Official Interview: Mitzi Perdue (Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless)
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Official Interview: Mitzi Perdue (Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless)
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1. Tell us a little about your background.
I wanted to be a writer since childhood. I can remember the feeling of utter enchantment when, in second grade, I wrote a weekly series about the adventures of a chickadee. The enchantment part was that my teacher would read that week’s story to my classmates, and I got to see that people were entertained by and enjoyed what I wrote. I’ve been hooked ever since. Also, since age 12, I’ve kept a diary with the idea that just as a pianist needs to practice every day, I would practice writing every day.
2. What was the first book that really touched you?
I loved Black Beauty. I loved that words on a sheet of paper could magically bring you into a different world, one from a hundred years ago.
3. Let's discuss your book Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless. Why did you decide to write about the author of the Chicken Soup series?
Inspiration is one of the greatest gifts one person can give another: inspiration can uplift the discouraged and encourage others to think bigger than they ever thought before. Mark Victor Hansen provides inspiration on an unmatched scale. He went from bankrupt and suicidal to being in the Guinness Book of World Records for selling half a billion copies of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. I wanted to tell the story of how Mark learned from his collection of failures and how each one helped propel him to ever greater success. I also wanted to share the techniques and attitudes that Mark embodies so readers can become all they can be. In summary, I wrote this book to inspire people.
4. How long did it take you to do the research for this book?
Three months. I started the book the day before Christmas of 2021 and finished it by the end of March 2022. The research of interviewing people from Mark’s life (60 of them made it into the book) occurred while I was writing it. When I am researching and writing a book, it’s total immersion and 18-hour days. I don’t accept social engagements or even phone calls, and during that period, I’m a terrible friend and probably offend people right and left by being unavailable. Alas! I don’t want to offend people, but I’ve discovered, while writing the 27 books that I’ve written, that total immersion is what works for me. And then I get to be sociable again when the book is done.
5. Being that the subject of the book wrote the Chicken Soup series, did this book turn out to be similar to the series?
It’s similar in some ways since the Chicken Soup series is about redemptive, encouraging stories. Mark’s story is redemptive and encouraging. It’s different because it’s me looking at Mark Victor Hansen through my own lens, as someone who’s been fascinated by high-achieving people. My father was Co-Founder and President of the Sheraton Hotel Chain and brought the company from no employees to 20,000 at the time of his death. My late husband, Frank Perdue, brought his chicken company from no employees to 20,000 at the time of his death. (Both men accomplished this unusual feat, and what a coincidence that it was the same number in both cases.) I’ve witnessed up close and personal some of the traits of successful people, including how they bounce back from failure.
6. What surprised you most about Mark Victor Hansen?
I was gobsmacked by the following: when I had finished the book, I sent it to him, wanting him to check for accuracy, such as for instance, did I get a date wrong. It’s typical of the subjects of any writing to want to slant things and change things. Mark didn’t ask me to change so much as a comma, even though there were negative things about him. I thought that was the mark of an unusually mature and secure individual.
7. What's the most important lesson you learned while writing?
The title of the book was the biggest thing I learned from writing Relentless. Mark was relentless. He had Olympic-level persistence. Who else but he and Jack Canfield could endure 143 rejections of their book Chicken Soup for the Soul? I’m learning to up my relentlessness game!
8. What's next for you? Is there another book in the works?
I’d love to write another biography, but I don’t have one in mind yet.
I like to end with fun questions.
9. Do you like audiobooks, physical books, or e-books better? Why?
I like them all, but my first choice is audiobooks. It’s so great to have something mind-expanding when washing the dishes or doing things that would otherwise be dull.
10. What one literary character would you want to meet and why?
I would love to meet The Patrician from Terry Pratchett’s Disk World. He seems like the wisest of men….oh, and he’s single, and I would dearly like to run off with him.
11. What is your favorite word and why?
Courage. As many have said, “It’s the Queen of all Virtues because it makes all the others possible.”
12. How do you relax?
I love to try different kinds of tea. I took a 12-hour online course for tea tasting, and I love trying different kinds of teas and recording what I think of them. I’ve finally found a hobby that isn’t illegal, immoral, fattening, addictive, expensive or socially looked down on! I think the online tea companies have to love me because I’m constantly trying different kinds.
—Neil Gaiman
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