Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 296 Mary Marantz - Underestimated
There's a geography of limitation that exists not on any map, but in the quiet territories of our own making. Stories that whisper: this is as far as you'll go. Today, we are talking with Mary Marantz - a woman who understands that our beginnings are not our boundaries. Growing up in a single-wide trailer on the tippy top of Fenwick Mountain, she learned something profound: that grace isn't about erasing your history, but making peace with it. Imagine a young girl watching the world from that precipice, learning that survival isn't just about enduring, but reimagining. Mary's journey from that trailer to Yale Law School isn't a bootstrapping narrative of triumph, but a meditation on grace, on the way unexpected paths unfold when we listen carefully to the whispers of our own potential. How do we create space between who we were told we could be and who we are actually called to become? How do we recognize that the most revolutionary act might be showing up, day after day, for the work that won't let go of us? Mary writes about fear like an old friend - not something to vanquish, but to understand. She knows that the stories we tell ourselves are powerful, that they can either keep us small or become the very ground from which we grow. So join us as we walk through those stories together - not as a roadmap, but as an invitation. Here’s my conversation with Mary Marantz.
Mary Marantz is the bestselling author of Dirt and Underestimated, as well as the host of the popular podcast The Mary Marantz Show. She grew up in a trailer in rural West Virginia and was the first in her family to go to college before going on to Yale for law school. Her work has been featured on CNN, MSN, Business Insider, Bustle, Thrive Global, Southern Living, Hallmark Home & Family and more. She and her husband Justin live in an 1880s fixer-upper by the sea in New Haven, Connecticut, with their two very fluffy golden retrievers, Goodspeed and Atticus. Learn more at MaryMarantz.com.
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Where I talk about a sugar factory in Georgia that exploded, and the reason that it exploded Joshua, was because the sugar dust accumulated in the basement. They weren't doing the housekeeping to clean up those messes, and it acted like gunpowder this. You know, sugar dust turned a powder keg. And that's what it's like chasing all these little sugary, sweet dopamine hits of a high of gold star after gold star. If you are not doing the housekeeping, it will turn into a sugar dust, turn powder keg that leaves you burned out. I've been there. I've done that. It doesn't work.
Joshua Johnson:You Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, there's a geography of limitation that exists, not on any map, but in the quiet territories of our own, making stories that whisper. This is as far as you'll go today. We are talking with Mary Morans, a woman who understands that our beginnings are not our boundaries. Growing up in a single wide trailer on the tippy top of Fenwick mountain, she learned something profound, that grace isn't about erasing your history, but making peace with it. Imagine a young girl watching the world from that precipice, learning that survival isn't about enduring, but reimagining Mary's journey from that trailer to Yale Law School isn't a bootstrapping narrative of triumph, but a meditation on Grace, on the way unexpected paths unfold when we listen carefully to the whispers of our own potential. How do we create space between who we were told we could be and who we were actually called to become? How do we recognize that the most revolutionary act might be showing up day after day for the work that won't let go of us? Mary writes about fear like an old friend, not something to vanquish, but to understand. She knows that the stories we tell ourselves are powerful, that they could either keep us small or become the very ground from which we grow. So join us as we walk through those stories together, not as a roadmap but as an invitation. Here is my conversation with Mary. Marantz, Mary, welcome to shifting culture. Really excited to have you on. Thank you so much for joining me. Yeah,
Unknown:Joshua, thanks so much for having me. I've really been looking forward to this. I was checking out the podcast online, and it just looks amazing, and I feel like we're gonna have a great conversation.
Joshua Johnson:Thanks. I hope so. That's the goal, to have a really good conversation. I wanted to get, get beyond the place of like, hey, let's talk about a book, to actually have a genuine, authentic conversation. So let's do it. Let's go and start with your childhood. Who were you? What was your life like? Where'd you grow up, and what was forming you in your early days? I
Unknown:love this, like I'm the only other person I know who's like, hi, we've just met. Tell me about your childhood. Are you an Enneagram for by any
Joshua Johnson:chance? No, I'm a three wing four. So okay, there
Unknown:you go. There you go. I'm a four wing three. So there you go. Okay, so if everybody's listening, maybe you're meeting me for the very first time. I grew up in the 1980s in a single wide trailer in very rural West Virginia, on the top, very tippy top of a mountain called Fenwick mountain. My dad was a logger. My mom cleaned houses. She actually ends up leaving when I'm nine. You know, in part to leave and in part to travel for work. It was sort of like a complicated leaving, where she would be back every couple months. So it was kind of, in one way, sort of like she kept leaving over and over. When you grow up like that, I say in my first book dirt, you know, growing up without a lot just does something to your brain. I can't explain it. Maybe it's the prefrontal cortex. Maybe it's the, you know, neural pathways still developing. Maybe it's just inhaling all the mildew, I don't know, but it makes you expect to fail before you even start. And so that's where I started. And then you fast forward, you know, in the movie, you kind of get the the pretend movie of my life, the luxury of fast forwarding 20 years, and I find myself at Yale for law school 25 years. And that's, you know, we, in some ways, we've heard that story before. We've seen that real movie before. But I wanted to kind of tell that story through the lens of grace, of like, what does a humble beginnings to like, you know, Yale Law School Story look like when it's really about needing to make peace with your past and have forgiveness and empathy for those who came before. And so in a lot of ways, the new book underestimated is sort of like, I've been joking. It's kind of like the textbook to dirt, where it's like, if dirt is the story underestimated is like, here's why we are the way we are. So
Joshua Johnson:if you look back and you think about the ways that your childhood, maybe your mom leaving, what happens there on the top of the mountain? How did that propel you into a place of maybe overachieving, of what other people thought you might achieve, that you I'm gonna over achieve, and I'm going to prove everybody wrong. And I'm gonna get to the place that I think I deserve. The underdogs
Unknown:kind of have that sort of classic chip on our shoulder, right? If anybody has ever, like, told me I can't do it, it's like, great, more jet fuel for the pack. You know, there's that T shirt I'm wearing in a lot of my photos with the book that says, Go ahead, underestimate me. That'll be fun and sort of that energy, and we've gotten really good at using that as this, you know, I say it makes kind of terrible jet fuel. It works in the short term. It gives you this really big boost, but it is not a sustainable source. It's the kind of jet fuel that leaves you hollowed out and burned out on the inside. And so my second book, slow growth, is actually all about that, like, can we give up achieving for our worth? What does that look like? So yes, there's a really interesting book called the triple package that I talk about and underestimated that was written by two Yale professors who were actually there when I was there, and I had one of them for con law. And it's, you know, the triple package. It's like three unlikely traits that explain success in America. Basically. That's not exactly what the subtitle is, but it's pretty close. And they identify it as this, really, the first two are this really paradoxical butting of heads of both what they call a feeling of superiority and a feeling of insecurity. And so I don't like that word superiority, because I think it sounds like better than someone else, but I think like what they're actually talking about is just this feeling of being called to more and at the same time doubting that someone like you will ever get there, and how when those two kind of rub against each other, they create this unprecedented drive that creates most successful people. So I think, like that was pretty spot on for what happened to me in
Joshua Johnson:the history of America. We've seen that happen over and over. That's really sort of the spirit of America. It seems to me that the spirit of America has shifted and changed a little bit where there's not as much of a drive and a purpose to say we could actually achieve something. There's a lot of malaise that is happening at the moment. There's like, hey, let's just talk about our mental health issues and just be stuck in the place of like, I am an underdog. I don't think that life is there's no purpose to it. There's a malaise. I know that you in your book, you talk a little bit about overcoming some of that, like moving towards a better place. How do we then move from this place of malaise and not get stuck there, but actually move towards healing growth, that we could be propelled into something bigger than we are. Yeah,
Unknown:yeah. So the malaise is a very interesting thing. I think, like I for sure, have seen a vast change in people post pandemic. My husband and I were photographers. We've been photographers. We've had photography business for 20 plus years. We speak at conferences, and we have noticed, just in the last couple years, a stark, stark contrast in the entrepreneurs were meeting, you know, when we were coming up, there was a hunger. There was a hunger in us. There was a hunger in every entrepreneur. We were that we met, every photographer we met. We were putting together shoots. We were, you know, shooting for each other. We were networking. We were hosting groups, we were all gonna rise together. Most of the people that we were talking with had this sense of, I'm not where I want to be, but it's okay, and I to for me and the way that I'm wired, I was like I did, does not compute. I don't know what you're talking about, so I do think that there is something that happened. I think it's a really nuanced conversation. I think we would want to be, you know, really clear to say that, like I talked on the flip side of things I say and underestimated, if we never see another bootstrap again, that would be fine with us, like we're tired of having to be the tough ones, and like this idea that you can always pull yourself up out of every situation, like it's more nuanced than that. But I'm I for sure, am tracking on like something has changed in the last few years. I would say that this book gets more into the heart of like, the person who like really does like they you know, it's that thing of like, you can't go a day without thinking about it like there's the thing they know they're being called to do. And rather than it being sort of a meh, maybe malaise, it's more of a overthinking to the point of overwhelm. It's more of a like fight, flight or freeze or fawn kind of fear response. And so the book does a lot of unpacking that, depending on what it is, every chapter, in fact, Joshua talks about a different face of fear. You know, for your people listening, we go through procrastination, perfectionism, people pleasing, overthinking, imposter syndrome, criticism, failure, success and even more. There's 14 of them in total. And so depending on how fear likes to attack you in particular, and for me, it's all 14. So I was totally fine to write about each of those. You're a big ball of fear. Yeah, well, I'm, you know, listen, actually, you overcome it, because I say in the book it wouldn't bother you. Fear wouldn't bother you if you weren't about to do work. That matters. So if it's attacking me on 14 when I'm doing work, that really matters. Really Matters. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson:that's good. So one of the things he said is that there's going to be a persistent, consistent call that you'll feel like this is just something that I have to do, and it does not go away. It's I can't shake it. How do we start to learn how to. To not just stay stuck in that place, but actually hear the call and say, I'm going to take a small first step to move towards that call. Yeah,
Unknown:I love that question, because it's really kind of the backbone of the book. There's a whole breakout section called the shift. The subtitle of the book is a surprisingly simple shift, to quit playing small, needing the fear and move forward anyway. And that shift section I talk about how I read an article once that said, the best ideas are switch, not a dial, then I'll just turn the volume up on what we were already thinking. We actually flip that thing on its very head. And the kind of like Instagram, you know, meme worthy success account, take of choice is that if we want to quit playing small, we have to always go big leap and the net will appear. Which I joke in underestimated is just terrible aeronautics advice. By the way, it's a Schrodinger cat of gold chasing them. It may appear. It may not. My whole approach is that paradoxically And ironically, the way that we quit playing small, some of the most important work we're going to do for that is actually by starting small, we are expanding our capacity for self trust. And by self trust, I don't mean like self help in the kind of traditional sense where it's like, it's all about us and our self sufficiency. It's like little t trust, like stewardship. So our capacity for steward stewarding the work we've been called to the gifts we've been entrusted with, and that, little by little, day by day, who we are becoming is it occurs in the day by day, not in the big swings. I've had massive big swings in my life. Yale Law School, a Coast to Coast tour with my face on the side of a bus. Australia, for a workshop. It has like to teach a workshop. It has never once made me stop doubting myself, but becoming a person this grown up in the room who can be trusted, that has that's the work that's actually started to undo it.
Joshua Johnson:That's so good. How do we recognize that now, okay, there's this call, there's this shift that we need to take place. But I'm I'm scared. There's some, some fear that is going to take place. Maybe I'm freezing like I don't want to take the first step. How do we recognize that fear is a liar, and what is? What is fear for us? And how do we diffuse fear?
Unknown:Okay, I'm ready. Are you ready? Here we go. Here we go. Okay. First of all, I love that you said Fear is a liar. In the book, I say specifically, fears are really boring liar. A couple years ago, I just sort of hopped on Instagram and filmed a video, really quick off the cuff, because I noticed this coming up over and over with my coaching clients, and I just hopped on and I filmed it, and I said, it's all been done. It's all been done better. It's all been done by somebody the world actually wants to pay attention to. I can't start until I'm perfect. I can't start until it's perfect. I can't start until I have the bandwidth. What if I can't stay consistent with it? What if the critics come? What if they say, Who does he or she thinks she is? What if I don't actually have what it takes and I prove them all right all along? What if my voice doesn't matter? What if I don't matter? What if it's already too late? The same scripts fear uses on me, it uses on nearly all of us, because fear, here's my theory, and I'm really proud of it. When you know this is like the high every writer's chasing when these two dots connect in a way you haven't seen them connected before. Connected before. What if fear attacks creatives because it's jealous that it itself is not creative at all. It just has this one, you know, short little list of scripts it can pull from. And so my whole goal, Joshua with this book. You know, I mentioned, my husband and I are photographers. We taught photography courses for years. I have a teacher's heart. I really, truly understand how to make people understand a concept, and I know that we learn best by story and visuals, right? The greatest teacher on the planet taught by stories and metaphors parables, and when that parable didn't make sense, he just told another one, right? And so my goal is that for each of these different types of fear, so each chapter, and then each subsection in each chapter, I'm creating these incredibly memorable visuals. This is just the research Riptide this is just the Oliver Twist problem. This is just the princess and the P problem. This is the Edward Scissorhands problem. And so when I'm giving you this picture of we feel like we're walking around in the book with this missing handbook. In chapter four, we're kind of like Edward Scissorhands without all the pertinent parts bumping up against all these rules of all the people in the pretty pastel suburbs and wondering why we're the ones dying by death of 1000 cuts. Well now the next time you find yourself second guessing yourself and it feels like, Oh, this is just a missing handbook turned to Edward Scissorhands problem, it becomes a lot easier to identify fear in the room. And when you do that, it diffuses it of all its power.
Joshua Johnson:When you were first deciding to we go to Yale Law School, and you were afraid, what did fear look like in you? And how did you just say, I'm gonna do it anyways,
Unknown:fear looks like to me in the moment that I got into Yale Law School in dirt, I actually say, what if success is where all the real trouble begins. What if you get everything you ever wanted and your thin epidermis doesn't stop screaming like this raw nerve ending screaming out in the world? What if you still feel like a walking, waking imposter? And so that's kind of the heart of honestly, why I wanted to write this book in the first place. Because what I realized is that if I can go from a trailer to the number one loss. School in the country and still feel like not enough, still feel fear and doubt myself, then I knew that it wasn't going to be this external thing, this arrival point that was going to fix it. It was going to have to be an inside job. And so I felt a lot of fear for those three years, and mostly what that looked like for me was holding other people at arm's length, rejecting them before they got a chance to reject me, putting on a really outward, polished performance so that nobody could ever judge the little girl in the trailer I was walking around with. And then you fast forward some years, and I'm a business owner and a speaker, and I start to share about that trailer, and it turns out it was actually like part of my superpower lines out the back of the room at the conferences for somebody to come up and say, Me too. I grew up in a trailer too, or I grew up with that a lot too. So I think it was kind of a process of going, oh, right, perfect and shiny. Are a stiff arm. They're Heisman pose. And owning your story is actually when you start to reach people.
Joshua Johnson:I think a lot of us, when we feel like imposters, we want to really persist, go really hard to try to be perfect so that people can see us as the the perfect one, that we want to hide our flaws as you started to reckon with your flaws and realize that, hey, this, this rocket fuel, is going to burn out pretty quick. And I'm really just trying to people please and really work on perfectionism. And it's not actually working. I'm not feeling the shift inside of myself. I could see it, and I want other people to see it. Was there a time in your life where you go, Oh, I actually have to do the inside work. I have to shift my own mental state so that I can do this for the long haul.
Unknown:Yeah, 100% the things that are coming up for me right now in this moment are, chapter 10 is called perfectionism is hiding with better PR. And I was really proud of that. That's like, one of my favorite titles of all the chapters. Like, when that dot, when those dots connected? I was like, Ooh, that's really good. Like, not since the got milk, people, has there been an ad campaign to make something so plain Jane vanilla seems so sexy and sought after. And that chapter, although it sounds kind of silly and fun the way I just described it there, it's really about when my mom left and I learned to use perfect as a weapon. I'll show you. I'm gonna build a life so beautiful and so impressive on the outside that you'll regret not being here for any of it. And I pair that with something I talk about in slow growth, called The Illusionist in the distance, where we don't think we can start until we're perfect. And so this these perfect like 1000 illusion illuminated versions of us on mountaintop moments. Keep looking us in the eye, smiling a superior smile, and going on without us. So it's one thing to have somebody else leave us. It's another thing to abandon ourselves in 1000 ways, trying to be a version of us just so that we can be accepted, approved, loved. Let's just call it what it is we think, if we're perfect enough, no one will ever leave one will ever leave us again. And you pair that with chapter 14, where there's this one part where I talk about a sugar factory in Georgia that exploded, and the reason that it exploded Joshua was because the sugar dust accumulated in the basement. They weren't doing the housekeeping to clean up those messes, and it acted like gunpowder. This, you know, sugar dust turned a powder keg. And that's what it's like chasing all these little sugary, sweet dopamine hits of a high of gold star after gold star. If you are not doing the housekeeping, it will turn into a sugar dust turn powder keg. That leaves you burned out. I've been there. I've done that. It doesn't work. And so I kind of had to go, okay, if I'm not going to spend my whole life feeling that way, what does it look like for me to actually show up and live a life of purpose, and that's like when it becomes about other people and not about me, showing somebody else that they were wrong about me. So
Joshua Johnson:what does that look like in your life? Then what does it look like to have a sense of purpose that is about other people and not about you? Yeah,
Unknown:100% I feel specifically put here to serve two groups. The first group is animals, but that's a whole different podcast. We'll put that off to the side. I grew up with a lot of stray dogs in the yard that didn't meet and cats that didn't need very happy endings. No, funny. I don't know why my thing of that, it was really horrible actually, but so I have a big heart for serving them, but pertinent to our conversation, the other people I know that I was put here to serve are the generation changers. They are the Sharpie mark through the family tree that creates a before and after that says it ends with me. And a lot of those people Joshua already look like they're very successful. They look like the most put together person in the room. They look like the person with the good resume. But they have hit an upward ceiling because they've made it about me, my stability, my survival, my security, my success and true significance is a leap to the other side, where it says, how do I show up and become a guide for someone else? So if I can actually help those people who I already know are so impressive, get set free of this grip that fear like has on their lives, the ripple effects that I believe I'm going to get a glimpse of in heaven are going to be really cool to witness. So that's what you know, 12 hours a day for 12 months of writing this book, every time I wanted to quit, that's what kept me pushing. It's like this could change family trees.
Joshua Johnson:That'd be amazing to see generations change and family trees change. That's incredible. You talked about fear being a boring liar, and that fear attacks create. Creatives because fear can't create, right? So a lot of people, I think, when, when they hear the word creatives, I think, all right, I'm not really an artist, I'm not a musician, I I don't write. Am I a creative 100% Yeah. So define creative for me and tell tell me why everyone is a creative Well,
Unknown:I think what's really cool is that you know what you and I, what you and I agree on and have in common is that we believe that we were created by the Creator, the creator, and made in His image. And so I think like that is naturally inherent in all of us, even if you're somebody who tests on the like, more like T side of the INFJ, or the Myers, Briggs scale, I'm an INFJ so I said that you know, or you're, you're somebody who, like, works in like computer programming, or you're a tax accountant, or whatever the case may be, I believe every single one of us is partnering with God to create the life that we were called to. Right. These desires have been placed in our heart. A good work has been prepared for us in advance, whether you work in ministry or secular, the traditionally creative roots or something that's just much more. You know, like I mentioned, like taxes or spreadsheets. My husband loves spreadsheets, whatever the case is. I believe with our words that have the power of life and death. I believe with our actions, the steps that we're taking that are either calling us closer to where God has us or further away, we are partnering in every way for how we show up in the world. And I think that that is just inherently a creative life every single day. I wrote this book every single day, no exaggeration, I prayed this prayer, God grant me a merry size portion that my Mary sized brain can handle, of the place where your infinite well of creativity overlaps with your infinite well of wisdom and this kind of overlapping sure creates this sort of explosion of new ideas and people understanding things in brand new ways. And so whether that's with words, Instagram captions, conversations you have at the water cooler, at work, we are each creating an impact with our lives every day. That
Joshua Johnson:impact is huge and is key, and we don't know the the actual impact that we have every single day, with people around us, for good or for ill, you're going to have an impact that's right happen. And so we have to be intentional. And so fear stops us, I think, from being intentional to create something good in this world. Why do you say that that fear is boring and it's a boring liar that is not that's a scary liar.
Unknown:That's right. Well, I think what's so important for people to realize, and this is actually, I just did an Instagram post about this yesterday, is that, you know, kind of like unpacking all that stuff I just said to you about the those lines it uses, and how it's not creative, but it attacks creatives. I said here's the other thing you need to know about fear. Is that fear is not a very creative guy, but he is a busy guy, and like any good, productive overachiever, he has learned how to prioritize. And so if you're just playing small, already hiding in plain sight, not showing up and doing the work you were called to a little all or nothing, thinking, some perfectionism, a little self sabotage sprinkled in, and you're in like, maintenance fear mode at best. He doesn't need to spend a lot of time on you. Show up and say, I'm going to start to do the work I was most created to do that will actually help people. And fear is going to show up, teeth bared, snarled, this really ugly version of himself, and I say to him, like, we're just going to kind of use in the in the Instagram post, maybe you'll appreciate this. I said we're going to use a little like rope, a dope, to kind of pull him in, let him wear himself out a little bit, and as our rocky four soundtrack starts to swell, we're going to hit him with a knockout punch, and we're going to use that weakness against him. Fear is so boring and uncreative and predictable, and how about we use it to predict when we're on the right track? Fear has just showed up in full force. Good. You're about to do work that matters,
Joshua Johnson:so Okay, fear has shown up. We know that the calling. We could feel it inside. We know where we're going. We're taking that first step as you're coaching people that are on the journey and that are taking these steps. Where are people getting stuck? Where are the places where you go? Oh, okay, I did this, but I don't know. Maybe I'll revert back to something easy for me. Oh, actually, so
Unknown:I was about to say for my first answer, which I'm gonna come back to, but I'm gonna switch it to my second answer. When you said I'm gonna do something easy for me. Two things come up for me with that. Number one is that in chapter three, self sabotage is a shot glass which is not about drinking alcohol at all. It's about the small, tiny containers we believe we belong in. I talk about how chaos is familiar and we become addicted to it, and if we didn't grow up with stability in our childhoods, or if we didn't have that at an early, you know, formative part of our adult years, we return to it over and over again, because we mistake what is comfortable for what is safe. In chapter seven, overthinking is an orange safety cone. I actually talk about the science of this there, when we are thinking too hard, when we get moved into our prefrontal cortex, and it's just really stuck in overdrive. And it's kind of like, you know, like when you feel like you're going to sneeze out your forehead, because you're so stuck on a problem, all that angst, just. Pent up right there. That is actually, if you spend too much time and really just like advanced thinking like that, it creates an actual fatigue in your brain. But it also creates a toxic buildup of a substance called glutamate, and your brain will actually switch you into, like, low cost, easy, you know, reward, that instant gratification, reward, go get an easy check mark to move you out of that prefrontal cortex and into, like, more of your limbic brain as a way of self preserving. So it's actual science that if you start overthinking a problem too much, if, like the if the thing feels too gargantuan to you. There's a section called the colossus of clout from The Sandlot where I actually talk about, when we make the problem, the dream feel too big that we can't ever get started on it. When it starts to feel too big, too impossible. The predictive brain, it's called Bayesian brain theory, will shift us into easy wins, to self Preserve. It's actual science. There's a reason we do this. So that's my kind of answer to that. There's actual science as to why that's happening. That'll be my answer as to why we switch to something easier. Is like we're actually we're brain preserving, but we're also self preserving too. We don't want to be disappointed. We don't want to try and not be as good as we hoped it could be. It's easier to just stick with what you know you're good at, kid, stick with the easy win. So where
Joshua Johnson:do you think that your clients are get most stuck in? Oh,
Unknown:there it is. Yeah, I knew we'd get back there. That's the other one. Yes. Okay, so I think my clients get most stuck in what I call the existential dread cycle. So I also call this a few other things in the book, but one of them is the Dewey Cox problem. I don't know if you ever saw these. Oh yeah, walk hard. It's a spoof of Walk the Line. And it begins with like, give him a minute, son, Dewey Cox has to think about his whole life before it goes on stage. And it's that, it's that's what we do. We say, I'm going to do the dream. I literally just had a coaching client hire me. She's going to come up here for two days. We're going to build out her book proposal. And I it like it was like and right on time existential dread. I got to think about my whole life before we do this. And we'll, they'll just get stuck in that, like they have to think through every if then iteration and variable that could possibly come into play. And we all think that we have to have everything figured out before we can get started. But the truth is, we have to get started in order to figure it out.
Joshua Johnson:I think there's, there's two, two types of people. I think one is the ones that need to figure everything out before they get started, and the other, they just jump in and they don't know really what they're doing. They'll figure it out. So the problem with the latter the second people, if they're just going to jump in, they're very instinctual. They they could get to a certain point, because it's just innate within them, and they could, they could bootstrap it right? They could get it going, but they can't pass it along very well, because they don't understand how they got there. Wow. And then the other people say, I need all the understanding before I could get going. I think we we need each other. So in those two people, as we like, get rid of the fear. We knock it out. We say, you're done. How do we work together in that where, hey, maybe there is somebody that's just gonna go try and experiment and do things, and maybe the person that has the understanding goes, Oh, I could see the steps you took to get there. And then we could build something together. How do we start to work together? Okay,
Unknown:I'm gonna just, I'm gonna talk through what's coming up for me. It's and we'll see. We'll see. If we get to an answer, we'll see. Okay, so the thing that's coming up for me is it's this two part component of in the book, I compare the difference between perfectionism and excellence, and I say that you can be a recovering perfectionist and also a person of incredible standards for excellence, and I am that. And the what's the difference between the two? Perfectionism is driven by fear, and it's that I don't, you know, I'm afraid somebody's gonna not love me. Excellence is driven by love, and it's how you do anything, is how you do everything. And I'm gonna pair that with another part in the book where I talk about overnight is overrated. You know, I said my second book is slow growth equals stronger ease. I'm a big fan of us taking our time. I never Joshua. I want somebody to be able to say that the most impressive thing about me is how little time I've been at this work. And so what's coming up for me in answer to your question, is, like, it's this middle ground. It's this middle ground where we're both not frozen and stuck and never moving forward, but we're also not these people who are cutting corners and taking shortcuts and all we care about is getting to the end result, and we don't care about the character being forged in the process. I was on a podcast the other day, and I was saying, I resonate a lot with King David, because, like, not only was he overlooked, they forgot he was even there. He's out in the field, you know, and then, you know, he's like, I love when they talk about, like he had spent so much time doing target practice on these much smaller targets, like wolves, you know, he's protecting the sheep that the Giant was a really easy target to hit, but he spent his time in the field, in the hidden season, working on the craft, but not necessarily the character, and so when he got his moment in the palace, that lack of character was an undoing. So my answer is that we do. We need each other, but we also need that balance in ourselves. We need to not stay stuck, but we also need to not try to rush the outcome. Because the character work that's being done while we're waiting is going to be the thing that keeps us there when we get there, I'm curious, which type are you
Joshua Johnson:a little bit of both. Sometimes it depends on what it is. I would probably go instinctual for a long time. I'll start something, and I'm okay with that, and before I know everything, and so I'll get there first. But I do. I'm such a learner that I want all the information understanding. But I will start, and I'll get going, which is, yeah, it's good. Let's go. Okay. I am starting. I am getting going. I've shifted into a new place. I am starting at this creative business that I still don't know what it is, but it's been a couple of months where I've been able to shift into a new role like and so I have freedom. So this is the place that I'll just say. The fear that I have is that I could do anything. And so how do you get people into a place where, oh, everything, like options are open. You can do anything. And you have a dream. You want to start something. You want to get you know, people involved, and you want to make a difference in this world and in a certain way. And there are so many different options. How do you help people? And how do we know? Hey, which step do we take? How do we take that first step into a small thing when we know that there are hundreds of things that we could do?
Unknown:Yeah, you know what I kind of think about when it comes to that is, I think a lot of us really want the destination between two points to be a to be one, one very long, like, maybe, like a Texas Highway straight. Nice workshop. You're gonna like this. We once did a workshop in Texas, and one of the attendees said, the place where I'm from, she was actually from Oklahoma. Place Where I'm from in Oklahoma, but we were in Texas is so flat you could set out on your porch for three days and watch your dog run away for three days straight. The place where I'm from, so flat we could watch my dog run away for three days straight. We want it to be like that. We want it to be just a to b, no curves, no twist, no wrong turns, no circle and back. And what I've learned as somebody who grew up in a trailer, went to Yale for law school only to become a wedding photographer as soon as I graduated, that's a really expensive way to become a wedding photographer, very expensive. Did that for 15 plus years, became a digital course creator, built an email list. All of that was, you know, speaker, all of that was building to being able to have all that in place, to write a proposal and do the thing I wanted to do since I was five, which was become an author. So that's I wanted to do it since I was five. I wrote my first book when I was 40. So it's a really, you know, I always say, like the chicks have a song called the long way around, that if, like my GPS for my life had an input, that's what it would be like, the longest, most convoluted way around. But what I've learned is that none of it was wasted. None of it was wasted. The Law Degree came into play over and over in our business for contracts and speaking contracts, the email list, the speaking experience, the audience, the following we had as a photographer, is what propelled me to be able to get a book. And so I would say, like, look at all of the things. Find one that's kind of just exciting you the most. And like, start with it. But like, if that thing is there, it might be a piece of the puzzle you won't fully understand until you go work on this part over here, there's a part where I really go through, we have friends over every Christmas, and we work a puzzle and sit by the fire and exchange presents, and there's always this moment, like an hour or two hours in, when it's just not we're not making progress. It's just not coming together. And it's like this is never going to come together. But then it starts to build momentum through that. You know, that idea of consistency and showing up and putting in the work, that is what builds momentum, not the other way around. That is what builds motivation, not the other way around. And that as you're putting that puzzle together, you realize this part over here never would have made sense if you hadn't paused to go work on this part over here first. So I think it's making peace with like, it doesn't have to be linear, and like, you don't win by getting there in the shortest amount of time you get there. And all these pieces will none of it will be wasted. It will come into play. You just don't know how yet. So
Joshua Johnson:what's the daily posture to show up in the world to make some progress and move forward? But
Unknown:in the chair is really kind of the what it boils down to, right? I have learned through writing three books that I do my best writing at 930 to 1130 every morning, and 430 to 630 every evening. Like just as I think I have nothing left in me, I always get that second windfall right at 430 and then there's also that, like active rest, that anticipatory rest in between of taking walks and allowing your limbic brain to do what your limbic brain does, which is connect dots in a way they've never been connected before. And the all of it matters, and the showing up matters, and like, the work that you write, I would talk about in the book about how one of my least favorite things about me is that the all of my best work doesn't really show up until I'm really under a deadline. But, like, I've also made peace, just like I just said, with all of the crappy, you know, right? Where. That I wrote before, the ones that end up on the cutting room floor, they paved the way to the good ones and where we're going. So it's showing up. It's putting up, you know, putting your butt in the chair and doing the work. That's no malaise,
Joshua Johnson:no malaise. Put the butt in the chair. Let's take a walk. Make sure your limbic brain works. That's right. It's really important to be able to do that all of those things is exactly what I've found in my life. If I actually just put in the work, show up, be faithful, and then you take walks like walking is really important. It's really important when I don't take a walk like I could feel it and like my brain's not working as well, and it's it's it's not good. I have a strange rabbit trail. And go on right now, I think there's been a lot of strange or different information about people from the the mountains of West Virginia, from Appalachia. And so as you grew up there, and you know the place, you know the people, what are some things that we as a culture misunderstand a place and the people. And I know it's very complicated, because there's lots of regions and and all that stuff, but from your location, what
Unknown:do we not? Yeah, I love that. So, so one of the things I hear from people in Appalachia, if you've ever seen there's a documentary called hillbilly so not to be confused with Hillbilly Elegy. This is an actual documentary. It's created by Ashley York, and she's actually from Kentucky, and she moved to LA to be a director, and she comes back home to Kentucky, and she's talking about a lot of the stuff that people get wrong about the region, and she's talking about time since she's been judged her accent and things like that. And one of the things she talks about in that documentary is that some of the most frustrating things for people from Appalachia is that everybody assumes that they are Scotch Irish descent. Family was either a logger or a coal miner. They're probably in a trailer. They're, you know, trucks up on cinder blocks in the yard. They're straight animals running through the yard. That everybody looks like this, that you know, your little kids are running around barefoot and kind of dirty. Appalachia is not a monolith, that it's there are a lot of different rich stories and rich backgrounds there, and that's so good and so true and so important. And then also, when I'm writing dirt, which is a memoir and a true story, unfortunately and fortunately, my story ends up checking every single one of those boxes, scotch, Irish, logger, cinder blocks, straight animals, the whole thing. And so my goal with dirt, and my goal every time I talk about Appalachia is like, I'm going to pull you in with what you think you already know about Appalachia. You know. It's going to confirm all the things you think you know. So I get you just close enough to tell you all the things that are going to surprise you. So one of my favorite scenes is in dirt, is I'm talking about my dad and I when I'm a teenager, and we're really button heads, and he has me kind of pushed up against the refrigerator, and he's screaming in my face, and he's saying, you know, kid, by God, you better listen to me. And I talk about, I can smell his breath, and it smells like Dr Pepper, and that's a bait and a switch, because I know what you're thinking like. I know that you're expecting him to also be this alcoholic, because that checks another box of what you know about the region, or, you know, drug addict or whatever. And so I'm my whole goal with writing that story was, you're going to think of this place in black and white, and I'm going to show you all the shades of gray in between. So I know them as a place where they will give you the literal shirt off your back. I remember a man who worked for my dad as a logger. His their trailer burned down, and we went there and literally gave them a bunch of our clothes, including my dad, like taking his flannel shirt and giving it to him. And also, we are incredibly proud, strong, stoic people who will help you, but we do not want to have to ask for help, right? And that's carried through in my adult life. We have an incredible work ethic, we have an incredible grit, but we also really struggle with more, because there's an inherent belief that more means your downfall. There are good people or there are rich people, and the two are not the same. It's something I heard my dad say growing up. So that's not to speak for all Appalachia, but for my family and for my region, that's something that's all so, yeah, it's, it's, there's, there's lots of gray there, and it's a, it's a beautiful place, and it's a place that's worth getting close enough to see those shades,
Joshua Johnson:lots of shades of gray. And I think that actually goes into some underestimated and your book that we talk about the gray and the path that we could move through that things aren't just black and white. And when you think about being underestimated, that you feel like you're small, you feel like, okay, this is a black and white thing, like I'm in this place. I could never get to that place, because it's something totally different. How does that help shift and shape our thinking? If we move from black and white thinking to Shades of Gray, that there are some twists and turns, and it's not linear. But how does that help our brains to move us in a direction where we could get over all of this?
Unknown:Yeah, yeah. What that reminded me of is something that I also always heard my dad say, not about my life, but. Out his you know, he would always be like, you're going to college. You're gonna go do whatever you want. You mean whatever you want to be for himself, because I he loves history, and I'm like, why don't you go to college for history? He would have loved to go to college, but it was never an option for him. He started working in the woods when he was 12, and so I would say, like, why don't you go do this? Or, like, why don't we do this for the business? I think it could really help. And he would just, there was just an immediate rejection. And he would always say, kid, let me tell you, this is the way it is. This is the way it was. This is the way it always will be. So this very sort of fatalistic fixed mindset. And when we talk about fixed versus growth mindset by talking underestimated, about a study that was done where they actually had people look at mistakes that they had made on a test, and the growth mindset people, parts of their brain, started lighting up because they were learning from the mistakes and the fixed mindset. People, no lighting up. This is the way it is. This is the way it was. This is the way it always will be. And so in in a chapter on failure, failure is wired right into our DNA, I talk about how we can really start to feel like whatever our parents were, like, whatever our family tree was, like we inherited that. If they were bad with money, we're probably always going to be bad with money. If they there was a divorce in our formative years, we're probably not going to have a good marriage either. And it can become this very deterministic way of seeing your life. And the fact of the matter is, we get to start new every morning. We get to create with our words and our actions and our habits and our consistency and so really, just switching from, like, fixed mindset, this is the limit on my life. This is all like, this is all it was, all it was, is was, and ever will be to, you know, anything is possible, you know. I mean, I'm not going to be in the NBA, probably. But aside from that, there's a lot that's possible. And I think the more you get to witness this is the cool thing about how momentum and like consistency compound over time. The more you get to witness things that are first in your family tree, the more you have this kind of track record, this evidence to the contrary, to say, Well, that was a first, and that was a first, and we've already broken that in our tree, so maybe more is possible.
Joshua Johnson:I worked with a with Syrian refugees in the Middle East. A lot of Arab Muslims are fatalistic, like the fatalism is a big part of their culture, just God has willed it, right? That has already been willed. So anything bad happened? God has willed it. We can't really step forward when people are in that fixed mindset, like, this is the way it is, and we can't really do anything about it. What's a good step, like, first step that could help people move past that mindset? Well, I
Unknown:have, I have to, like, really give that question a second, because I have watched my dad stay pretty stuck in that mindset despite my best efforts. So I do want to give it the honor to say it's probably not a quick overnight fix, and it always has to be an inside decision. You know, that person has to make that choice. But one of the things that we talked about, I mentioned that evidence to the contrary. Earlier, I went to college on a debate scholarship. And so one of the things we would do is we would carry around like we would literally have moving dollies of these, like four bins, blue plastic bins stacked tall, just sheets and sheets and sheets, 1000s of sheets of loose leaf paper filled with our best evidence to the contrary. And so a huge backbone of this entire book is that every day, when we are making those small but important commitments to ourselves and actually keeping them being the grown up in the room who can be trusted, that grown up as you, we are proving to ourselves over and over and over that we're becoming a new thing, that I'm not the same person that I was. I'm about to be 45 in May, so I'm not the same person at 45 that I was at 35 that I was at 25 that it was at 15, that it was at 15, that I was at five, and thank God for that. And so we have to ask ourselves, what when we're saying nothing's going to change, like, what's the what's the opposite? The opposite is to say, this is how it is for the next 50 years of our lives. We either get to choose, I will be growing until the day I take my last breath, I say, I always say, all the time, or my deathbed, I'm gonna be like, hold on. Write this down one more sentence. We either get to be that person or we are the person today. This is it for the next, next 50 years. When you put it like that, it's like, pretty easy to decide.
Joshua Johnson:I think it's pretty easy to decide, I don't wanna be stuck in the same place for 50 years. Mary, if you could talk to your readers and pick up underestimated. What hope do you have for your readers?
Unknown:I honestly, I cannot, like underscored enough in my heart of hearts, the thing that did, like I was saying, push me through 12 hour days, 12 months out of 2024, getting this thing down on the paper. You know, on paper. I fully, in my whole heart, believe that if you pick up this book, read it in chronological order. Don't just flip to the chapter you think you need. You can do that after you read it once, because the way I teach is very like we're laying a foundation, and then we're going to build on that. We're going to build on that, we're going to build on that. So if you will follow the arc of transformation of this book that I very carefully and thoughtfully put out for you, it is my 100% worth. In my deepest heart, I believe this has the power to change your family tree, because you're already doing it. You already know that it ends with you. You've already come so far. Maybe you were the first to go to college, the first to own a home like you. You're going to parent differently, whatever the case is, but you have just like you've hit that ceiling, and like I 100% believe that when those people get set free. They are the people who are going to change the world. So I'm not even like remotely willing to put a limit on what could happen from the people who had the kind ones, the quiet ones, the ones who often overlooked. When those people get the courage to show up, I think it could change the whole world. The whole
Joshua Johnson:world, Amen. Go for it. Go for it. That's that. Don't put limits on yourself. Just go. That's right, do it, Mary, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give? Don't
Unknown:drink the gold stalker. Listen, the 21 birthday was, was a rough one. That's probably not appropriate, but that's okay. That's Well, listen, I like I said, I'm not the same person I was then, no, I the 21 year old what I was. Would say to her is, you're going to spend two decades of your life thinking that you can earn your way into other people's approval, into belonging to an arrival point and to an invite to the table and a tap on the shoulder and a tap on the forehead, that will finally make you feel like you belong. And it just doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work that way. I can tell you that I have been at the highest of the highs, and people still overlooked me. So we stop chasing that outward approval, that outward validation, that outward belonging. We start belonging to ourselves, and we start belonging to a version of us that God had in mind all along. And we continue to let him shape us and reshape us into the vessel that can be poured out for others. And if you can just let go, That man is gonna save you a lot of frustration and heartbreak and ranting to your husband about why people treat you this way, and all of that energy can be used for better things. So
Joshua Johnson:good. That's so helpful. I think, man, if everybody could take that advice, the world would look a totally different place. It would be amazing. Anything you've been reading or watching lately recommend, oh gosh,
Unknown:you know what? I gotta I gotta watch more life giving stuff when I'm doing these interviews. Because I'm gonna tell you the real answer. Because we are like that right now. We're friends. We're watching The Handmaid's Tale, and it's not life giving at all. It's good, really, not It's scary. It's good and it's scary. But, yeah, yeah. But I will tell you that. Here's my life giving answer. I just heard that Kane the band had, they did a tease of a new song that came out, and it was just talking about, like, my god, will not be defeated. And it really, it was just like they played, like, a one minute clip of the master, and I just, I'm like, counting down the days till they release this whole thing. So that one's a much more life giving answer than those. That's how I operate. It's handmaid's Taylor that,
Joshua Johnson:all right. Well, we need some some prescient, prophetic TV that's a little scary and really, really good. And then we do need to be rooted in the place where we know that, hey, God's not going to be defeated, and it's with us. So that's so good. That's great. How can people go out get underestimated? Where would you like to point people to? Anywhere else you'd like to point people to?
Unknown:I got two fun places for them to check out. Actually, I mentioned that illusionist in the distance earlier, and that is actually one of five types of people who kind of get stuck playing small that I talk about in the book. And we put together a quiz where it kind of goes through 10 questions to ask you what your type is, what your we call it the achiever quiz. And so there's the performer who's always on their toes, wants to show themselves and other people how far they've come. The tightrope walker doesn't care who's clapping, but they need higher and higher death defying heights to feel the same amount of good. The masquerader hides in plain sight and shoves somebody else into the spotlight. The Contortionist is our classic people pleaser, who contorts because it's easier than to be criticized. And the illusionist in the distance is waiting on themselves and all the conditions to be perfect before they can even begin. And you can find that at achiever quiz.com or marymoreans.com/quiz my last name is M, A, R, a, n, t, z.com, it takes two minutes to take we are, as you've probably gotten from this episode, we are fun on the questions and deep on the results. I'll tell you why you get stuck playing small and how you move forward for each of your types. And then if you go to name the fear.com we actually have the whole first chapter of underestimated up there for free. You can grab it and start reading today if you want to go ahead and pre order the book, because pre orders are huge, huge, huge for books of excellence, books of authors who are newer. It tells stories to actually stock this book, it's kind of the make or break. If you pre order, we have the whole first three chapters available for you and the audio book. So it's like getting two books for the price of one. And if you'd like to listen to me wax poetic over the last hour, then you're gonna love the audio book, because I read it, and that's it. Name the fear.com, and then you can find me on Instagram at Mary Marantz. Tell me what you thought of the episode or what you're or what your achiever type is. I think you should take it, Joshua, I should make it. I bet you're a tightrope walker, if
Joshua Johnson:I had to guess. Okay, well, we will see. I'll take it. I'll let you know. Okay, Mary, thank you for this conversation. I really enjoyed talking to you. It was a lot of fun, and we went deep into. A place where we know that fear is a boring liar, that we have all sorts of different fears and types of fear that we struggle to get over, but we can. We don't need to underestimate ourselves in the midst of what we're doing, what we're called to, that we could say that there is this calling, there's something inside us that won't let go, that we could actually take small steps to get there, and when we do, make sure that we have small things, and when small things happen, we get big results at the end when we do the little things, right? So, well done. This is fantastic. I love this conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you. You.
