorn becomes an oak tree and that
becomes an oak forest. So you multiply and then you replenish. You
have to replenish yourself individually, and we have to do it collectively,
and then we have to replenish the planet.
One of my 10 goals is to reforest the planet with 18 billion trees
and inspire everyone to plant trees. My older brother said, "Hey
Mark, what are you on?" And I said, "I'm on a mission
from God. I just got these assignments that I'm capable of doing."
RI: Your work is inspiring people about the difference
an individual can make that no corporation or government can ever
make.
MVH: Perhaps my most important goal is to create
a million millionaires. We are doing it with my Three Percent Club.
In the first year, we teach people to make a million dollars, in
the second year how to invest it and multiply it. The third year
we teach them how to be perpetually philanthropic. I'm finishing
a book right now called "Contagious Giving.
Last year I was blessed to win the Horatio Alger award, which to
me is like winning a Tony, an Emmy, and an Oscar. It means you came
from rags to riches and you've been philanthropic with your life
so far. There are 500 winners. These award winners raised $100 million
last year and they want to make sure that every below-zero kid gets
to go through college. Many of these kids have been abused. Money
has a couple of uses, but one of them is the great good to extend
your ability to serve people that no one else can serve. That's
why we put together this Three Percent Club. Just think, if in a
decade I was able to create a million millionaires... If we get
them to earn it, save it, and invest it and then give it away, and
everyone only gives away a million dollars, that's a quarter trillion
dollars toward charity! Properly applied that will be enough to
make the world work, as far as I can tell. If anyone wants, they
can look at our website at www.threepercentclub.com or call my office
at 800/433-2314 and we'll send them a CD and they can listen to
it.
We've brought the best minds together, and they're all philanthropically
oriented to help everyone else. They don't want to give a hand out;
they want to give a hand up. That's what I think Hoffman does.
RI: So tell me, Mark, is the HQP Chicken Soup
for the Soul?
MVH: The HQP is a Banquet for the Soul! I want
to make the Hoffman Institute a designated charity for one of our
future books. ø
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