Ask!: The Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny | Mark Victor Hansen & Crystal Dwyer Hansen | 298

Share this post:

November 16, 2020

Crystal Dwyer Hansen is an international speaker, researcher, corporate consultant, author, and entrepreneur. With years of experience as a Transformational Life Coach and Wellness and Nutrition Expert, Crystal is a leader in the field of human potential. Her company, Crystal Vision Life, provides valuable tools and support for life transformation and transition. Alongside her husband, Mark Victor Hansen, Crystal is also the author of the best-selling book, Ask!: The Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny.

Mark Victor Hansen is a renowned author, humanitarian, keynote speaker, and entrepreneurial marketing maven. He is best known as the Co-Author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which set world records in book sales. Currently, Mark serves as the Chairman of a suite of companies called the Hansen Family Companies. He is also the Co-Chairman of Metamorphosis Energy and the Co-Owner and Co-Founder of Natural Power Concepts.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Mark Victor Hansen and Crystal Dwyer Hansen share the powerful inspiration behind their new book
Mark and Crystal discuss the biggest roadblocks people experience during their lives—and how to overcome them
The importance of rekindling your natural curiosity
Ask yourself: What problem can you fix?
Crystal reveals the questions that will help you pivot and grow your business to new heights
Mark’s five steps for becoming a “master asker”
Where to learn more about Mark, Crystal, and their book, Ask!: The Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny
The secret behind Mark and Crystal’s happy and prosperous marriage

In this episode…

Do you currently feel stuck in your personal or professional life? What if you could transform your situation into your dream reality in as little as 18 months? According to Crystal Dwyer Hansen and Mark Victor Hansen, you can—as long as you’re asking the right questions.

Throughout their careers, Crystal and Mark have both faced several roadblocks. However, by mastering the art of asking questions, they have overcome every obstacle and built a successful business and life together. Now, they want to help others transform their lives, achieve their greatest business goals, and become “master askers.”

Join Dan Kuschell in this episode of Growth to Freedom as he talks to Crystal Dwyer Hansen and Mark Victor Hansen about their new book, Ask!: The Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny. Together, Crystal and Mark share the best strategies for overcoming any obstacle, the secrets to becoming a “master asker,” and the questions you need to ask today if you want to take your business to the next level.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode

Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com.

Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day? Or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall in growing your business? Well, let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation. You can do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com. That’s breakthroughstrategycall.com.

In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free small business toolkit. You can get that at activate.breakthrough3x.com. That’s activate.breakthrough3x.com.

If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com.

Episode Transcript

Dan Kuschell 0:03

Welcome to growthtofreedom.com, the show that brings you inspiration, transformation. And leadership. We’re helping you connect the dots, see the blind spots and get unstuck. So you can go out, create more leads, more sales, more growth, more profits. More importantly, so you can have a bigger impact, have a bigger reach, make a bigger contribution. Is that what you want? If that’s what you want, you are going to love today’s episode, our two guests are amazing and helping you get your next big breakthrough with something that is a an unusual strategy, yet a proven strategy to work because let me ask you a question. Have you ever been in a place in time where you needed help, and especially if you’re a high level performer, a high achiever an entrepreneur or business owner, but on one side, you wanted to have that face of success, and you were a little reluctant to let your vulnerability down to then just go ask for help. Like, if you face that before, send us a comment and let us know what your experience was, I will share my personal testimony my personal story for decades, I was the type of person who was afraid to go to others and say, Hey, I could use your help, hey, I could use your help. And what I realized, until I made the shift, it cost me time. It cost me energy. It cost me freedom, peace of mind, and a whole lot more relationships and a whole lot more. Right. And we want to help solve that. for you today are two special guest experts. And both have inspired me in so many different ways. You’ll hear about more of that as we go. Crystal Dwyer Hansen is international speaker, researcher, corporate consultant, author, and entrepreneur, she’s worked in the field of human potential for years, she’s had years working as a transformational life coach, wellness nutrition expert. She’s seen people experience profound and lasting transformations in relationships, career health and wellness. By tapping in to the thing that matters most inner resources, she can help you help me help all of us be able to go out there and move from what seems to be an impossible state of anxiety, distress, depression, and hopefully and by the way, are we at a time right now, where a lot of people are suffering from this right? What would it be worth if you could move from there to try and freedom, joy, happiness, and more and that’s what Crystal is all about. You’re going to learn about their new book, their best selling book, Ask!: The Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny. Also with us as Mark Victor Hansen, who someone I got a chance to meet almost two decades ago and certainly started studying his work before that is best known as the co author for Chicken Soup for the Soul. The series The brand that set records in sales with over 500 million books sold along with that audios programs and a whole lot more. He’s also the best selling author of the Power of Focus, The Aladdin Factor, Dare to Win, One Minute Millionaire, which is where we met for the first time personally endorsed my book way back when there’s a whole backstory that we probably won’t have time to go into that he’s a crusader. What is he a crusader of on helping people turn and transform what’s possible to make their world the world work for 100% of humanity. Now both of them are involved in a lot of initiatives to focus on the health of our planet and the need to create comprehensive sustainable energy and water solutions. They have several companies one here in Scottsdale, Arizona. Mark, Crystal, it’s a pleasure, a privilege and honor to have you with us. How are you?

Crystal Dwyer Hansen 3:50

Awesome, Dan, thank you so much. What a nice introduction. And yeah, it’s just so much fun to be here with you today.

Mark Victor Hansen 3:57

I think the world of you and I’m glad to be back with you and friend of yours for two decades. I only wish that my mother were alive to hear that. Super Bell? Oh, man.

Dan Kuschell 4:10

You’re on our show on NBC radio, a champion in the making. And so it’s again, it’s an honor and I want to dive right into the book I mean, you’re getting I love the the theme of the book Ask because it’s something just straight away I had struggled with for years I would be the person who would want I knew I needed to get something solved. But I’d be very reluctant to go. So before we get into strategy and techniques and a lot of the different wisdom from the book. Why did you guys write this book? Why was now the time to create it?

Mark Victor Hansen 4:43

Well, we have traveled all over the world and we’ve met so many people at different countries that are wonderful, educated, professional, likeable. But the difference between somebody who our subtitle says at all. Ask is a title and then the subtitle of Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny, people weren’t fulfilling their destiny because one lack, they didn’t ask and what you started the show with is can you ask your way out of adversity in opportunity and disadvantage to advantage? The answer, as far as we’re concerned, in our experience, in all our researches, 100%? Yes, asking is the biggest and most important and neglected key.

Can you ask your way out of adversity into opportunity and disadvantage to advantage? The answer, as far as we're concerned, in our experience, in all our research, is 100% yes. - Mark Victor Hansen Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 5:22

And with that, you know, there’s a lot of people that are suffering right now we’re, you know, at the time we’re doing this session, and we’re in the middle of COVID, five plus months, you know, some experts predict the worst is coming, it’s going to get worse before it even gets a little bit better. So from this perspective of ask, like, Can you guys go to a place where you were at your lowest, maybe where you had made your biggest mistake, your biggest failure? What did you do around this idea of ask, what what was the solution? And what can our listeners and viewers learn from it?

Crystal Dwyer Hansen 5:56

Yeah, just a quick aside, Dan, would we, if we, our book was released April 28, right in the middle of the pandemic, we had a discussion with our publisher, because a lot of books were getting pushed back to the fall. And we all decided collectively that it’s not a good idea to push it back. We said, You know what? This message is important right now we think it’s going to be well received, let’s move forward. And now it’s fortuitous. Because this message has really resonated with people now more than ever, because what Mark and I found is what you were just saying, in our own lives personally, anytime we had serious adversity or serious setback, it was asking the goddess out of it. And for me, I think the most challenging time for me was when I was very young. I was one of those kids who found high school to be very easy. So I accelerated my curriculum and graduated at age 16. And married my boyfriend who was five years older. Wow, not a great life plan, right? So two and a half years later, I’m in a city, a new city by myself, no friends, no family, and absolutely no idea how I’m going to get by baby on my hip, right? So um, yeah, so I did the first thing I could think of, and that was to apply for food stamps. So the day that I was standing there, ready to exchange my my food stamps for my groceries, I had this huge epiphany and just hit me like a big light in the head. And the first thing that happened was that this question popped into my mind, it was, first of all, how did I get here? followed by a second question? Are you doing everything you can to get out of this? Or are you taking the easy way out? And I knew in that second that I asked myself that question, I knew the answer. I knew I wasn’t doing everything I could to get myself out of this situation. So I had this instant pivot in my mind, where as I was turning over the food stamps to the cashier, I was literally saying my to myself, this will not be my future. So I went home. And I didn’t have any answers, but I have a lot of questions. So I thought I’m gonna keep asking the question. So just started asking, you know, how can I start making money tomorrow and I heard on the radio, these temporary service agencies like Kelly services, so I got a call. I applied, you know, filled out the paperwork, they started sending me jobs that I wish I could say yes or no to started working for attorneys and convention centers they do in sales, and just all these different things. And I realized I could register for more than one. So I registered for all three of the agencies. Pretty soon I was working every day, and I was realizing so many things about myself. It was such a growth period for me. But I realized that you know, I loved business, I love sales. And I really love working with people. So I made a decision to put myself through real estate school. And in the meantime, I someone said you should go model. So I approached a modeling agency asked him if they’d sign me and they said, Yes, and I did a couple of television commercials that went national. So I had they caught they force you to join Screen Actors Guild, which is great because you get these great benefits. So literally about a year and a half from the time that I was turning over food stamps. A year and a half, a little more than a year and a half later, I was working for the top bill homebuilder in our Valley, I became the number one realtor for our company. And I had these great benefits and residuals coming in from my television commercials. So it was a huge pivot in my life. And I thought back often, you know, what if I hadn’t asked myself the tough questions, and more importantly, what if I hadn’t been honest enough? Had hadn’t been courageous enough to answer them, honestly. And I think that’s the thing for all of us. Mark and I say there are three channels through which we need to ask and those are ask yourself, ask others and ask God each of those channels is so important to learn to utilize if we’re going to keep moving in our lives and not get stuck

There are three channels through which we need to ask, and those are ask yourself, ask others, and ask God. - Crystal Dwyer Hansen Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 9:59

and speaking of Not getting stuck as you’re watching or listening right now, I don’t know if you’re as inspired by the story as I am. But I want you to think about this, like what it’d be worth, if you could sit down and just ask a better question. Are you taking the easy way? Or are you taking and doing everything in your power to move forward to transform your situation? Right, that one simple question 18 months later, just 18 months later, to have the ability to be the number one realtor to be partners to be able to have residuals coming from the like, what would happen for you? Maybe those exact results don’t happen for you? And probably don’t. But like, what would it be worth if you could have this kind of powerful transformation by just asking better questions of yourself, others, and of God, how we transform the game for you. So I asked you, if this is what you want, if you want to have the ability to transform, you know, stress and overwhelm into opportunity, and a whole lot more when we come back, we’re going to take a deep dive to go into the ask and how your dreams can turn to your destiny, with Mark Victor Hansen. And the ability to work with Crystal and know exactly how to do that step by step more when we come back, right after this on growthtofreedom.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com. Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day, or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall and growing your business? Well, let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation, you can do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com, that’s breakthroughstrategycall.com. In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free small business toolkit, you can get that at activate.breakthrough3x.com, that’s activate.breakthrough3x.com. If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com. Welcome back to growthtofreedom.com. Now, I don’t know if you were inspired by the story that Crystal shared with you. But again, what would it be worth for you to be able to ask better questions. And I want to just read you an excerpt from the book. And speaking of the idea of dealing with roadblocks around asking, you know, what’s the story of Michaela and you’ve got to go into the book to understand the story, the full story of Michaela, but this really stood out for me Be careful what you choose Michaela. Everything you think and do is a choice. Your decisions are powerful and will decide your path. Certain choices will lead you to your destiny. And others far from it. The key is to ask, to ask again. And again and again. And again. Never stop asking. Now. I asked you what are you going to ask today? Now Mark as we dive into this, I mean, there’s so much wisdom in the book, I want to dive into the business side of this in part two page starting around pages 172 in the book and by the way, you’re going to want to get your copy and we’ll talk about how you can get your copy of the book coming up around the corner. Before we get into the business side of it I actually wanted to what what do you consider what are a couple of the roadblocks or challenges or mistakes you see most people making around asking or asking better questions.

Mark Victor Hansen 13:38

But you got three things going there at once. Everyone first of all brain as you know cuz I did the Chicken Soup for the Soul and when you get goose bumps, God bumps, chilli bumps, you know you’re on the truth. I’ve never heard anyone read the fable of Michaela. Which, ladies and gentlemen, we started this book it was written totally 100% by my wife. And she was going to put it in four parts. I said, Look, this is such a critical story. We’re going to make it into a movie at least that’s our vision and hope graer is it gave me those kind of goosebumps. I’ve never heard anyone other than the two of us read it. It really got me. So thank you and ladies and gentlemen, it is a transformational story. Because if we think it’s like Shakespeare, the story of every man and every woman as for your business question, asking, you know, saved my life when I went bankrupt it has rebuilt my businesses again and again. Because every business post I do goes ups and down. Everybody thinks that because oh you sold 500 million books. You can only go up. Jack and I got rejected by 144 people and then our agent fired us and then when We’re selling more books than anyone I called The New York Times. I said look, to be the best seller you only got 20,000 a week I’m doing more than it you won’t let me be on the list. You said Sir. You are a multi author book. I said yeah. I said and she said, we at The New York Times, with great disdain says we don’t take multiple books. I said, lady, are you sure read our question is the answer. I said, she said, I’m sure. I said, Madam, you have the Bible. It has 66 authors, unless we do maps, and it’s 720. Are you sure? She said, you’re in next week, boy. And I like that she called me boy does already 50. So.

Dan Kuschell 15:30

Our new journey starts at 50. I’m in my 50s now. So

Mark Victor Hansen 15:34

Happy birthday.

Dan Kuschell 15:34

Thank you. Thank you. So So as far as the roadblocks Mark, you know, or Crystal, you guys can both, you know, dive into this. What do you see as the biggest mistakes that most people make? around just opening? I know, for me, like, the reason I bring this up is, you know, if someone is if you’re watching or listening, maybe you were like me 20 years ago, where you’d meet someone like Mark and you’d almost stand on the sidelines, you take all their wisdom in you, you do you do whatever you could to help support them. And you know, like in a case of filling seats at events or seminars or get people to buy their books or whatever. But you wouldn’t go that extra level, for whatever reason, you’re reserved or shy, you saw yourself as introverted, like, that was me 20 years ago. And it’s very real. So you might be facing that now. So Mark, Crystal, what do you guys see are some of the roadblocks that someone can break out of that today?

Mark Victor Hansen 16:27

Because we analyze as deeply we said, there are seven basic roadblocks, all of us have one or more operating simultaneously, all of us have to look at them, like Crystal said objectively and subjectively from the inside out and say, hey, how am I going to transform? first one we see that hits almost everybody is a lack of self worth. So you got to work on it. Second one is fear, which you know, the old acronym is false evidence appearing is real. And FDR said it so well during the Depression, confront your fears and make it disappear. Some of the because you’re in a business thing here and I’m a scholar in Napoleon Hill, Dr. Hill, Think and Grow Rich said, he wrote all those fireside chats to overcome fear. I don’t know if you know that he wrote all those for FDR for 12 years, so and got paid $1 a year and they said, Well, your nap this app. So the next one is is not going to do them in order, but it’s disconnection and we think, in a height of cell phones, where everybody thinks I’m connected, you’re less connected than ever. So we’re saying disconnection, we’re saying, excuse ology, we’re saying pattern paralysis. We’re saying every one of those devastates a human being and with that, I’ll hand it off to my beloved.

Crystal Dwyer Hansen 17:37

Well, yeah, I’ll add to that, Dan. So each of us is born as young children, we come into this world, in this beautiful perfected state right? Unabashed, to ask anything, we want to know everything we want to know who, what, when, where, why, how. And we ask, ask, ask, we also ask for more, more, more, right? That is our natural human spirit, wanting to evolve, wanting to learn wanting to grow. But over time, that gets crushed out of us. And it’s so sad, whether it’s through, you know, parenting, we all grew up in a different way. Now, you’re asking a lot of questions. You’re told, quit asking so many questions, or, you know, you go to school, listen to the teacher, stop asking questions only ask if you’re called on, you know, jobs, a lot of work situations, no one wants to hear, no one wants to hear your suggestions. No one’s asking you just like Do as you’re told, and on and on. And on just basic life’s rejection, it starts to crush that beautiful, natural curiosity and natural ability to ask and to, to not be ashamed of wanting more. That’s what you’re here for. You’re here to grow. You’re here to evolve, you’re here to want more. So that’s why Mark and I said we have to help people rekindle this spirit of asking inside of them. And one of the roadblocks is naivete. And it’s a big one. Because, you know, when you go back to the three channels through which we can ask ask yourself, ask others and ask God, then that night, naivete is important. It’s, I tell a story in there about how we have this beautiful Filipino woman who worked for us when my kids were tiny. And she come every day and cook these great meals. And she brought this fruit one morning and cut it up and put it on a plate and said, try this. And I looked at this Juicy Orange fruit. I’m like, What is this? I tasted it. And it was so divine. I was like, this is the best food I’ve ever tasted. What is this Malda? And she goes it’s a mango. And I go, mango. Why have I never tasted a mango before? Why did you get this thinking she’d imported it from the Philippines? She goes at the grocery store. How did I miss that? How naive Am I What else am I missing through my own naivete right. It’s what people in my passing everybody every day passing by it. Every day never never been curious enough to find out more about them. Because what if they’re the most amazing person I ever met? Or it’s the most amazing business connection I’ve ever made? What opportunities Am I passing by every day because I’m naive. And I’ve lost my curiosity about things and about life. So Mark, and I discovered that is one of the most important roadblocks is to rekindle that don’t be naive, we’re naive. We’re all naive. But it’s the curiosity that gets us past our own naivety. Right?

That is our natural human spirit: wanting to evolve, wanting to learn, wanting to grow. - Crystal Dwyer Hansen Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 20:32

Absolutely. And as you’re listening or watching right now, or some of these blocks impacting you, you know, the lack of self worth, I know, when I was a kid, I was brought up in the inner city of Detroit, you know, and you know, the story, you shared Crystal about food stamps, I had to go to the grocery store at farmer Jacks in inner city of Detroit and buy stuff with Grocery with food stamps and get laughed at. And I knew that I did not want that to happen, not for me ever again. Nor did I want it to happen for my family. And I started on this trajectory. What is that for you? Or how about fear? What false evidence that’s appearing real for you right now? It is holding you back, keeping you stuck or being disconnected. In a world that’s gone wild with technology that’s supposed to connect us? It’s a it’s an artificial intimacy, right? How are you connected or disconnected? What could you do about that? No, speaking of what you can do about these blocks, Mark, I don’t know if I heard this from you, or who but many years ago, I met someone who said, you know, all it takes is about 10 seconds of courage to speak to the idea of having 10 seconds of courage, especially as it relates to Ask and be open to ask.

Mark Victor Hansen 21:42

Okay, so not only did we write about our own story, which we can talk about endlessly, and then we did all the interviews from Cambridge and Harvard and Stanford, but then we interviewed 26 Master askers. One of them, I think, you know, Jim Stovall, at 19. He’s going to be a superstar football player, he gets recruited by the NBA, NFL, sorry, football, NFL, and he goes in medical, the doctor comes back, shaking his head and said, kid, there’s a worst news I’ve ever had to give anyone I’m sorry, but six months from now, you’re going to be totally absolutely permanently blind. But he goes self incarcerates himself in his home and he’s got a radio, telephone and television and a nine by 12 room and he’s moaning his fate in his parents a Jimmy good onto the blind meeting. Well, it’s an echo chamber of negativity, and we’re saying everybody’s got to shut off all the negativity. 15 minutes of media days most. He goes there, but he sits next to this woman. He said, I used to love to watch TV and see somebody throw a right hook. somebody ought to do something about that. This is a pivotal question to reboot everybody. She said, Wait a second. Wait a second. Jim. We’re somebody? Why can’t we do some crushing the story to what short for the show? They created Narrative TV, one of the biggest three streaming systems in the world, 14 million people a day, watch it $10 a month that are blind. Now you and I are sighted and people watching are probably sighted and don’t even know that it exists, because why would you need it? But the point is, he wrote a book called The Ultimate Gift, a phenomenal book. I wrote the foreword. And the afterward I said, this is one of the clearest books I’ve ever read. I need this to become a movie. And sure enough, he let us interview this guy is just pure wisdom. And we love him and Yes, he’s blind. But boy, can he see? You said you don’t have to be blind to really see like I do. But you said I now write books that I can’t read. And I make movies that I can’t watch a movie made 100 million dollars. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time we all say what is it that I can fix an entrepreneur? cakes a problem fixes it for ice a Avast profit is

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time we all say, ‘what is it that I can fix?’ - Mark Victor Hansen Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 23:52

Amazing. And I don’t know if you’re getting the chills. But think about that. You don’t have to be blind to be able to write, read, you know, you’ve got something inside of you to get out to the world to make a bigger difference to make a bigger impact to help more people to help solve problems, small problems, big problems and it starts with you. Like what if one thing that Mark and Crystal have shared with you can help open the door for you to just ask a better question. Now you guys talk about the pivot your destiny by asking you talk about the one question in the book, part two around page 172 or so. The one question to pivot your entire business career. speak to that a little bit.

Mark Victor Hansen 24:37

Well, by the way, so I am bankrupt upside down in 1974. I’m in New York City. I built the Wall Street Racquet Club Botanical Gardens aviary geodesic domes have been a graduate school with Dr. Fuller who invented them. I crash and burn because of building out a plastic at exactly the wrong time. Aaron said we can write checks so be your bank so bouncing I asked the wrong question that’s the point you have to write question you go the right way you’re wrong question go the wrong way. I say what do I go bankrupt and I checked a book on a library how to go bankrupt by herself. It was my best worst experience. Six months. I’m sleeping out in front of another guy’s room in a sleeping bag and I asked myself what all I do on talk to people who care about things that matter that would make a life changing difference. I asked my three roommates in Hicksville, Long Island New York, you know, anyone that’s not a lawyer, not a doctor, not a celebrity not famous. And is young that speaking and they said yeah, this guy Chip cons I’m in real estate. Here’s a ticket he mesmerised the audience for 500 people for three hours. I go up to I said, I’d like to buy your lunch and learn how to do it. He said kids dad, real estate cadets mine and these five boroughs of New York. You I’ll teach you how to do it and insurance. But the chance you making it one and 1000 you’re not going to make Chip called became my best friend. I did. Well, I did. Only Tony Robbins. And as far as I know, did 1000 talks a year for the first three years I did it. Then they said, Well, you have that story. In a book, I wrote my first book, Stand up, Speak out when I said, this is not a New York conduit. So this is an international bestseller isn’t done national. So this is my bestseller. I tripled my income I sold 20,000 copies. During the worst time interest rates are 28% 20,000 to $10. Each mostly cash signed every one of the books to everybody in the audience. And I took in $200,000 I gotta tell you again, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, I arrived. Right Livelihood?

Dan Kuschell 26:39

That’s so powerful. Crystal, how about as far as the question for you, like, from a business point of view? Like, what’s your question? Our viewers, our listeners could ask them to pivot today?

Crystal Dwyer Hansen 26:50

Yeah, I think it’s like, you know, what, am I good at? What excites me? What do people you know, and I like asking other people, if you could say, what are my, you know, what’s my best quality? What is that? I mean, so it all starts with in that asking journey, we talked about asking yourself asking others and ask God, right? Well, we say it all starts by asking yourself, that’s the reflective journey. And that, Dan is what people don’t do. We don’t do it often enough. If we don’t sit with ourselves and take that time, we say there are three critical phases of that asking yourself journey. And that is phase one is Where am I now? And all those questions that are going to come under that main question, Where am I now? Do I like what I’m doing? Do I feel good about myself? If I was to imagine my perfect scenario? What is that? What what’s working? What is not working? Because sometimes we’re on that hamster wheel, and it’s not working. And we just never stopped to question it. Right? That’s that pattern paralysis that we were talking about in the robot? The second critical phases, where do I want to be? So often we keep running through life and never stopping? To ask ourselves? Is this what I really want? Okay, is this my dream? Um, is this my definition of success? Am I on purpose? You know, what Mark and I like to do is, say, you know, imagine it, imagine your ultimate amazing scenario, whether it’s in your career or relationships, imagine that amazing ultimates next scenario is that, in my greatest vision of success, what am I doing every day? What am I talking to? Who are my colleagues, who are my peers, in my greatest vision of success for myself, because if you’re willing to take the time to do this reflective journey, the asking yourself part, you will literally start to sculpt the architecture for the life you really much. And then the third critical phase of that questioning is, what are the specific steps I need to take to get there to get to that beautiful creation that I just created? By asking where I want to be?

So often we keep running through life and never stopping to ask ourselves: Is this what I really want? Is this my dream? Is this my definition of success? - Crystal Dwyer Hansen Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 29:05

So as you’re listening, or you’re watching right now, like, what type of clarity would it give you? to go through these three steps? Where are you now? Right? And by the way, I want to encourage you to come back to this episode with what Mark and Crystal have been sharing with you. Because there’s just so much wisdom already. In just a few short minutes, you can come back to this episode of growthtofreedom.com/298. That’s growthtofreedom.com/298. But step one, where are you now? Where are you now? Number two is? Where do you want to be? Not just where do you want to go? But where do you want to be? You know, I’ve heard Mark describe it, you’ve got to be first to do to have, right. So where do you want to be number three is? What are the steps to get there? What are the steps to get there now, I’m going to also recommend you get this book and not just get the book buy two copies for you and one For a friend so that you can team up together, partner together and go through this journey, go through this process. The questions not only for you personally, but also your business, your career, and a whole lot more now. You know, I’m curious as we kind of wind this down, guys, what would what would you say would be like one to five action steps that you hope our viewers and our listeners would take as a result of us being together?

Mark Victor Hansen 30:28

Well, we’re so excited about it. Everybody that gets a book, we want them to go to askthebookclub.com, and we’re gonna have for free, teach them how to be Master askers. But the question the answer to your question, the five takeaways, number one, we want you all to become a master asker. And you got to figure out like we said, number one, what do you want? You got to keep asking yourself, what do you want? And then ask, like Crystal just said, 10 of your friends to write out what you they see as your master superpower? Like, and we’re teaching that because everyone’s got a superpower and God doesn’t make any junk. Right? And that’s why we’re saying you got to ask God God, what’s your destiny for me? 400 times for you go to sleep at night. And so you figured out what you want What do I really want number two, you got to put it in writing because there’s spiritual law that says write a thing make it clear it’ll be established onto you. And you know when when jack I wrote down, we’re going to be number one New York Times bestseller. I gotta tell you, those all the people that 144 people that turned us down, but you guys are wacko. we visualize it to realize it and in my case, because I want to be the world’s best selling author. We interview I interviewed not Jack I interviewed the hundred one best selling fiction nonfiction guys. And I didn’t say, hey, Dan, tell me how you write I know how to write. Tell me how you market which is one of your masteries and I interviewed everybody from, you know, Danielle Steel to Scott Peck. And here in our city, of course, Clive cussler. And then she visualized realize it and then you just go do the do number five.

Dan Kuschell 32:02

Go do the do now as you’re watching or listening. Mark went through that really quick. So you’re gonna want to come back to this episode growthtofreedom.com/298. To get those five steps out, Crystal, Mark, how can people get the book? Like where can they go to connect with you? You brought up askthebookclub.com. But where can they go to get the book?

Crystal Dwyer Hansen 32:20

Yes. So go to amazon.com best place to go to get books right now, especially with all the craziness. You know, a lot of bookstores have been It’s a long story. Anyway, um, Amazon’s the best place to get the book, we’ve got an audio book, Kindle every version. And it’s being purchased around the world. Like it’s really catching on even in Germany and places like that. So we’re super excited. And then yeah, we’d love for you to reach out and connect with us. I’m at Crystal Dwyer Hansen on all you know, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. And of course Mark is it Mark Victor Hansen. And my website is crystalvisionlife.com you can go there and get a an audio that’s really helping people right now. It’s a free download. It’s called purge messy thinking. Super important right now with all the craziness that’s going on and the crit and the feelings that everyone’s having right now it really helps get past some of that negative thinking. And and then of course, Markvictorhansen.com. There’s there’s a free gift there as well. So

Dan Kuschell 33:23

so I want to encourage you as you’re listening or watching right now take notes right now this second and open your phone open a browser. And I want you to go to a couple places right now because we there’s no sense in waiting, like as I share with my 14 year old and my 12 year when’s that now the best time to do this? now is the best time so here’s the thing, go to crystalvisionlife.com, that’s crystalvisionlife.com, purge, messy thinking, get the tool, get the free gift, the free bonus to be able to take advantage of that. Why? Why do you want to do that? Like, have you noticed that right now more than ever, we’re in overwhelm burnout, a little bit of distress. Maybe some of your friends, your family, your businesses as your peers are suffering from some of those things, what a gift it would be to give them the gift of being able to purge messy thinking doing behaviors those sorts of things you can get that right now for free at crystalvisionlife.com, that’s crystalvisionlife.com, you can go check out their site at CrystalDwyerHansen.com and by the way, we’ll have all the links in the show notes as well you can come back to the episode of growthtofreedom.com/298, that’s growthtofreedom.com/298, CrystalDwyerHansen.com, CrystalDwyerHansen.com, that’s CrystalDwyerHansen.com. And then markvictorhansen.com as well. And I also want to add one more, askthebookclub.com, askthebookclub.com, as well to get those resources and we’ll also have a link to the Amazon you know ability. You probably are familiar with Amazon though, aren’t you is you’re listening or watching. Just click over there right now don’t wait get you and a friend or a couple friends or more Friends are get all your business friends, copies of the book, as well. Now, as we wind that, and there’s the book, so there you go. Now as we wind this down, I I like to mix in some personal things. Guys, you guys have been married for how long?

Crystal Dwyer Hansen 35:18

Well, we got married in May of 2011. So we’re nine years now,

Dan Kuschell 35:25

Nine years,

Mark Victor Hansen 35:26

we’ve been indefatigably. together for over a dozen, amazing blue tour. I wrote out 267 things, I needed an ideal wife because I’ve had a tragic first experience. So all the values, virtues, qualities, and choose 267 out of 267. And we had to have all the same values all the same spiritual thinking she had her own her own business, she had to be your own person had to be strong headed, want to travel, I’m all

Dan Kuschell 35:55

amazing as you’re listening, by the way and watching like, you might be thinking yourself 267 qualities when you like to get inside the mind of like one of the real geniuses in the world, I want to encourage you get the book and start exploring some of the other resources that Mark and Crystal have available. I mean, it will blow your mind, the thinking behind I mean, there’s so many credentials I didn’t have time to get into. But it’s a list of who’s who items. And I know for me, I’ve been profoundly impacted by Mark’s work, and what he stands for who he is in so many ways. I mean, just 15 years ago, I was about 85 pounds heavier than I am now. I was in the middle of my business, I had two businesses that ultimately we were able to grow up over 20 million and then sell an exit, very blessed to be able to do that. But part of the thinking as a catalyst to that was some of Mark’s teaching, Mark’s work. And you know what, it can have an amazing impact personally, professionally, your health, you’re finding I mean, there’s so many different ways that it can help and ask is a great start to be able to give you the way to ignite to get through what we’re dealing with right now. Right? Because think about it like what if you could just ask that one question Mark gave you five simple steps, right? You got to be a master asker number one, number two, you’ve got to put it in writing, right? Don’t just type it on your computer, but put it in writing. No, this book, I have books in my bookshelf over here. I write I don’t take my notes. There’s a reason for that. I think I first may have learned that from Mark and the power of writing versus putting it down just in computers. Number three is you got to visualize to realize right on top of that, ask 10 friends, what are your superpowers? Or what do you see my superpowers? As I tell, I’ll tell you what, when you do this exercise, you will be blown away with humility, Grace, clarity on who you really show up to be like, what would that be worth to you? And there’s so much more so again, I want to encourage you to go to askthebookclub.com, go to Crystalvisionlife.com, crystalvisionlife.com, go to CrystalDwyerHansen.com, MarkVictorHansen.com, dive into the most importantly, take action with what we’ve shared with you about I mean, we’re just giving you a you know, we’re giving you a glance, it’s so much wisdom in the book, and it can help you can help your family, help your friends, help your kids and a whole lot more. So, as you guys have been married on this journey. This may sound like a really strange question. I’m gonna let you guys decide who goes first. Now I’m going to I’m going to challenge you Crystal. Okay.

Crystal Dwyer Hansen 38:40

I accept.

Dan Kuschell 38:41

were to turn to Mark right now because we’re together, and you were to thank Mark, for how he shows up every day to allow you to be your very best. What would you What would you thank him for?

Crystal Dwyer Hansen 38:55

Oh, gosh, I would thank him. Just what you said, Thank you for holding such a beautiful space. For me to just be my best. It is amazing. I’m telling you. He is an amazing person. What you see, you know, in front of the scenes, it’s even better behind the scenes. Truly. I think he’s the most considerate man I have ever met actually one of the most considerate people I have ever met. He always thinks of things that he can do to make my day a little bit better. Whether it’s like putting water on my table at night or you know, making sure my towel is thrown over the door so that I don’t have to get chilled. It come out. It’s just unbelievable. Love the shower. Yeah. Um, but I think I’m just so grateful that we both wake up each day wanting with the intention that we’re going to deliberately make the day great. You know, we’re going to look for what’s right and not what’s wrong. You No. And of course we have to, we have to correct course we have to do you know, a positive critique about what we’re doing is what’s working, what’s not working by asking the questions. But for the most part, we try to stay in that we both have a deep desire to be in a state of joy. So,

Dan Kuschell 40:19

thank you for sharing that taken us behind the scenes. Mark, if you are going to turn to Crystal, and how she has shown up for you to be your best self, what would you thank her for?

Mark Victor Hansen 40:30

She’s the most amazing woman 24 seven, I told her when we were first dating, and we, you know, she just made my whole spirit and life tingle. And and I said, holy cow. I could live in a desert island with you and just the two of us because we get back to the question thing, we never stop asking each other questions. And so you know, the question, we’ve been asking so many podcasts, well, how do you guys handle 24 seven being unlocked that well, we love and adore and cherish each other. We have to do doing podcasts. So thank god podcasting came along. But we can’t travel very much because everything’s on lockdown. It can’t go to why can’t go to Mexico can’t do a lot of things that we normally do, or Europe or Asia. And so it had been more than perfect. And then fortuitously the bigger answer we’re sitting in are falling in love. We’re at a restaurant called mothers in Costa Mesa eating green, healthy food to be vigorous and lively and energetic and old. Man of the cloth is sitting next to us. It’s senior like he’s nine years old. And he leads in into the see how in Love you too are. Can I tell you how to stay married? And it’s a strange question, but I get goosebumps. Yeah, I’d like to hear they say well, I’m had a really great ministry, we found only one thing works. Of course, that begs a question and what’s pray out loud together in the morning at night. And we spend an hour a day when we start our day, every morning in prayer meditation, and we pray out loud before and I’m Crystal I both prayed in church, we prayed in front of groups, but we never supposedly we never prayed, and ourselves a lot. But, you know, once you decide to do that, you really get glued together at levels. And you know, we pray for ourselves, our family, our country, our world, because we are so connected in so many places.

Dan Kuschell 42:18

Amazing, amazing,

Mark Victor Hansen 42:20

by the way, it touches our heart because it works. I mean, we can pray. I’ve never done this sounds like a boast. But when we pray and decide to do something, it happens.

Dan Kuschell 42:33

And as you’re watching or listening right now, what would that be worth to, you know, be able to, we’ll call it tune into that higher power, that higher purpose for you, your family, your kids, you know, people that matter most the mean the most to you? You know, I know for me, also having a marriage that failed for a lot of different reasons. being disconnected being one or being a workaholic, giving my family leftovers because I was so committed to work making that mistake, I look at this simple thing we historically do a gratitude exercise together every night, which you know, could be considered a version of prayer and like, what would that be worth that one somebody like? Yes, you’re going to learn some of the best business strategies in the world from this concept of ask. And you can go get it inside the book, and we’ve given you an ability to be able to do that. even deeper, what would it be worth afford your relationships, your marriage, your kids, to give them the foundation, you know, a solid place now, as we wrap this up in time time, being respectful of time, what’s something I should have asked you guys that we didn’t get a chance to to ask you yet as we wrap up?

Crystal Dwyer Hansen 43:43

Oh, gosh, Dan, you’ve done such a great job. I mean, there’s just so like you said, Dude, I encourage everybody to grab the book. There are so many amazing stories about business about individuals and business, we just don’t have time to go through them today. Where you know, they were able to step on that fear. And they were scared, really, really scared to do it. But when they were able to step on their fear with that courage, miracles happened. And so when you go through these stories, and your end the entire book, you know, the stories are beautiful, because stories are a metaphor. For all of us. It’s a metaphor for our own lives and, and a metaphor is nothing more than just a pattern for our brains to emulate. So it’s a really important exercise for us to read other people’s stories of victories, and how they had overcome their tragedies to create triumph. We learned so much from doing that. So yeah, I mean, I think you’ve done such an amazing interview today. I just I just encourage everybody to get the book and dive into it. And market go back to the things that really resonate with you because when you reread something Mark and I do this all the time, that’s why we do love physical books. We’ve got it in Kindle and audiobook and everything but we go back and we We use it as a reference when we have a good book like this, that that is teaching us something, you’ll look at it one day, and then two months from now you’ll find a whole different new meaning. So we say, reflect back, go back again and again marketplaces that there really are meaningful to you.

Dan Kuschell 45:18

And I want to encourage you to look at it that way, too. Don’t look at it as a book, look at it as a lifelong tool, a lifelong companion. One thing I know about all the work that I’ve, you know, taken advantage of from Mark from his audio programs, two books over the years, is they are more like lifelong companions than they are just a book, a one off and so I encourage you to take me up on it. And I will personally guarantee if you get the book and you don’t think it’s gonna transform your life, send me the book, I’ll refund your money. You don’t have to do it through Amazon.

Mark Victor Hansen 45:48

But Oh, man.

Crystal Dwyer Hansen 45:50

You’re so cool.

Mark Victor Hansen 45:52

Obviously, books and tapes, were reflecting I probably spent I’ve made more money than most people by far, but I’ve spent over a million dollars on self improvement and growth and transformation. So you know, and the trouble is, it’s so few of us avail great podcasts like yours, they can listen to grow, expand. And that’s why our corporate symbol is a butterfly. But it starts out you can’t look at a caterpillar and see it and right now we’re all in the cocoon together, it’s 8 billion of us currently alive. And we’re going to go into high flight again it’s going to resonate it’s going to be more exciting more opportunity. And if you go to my website I give you a free books and here’s the 50 trillion not billion trillion dollars of business Americans can do for 2020 to 2030 and all you got to do is know what they are so you can go participate and you say well, I don’t have a job and I get fired at the airlines or whatever yesterday right got I got it I got it. Now either be a victim or via Victor and we want you to emerge our corporate symbols a butterfly, like like put on one minute millionaire because it is a universal symbol of freedom. And ladies and gentlemen, we are here to come out free and that’s what Dan’s espousing so articulately and elegantly

Dan Kuschell 47:07

and there you have it, I encourage you to take action with what Crystal and Mark have shared with you, you know put this in place get the book you won’t be disappointed get the book and then most importantly start using it as your lifelong guide start asking the better question start asking where are Where am I now? Where do I want to be? You know, what are the steps right go into the business side going to take advantage of the tools that Crystal and Mark have gifted you at their site again all the links you can come back to this episode of growthtofreedom.com/298, that’s growthtofreedom.com/298, if you never want to miss an episode, go to growthtofreedom.com/subscribe, that’s growthtofreedom.com/subscribe, seize the day, make it a great week. We’ll see you next time on growthtofreedom.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com. Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day? Or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall and growing your business? Well, let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation. You do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com, that’s breakthroughstrategycall.com. In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free small business toolkit. You can get that at activate.breakthrough3x.com, that’s activate.breakthrough3x.com. If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com.