Mark Victor Hansen: Best Selling Co-Author of 'Chicken Soup For The Soul'

Born in 1948 in Waukegan, Illinois, Mark Victor Hansen is the third of four boys born to parents of Danish descent. His father, who had only an eighth grade education, came to America at the age of 17 and soon married a first generation Danish-American. “My mother only had a sixth grade education, “ says Hansen, “but she was a wonderful storyteller. I loved the way she could enchant her listeners, which is a skill I always wanted to learn and master. ”

A baker by trade, Hansen’s father owned a small shop, but went bankrupt during the Depression. He spent his last $50 on a new start during World War II and the bakery made a small, but steady income for the family. Hansen’s mother worked at the counter each day while his father baked in the back. “My parents thought hard work was one of the highest virtues possible, “ says Hansen. “I learned from my father that the more enterprising you are, the freer you are. He also taught me the virtue of being thrifty. Whatever income I earned during my childhood, my father took half of it to save for my college education. ”

Hansen was always encouraged to work. Of course, his father wanted his sons to be a part of the bakery, but that held no interest for young Hansen. Instead, he discovered that he had a natural talent for sales. At the age of nine, he dreamed of owning a racing bicycle that cost $200. To earn the bike he sold 375 boxes of American Greeting cards door-to-door for $1 per box, making him the company’s number one salesman in his age division. From that moment on he knew he wanted to be a lifelong entrepreneur. Hansen was never satisfied with just one job at a time, however. He had a paper route and quickly added two more, eventually becoming an assistant supervisor of paperboys.

When Hansen was 16 he watched The Beatles’ debut on Ed Sullivan’s television show. Inspired, he proposed to his best friend that they start their own band. The fact that Hansen did not know how to play an instrument didn’t seem important. Within two weeks he formed The Messengers and earned $17 an hour playing bass guitar at YMCA sock hops. “I had discovered a market no one else catered to, “ he says. “We did all the YMCA dances and I made enough money to buy a car and a motorcycle. ”

It was also at the age of 16 that Hansen had a life-defining vision in which he saw himself talking to 80,000 people at one time. “I wasn’t frightened by this vision, “ he says. “I revel in front of an audience. I knew I wanted to be a person who made a difference—someone who could leave a legacy. I didn’t know how my vision would come to be, but I knew it would happen. ”

Hansen financed his undergraduate and graduate education in philosophy and communications at Southern Illinois University with the money he earned playing in his band. While working on his master’s he became a research assistant to Buckminster Fuller, the owner of 2,000 major patents and the author of more than 40 national bestsellers, including Utopia and Oblivion. “He was my intellectual mentor, “ says Hansen. “He taught me to think comprehensively and in anticipation of the future. I learned that if you anticipate problems, you could help solve them. That’s what I wanted to do for humanity. ”

One of Buckminster Fuller’s signature inventions, the geodesic dome, became Hansen’s first commercial venture. “I thought I would house humanity with those, “ he says. Within three years he had annual sales of $2 million, but one event Hansen never saw coming was the OPEC oil embargo of 1974. His domes used polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a petrochemical product that was suddenly scarce. Hansen’s PVC was diverted to bigger customers and he was out of business overnight. Since he had personally guaranteed his company’s loans, both the company and Hansen fell into bankruptcy. “I lost everything, “ he says. “I couldn’t even afford the $300 needed for a bankruptcy attorney, so I had to represent myself. ”

Hansen spent the next six months living in the hallway of a friend’s apartment. He found a job with the railroad, unloading freight cars for $2. 14 an hour. Depressed and despondent, Hansen discovered an audiotape he had won while selling telephone advertising systems during his college days. He had never listened to the motivational tape because he had never felt he needed it. Now, as he listened to Cavett Robert, founder of the National Speakers Association, he felt a connection. After listening to the tape once, he listened to it again and again. In all, he listened to the tape 280 times. Amazed at what he was hearing, Hansen says, “Robert seemed to be speaking directly to me when me asked,’ Are you the creature of circumstances or a creator of circumstances?’ Suddenly I could see that I had created my bankruptcy so that I could get out of what I shouldn’t be doing and free myself for what I should be doing—which is speaking, writing, marketing, and promoting ideas that can help everyone. ”

In August 1974, Hansen started what has become Mark Victor Hansen & Associates, and became one of America’s premier speakers. He became known as the Master Motivator, making thousands of presentations to many top corporations and professional associations in dozens of countries and every major city in the United States and Canada. He self-published several books whose titles include Visualizing Is Realizing, Sell Yourself Rich, How To Achieve Total Prosperity, and The Miracle of Tithing. Once he made a name for himself, established publishing companies printed his Dare To Win, The Aladdin Factor, and Out of the Blue.

In 1980, Jack Canfield, a teacher, attended a talk given by Hansen called “How to Triple Your Income and Double Your Time Off. ”After the seminar Canfield went home and put up a sign over his bed that said, “This year I am going to make $100,000. ” He earned $96,000 that year and went in search of Hansen. When he found him, he asked, “Do you think we should become best friends?” The two began doing seminars together. In 1990, Canfield told Hansen he was writing a book of what he termed “happy stories. ” Hansen became interested in the project and proposed that they write the book together. The result was Chicken Soup for the Soul, a collection of 101 stories published in 1993 that “open the heart and rekindle the spirit. ”The book became a phenomenal success and has sold more than 50 million copies. “Chicken Soup” says Hansen, “goes to everyone’s wounded soul, which everyone has. This book, and all of the books we have done since then, is parables. The story within our stories is your own story. Now we’re trying to change the world one story at a time. ”

Hansen’s theory about success is that you can’t be successful unless you love what you are doing. “Ninety percent of people who fail, “ he says, “fail because they’re doing the wrong thing. My bankruptcy 26 years ago was my wake-up call. It was saying:‘ Go find your life purpose. ’ I didn’t fail because of the Arab oil embargo. I failed because I was doing the wrong thing for me. Today I love what I do. No one has a better job than I do. ” For those who are unsure of their purpose, Hansen recommends sitting down with a pencil and writing: Who am I? “Such a simple exercise is a start on the road to discovering your purpose, “ says Hansen, who is also a big believer in goal setting. “I have 6,000 goals in writing, “ he says. “Right now I’m at l, 587. I write new goals every day. My goals include people I want to work with, places I want to go, and talks I want to give. When I was single I even wrote down a description of my ideal wife. I found her and am very committed to making our relationship the best it can be. We renew our vows annually and are getting married for the twentieth time this year. ”

Hansen believes and teaches four basic principles:

1. Know what you really want to do.
2. Write down goals. “Never cross out an accomplished goal, “ says Hansen. “Instead write ‘victory’ next to them. ”
3. Visualize to realize.
4. Remember, when your team comes together, your dreams come together.

“Each of us needs family teams, business teams, educational teams, and spiritual teams, “ he says, “so why not make each a dream team?”

Hansen says his Horatio Alger Award is the highest honor he has ever received. “I want this award to help me do immense amounts of good. I want to serve all six billion people on spaceship earth. After a recent earthquake in Taiwan, I was invited by the prime minister and president to come and talk to their people. They had lost 100,000 homes and 2,400 lives in one minute. Why did they call an American to come and talk to them? Because they don’t have the equivalent to what we have all around us in the Horatio Alger Association—people who face adversity and never lose hope; people who envision a dream and never stop until they make it a reality. ” Mark

Bobbi De Porter: Best Selling Co-Author of 'Superlearning'

Roberta "Bobbi" DePorter is the President of the Quantum Learning Network (QLN) and co-founder of the SuperCamp program.

In the late-1970s, DePorter was co-founder of the Burklyn Business School in Vermont – an avante-garde school that taught traditional business subjects in a non-traditional manner. DePorter studied with Dr. Georgi Lozanov, who developed accelerated learning, and applied his methods at the school.

In 1982, DePorter teamed-up with Eric Jensen and Greg Simmons to co-found SuperCamp – a summer camp program designed to introduce teenagers to accelerated learning academic skills and valuable life skills. The SuperCamp program is now run by QLN and is held annually at several locations across the United States and around the world. Since 1982, more than 45,000 students worldwide have attended SuperCamp.

DePorter is the author or co-author of 18 books:

• Quantum Learning: Unleashing the Genius in You (1992)
• Quantum Business: Achieving Success through Quantum Learning (1997)
• Quantum Teaching: Orchestrating Student Success (1999)
• The 8 Keys of Excellence: Principles to Live By (2000)
• Quantum Memory: Working Magic with Your Memory (2000)
  
  
• Quantum Notes: Whole-Brain Approaches to Note-Taking (2000)
• Quantum Pathways: Discovering Your Personal Learning Style (2000)
• Quantum Reading: The Power to Read Your Best (2000)
• Quantum Thinking: Creative Thinking, Planning and Problem Solving (2000)
• Quantum Writing: How to Write Like a Pro (2000)
  
  
• Quantum Success: 8 Key Catalysts to Shift Your Energy Into Dynamic Focus (2006)
• The Seven Biggest Teen Problems and How to Turn them Into Strengths (2006)
• Quantum Learner (2007)
• Quantum Memorizer (2007)
• Quantum Note-Taker (2007)
  
  
• Quantum Reader (2007)
• Quantum Thinker (2007)
• Quantum Writer (2007)

DePorter's books have been published in several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Indonesia and Brazil.

DePorter is a past President of the International Alliance for Learning, and a past Chairman the San Diego Chamber of Commerce's Business Roundtable for Best Educational Practices.

Marshall Thurber: Expert Visionary

Marshall Thurber Entrepreneur, Expert, Visionary “Marshall Thurber is an evolutionary event in our time” -- quote by Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller,

World-renowned scholar and futurist Marshall Thurber is a successful attorney, real estate developer, editor, businessman, educator, scholar, inventor, negotiator, author, visionary and public speaker.

Marshall Thurber is an entrepreneur, attorney, writer, inventor, master teacher and successful businessman. His many students include peak performance coach Tony Robbins and Rich Dad, Poor Dad author and financial educator Robert Kiyosaki.

Marshall is renowned for his unparalleled ability to communicate the essence of complex information. He was an avid student, friend and colleague of the late Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the legendary "Father of Quality Control in Japan" and the late Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller. Much of Marshall’s teaching is based on the principles and theories of these two great minds.

Marshall is the creator of several international businesses including: Money & You, The Burklyn Business School, The Future of Business I and II, The Secrets of Powerful Presentations, The Accounting Game (granted a US Patent), The Leadership Development Training, The Global Leadership Network Training, The Future of Business/The Essence of Deming and MetaManagement, The Positive Deviant Network, and Flight to Genius.

Many of these creative programs are taught in several countries throughout the world including China, Hong Kong, Australia, Russia, Poland, France, Sweden, Germany, New Zealand and Canada.

Thurber’s list of clients include: ITT Industries, Sheraton Hotels, The US Navy, Ernst & Young, Panavision, Neill Corporation, Hewlett Packard, GTE, The Neenan Company, Systems West, Bentley Management Corp., Liberty Helicopters, Columbia Artists Management Inc., The GAP, and Chicken Soup for the Soul Books.

DC Cordova : CEO Excellerated Business Schools, Inc.

Money & You® Program

Ambassador for New Education

DC is the CEO of the organization that have presented the world-famous Money & You® Program, the Excellerated Business Schools® for Entrepreneurs and other Excellerated programs since 1979. She continued with the work after the creators of the programs went on to develop other breakthrough technologies. She has had the honor of working and studying with some of the best business educators and entrepreneurs in the world, and has been involved in business and entrepreneurial education for nearly three decades. She is considered to be one of the pioneers of "New Education" – high-speed entrepreneurial business education.

Her areas of expertise are systems and organization. She has the ability to direct many projects – through systems – simultaneously and follow-up with details, an entrepreneurial skill that has allowed her to successfully build several organizations. Through creating and promoting trainings with business people, company leaders/CEO’s, entrepreneurs, professionals, managers and people from all walks of life, she has been able to observe, experience and share, first hand, the challenges of growing a business and developing powerful and successful business/personal relationships. She is considered a “Mentor of Nurturing” and works closely with top Management teams and businesses to empower good relationships.

She is an author of the comprehensive systems manual for entrepreneurs, Money-Making Systems for People Who Work with People; The Power of Mentorship: The Millionaire Within Book Series; and is currently writing The Money & You® Book.

She has been a celebrity guest in several television shows and a guest speaker on many radio shows around the world. She is an Ambassador of New Education who travels the world speaking with top business people, dignitaries, politicians, and persons of high influence – her focus is promoting the transformation of educational systems so that learning styles and methods that have been available for decades are introduced into traditional school systems around the world. Through the use of these powerful tools, young people can then learn to handle money, business and life from an early age and ensure their success as adults. She believes that change can be more easily made through the business world, thus her focus on entrepreneurial education.

Her life purpose: To uplift humanity’s consciousness through business

DC lives in San Diego, California; she travels and leads programs throughout the Asia Pacific Region. Though she has no children of her own, she wholeheartedly supports orphanages and other non-profit organizations.

Tom Crum

Tom is a visionary with his feet firmly planted on the ground. Along with his good friend John Denver Tom CO-founded the Windstar Foundation and served as its Executive Director for the first critical years from 1978-1984. Tom brought to Windstar experience as a teacher, community leader, and Aikido master. The spirit of Aikido is to blend energies, rendering an attack harmless without doing harm to the attacker. In Aikido and in life, Tom teaches that conflict does not have to equal contest.

In the 1970s, Tom created a special martial arts academy in Aspen. This school brought in teachers from several different martial arts, accepting each as having a valuable contribution to make to physical and emotional well being. Following this, Tom accepted his friend John's request to accompany him on concert tours as his associate and, not surprisingly, security chief. It was during long conversations on the road that the two began to sketch out their vision of Windstar.

In 1976, vision became reality with the birth of the Windstar Foundation. Tom's tenure as Executive Director proved critical to setting the organization's path for the next 24 years. In 1985 Tom left Windstar to found Aiki Works, Inc. Tom is a much sought after speaker and facilitator. He speaks to audiences about ways to use the spirit of Aiki to deal with conflict and stress in their lives. In the rough and tumble world of corporate America, Tom's client list includes such companies as Ashland Chemical, McDonalds, General Electric, US West, and Digital Equipment. He has spoken to countless school audiences of all ages, and has twice garnered standing ovations from cadets at the United States Air Force Academy. Tom is the author of two acclaimed books, The Magic of Conflict and Journey to Center.

Although Tom is no longer with the administration of the Windstar Foundation, he remains strongly committed to and supportive of its vision, goals, and people.

You can visit Tom's Aiki Works, Inc. site.

Windstar Foundation/Windstar Land Conservancy

‘My music and my work stem from the conviction that people everywhere are intrinsically the same,’ John Denver often spoke. ‘When I write a song, I want to take the personal experience or observation that inspired it and express it in as universal a way as possible. I’m a global citizen. I think we all are--at least we’ve all got to start thinking that way. I want to work in whatever I do with my music, my writing, my performing, my commitments, my home and personal life--in a way that is directed toward a world in balance, a world that creates a better quality of life for all people.’ - John Denver

This conviction, among others, led John in 1976 to co-found Windstar Foundation, a non-profit environmental, education and research center whose aim is to promote a sustainable future for the world. (John Denver: A Legacy of Song, 3-4.) Probably the one accomplishment with John Denver’s work of which he was the most proud and dedicated, along with his music, was the Windstar Foundation. Windstar began as a childhood dream where John wanted to have a place, high in the mountains, where he could join with people from around the world to work cooperatively for the good of the world. This concept grew for John when he and Thomas Crum first became associated with each other. Tom was a mathematician, then teacher, and marital arts expert in Aspen, specializing in Aikido. When John’s road manager, Kris O’Connor, brought the two together for Tom to become John’s own personal trainer and security expert, the two men developed a bond as kindred spirits. John and Tom grew “in sync philosophically” as well as idealistically; they collaborated in what would become called the Windstar Foundation, “an institution that was school, meeting place, and model environment combined” .

As John Denver wrote in his autobiography in 1994: Windstar, in its original conception, was in part going to be… a demonstration of what we know scientifically and technologically that is in harmony with nature. We were looking at the use of energy in the world. …In developing Windstar, Tom Crum and I focused on renewable forms of energy: the wind and the sun. …Even before I thought of the sun as energy, I connected to it pragmatically: the sun as the source of life on this planet….

Thus, the Windstar Foundation had its beginning in 1976 when John Denver and Tom Crum developed their plan for its future. In 1978, “John Denver purchased 985 acres of ranch/farm/wilderness land in Old Snowmass, Colorado, and then donated that land to the Windstar Foundation.”

In the beginning, John Denver, Tom Crum, and Hal Thau (business manager) were the first board of directors, with Tom operating the daily workings of Windstar (until the mid 80’s) and John Denver serving as its President for as long as he lived. As they created their organization, Windstar became essentially a school where people from around the world would attend workshops and take back into the world what they would learn about the environment, built around “the connections between mind, body, and spirit”

Although the high-tech buildings were never expanded on the Windstar land, the famous “geodesic dome” structures were developed as a result of John and Tom’s association with Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller. “Bucky” was a renowned architect, designer, author, environmentalist, philosopher, futurist, and true “Renaissance Man ” who joined with John and Tom in 1980 in the expansion of the Windstar dream. His first geodesic dome was built on the Windstar land, in 1984, for the purpose of teaching and demonstrating how to maintain a garden year-round in the Colorado Rockies; this would feed an average-sized family even during the harsh winters. Fish hatcheries and nurseries were established there, as well, and they not only worked, they flourished. John incorporated his desire to help with the struggles for resolving world hunger into his work with Windstar, and he felt that he was “doing something that was going to have a real, profound impact on the world”

Peter Meisen: President, Global Energy Network Institute - GENI.org

Peter Meisen is a graduate (1976) of the University of California at San Diego with an Applied Mechanics and Engineering Sciences Degree.

In 1983, Meisen co-founded SHARE (Self Help and Resource Exchange), a large private, self-help food distribution program in the United States. Internationally, there are rural development programs in Mexico and Guatemala, using the strategies of micro-credit lending, community organizing and family health and nutrition.

In 1986 Peter founded GENI, a non-profit research educational institute to explore global solutions for peace and sustainable development. His focus is on the premier strategy of linking electrical networks between countries and continents, with an emphasis on tapping renewable energy resources.

Paul Sterling and Kristin Denton: Co-Authors 'The 5 Heart Breaking, Relationship Wrecking, Intimacy Destroying Communication Mistakes'

Relationship coaches Paul Sterling and Kristin Denton are experts in the field of non-violent communication. They have been studying and training communication skills for over twenty years. Paul and Kristin will teach you the five biggest communication mistakes people make when talking about money and what you MUST know to avoid them. You will also discover the proven four step process to transform your financial lives together.