Despite the huge amount of pressure on the team to defend the trophy, Hansen said he doesn't worry about losing the world cup - "because worry is a wasted emotion". But he was not going into the hotly anticipated tournament with arrogance or fear, both of which he blamed for previous All Blacks losses.
"For a long time I think the All Blacks were driven by a fear of losing," he told the programme. "Over time I think we've changed that to really not fear losing, because when you fear something you stop taking risks, and if you don't take risks you don't get the big rewards.
"I think winning the World Cup in 2011 took a big monkey off a lot of people's backs .. not only the players but the whole country."
But, "of course" it was a possibility New Zealand could lose the cup, he said.
"What we're going to try and do no-one's done before. No-one's won back-to-back world cups," he said. "The All Blacks have never even been in a final in a UK or European world cup.
"We would be very naive and very foolish not to be thinking this could happen, and if we become fearful of that, then that's what will happen."
On the other hand, the All Blacks couldn't fly into England expecting to win, he said.
"We can't just turn up there as the defenders of this cup and expect to win it. We're contenders like everybody else," he said.
"We have to earn the right to even get to the playoffs, and then once we get to the playoffs, we have to earn the right to take the next step. So everything we do we have to earn it."
It was the "best World Cup" of the four he had been to, he said, "because anyone could win it".
"Just because you've got a ranking that says you're one or two, or three or four, it doesn't give you the right to be in the top four, the semi-finals, and it certainly doesn't give you the right to be in the final."
Hansen also spoke about the All Blacks as "a big family", and brushed off suggestions by The Nation's Patrick Gower that talking of having love for the guys on the team would be seen as "namby-pamby" by some fans.
"It may seem namby-pamby to some people, but ... is it namby-pamby to love your own children and to love your wife? I don't think so, so why would it be any different?" he said.
"You spend a lot of time together and some of those times are heart-wrenching, some of them are great experiences, and I just see it as a natural progression of being together. They're a group of brothers, and it's about sharing those intimate moments from a sporting environment and you become closer because of it."
The All Blacks were "no different than a family", he said.
"I think most of the people in it at the moment feel like that. It's a group of people trying to achieve a common goal, which is - put simply - to win every game we play, to make people proud of us. And to do that, we have to be all on the same page."
Keep up with the latest Rugby World Cup news by signing up to the daily NZ Herald Sport newsletter.
The 'namby-pamby' question was prompted by Hansen describing how "every decision" he made was for the good of the team.
"As much as I love everybody in the group, I love the team too, and my job is to make sure the team is left better than when I found it," he said.
"So there are some tough decision you have to make, but when you go back to, 'is this right for the team?', 'yes'. Then it's an easy decision, even though there can be some tough moments within the decision."
