By Tricia Benn
Do you know of anyone who has been turned down 144 times for a book?
I didn’t think so. And yet, that’s exactly what happened to Mark Victor Hansen — and the world is better for the fact that he refused to quit.
Mark is the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, a book that has sold over 500 million copies worldwide, been translated into 54 languages, and became the best-selling trade paperback series of all time. He has written hundreds of books, spoken on stages across the globe, and counts Albert Einstein and Andrew Carnegie among his most formative teachers. But none of that happened without cost. It happened because of perseverance, excellence, and an unshakeable belief in himself — three principles Mark has held onto through every rejection, every reinvention, and every season of doubt.
Having spent decades working with executive leaders across every sector and industry, and one truth has revealed itself repeatedly: success is something you must gauge by yourself, for yourself. The moment you start measuring your success by someone else’s criteria, you’ve already failed. That’s why these conversations matter.
Success Starts from the Inside Out
When I asked Mark when he first understood what success would look like for him, his answer was both humbling and instructive. He took me back to 1974 — to a moment of near-total collapse. He had been working with some of the greatest minds of the era, building geodesic domes, riding what felt like an unstoppable wave. And then he crashed. Hard.
“I had to go deep inside,” he told me, “And ask: what do you actually want to do?” The answer that came back was clear and simple: he wanted to talk to people about things that make a life-changing difference. Everything that followed — the books, the stages, the impact — grew from that single moment of honest self-reckoning.
Mark describes it the way Michelangelo described sculpting: you carve away everything that isn’t the perfect, ideal, ultimate version of you. That’s not a passive process. It’s relentless, ongoing work. And it starts, always, on the inside.
What Rejection Really Teaches You
One of the most powerful moments in our conversation came when Mark spoke about the dark period after bankruptcy — a time when he confused his self-worth with his net worth. “I was so low,” he said, “I had to reach up to touch bottom.” He considered giving up on everything.
What pulled him through wasn’t just grit. It was a shift in perspective. He learned to distinguish between sympathy — which keeps you stuck in the rocking boat alongside someone — and empathy, which means you’ve been there, and you know the way out. That distinction shaped everything about how he now leads, teaches, and gives back.
He also shared the four principles he has used to rebuild and achieve at every stage of his career: knowing clearly what you want, writing it down, visualizing it with total commitment, and building a team to help you get there. Napoleon Hill, one of Mark’s north stars, put it simply on his deathbed: know what you want, and build the team to get it. Mark has lived that out across hundreds of books and a lifetime of impact.
Success Is a Platform, not a Destination
Here’s what has stayed with me most since our conversation: “Success is a platform that takes you to a higher platform — if you’ll use it.”
That’s a profound reframe. Too many leaders treat success as a finish line. Reach a certain number. Build a certain status. Retire to an island. But Mark sees it differently. Every level of achievement is an invitation — and an obligation — to go further, give more, and lift others higher.
Right now, he’s channeling that philosophy into one of the most ambitious causes I’ve ever heard discussed: raising a billion dollars to end child abuse, neglect, and trafficking worldwide. That’s not the agenda of someone who has checked out. That’s someone who understands that the full measure of success is found in what you do with it.
Mark also reminded me that disruption isn’t something that happens to leaders — it’s something great leaders initiate. As Jeff Bezos has said: you’re either the disruptor or the disrupted. The leaders in this community understand that instinctively. We don’t wait for change. We create it.
If there’s one thing everyone should take from this conversation, it’s this: your story matters. Your journey — the rejections, the reinventions, the moments you had to reach up just to touch bottom — is not a liability. In Mark Victor Hansen’s own words, everyone has a great story. The question is whether you’re willing to tell it, own it, and use it to change the world.
Here’s the full conversation with additional insights from Mark.
