Crystal Dwyer Hansen & Mark Victor Hansen - Solve ANY Problem By Asking The Right Questions

When you're in a situation where you're trying to make a decision or you're trying to determine the correct path, we say, instead of saying, you know, what am I going to get out of this?

Ask yourself, who am I becoming if I do this thing or take this direction? And that's really important because who we're becoming is what it's all about. It's not about a temporary gain. It's about really, are we taking that correct path that leads us to that ultimate destiny that we were talking about about in the beginning? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustler Flowchart podcast with your boys, Matt Wolf and Joe Fear.

What's up, what's up? What's up? We are back with another episode and this one is a. We've been waiting for this one for a while now. We got this introduction from Scott Carson and we're like, oh, dude, this is fun. So who we're having on today, it's actually a duo and one of the names you are probably very familiar. And we have his wife as well, who's co authors in this book that we're going to chat a lot about. We have Mark Victor Hanson on the podcast today in this episode and his wife Crystal. Now they have come together in this new book. They combine their knowledge of Mark Victor Hanson's experience is just wild. And in this episode, we go into all these wild stories. Then you have Crystal over here with their combined things. I think she brings this very like, here are the specific questions and things that have actually created this interesting experience that Mark has had over the years of writing literally 312 books to date. It's wild. And Crystal has a crazy background of herself and human potential. Coaching, speaker, researcher. And they have created this book that is now out, and you definitely should get it. It's called the bridge from your dreams to your destiny. So go get that. It's on Amazon. And they also have a book club on the back of that as well. All the links are going to be in the show notes for you. So this episode is going to get you asking the best possible questions that you can basically get anything you want out of life. That's the point of this episode. And it's going to be very tactical. So you're going to definitely want to get the notes. And you get those@flowchart group.com they're the action guides. So we have everything lined out in those things, all the roadblocks, all the different specific Questions to ask yourself. The ways to ask questions of the different three ways. Get it all@flowchartgroup.com make sure to enter your email address. It is our community, our Facebook group, too, so it's a double whammy. But throw your email address in there@flowchartgroup.com that's all I got right now. Let's go talk to Mark and Crystal. All righty. Mark and Crystal, thank you for joining us today. It's great to have you.

It's our great pleasure. Thank you, Min, for having us.

So happy to be here with you, too.

Yeah, I mean, we're both sharing in the sun. You said you're in Scottsdale, where it's a nice, great day. You've been to Portugal already today. Virtually.

You guys are. You're on a war path right now. I feel like in a great way to get this book out to the world, ask and let me read this. The bridge from your dreams to your destiny. And I had a great time reading this book and thank you for sharing it with us as well. And I think it came out at a great time of what, last year, right in the middle of the pandemic and really stuck up and probably not talking to a lot of folks, to a lot of the folks outside of their bubble. So there's so much opportunity that you guys give in this book here, the both of you. But before jumping into that, I'm kind of curious of both of your backgrounds a little bit. I know, Mark, you've been.

Last year 309 books published. You said it's going to be about three. 13, 15 was it by the end of the year?

We're at 312 right now. It'll be 318 by the end of the year. Because I teach that everyone ought to write a book. And I even wrote a book called you'd have a book in you. It looks like this. But the bottom line is that you gotta write two or three books at the same time. Because everyone says, well, I have writer's block. You write a couple books at a time. You cannot have writer's block on all of them. That's a good point.

I love that. Well, how many books, like right now are you. So it sounds like you have at least two or three in the works. I mean, it sounds like you have more like 10 in the works.

And some of them are really, really big books, too. One that I'm going to do a quick aside and I go back to our book ask, but I never expected to get asked to write a biography of somebody that's very famous who has to go unnamed right now. But we took the assignment because I thought every one of us is supposed to challenge ourselves. And right now, because of what you said about COVID we think the only way to get out of this cocoon called Covid is to ask. And we think we've written the seminal book, the book that gets everybody awake, based on the transformation that's literally happening around the world. I mean, in the old days, you know, to sell a half billion books that I've done, you know, you go to bookstores. And we were all set to do that. We had two giant conferences, one in Washington D.C. with 11,000 people, one in Florida with 15,000. We were gonna sell that many books at one meeting. And what happened is the promoter calls up and says, I just lost $5 million. They've shut me down and you're fired. And I go, I got it. You're not. You know, you can't blasphemy him. The government shut us down. We can't have anybody show up. Which is tragic. Cause I think there's community and immunity and community. And I mean, look, you two guys ha.

We've stated, yeah, pretty cool in our bubble, more or less, for the podcast. But you're right, I mean, there's so much opportunity. And I feel like a lot of folks maybe are just not aware of what's right at their fingertips, within them, around them.

God, universe, whatever you call it, a bigger thing than you. So I would love to hear. And Crystal too. I mean, you've been writing books and you guys co wrote this book.

Yeah, so I'm a transformational life coach, clinical hypnotherapist. So, you know, my work is all about helping people get rid of that baggage that I call messy thinking and really rediscover the best parts of yourself and. Yeah, so Mark and I, this is the first book we've co written and it was really fun. I mean, we didn't know what to expect, but it went really well. We each kind of just got in our lane and wrote to the areas that were strong, you know, respectively in. And then I was kind of the one who brought it all together and made sure the transitions were all there and put it together. And I did that final edit. And then it was funny because when we gave it to our publisher, there's usually a pretty robust edit that happens at the publisher's level. And it was really pretty light. I mean, I went through this book so many times to make it perfect that on my editing part, when I got to the editing phase of it, you kind of do your own self edit and then hand it over to the publisher. But they were really. I was so shocked that they didn't. Sometimes they'll move chunks of your book around and be like, let's do this here. They didn't do any of that. They were just like really accepting of our vision for the book. And it was just down to a few arguments, online edits and stuff like that. So yeah, it was really cool.

Mark, has that always been the case for you or is Crystal the brains behind the operation now? Just kidding.

I told you, I'm just a pretty face doing it. Well, I've been writing since I was 16 years old, so that's a lot of years because I'm 73 years young and going to live be 127 with options for renewal and love it. And the way we've gotten out of problems is to ask. Ask yourself, ask others, ask God. The three channels we believe everyone's gotten to know. And no one's ever had a mirror say, hey, look at this. And here's the specific questions inside. Because you don't get what you desire and deserve. You get what you ask for. And what happens is no one is. Everyone says, ask and you shall receive. We all got the line, but no one ever went deep on it as far as we could see. And we said, wait a second. Every major problem we've had individually and collectively, we asked our way out of it. And then we interviewed 26 superstar askers like you just read about. And you went, oh my God, it's a universal solution. But most people right now are saying, I'm scared. I'm in my bubble. I'm not ever going to get out here. The TV is my answer. No, no, no. Out there isn't the answer. Crystal will teach you in what you said intuitively inside, right? The kingdom of heaven is within. Shows up without. And what happens is you got to control this. And the only way you control it by asking yourself the right question to get the right answer and the right result and the right activity and the right direction. And what we're saying in the subtitle is to your destiny. And we're saying, hey, look, guys, everybody's coded with a great destiny we believe at birth. Now, could you have multiple destinies over a lifetime? Absolutely. But the point is, you've got a major destiny that you're supposed to fulfill. If you're alive, you're still got A destiny. And we just watched the near death. 20,000 people in near death were interviewed for that video on Netflix right now. Every one of them came back with one line only. And the line was, your job's not done, bubba. You gotta come back. You're not done.

Yeah, well, define destiny in your guys words in this context. I'd love to hear it.

You know, I think that destiny is the ultimate expression of you. That place where all of those amazing qualities and the greatest expression of you meets the most amazing opportunity that is life changing for you and others around you. And I think really that's your ultimate destiny.

That's good. Yeah. And the book so clearly lays out and even the layout of the book is so simple to just jump to a section. Maybe it's business and maybe it's health and relationships. And you can see these specific questions of exactly what you're saying where you can ask in all these three different modalities, very specific questions and probably get back wildly different answers potentially from the different sources.

One of the stories we have in there is Peter Guber, who's very famous in your Satan and one of our dear friends. But Peter Guber starts as a little kid. He's a Jewish kid in New York, family has zero money, he's shoveling snow and all that, hires other kids to shovel snow. Gets enough scholarship ability by asking himself, well, where can I go to school? Gets to the best school in New York. Every kid there is rich, except he doesn't have money for a car, he can't take a girl out on a date, he can't afford a meal. This isn't good. There's got to be enterprise value. I'm going to ask myself, what's the enterprise value? Finds out that every kid doesn't want to take rich kids don't want to take in their dry cleaning and laundry. So he starts doing that. He ends up getting 17 kids to put it together. Go to a dry cleaner, gets a dry cleaner and give it 50 off and 20 to him. A launderer, the same thing. And what happens is he gets into all those universities, make so much money by asking and asking. He finally asked this Wonder Woman out, who he's been married to for 58 years.

Wow.

He's 80 years old, young now, and her dear friend, we vacationed with him 17 days. And so the guy's, if you know the term mensch, he's a mensch. I mean, you know, he made 50 major movies, he's got more Academy Awards for Rocky, for Batman, for Rain man for, you know.

All that stuff. And then we're sitting with him at dinner and I said, say, Peter and Tara, what are you doing now? He said, now remember, I came out of real poverty, so she had some largess in her family, but I did not. I had earned my way since I was 9 years old. So like Peter, and that's why we're such buds. But I never expected what he said next. He said, oh, I bought a little sports team today. I said, oh, yeah? Yeah, really? And I get goosebumps telling this. I said, what was it? He said, a little thing called a Golden State Warriors. I said.

And I'm such an ass. I said, well, what did you pay for it? You said, $170 million.

Hold on, hold on.

Need a breath for people out there listening. He also owns the Dodgers, and the point is you can get anywhere you want with asking. And he said, look, everyone's got enterprise value in them. And that's part of what. Crystal defined destiny better than I've ever heard her define it. Just a second. We got to write. That ton of it was so good.

Send you the recording.

Listen to the podcast, guys, is it. Peter's had a destiny because he employs more people, does more stuff, and still has more freedom than anyone. I mean, we traveled with him and he does fun stuff. And you gotta learn how to ask to get yourself fulfilled. Ask yourself, ask others, ask God. And he does all that to the fulfillment of his soul and mind and body and all of his employees.

It almost like I'm getting the sense when you're telling that story, because I remember reading it and it was amazing, is he's creating momentum with all the questions.

It sounds like he's just asking, asking, asking. And anyone can do this to gather or gain that momentum and kind of get unstuck in whatever unstuck means. Would you kind of agree with that?

That's exactly right. And that's what asking does. It allows us to just keep our journey moving forward because there is nothing that has the ability to reveal what is hidden like asking. And let's face it, in life, there's always stuff that we're just not going to know, and we get stuck. We get in a certain situation and we don't see a way out of it, and we don't have any answers, but we always have questions. And it's by being able to form the right question at the right time in the right way to find that correct answer that's going to move you to the next place. And the next place and next place, you ask a question and suddenly you get an illumination. You go, oh, wow. You ask another question and the solution drops into your head. And question by question, answer by answer, suddenly you are moving your path forward in an accelerated way. It's really the only way to get out of your stuckness. And that's why it's so important right now for people to read this book and really pay attention to the principles and the lessons and the stories. Because, you know, each one of us live. There's a little bit of each of us in all of our stories. That's the truth. And we can learn so much from their stories. They're like metaphors for our own lives.

Now, I'm curious. So the concept of asking a lot of questions, it sounds like a simple concept, but there's obviously reasons people don't ask a lot of questions. And I know part one of the book goes into all of the reasons why people would avoid asking these questions. So can we go there for a minute and just kind of run through some of the reasons that people avoid asking questions in the first place?

Perfect.

We call it the seven roadblocks to asking. And the first one is a sense of self worthiness. This is your, you know, your self esteem on bail, so to speak. Who am I? I can't ask you guys that question or whatever, right. The second one is like fear, which is false evidence appearing as real. And fear is faith upside down and inside out and reversed at some levels. The next one is just plain stubbornness. We got a great story, my own brother about that, who is a brilliant guy, photograph of mine, but stubborn as hell. Next is doubt, right? We just need to go. If I ask them, they'll think I'm stupid, arrogant, dumb, or I don't know, I should know, this is my job, or this is my wife, this is my relationship, or whatever it is. So we all have those kind of doubts. Next one is pattern paralysis, where, you know, Einstein said if you keep doing the same thing and expect something new, you're cuckoo crazy. Which a lot of us are crazy because you keep going the same job and expect a bonus or a raise and don't understand you're not fulfilling your destiny. And that's what maybe the best thing out of this thing is. People are going, hey, wait a second, I got to re vector, I got to re pivot, I got to go in a new direction. Which is the first thing you guys said is that that's what asking does. It gets. You do that and then the last one, we can talk to any one of them in depth, in every way. But the last one's disconnection, which is really heartbreaking to me. And I'll just do it at the level of we go to restaurants. We still can move around here in Arizona, and we also been to Florida, where we got relatives. And all these kids live in their cell phone instead of talking to each other when they're at dinner. And you go, too much, hey, guys, in the old days window deal time, if you're a salesman like I was. But now it's screen time. Both computer and cell phone, you go, boy, you are disconnected. And we worked in China like 80 times, and the people walked down the street and they got two cell phones, and they're walking with us.

Two brains.

I hope I didn't go too far on that.

Not at all. No. I think it's these roadblocks, the seven roadblocks, like you were saying here, they're interesting because you can kind of look deep into any one. One of them that stands out for me is pattern paralysis, the fact that you're kind of just stuck in your own head. Maybe there's a childhood stuff that might have not given you some perspective. I'd love for you to kind of elaborate on that, Crystal.

Yeah, so it's funny because you see that all the time, and I'm sure we recognize that in ourselves, at least at some point in our lives. I honestly think when we talk to people, that we've probably recognized these seven roadblocks at least once in our lives, and. And some of them are more prevalent. But that pattern paralysis, it's that thing where what you're doing didn't work last week or last month or last year, and it's not going to work next week, next month, and next year. But you just keep doing it because you're stuck in this pattern, and you just keep doing the same thing over and over, and you never stop to challenge it. You never stop to ask yourself the right questions. Is this working? Is this producing the result I want, whether it's in my relationships? And this happens all the time in relationships where we trigger each other, and we have these patterns that we're locked into, and we can make each other miserable, and we never stop to challenge the pattern and go, are we paralyzed by this pattern that is just wrecking us and feeling all of our joy and happiness and the potential to have a great relationship? So it's when you stop and you start asking the questions, and that's what we're encouraging people to do is when you recognize that you're in that pattern paralysis where nothing is changing, whether it's in your work or your business life or your relationships, all relationships, or even in your health and wellness, you're doing the same thing. And like, oh, I know I'm out of shape, but, you know, I can't get in shape because this, this, this, this, or I'll start eating, you know, better after this or after this holiday and then after this holiday and then after this holiday, and suddenly the whole year is full of holidays. So there's never that time.

Right.

And so looking at your own destructive patterns and going, ah, start questioning them. Is this really working and really being honest enough to answer those questions, you know, candidly to yourself?

Yeah, yeah. And there's a question. I believe it. I might miss the wording a little bit, but who am I becoming? Or you know what? It's the becoming question. And I remember reading that, and it can be applied, I'm assuming that pretty much every one of these to kind of put a little magnifying glass on yourself.

Right. And we talk about that in the spiritual part of it because it's like the question pivot, right? So instead of when you're in a situation where you're trying to make a decision or you're trying to determine the correct path, we say, instead of saying, what am I going to get out of this.

Ask yourself, who am I becoming if I do this thing or take this direction? And that's really important because who we're becoming is what it's all about. It's not about a temporary gain. It's about really, are we taking that correct path that leads us to that ultimate destiny that we were talking about in the beginning?

Well, you had a couple.

Yeah. I mean, I think Joe brought up the pattern paralysis. I think for me, the fear one is the one that. That resonates the most with me. And it's one of those things that's interesting because there's people that I could probably ask questions to that would have the solution to the problems I have, but I'm afraid to ask those questions of those people. But I can't really put into words why I don't want to ask those questions. So I think it'd be interesting to speak into that for a minute because from a business standpoint, there's probably a lot of people that have been where we're trying to go. And if we just found those right people and asked those right questions, and they can give Us the path to follow. Yet we're still scared to reach out to those people. We're scared to ask the questions we're. I know for us there's a little bit of. I'll speak for myself, but I'm guessing also with Joe, but there's a little bit of this element of if I ask this person this question, they'll realize I'm not as good as I think they think I am. You know, that kind of thing. So a little bit of the, this sort of dignity element. So, so let's talk about the fear one for a second. Why do you think that people are scared to ask for the solutions from the people that we know have the solutions?

Right. Okay. So I'm going to use my own story and then I'm going to do your exact question. Is it 1974, I go bankrupt. I'd been in graduate school with Bucky Fuller. I tried to be him. He built, invested, invented geodesic domes. I built the Wall street rack, a club, botanical gardens. Eight years. I'm a young hotshot and I thought my cooler, whatnot. Without building out of plastic at exactly the long time. We had an oil embargo and suddenly I couldn't get any, which was my best worst experience, as it turns out. And I went bankrupt so fast. I asked myself the wrong question. I said, if you ask the wrong question, you get full of fear and go the wrong. I said, what if I go bankrupt? I checked a book out of the library because I had no money. How to go bankrupt by yourself.

And so for six months, I'm in Hicksville, Long Island, New York, sleeping in a sleeping bag in front of another guy's room. And I kept asking myself, what am I really supposed to do? This is a question that she articulated. Your destiny. We all have at least one and maybe multiple, just like we all have multiple roadblocks. And I said, I want to talk to people that care about things that matter that would make a life changing difference. I go to my roommates, three guys at breakfast, and I say, hey, I think I want to be a professional speaker. Do you know anyone that's young? Not a lawyer, not a doctor, not a celebrity, not a Broadway star? The guy said, yeah, there's this kid a few years older than you. He's out talking to Hallbog. He's really sensational. And by the way, I'm not going. Here's my ticket. When you get over your fears, miracles happen. Miracles are spontaneous events. I raced out to Hawpag, Long island this guy mesmerized the audience for three hours, at the end of which the name Chip Collins became my great friend. But I went up and I said, I'm Mark Victor Hanson. You got no reason to want to do this, but I want to take you. I'm asking you, will you let me take you to lunch, teach me how to do this crazy business? He said, chance of you making the kids one in a thousand. You saw me do it. Nobody can do what I do. You're not going to make it. And I go, oh, yeah? Let me just ask. He said, you stay out of real estate. I own the five boroughs of New York. I'll teach you how to do it if you stay in life insurance and stay out of my market. I said, okay. I did a thousand talks a year the first three years in life insurance. Tony Rollins. And I said, we're the only two guys we knew that were that crazy, because if you want massive success, you got to take massive result. But the point is, we got rejected a lot. And then people started liking the story, which is. The story is where you get out of your fear by following somebody else's story. That's cut it. That's why we do 26 stories in here. But people kept saying, up, Mark, you got these great stories, which is, you know, I'm a story man forever. So he said, do you have it in a book? And the first book I did, this is 1975, maybe stand up, speak out and win. And I sold it to little audiences. Six people over real estate. Sorry, an insurance office or seven or ten, never over 50. And I said, look, this isn't a New York Times bestseller, not even a national bestseller, but it is my bestseller, and I want to sign to you, your spouse, and your dog, if you got one. And they all did what you two guys did, but they gave me $10 for the 20,000 copies. $10? $200,000. That's like 2 million today.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, one more time. I had a new car. I had everything I wanted. All because I learned how to ask and overcome the fear. Because I went back to your question.

I didn't know anyone in insurance. I didn't own any insurance. I didn't know what a premium was. I didn't know what a chartered life. I didn't. Nothing. But you confront your fears, and Napoleon Hill said, and you just make it disappear, right? And everyone's got fear. And the question is, will you confidently go. Thoreau said, confidently go in the direction of your heart's desire and you'll have success unexpected in common hours.

So you guys got big stuff. And so last thing then, Matt, is we give you full permission to ask anybody and fall in your face. You call them and you say, look, Mark, Victor Hanson told me he did it. He's an idiot. He's an obstreperous. Whatever you want to say. But I'm gonna have fearlessly.

I wanna add one thing to that, you guys. Cause it's important for the audience to know this and for you guys to know it. But we did a lot of research for this book and into asking. And that very question you asked Matt, why are we so afraid? And so, as it turns out, most people are afraid. Which is one of the reasons we wrote this book. Why are people afraid to especially ask other people for help, assistance, information, whatever? Everyone going into the study felt the same way you did. Like, gosh, if I ask this question, I'm going to appear to be stupid, ignorant, uninformed, or they're going to think I'm pushy and obnoxious. If I'm asking for some help in some way, it turns out that just the opposite is true. That people actually have a desire to help other people. They like helping other people. And that if you're just willing to put yourself out there, there's an 80% more likely chance that you will get your request granted. But most people don't do it because of this fear, this fear of all those things, all those misperceptions that we go in with. So it's so important to know what the real science is behind it. You know, we're all wrong about that. And it comes from our roadblocks that we were talking about before. And then the other important thing is the people who were better askers of questions. So often we hold back, even in conversations, you know, business conversations or, say, in a new relationship or something, a love relationship or dating someone. The people who ask the most questions, and especially the most probing questions were the ones who were found at the end of the sessions to be more likable. Like the person in business was. The perception was, you know, I like this person more who asked a lot of questions. And same thing in dating. There was a dating study done by Harvard. The person who asked more questions was the one who was more likely to get the second date. And that part is the curiosity piece, being curious about the person with whom we're trying to forge this relationship. Because so often as business people, we go into a scenario and we have our grocery list of things we want to get out of something, out of a relationship. So we start talking about ourselves, like, I can do this for you, I can do that for you. I'm so great at this. You should hire me for this or that, you know, and we forget, like, we can't really have that trust that's going to create a transaction ultimately, unless we really have bonded with someone in some way. And the only way to bond is to ask enough questions that, first of all, that person feels like you genuinely know them and you genuinely are interested in them. And that's why it's important to kind of look into those probing questions we talk about that take you a little deeper into the conversation. So it's really about rekindling, rekindling the ask, rekindling this amazing curiosity that we're all born with and really getting out there with it and owning it and being excited about it, because it starts to change absolutely everything.

Yeah, no, thank you. I mean, that's an amazing answer. And I'm just, as you're talking, I'm like, wow. Yeah. Through our podcast, four years now, we've been doing this. And it's crazy because it's been a practice of asking and curiosity digging and kind of going back to just childhood curiosity. And we feel like we just, I don't know, we just have more of an open. We're just not really so worried about what the reaction is. But let's just ask the question or frame it in a way where it is feeling purely curiosity based, because it is. And for us, it's been trained into us, I think, by doing so many interviews now. I mean, how would you suggest folks to kind of practice this in their own lives? Maybe in this bubble that a lot of us find ourselves in.

Okay, so I'm going to do that. Second, I'm going to go to the first paragraph. What you just said is anytime you ask, you're going to have illumination, revelation, insight. And that's why it's important to ask. Now, the answer is as what we're discovering is that people go through the book, they buddy up with somebody. So they get two books and they go through every question in the book. And then sometimes they're writing it out, sometimes they're doing it, sometimes they're tape recording it. But what they're doing is they're saying, holy cow, I'm having a transformation of my soul and my spirit and I'm finding out who I really am. And, you know, all of us have been, you call it a bubble. I'm Going to call it a cocoon, right?

I like that.

Butterfly cocoon. And I'm saying the only way out of that transformation, right? Everybody starts as a little caterpillar. Now, we've been stuck in this cocoon for one year, and it's opening up finally, hopefully even in San Diego. I'm reading that you guys are opening up again. Well, as you burst out of it, you better ask questions. And they gotta be new questions. Because we're in the most transformative time in human history where stuff's gonna happen now faster than it's ever happened. And if you're awake, alive and enthusiastic and asking the right questions to the right people, you're gonna get the right results, go the right direction and get to your rightful destiny, your right livelihood. Because if you have money, freedom, then you get to have time, freedom, relationship freedom, technology, freedom, happiness freedom and spiritual freedom. And we're saying, wait a second, let's have this whole rose bloom for each and every person. But as a rose opens up, it only works if you've got ask inside it, as far as we're concerned.

Yeah. What I've realized, it's asking. You said something in the book. I'm trying to, again, frame it, but it's. Every question gets an answer. It kind of leaves breadcrumbs, or at least gets you a little further down the path.

It seems like absolutely. Like there's no question that the universe will not answer at some point. We have really, absolutely discovered that. And the interesting thing is when you start asking yourself questions, studies show that it lights up a different part of your brain. And it's the part of your brain that does critical thinking. So suddenly, as you start to ask yourself those questions, your brain becomes a better resource to you. And not only that, when you're really asking God and really putting it out there to the universe, what that is, is you're acknowledging that you're a part of this creation, you're a part of this kingdom. So you're kind of giving your whole life and all of your efforts the context of that. And that's powerful. Like, what is my part in this universe? What is my part in this creation, this kingdom? And it really makes a tremendous difference. And I think when people start asking in that way, asking God, it really gives you a lot of peace because you feel so much more connected in a broader, more spiritual way to everything and everyone.

Is there, like, a specific mechanism that you use when you say asking yourself questions or asking God questions? What does that look like? Is that like meditation? Is that journaling? Is there like a specific sort of exercise or specific mechanism that you prefer to ask those questions with?

Yes. So we start every day with this one hour prayer and meditation time. And honestly, you guys, it is the most important time of our day. We all prioritize our lives in such an interesting way. We prioritize our lives for the things outside of us. And the reality is your life is not created in the external world. Your life is created in your own internal world. So if you understand that, you'll realize and start reprioritizing this time with yourself and with God. And so we take that time in the morning to meditate, pray, ask questions of ourselves and each other to make sure we're still on track and also to get clarity. Because what happens, we all learn and learn and we think we have things mastered, then suddenly, bam, something hits us. In life, you know, there are always these things like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that just happened. We need to find a way out of it. We need to be able to see a clear solution or get that illumination that we're seeking. And the only way we're going to get that is by spending that time with ourselves, literally writing, you know, start asking yourself the question and write the questions down. And it's amazing. Leave some space for the answers. Because as you start to write these questions down, you will start the question, the answers will come to you, and make sure it might come to you later, but go back and write it down. Because when you look back on your life, you know, your journal and all of your writings about your life, you will realize the magic behind your life, the magic that is fueling your life as you are willing to take this asking journey and ask those questions. And then of course, in that quiet space, always asking God and, and that's something Mark and I do pretty much all day. I feel like my life is so much better when I'm created, when I am connected to the creator of the universe, you know, like, because the source of all creation, there's a lot of power there. And so why would I want to do this life alone? So I always refer, refer to God, refer to the Creator, you know, however you're. You personally think or refer to God. But, but it's so important to each of us together and individually to always sort of be in that space where we're looking beyond. I feel like it's looking into the magic of the universe. And I'll tell you what, you know, how I'd say the last decade Was the decade of the. Why this decade is going to be the decade of the ask. That's how important and prevalent this message is. And it's becoming. I mean, we're taking this message around the world and it is. Is taking off like crazy.

Well, I think it's a perfect time. Last year in 2020, when the lockdown started happening, we started doing a lot of live streams and that's when we got connected with Jay, Jay Abraham originally and brought him on and he was talking about collaborations. He's a master at deal making, of course, and getting really creative with it. That's what lights our brains up. And with that though, it got me thinking. I'm like, wow, everyone's really open to collaboration right now. And that was 2020. But now in 2021, I feel like it's even kicked up a whole bigger notch. And like you said, Crystal, I think this is a perfect time to ask the questions and realize we are way more connected than ever before. But a lot of us are just kind of blind to it right now.

So I want to add your question to Matt's question earlier about connecting to other people and asking. So we're talking about your business, but we're talking about everybody out there because everybody's in the same business, right? So what we teach and ask is that you got to write a list of 200 people you want to spend time with, play with, grow with, expand with, do business with, have fun with, have adventure. And I'd say a decade before I met Jay, to use that as an example, I did everything I said because the Internet was coming out. Maybe a little before that, I put his picture next to mine. And we did the same thing with Richard Branson. You pick whoever you want, the highest minds that you guys want to interview and you put those pictures together and you say, well, how's that going to happen? You don't have to know how subconscious, you know, you got conscious subconscious goes up to. In secular language, superconscious and spiritual language, it's God, infinite intelligence, universal wisdom. And the point is universal wisdom figures out the H O W. That's why you got to be a full time asker. And we're saying, hey, wait a second, we want everyone to get the book, read the book, buddy up on the book and you can get it at a bookstore, get it, otherwise get it at Amazon. And then we want you to go to askthebookclub.com because we want everyone to become a master asker. And what happens is once they become a Master Asker, you'll be fearless. You're going to ask to meet with somebody and you say, well, let's go backwards to Jay, if you didn't weren't his friend already. And everyone that came on your podcast at the end, you said, you know Jay Abraham. And I'd say, yeah, we're literally great friends, our wives and everything. So the point is, somebody can get you to anyone. In the old days, what you just said, Joe, is about six degrees of freedom. Now I think we're more close to two, where within one or two calls, you can probably get to almost anyone on the phone. Like the podcast we did in Portugal. This lady done everybody, I mean, Dalai Lama and us. And she was so.

And she wants to do some more stuff with us. And you go, if it wasn't for podcasting, we would know. And.

If you forgive one, brag. But I'm answering your question about collaboration. We will ask you guys for other podcasts that you want us to go on. But we have literally been in one day across America, Canada, Israel, Africa, and finishing up with 10 million people in Vietnam. And our book sales are different than they've ever been because in the old days, you know, we do the 20 big cities tour and go to the biggest bookstore in New York and the best in Portland, and I name all of them because I've been to Tattered Cover and all those bunches of times and meet the people. But now all of us can meet. All of us on podcasts and phonecasts and Clubhouse and all the new social media that we're part of, some new stuff that's coming forth that's going to even make it easier and better. So we're in the most exciting. If you're awake and I'm convinced that the people listening to you are awake, and you learn how to ask positively and correctly, your world will just open up like a wonderful lotus flower.

Yeah, there's no doubt at all. And just as a mechanism, this podcast has allowed us to kind of, I guess, put our hand into force. Our hand. I don't want to say it that way, but it gets us asking all the time. And that was one of the reasons why we even created this. It's a machine that allows us to really do exactly what you just said there, Mark. And yeah, right now it's an interesting time. And I'm kind of curious. How are you. Are you going to go back to. And it's hard to tell the future, but now, with book sales being so different for you, as you said in podcasts, how is this changing your perspective of just book marketing or marketing in general, since you've been doing this so long?

So I say, when you write a great book, and obviously I got a new one out called you have a book in you, and you know it's a great book because I say, everybody's got to write their own book. And I said, the best book hasn't been written yet because you haven't written it. So. And I really believe everyone's got a story to share. And that's what we did, you know, in the whole life. So I want to do bookstores again. I love bookstores. They're called Indies independence. And Jack, Dr. Canfield and I did more independence, I think, than anyone else. And we've been consistent, you know, going to them. And if you go to a bookstore through an airport in the old days, Hudson's, you'd walk in and you'd sign every book and it says, signed by author. And people would walk up to you while you're signing, say, you're him, and they say, can I give you a hug? You kept my marriage alive. You kept my kid in school. You did chicken soup for the college. So I'll just save me and that Chicken soup in the teenage soul. My teenager would read to me. So it just, you know, books are critically important, and for the first time, they're going to be inexpensive enough to get to everybody. So we've come so far so fast, and for the most part, we all see the problems, but we don't see the opportunity. And what I love about your show is that an entrepreneur takes a problem, fixes it, scales, it makes a vast profit. And that's what we're trying to teach with Ask. Go ask, what is the problem that you're uniquely born to solve? And then go solve it and make a fortune and buy the rest of our books.

Hey, got a lot to work through. We got time in our hands now, right?

Forgive me. I couldn't resist.

That's good. We'll list them all in the show Notes. I don't know.

So I have a question. Is kind of going back to the, like, asking other people questions. And this is just me. I'm a. I'm a super over analyzer. And that's probably one of the things that holds me back from asking a lot of questions is this sort of analytical thing that goes on in my head. But my question is, if I was to go to, like, three different successful business owners and ask for advice from all three of Them I could potentially get three different pieces of advice. They could tell me. One would say, go do path A, path B, path C, how, you know, me being an overanalyzer, I would probably go, okay, he's saying do this. She's saying do this. He's saying, do this. I'm probably just not going to do anything because I'm going to need to analyze a little bit which path to go down. So do you have any sort of filtering or analysis that you do for figuring out if you're asking the right questions and.

If you get multiple sort of solutions, how do you decide which solution to go down? I know it's a sort of open ended, confusing question and I'm still trying to word it in my brain, but I think you guys understand what I'm asking.

See what I'm dealing with over here. I'm just kidding.

I totally get it, Matt. And it's such a good question because, yeah, sometimes you're going to get different feedback and advice. And that's where, you know, that's why we talk about these three channels. Because the asking journey is not just about going and asking everybody else what you should do. It's three pronged and each one is equally important. So the ask yourself, ask others, ask God. When you ask a bunch of people and they're experts and they're helping you and the advice is a little bit different or there are differing aspects to it, then you need to sit with yourself. Because honestly, the more you do this, I promise you, the more you sit with yourself and ask yourself these questions, you will come to rely on your own intuition. Because when you ask yourself, the answer comes through your own mind and then through your own intuition. And especially when you're asking God, it's like, you know, these answers you get sometimes that are just like, whoa, where did that come from? That's, you know, so ask yourself and ask God, you know, just, can you guide me on this? You know, just expand your awareness to God's perfect universe where all the answers are and you know, here I'm. And lay out your scenarios and imagine each one of them and then start to rely on yourself and feedback from God, like, what is the best way? Which thing feels the best to me? And I know people, like guys probably have a harder time with the feeling thing, but feelings are powerful. It's power. The feeling you have about something is actually very powerful feedback. So learn to rely on that a little bit more and test it a little bit. You know, when you act on something, when you Decide a certain way. You'll start to get feedback in the form of like success as you'll go, wow, I'm so glad I did that. That was amazing.

Well, you had a pretty.

Can I add to what she said?

Oh yeah, please go.

Sorry, Matt. I love the question. I love her answer experientially for me. I said my question was because I say ask big, right? I say, how do you think thought's bigger than you've ever thought before for bigger and better results. So I said, how do I become world's best selling author? And so when Jack and I got together, I said, well, I'm going to interview the 101 Best Selling Fiction and nonfiction authors now. Everybody. Wayne Dyer, Barbara DeAngelis, you know, Deepak. Every one of them accepted the interview. I didn't want to know how to write. I've been writing since I was 16. I thought I was pretty good at it. I still think I'm pretty good at it. I got critical because I'm invisible. I got a target on my back. But what I did is I interviewed and I said, guys and ladies, how did you market to become the all time bestseller?

And.

And all of what you said, Matt, they all had different answers. So I wrote them all out. We created a wild business plan. But what Jack and I did is we did a wall board that was clear like what you guys got behind you. It looks like other than the bookshelf, which thank you for books is that we did 1094 yellow stickies. And what Jack and I did is spent days reprioritizing and say we're gonna do all of them and we're gonna do them in this sequence now still 144 publishers told said, hit the road, Jack. And I said, look, okay with me if you don't like him.

Partnership here, he's negotiable.

The point is he's a great guy. And then fired us. But then we sold it ourselves at the American Bookseller Association. But we knew what we were going to do that no one had ever done before. Because one of the guys we did was a road less travel. Dr. Scott Peck had gone to Harvard with Jack. So I got to him. Jack said, aren't you afraid? I said, hell, he was your classmate. Why would you be afraid to talk to him? Anyhow, that's irrelevant. I said, look, all the guys can do is say no or go to hell or whatever he says, or I'm not telling you my secret because it's mine. But like you found out with Jay. There's so much to know. And as Jay unfolds that, he keeps coming up with new ideas.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It doesn't stop ever. And I hope they never will.

Jay. Jay. 18 hours. Can we go to bed now?

Trust me, I know we have a lot of his products. I'm like, I want to go through them all, but when do I sleep?

They're all great, fun and prolific.

No kidding. Well, you mentioned this whole. And I know we kind of touched on it before, but this fear of rejection or the no. And I remember in the book, reading that section, I'm like, just this. I feel like you can kind of get past that mental blockage of the fear of no. It's like, oh, this no word is just going to come out and grab you and slap you around if you say the wrong thing. It's like, no, that's not the case. I'd love to hear you guys, both of y', all, speak into that and how a lot of folks can get past that.

Yeah. You know, I want to back it up a little bit, because we need to remember who we are. And we come into this world as children, these beautiful little innocent beings, so uncorrupted in our ability to ask for everything. You know, we want to know who, what, when, where, why, how. And we also are not ashamed to ask for more, more, more. And we're not ashamed or afraid to ask for basically anything because we kind of want everything, and we want to have it. And so if you think about it, that is like your little perfect human spirit wanting to evolve, wanting to grow, wanting to experience everything. And that. That, we believe, is exactly why children grow so rapidly and develop so rapidly, and their evolution is so fast, because they have no filters to their curiosity. They just keep asking and asking. We all come into this world as these beautiful little master askers, right? And then depending on how we were parented, how we were schooled, what happened in our school experience, what happened in our job experience, and just basic life rejection. We started to get shut down. Somebody embarrassed us, humiliated us. We were told our opinion wasn't valuable or what we wanted wasn't important, right? And so we believed it. We took it in and kind of stored it at some place at an emotional level. And suddenly, as an adult, as adults, we're standing here, you know, all these years later, basically terrified to ask anyone for anything because we don't want to repeat that emotional pain or drama that we've experienced in the past. And we're also ashamed to not already have all the answers. And think about how sad that is, you guys, because there's no way in this world any of us can have all the answers. And so we're really inviting everybody to come to step back into a little bit more of your childlike self. Have that wonder about the world and what else is there for you, and have that trust, that wonder and trust the children have that it's okay. And, you know, there's a certain beautiful humility to that. You know, it's almost like an intellectual humility where you're saying, you know what? I'm big enough to acknowledge that I certainly do not and could not possibly have all the answers. So why would I pretend that I do? I'm comfortable in that intellectual humility, that I have a great desire to learn the things that I don't know. And if we can embrace ourselves a little bit more like that, understanding that those feelings that come up were just emotional trauma or drama, and that we need to say, you know what? It's time to let that go. It's controlling me, and it's controlling my forward movement. It's controlling my greatest expression and preventing me from meeting that greatest destiny. And so it's just so important to remember that. Remember the beginning of it.

I'll add just an answer. You said, ask both of us. So if you look at the video that Peter Guber did with Mark Victor HANSEN Online at YouTube, what happens is that Peter says, look, Mark Victor Hansen took more rejection than anybody I know, even though I got a lot of rejected films and a lot of rejected actors and actresses wouldn't work for me. And now athletic talent. But he said, this guy is so dyslexic. I'm not dyslexic at all. But he said, mark is so dyslexic, he thinks the word no means on.

That's a great thing to do. Yeah.

You couldn't have paid a higher compliment. I loved it. But it's live and it's on air, and people read it, and they write us every day and say, that is so nice. Can you teach me that? I grail everybody listening, just like I gave Matt and you permission to ask anyone. Everyone's got permission out to make their nose mean on. Because the first no in sales is usually not serious. It just means, give me more information.

Yeah. Yeah. And you can make it a challenge for yourself. It's almost a game, and that's how I frame it for ourselves. And when we ask for podcast guests, we do try to ask big or we don't try. We do ask big. And you mentioned that Mark earlier. I love that. Our buddy Roland Frazier from Digital Marketer. He's like, it's easier to just go to the top. You might as well go big. It's the same thing as if you ask someone in the bottom or if you're trying to go on a podcast or. Or whoever, collaborate, jv, joint venture type thing or whatever it might be and just asking for help. Go big with it. You might as well. What do you got to lose?

Yeah, exactly. We agree. You have nothing to lose. You have absolutely everything to gain. This is your one life here, so live it to the fullest and don't be afraid to ask for anything. And really take the time with this book to reconnect to the asking journey because it is powerful, it is magical, and you're going to just reveal parts of your life that you never knew were possible.

Yeah, no doubt. Well, it's definitely a. It's one of these books where you can kind of just flip around to a section and then dive right into the list of questions or even the little summary box at the end. I always like those at the end of the chapters because, you know, it's quick reference, you know, but either way, it's a great manual. I could see that everyone can take and should grab and use that as such as a manual to you, essentially. Then start your practice of journaling or meditating and that whole list of things that kind of open you up because basically it's kind of giving yourself a lot of open loops, it seems like. And then you're letting others and yourself just come up with the answers, the breadcrumbs that lead you on your way.

Exactly, exactly.

I love it. Well, you mentioned Amazon as being a great spot and bookstores, if folks have them around them. And you have a book club speaking of that really quick and how people can join that as well.

So, yeah, you can get the book on Amazon. That's just the easiest way. And you can get it in Kindle or audiobook or It's a beautiful hardbound book and I love real books, so that's really fun for me. We have a book club that we're doing and we want to invite everybody to that book club because we want to help encourage people to keep taking the asking journey. So after you buy the book, just go to Ask.

And we'll send you an invitation to book club and let's keep the conversation going.

I think it's great. Yeah. And that's just going to be an open door to people, to just ask questions and get that momentum in a safe space. Even though we're all in a safe space.

Come on, just ask questions.

Oh my God. Well, do you have more books together in the future? Are you working on anything?

We've got a lot more coming. I can promise you that. Some of which there's nothing that I write that she's not going to help me with and nothing she writes I wouldn't help her with. I mean, indefatigably in love because when I was went through a long, long, long ago painful divorce, I wrote 267 things I needed. My ideal wife. We had to have the same values, the same spiritual. We had to want to travel, have our own business, all those kind of things. She was 267 on 267. So it was sort of heavenly for me because we're not just soulmates, two hearts and one soul. But we're also twin flames. We mirror each other.

That's really interesting. Yeah, that's really cool. I love that. And the fact that. Yeah, just. And that's the thing. You got clarity, Mark on exactly what you want through experience and probably some things that you desire that you didn't know you wanted out of that experience. And look who showed up. How cool is that?

That's right. Good thing I didn't know there were 267.

Irrigating. I'm glad I didn't find out till afterwards.

Would have been a little stressful, huh?

I thought that one through because it's. We believe life is about asking. And when we did meet it, she came to an author 101. We got to go to a great restaurant in Hollywood and it was so much fun. The guy looks at her and plug. Her trueness just emanates out every pore of her being and says, okay, I give up. Who is she? There's like 50 po. So I couldn't buy our way in at 9:30 at night. I said, ask. And I was joking. But I said, you don't recognize her now? The guy's mind's going on steroids. He's going, oh my God. I read InStyle magazine, Vogue, People. I can't. Okay, I give up. Who is she now? We're of Danish descent. So joking again. I said she's the queen of Denmark.

Because we're having so much fun.

All of a sudden. He goes, oh my gosh, she is. Who are you? Back to questions. Who travels with the Queen? He said, oh my God, you're the king. Hold on one second. I got a table for you. You're looking. Just walk up and.

The question's always the answer, even if you're teasing and having fun. But once we got in, we couldn't not. I mean, the head chef serving us. But it was meant to be. That's the point. When you ask questions like you've asked throughout here, ask yourself, ask others, and ask God, and you start to master this. Your whole life unfolds with bliss and wonder and bountiful good stuff in magical, mystical ways.

I love it. I think we're just beginning. I feel like we're so. Like we're four years in on this podcast, but we have so much more to go and just in life and asking not even the right questions, just more questions and get that momentum going. Thank you both so much for your time.

Thank you, guys. This has been wonderful.

Time disappeared.

It did. I appreciate you. We'll talk soon.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, guys.

Oh, Reddit.

That was cool. That was very fun. Yes. I mean, the energy of those two. And they've been talking about this a while, too. They've been going crazy on podcasts, Mark and Crystal, and it's for good reason. It's because the whole situation right now in the world. But it's totally fascinating, obviously, the way that they're marketing this book. It's been like a year and without the typical. What they do to market a book. Yeah.

Well, we didn't actually shout it out at the beginning of the episode, but that was a Scott Carson intro. So let's give him a shout out and say thank you to Scott for connecting us with Mark and Crystal.

He has the Note Closers show. Check it out if you're into that kind of thing. But yeah, I mean, Mark Victor Hansen, I mean, Chicken Soup for the Soul, he's never heard of it. Never?

No.

Oh, okay. Well, they've only sold more than 500 million books.

That's it.

That's all. I mean, that's just a little, Little. Little blip on the radar there, huh? Yeah, there's a couple, but, I mean.

He almost has as many as I have on my bookshelf. Almost sold as many.

He noticed. He did, Yeah. I mean, I want to hear what you got in mind after this episode, because I did go deep in the book, you know, you definitely read more.

Of it than I did.

Definitely.

We'll just put it that way.

Yeah, but I did tell you, I was like, you need to read this dang book, dude, because it's Like a manual that you can. If you're stuck on any quality of life or aspect that has a series of questions, you can kind of go.

Hey, do you want to pick up our food and put it on the desk there so my dog doesn't eat it?

That's probably a good call, just teasing a snake. All right, tell me about what you have in mind.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't totally know what to. Well, I sort of knew what to expect going into this because we. We listened to a couple other interviews that they were on before. Before it. But I. I kind of went into it going, okay, how are we gonna. How are we gonna have a conversation about asking questions? And how are we gonna. You know, I was kind of uncertain how it was gonna go, but I.

Think they're so analytical.

I am very analytical. I said on the episode that I'm very analytical.

It's funny.

So I was kind of. I always analyze the shows before going into them, thinking, all right, well, what are the best discussions to go into? What's gonna light them up the most? What's gonna light us up the most to be asking these questions? And so I am sort of analyzing that. And going into this one, I was kind of thinking, okay, the concept of asking questions feels very broad. So I'm not quite sure how to, like, laser focus, narrow it down, but I think. I think we did it. I think it was really good.

We did it.

Woo. I can't reach. We're six feet apart. We're social distanced. Well, now I need to go sanitize.

I've been touching your dog too. Don't touch your face.

But no, I think we did it really well because I think when it would, you know, as podcasters, right, we ask a lot of questions, right? Not only on the podcast itself, but we are reaching out to guests to be on the show, asking if they can be on. We're reaching out to our friends, saying, hey, you know, so and so can you make the introduction? You know, we're going to other people's shows and asking, hey, do you have room for another guest on your podcast? Like, our business model is literally asking questions nonstop all the time. Even with Podhacker, which we. Which by the time this came out, I think Podhacker's open now over@podhacker.com, but even that, we're bringing in, like, the best of the best guest experts and picking their brains and asking them a ton of questions for the sake of our customers. So. So this concept of asking questions We've built a business around it. And I think they did a really good job of sort of honing in on the importance of when to ask, what to ask, who to ask, and.

Just finding the right path to take. And you heard me analyze it. I'm like, I ask a lot of questions, but then I get in my own head because I may have asked too many questions from too many people. And now I'm got three different ideas and I don't know which idea to go with. And what ends up happening is, the next thing I know is I ask myself the questions, I ask the universe the question. You know, I'm not, I won't get into faith, but I'm, you know, I'm not a super religious person, but I, you know, I do believe that the universe has your back kind of thing. Gabby Bernstein. Yeah, Shout out.

We're all connected. We're all, there's bigger things at play than just us individually, right?

I do, I do. I, I'm, I, I, I have, I'm a spiritual person. I would say, good label. Get all of these answers to these questions. And then I ask myself, okay, these are all of the things people have said now what do I do with this information? And that is the question that I'm asking myself, that I'm asking the universe is this is what has been presented to me from these people. All right, now that I have all of these ideas, these thoughts, these suggestions, my next question is, what do I do with this? What's my next step? And what ends up happening is it's usually some sort of hybrid of all of the advice. It's not taking the advice from any one person. It's sort of mashing it all together and taking the parts that serve me, I guess.

There you go.

Well, perfect example is Pod hacker.

Exactly.

So I was actually, I was wondering if you were going to say it live or if we were going to say it here, but you were saying essentially the scenario of like, hey, you just got feedback from like three different, different experts or people you respect on a thing. And this really was the case, just not that long ago with our mastermind, our Bob's mastermind, and that has Bob Serling and Travis Hughes.

We should turn BOB into an acronym so it means something else too.

Well, it does. What does it mean? The Brotherhood of Black Shirts.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Come on, bro. I think that you're not supposed to say that though. This needs to be censored. That actually background. We're not supposed to come On. Yeah. Have you not seen the Facebook post and the discussion. Well, shoot.

Now we're. Now we're just gonna get everybody's conspiracy theories going. Every time anybody sees.

I don't know which one that was because I disconnected my headphone. Oh.

It went doo, doo, doo, doo. Sounded like Twilight Zone.

I was trying to go for the wal.

Oh, actually, that kind of worked because it sounded conspiratorial.

All right.

I have no headphones on now.

But, yeah, like, now every time anybody sees somebody in a black shirt, they're gonna be like, it's one of them.

The brotherhood. Well, that's where the whole thing came from.

And we're not even wearing black shirts.

I know. We're in a freaking Patagonia, like, teal shirt.

Mine's gray.

Something closer, Bob, Slap me. I'm sorry, Bob.

Brotherhood of the black headphones. Yeah, Bob.

Each.

Off topic. So amazing mastermind that we respect, but we presented a goal of ours, and they gave us really good feedback on how to achieve that goal. And you were telling me about how your spa sesh. You sat in there with that information and.

Well, one piece of. Before we had the Bob's mastermind, we talked to Josh Bartlett, and Josh Bartlett was saying, here's what I would do if I was you. And he gave us a whole bunch of feedback. And then we went into Bob's Mastermind and said, here's the feedback we got from Josh. Here's kind of what we're thinking. And then they gave us different feedback.

Yes. And it was really good feedback, and it definitely would work. But it's interesting because both of us went away with kind of like this internal thinking and this God or universe thinking as well. And we did this individually without even talking to each other about it. And you were telling me how you're like, okay, I just got all this information. Yes, I can get to my goal with this, but it's not really what I want.

Yeah, there's something that doesn't feel right. It's not resonating in my brain. It doesn't feel like the right path yet.

Right. And I felt the same. And it was a very. It was like a questioning internally. I wasn't using these ask questions. I don't think we had it in front of us at the time. But at the same time, we both reached a conclusion that we're like, wait, hold on. There's this other path that's a variation, and it fits in with what we feel like is our path. And that's where Pod Hacker that concept, or at least the model of POD Hacker kind of came to be. And I thought that was just really interesting because it's really what they were saying. We asked multiple people and then we kind of. Internally. Well, we asked ourselves. And then. I know for me, it just kind of. It's one of these things. It's just a question that circles. So maybe that's the God or universe asking side of things, but it just kind of popped up and. And I remember, for me. And we had the same kind of realization where it's like, wait, hold on. We already have a membership style that does really well. Why don't we build that similar membership model into this other topic that we're always asked to present, Pod Hacker, and wrap it in this model that we're really like, I think we have dialed in really well and we're pumped up on. It fits our personalities. It fits our business model in our community. Here, here. Let's go down that path.

Yeah.

And achieve the goal.

Because I actually remember being sort of scared to ask your thoughts on, like, the switch up of the model.

Right.

Because we were kind of. We talked to Josh and we were kind of locked in on like, all right, this is the path. And we spent probably a half a day mapping it out, going, all right, here's what the course curriculum is going to be. Here's when we launch it. Here's the affiliates we're getting on. Like, we had a pretty clear picture of what we wanted to do, but it still wasn't like I was spinning it in my head going, this doesn't feel like the thing I want to be doing. This doesn't feel like the right thing. But, shit, if I bring this up to Joe, he's going to be like, no, we're already on this path. Don't change it now. And I was so scared to, like, bring up the change. But then when I talk to you, you're like, dude, I feel the same thing. We, like, it's. We're not there yet.

I had the same exact thought. Maybe it was like a couple days before you brought it up to me.

Yeah.

I was like, no, no, I know what you're talking about, and this is how I feel, too. And, like, literally, we had the same vision for where we wanted to take that project. That's all to say. It's just an amazing example of what they just said, Mark and Crystal, on the podcast. So. So it's. Yeah, I feel like. I mean, another thing, I have been just going out, like, at night and Just kind of looking up at the stars and if there's something I'm feeling a little off on or whatever, just kind of putting it out there. And for me, a lot it was still thinking about people I've lost in my life. And it's just like, man, there's kind of like. But then almost like a void or some questions around that. But something that really helps with me is just kind of just like looking out and just kind of like, all right, cool, maybe throw a couple questions out there. And every time I do that, it just always brings me a sense of calm grounding and confidence. Like, cool, we're good here.

We'Re continuing. The momentum's going on and it feels good. I don't know, it's like this grounding thing. So exactly what they were saying in any kind of situation, that's something I've been naturally doing, just gravitated towards. And now they put a framework around. I'm like, oh, okay, now it makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's something that like we've gotten really good at over the years of just, you know, not hesitating to ask anymore. And you know, this is a shout out to a past episode. But I think working with Aaron File a little bit helped get past that as well. I know for me, I was afraid of sounding stupid or rejection or, you know, not liking the answer I was going to get when I asked the question. And you know, working with her, she was kind of like, well, well, what's the worst case scenario? And then I kind of talk through the worst case scenario and she's like, has that ever happened?

And you go once, maybe ever.

Yeah, maybe when I was like a kid or something. And then we kind of uncover the one sort of outlying incident that caused you to have that fear. And then once you realize that it's sort of irrational, then you stop worrying about asking those questions. But it's just, it's so fascinating to me because like literally there thesis is kind of like almost all the world's problems can be solved by asking the right questions to the right people, right time.

Right?

And that is such a powerful thought to have. It's such a powerful thing to realize that I'm only asking the right people the right questions away from having everything I've ever wanted. Right?

No, you're right.

And I think that is such a powerful thought. And just the episode that we did, I feel it was almost like this analysis of like, why, why don't people just go and frickin Ask the questions from the people they want the answers from. And that's what I feel like this episode did a good job of, is looking at. Like, okay, here's. You know, we obviously see the power in asking questions. Why. Why aren't we asking them? And then dissecting that. And I think this is what this episode did, is, is it ideally will help a lot of listeners overcome some of the reasons why they're not asking the right questions to the right people.

Yeah. And I feel like there's, like, we have to prompt ourselves sometimes to get in the mode of asking questions, because working alone, maybe working in our cocoons with the same people, even just chatting with your family, if you haven't really gone out of your cocoon using Mark's term terminology, there it. You kind of just, I don't know, at least for me, and I know for us, you forget sometimes of the connections or the people that you can ask for help. And I was just thinking, I think it was something in the book, and Napoleon Hill said this as well. It's like, you don't have to just ask the people around you. How about the people that have passed, the ones that you can read books about, and maybe you put a picture on their wall or something on your phone, but you can go out and you're like, okay, so what would Albert Einstein do in this situation? Or what questions would he ask? Or like, I'm struggling with this thing. Even if it's Elon Musk, I don't know. It's like, think of. Because Mark said, ask big. It's like, yeah, you could do that. Of people who are alive or asking for what you want. On a big level, you can ask big. But look at all the people that. Like Marcus Aurelius, for instance, with the whole Meditations book. It's one of the most recommended books for stoicism. And it's amazing because every time I read it, I'm like, holy crap. I just like, yeah, they're the answers. So it's like you can just go seek those out and maybe ask and then open up a book or like someone, maybe a YouTube video. And that's another way to ask and get perspective.

Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, just looking at my bookshelf, right? People ask everyone, since we do the video podcast now, people ask, have you read all those? And I'm always joke, like, of course. Every single one Sometimes.

But no, the truth is, I would say most of those books I've never read cover to cover. But like you said, this is a source of asking questions. I've got Jack Canfield's success principles. I've got Ray Dalio's principles. I've got four books from Tony Robbins on the shelf. I've got five books from Tim Ferriss. I've got Aubrey Martin Marcus books. I've never read any of those books cover to cover. Well, the Tony Robbins books I have, but the other ones that I mentioned, I haven't read cover to cover. But if I ever have a question, I have these books to go to. Like, if I'm thinking about like, you know what, what's a new exercise routine I should do to kind of mix things up? I could go to my Tim Ferriss book, see what exercises he recommends. I can go to the Aubrey Marcus book, flip to the exercises he recommends and put together a new workout routine. Just as a random example, you know. But I've got these books on my shelf represent people I can ask questions to that have already answered these questions.

This is a really big shout back on the podcast. But Chris Mercer, and this might sound totally random.

I know exactly where you're going.

Yeah, like you said. And this relates to us marketers. It's like you go into your Google Analytics to go search around and like.

Wow, look at me.

I just got 500 people to my website this week. Great going in. There is like a web of answers really. But like, what's your question? When you go into Google Analytics, we'll say as an example, because you'll quickly get overwhelmed just like you could with your bookshelf right here. And opening any one of these books, it's like, great. Okay, Tony Robbins. Yeah, fabulous book. There's a lot of great principles and things that you can learn. What's your question? Like, what do you want to get from the. Or what's the book going to get from you? You know, it's like you go in with a question in mind where you're seeking and then you are going to find your answ answer. It might not be obvious, but you're sure as hell going to find it if you go in seeking with one.

Yeah, and that's the point too is having all these books. I don't have to go, okay, I need to learn how to get healthier. So I'm going to go read the four hour body from COVID to cover again in the 500 pages. Focus on the one question that I'm struggling with right now of like, man, my workouts are sort of getting too routine and I feel like I'm plateauing What exercises should I try to mix things up Right now that I have a very specific question, I can jump to specific parts of a book that answer that kind of narrowed down question.

Yeah, man. Right. I think that's. It's super powerful. All right, let's wrap this bad boy up. And everyone. Because exactly what you're saying. That's why this Ask book is really so powerful. Because like I said on the air, it's organized in a way where you can just open it up and it's like a manual to asking questions to get whatever you want want out of life, no matter what part of life you're thinking about. So get the book. Amazon or bookstores, if they're around you. It's called ask with an exclamation point. The bridge from your dreams to your destiny. And then join their book club as well, I think. Do you have that URL for that?

Askthebookclub.com that's it.

Askthebookclub.com and definitely, I mean, follow what they're doing because there's quite a bit more work from Mark Victor Hansen on there. And Crystal is absolutely amazing with her background being really deeply entrenched, it seems like with a lot of the human potential side of things, that's really where this shines. So we all have way more in us. And just a handful of questions will really unlock a lot of that for you for sure. Good stuff.

Grab the notes. Flowchartgroup.com they're available for two weeks from the time this episode goes live. You'll also get access to our Facebook group by going there.

There.

It'll ask you to join. It'll ask you for your email address. If you give us the email address, we'll mail the notes. If you don't give us your email address, you can still join the Facebook group, but we're not going to be able to send you the notes.

Why would you do that? Anyway, come on, you're missing out.

So go to flowchartgroup.com and join the group and we'll hook you up with the notes from today's episode, assuming you do it within two weeks. And final note, this episode is sponsored by our good friends over at Easy Webinar.

Webinar.

Is that how it's pronounced?

That would be it, I believe.

Is it assay weapon? Webinar?

Well, let's just. Let's spell it out for him, huh? All right.

It's spelled E, A S, Y W E B I N A R, period.

C O M. Okay. Wow.

That's. Yeah, I think people will find it. So. Easywebinar.com hustle. These are our friends. Yeah.

Add the slash. Hustle. Do I need to spell hustle, too?

No, you don't.

H U S T. I think we figured it out.

Look it up, y'. All. Easy Webinar. They are the tool that we go to for everything Webinars. And a lot of our community has been saying they've been picking it up for their own webinars. Webinars are hot. And I think we're going to toy around with a new one on Podhacker as well.

I believe that's part of the.

Unless it's already live, because we are definitely been chatting about it a lot. So that's what we are going to be using.

It might be live right now and it might not, but either way, if it is, it's using EasyWebinar.com hustle.

You're dang right. And there's probably gonna be a live element to it and an evergreen element and probably some other ways. Guess what? Easy Webinar does all of that for you.

What?

To get all this crazy tech and hook it up. They just have it all in one.

Now you're just talking crazy.

I'm talking crazy. So I should stop talking, I guess.

Yeah, let's just stop.

Oh, kid. Easy Webinar. Hey, hey, hey. Hold on. Gotta give him a call to action.

I was just gonna end the episode after. We should just stop.

No. Geteasywebinar.com get easy webinar@ezwebinar.com hustle and get a fat discount. They're hooking you up because you are a Hustle and Flowchart listener. And lastly, share this thing around. If you know someone that needs to ask some more questions of folks and themselves, which is everybody. It is everyone. Share this around and let us know what you thought in the comments. Wherever that lives for you. And we appreciate you for listening. Love you.

Thanks, everybody, for listening to this episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, for taking the time to listen. We want to give you something a little bit special. Every single episode that we do, we actually have somebody on our team take notes. We basically have a Cliffs Notes version of every episode where you can go and find all of the tips and tactics that they laid out, all of the resources that they laid out, all the good stuff from this episode. We actually have a nice, simple notes version that you can find on our website. So go to evergreenprofits. Com, find this episode that you just listened to and give us your email address and we'll send you the notes. Thanks for listening.

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