Mastering the Art of Successbehavioral change, and because we did it bite sized, while we were
rejected by 33 publishers, our agent fired us, and we had 133 more turn
downs from Jack and I going to the Book Expo ourselves. We decided to
suck it in and tough it out and now we’ve got 72 different copies of
Chicken Soup out in one decade, which nobody else has done that many
best sellers in a row, ever. The Guinness Book of World Records says
we’re the world’s best selling non-fiction authors right now.WRIGHT
Well I’m one of those c lod dads who should have written you a
thank you note. I’ve got a 14-year-old daughter. About a year ago I went
into her bedroom, which I’m o nly allowed in if I beat three times and
announce myself first. But she was sitting on the bed crying and I
looked and she had Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul in h er hands.
I started questioning her about it and she was so moved by those stories.
If it didn’t change her life it certainly did change a lot of her actions. So
I r eally appreciate you guys writing that one.
HANSEN^
Well, let me do three things with you. Number one is I ’d ask y ou to
buy the whole series. There are five of them now. Make sure she gets
the teen journal because we ask the questions. We t ested it against 6
million teenagers—thanks to our partner Nickelodeon—and we found
the questions that kids want. The reason we did it was that Jack and I
ha d kids calling us and saying, “Mark I’ve got a gun in my oven and
I’m going to kill myself if I don’t g et to talk to Mark Victor Hansen or
Dr. Jack Canfield.” I went, “Holy smoly.” Neither of us are
psychiatrists. But these books open their hearts and they figure the
guys who could write a book that has such depth of feeling and
emotion like what y ou sa w in your daughter—that , by the way, happens
to everybody because we have found the classic stories. The story has
to cause a heartfelt tear. That’s why we did the book, of course. A
prisoner wrote us, “Dear Mark and Jack, I’ve been in prison five years
contemplating killing the guy who put me here. Then my sister sent me
your book and I read it six times. When I get out in five more years, I
no longer want to kill the guy who put me here.