THE ONES WHO DARED
THE ONES WHO DARED PODCAST Elevating stories of courage. You can listen to some of the most interesting stories of courage, powerful life lessons, and aha moments. Featuring interviews with leaders, pioneers and people who have done hard things. I hope these stories help pave the path for you to live out your courageous life.
THE ONES WHO DARED
Underestimated: Defying the Odds and Overcoming Self-Sabotage | Mary Marantz
Mary Morantz shares her journey from a single-wide trailer in rural West Virginia to Yale Law School, exploring how growing up without resources creates deeply ingrained patterns of self-doubt and self-sabotage that follow us into adulthood. She reveals surprisingly simple shifts to break free from limiting beliefs and stop playing small, even when we feel simultaneously called to something greater while doubting we'll ever get there.
• Growing up in poverty "does something to your brain" that makes you expect to fail before you even start
• When we don't trust our capacity to handle success, we subconsciously shrink back down to fit what we believe we deserve
• Expanding capacity happens through setting small but meaningful commitments and keeping them consistently
• The 12 faces of fear include self-sabotage, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and people-pleasing
• For first-generation success stories, "more" often feels like betraying where you came from
• The paradoxical solution: to quit playing small, start with small consistent actions that rebuild self-trust
Preorder Mary's book "Underestimated" at namethefear.com where you can also take the Achiever Quiz to discover your specific type and download the first chapter for free.
-Links-
https://www.svetkapopov.com/
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Yeah, this book is for every person who feels like they're being called up to something greater, called up to something more, and, at the very same time, simultaneously doubts that someone like you will ever get there, that there's something about you, your story, where you came from, who you are. Why am I the way I am? Why do I keep starting over? Why do I keep messing this up? Why do I get so close? And it feels like there's this invisible force just shoving me back down the hill. Why do I always drop the ball at the very last minute? There's a running metaphor through the whole book of pushing a boulder up the mountain, getting so close to our breakthrough moment, we can taste the rarefied air.
Speaker 2:Hey friends, welcome to the Ones who Dared podcast, where stories of courage are elevated. I'm your host, becca, and every other week you'll hear interviews from inspiring people. My hope is that you will leave encouraged. I'm so glad you're here. Mary Morantz, welcome to the Once or Dare podcast. I'm so honored to have you here today. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Becca, I feel like we just met a couple of days ago like a week or two maybe, even like a week ago and I feel like we have been like fast friends. We've been friends for a long time already, so I've been so looking forward to this. I know that we'll probably get into this, but you just even like reading the book, getting ready for this and like sharing kind of real time reactions to it has been so huge and I'm just so, so thankful. So thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I'm thankful that Erin got to introduce us through email.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am so thrilled to dig into your book and, like I said in the email before, that I get tons of you know, books and podcast hosts and I everyone I bring on on the podcast for those listening. I really want to highlight them. Books and podcast hosts and I everyone I bring on on the podcast for those listening. I really want to highlight them and there's a reason why I select them to be the guests on my podcast. And there's guests that are rejected, believe it or not. But, you know, has to align with the value and the vision of what this podcast brings. And mine's called the Ones who Dared, and I started Such a good title, by the way, so good, thank you. And I started Such a good title, by the way, so good, thank you. And I started reading your book Underestimated, which I really appreciate that the publisher sent me the advanced copy. It's so much better than reading the digital manuscript.
Speaker 2:I'm such a hands-on person and so the subtitle for this book is Surprising Simple Shift to Quit Playing Small, name the Fear and Move Forward, anyways. And I picked up this book and started reading and it was like chapter one, chapter two. I can't stop reading. I don't have things to do. I'm like going to the sauna, walking with the book. This book is going to really impact people.
Speaker 2:So then I had to read your memoir. I want to know more about Mary, and so it is incredible that you were a the first person in your family to go to college and then then you graduated Yale Law School and you just are such an incredible human being. So I just want to say that I am so proud of you for just the walk that you had to walk and the generational hardships that you had to break and continue to fight for your healing and create new standards and a new path which you really outline here and also in the dirt. So thank you so much for being here and just being me, mary, oh my gosh, you didn't read just one book, you read two books.
Speaker 1:Goodness, but not you have slow growth. Slow growth is the second Slow growth. I haven't gotten to because I think it was a week between the time that I got this in and that I mean come on.
Speaker 1:No, that's amazing. And yeah, for everybody who's listening, if you haven't read Dirt, just kind of to catch you up. I grew up in a single eye trailer in rural West Virginia in the 80s. My dad's a logger, my mom cleaned houses. My mom actually leaves when I'm nine. That becomes a big part of the story. And yeah, my parents both barely graduated high school. My dad would have happily not graduated and gone right. He started working in the woods when he was 12, and he would have happily just gone full time before even graduating high school. But they did both graduate high school, but that's as far as they went. And so then I have all the letters. I have a couple majors and a BA and then an MA and then the JD.
Speaker 2:And I'm just trying to play Scrabble over here with a degree. So it is quite the change in one generation. Yeah, and in your book you talk about that growing up without a lot just does something to your brain. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, I say I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's the prefrontal cortex still developing and, you know, neural pathways grown closer over time. These bad generational thoughts turn bad generational patterns. I don't know, maybe it's just inhaling all the mildew, because the trailer I grew up in not only was it just a single wide trailer, but it was a single wide trailer in, you know, I think they bought it in like 1978. So these things were not built to last and by the time I'm like four or five, the roof is very leaky.
Speaker 1:I always say my people are the people who know what drywall looks like or whatever ceilings are made of, you know, plasterboard, whatever. Right before this pregnant pause, right before they give way in a downpour, we had there was the single-wide trailer and then they kind of like built on to the side this sort of like one room lean-to shack. It was sort of like the upgrade of choice for single-wide trailers in the 80s in rural West Virginia and we in that room we had like this old wood stove that was never properly fitted. At the top I was to stack firewood and throw logs on the fire. Even at a very, very young age we would throw the logs on and the flames would shoot across the ceiling and singe the pink panther fluffs of insulation that were hanging from like the open. You know where the plaster had fallen. And so this was home, and that leaky ceiling made the floorboards crumble. Leaky ceiling made the floorboards crumble. The carpet was kind of coated in dirt from my dad's logging boots and stray animal droppings that we would adopt. These dogs and cats and mushrooms growing out of the carpet and kind of every just sort of bug and undesirable animal you can imagine. And so I talk about the smell of mildew would hang thick to your clothes and your very dignity.
Speaker 1:So I don't know, maybe it was just inhaling all the mildew, but it does something in your brain that makes you expect to fail before you even start. It is this idea that no matter what you do, you will never be enough. Dirt and this new book, underestimated, are sort of like I've been calling them the fraternal twins. I said that about Slow Growth too, but I didn't realize that Underestimated was coming and that's the real, I think, fraternal twin, because if Dirt is the story of my life, then Underestimated is sort of like the textbook where we go back and we go okay. So when Mary said this like why is that? Why are we the way that we are? For those of us who had hard stories, why do we expect to fail before we even start? Why do we have a poverty mentality or self-loathing or self-doubt? Why do we walk around feeling like it's always so much harder than it should be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's so good. And in your book too, you talk about the simple shifts to stop playing small and move from stuck to start. What can you tell us about these simple shifts?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, um, kind of picking up where I just ended, uh, to kind of set up this part of the story. Everybody listening, and now you, svetka, will have to know that, um, well, you kind of already know this from the book. Uh, one of my guilty pleasures is following really, really cheesy success accounts on Instagram. Like some people have the Kardashians, some people have the bachelor. I have success accounts on Instagram and I initially followed them to kind of like hate, follow them, to make fun of them in my head, and these are the sort of accounts that have like a lion and a Lamborghini, you know, like roar until you get everything you came for.
Speaker 1:But there's one day in particular there was a post that was just like a quick scroll by. But this one day in particular there was a post that was just like a quick scroll by and it was a picture of a shot glass. And it said if you think you only have the capacity of a shot glass, then anytime you get even a little bit more than that, you will subconsciously shrink back down. And I added until you fit back into the tiny containers you believe you belong in. And it was talking about we have to expand our capacity and expand it until it's an infinity pool, which of course it had to be an infinity pool on an account like that. But the idea was we have to expand what we think we can hold if we don't want to keep starting over. And so very shortly after that, I had my friend and an amazing author and an amazing therapist, dr Allison Cook, on to talk about her book the Best of you. And I was like Allison how do we stop doing this if it's subconscious and we don't even know? We're doing it half the time? And we pulled up this quote from her book the Best of you, where she was talking about. For those of us who didn't grow up with a lot of stability in our childhood, for those of us who kind of didn't have a lot of safety in our childhood, we can feel like we are in this constant internal state of chaos and internal state of survival mode. And she said but we can actually, you know, sort of parent ourselves, show ourselves what a sense of safety looks like. And she said we do that by setting small, so manageable, but small but important they have to matter to you Commitments to yourself every day and keeping them for a week and then keeping them for a month and keeping them for a couple months. We're stretching our capacity for self-trust. And she said, as you do that, you are teaching yourself that there is now a grownup in the room who can be trusted. That grownup is you and Svetka. I just burst into tears on the spot because I feel like she put in that one sentence words to what I kind of, in many ways, had felt like I've been missing right, those of us who had kind of harder stories. We don't feel like we got some handbook for life growing up, we don't feel like we got all the information growing up, and so that kind of became the paradigm for all of these. You know the subtitle is the Surprisingly Simple Shift, singular. And right after that chapter, chapter three, which is self-sabotage, is a shot glass.
Speaker 1:I have a breakout page where I talk about the shift overarching and how we think in order to quit playing small. We have to always go big, but in a lot of ways the best ideas are switched on a dial. We flip the idea on its head, we don't just turn up the volume on what we're already thinking. I read that in an article I cite in the book. And what if, paradoxically and ironically, some of the most important work we will do to quit playing small is actually by starting small, with those small but important commitments? And so then, each chapter, a different face of fear, all the different names and faces that fear shows up with. We end that chapter with a specific, surprisingly simple shift for that kind of fear, that face of fear, because there are a lot of different ways fear is going to try to attack us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I loved this portion of the book where you talk about Dr Allison's quote from the Best of you that there's a grown-up in a room who can be trusted and the grown-up is you. I have rewritten and have some of these things on my mirror now, but I do want to read just an expert from here, where you talk about the. It is a scarcity mindset, right, and essentially that the reason that we don't trust ourselves and we keep self-sabotaging is because we don't trust ourselves. We don't trust that we have in here. You said I want us to think about. Capacity is the amount that we trust to steward well, whether it's the time, money, success, responsibility, attention, applause or some of the more potentially negative situations too, like criticism, pressure, pruning, setbacks, disappointment, a season. Whether the case, capacity is the amount we're able to hold space for and navigate well as we respond to it with wisdom. In other words, capacity expands in direction proportion to our ability to become the grownup in the room who can be trusted. Yeah, that was so powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so powerful. Let's just let that hang in the air there for a second.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because I think that is it's. It's and I was just somewhat coaching a friend who's you know about to step into business and I was like there is a fear that's holding you back from taking the step. And what is the fear Like? What is it that you fear? And and I was reading through this book too, and I'm like that's it. You don't trust that you have the capacity in order to do this.
Speaker 2:And the reason that we don't trust ourselves, as you lay out in this book, is because we have let ourselves down at some point. We started projects that we didn't finish, and it's it's kind of in our minds whenever we self-sabotage or we start something we don't finish, it records that as like, oh, you're not capable, you tried, but you failed, so if you try again, you're going to fail again. So we're like, oh, there it goes again. You know, there goes that loop. That's why I think Dr Allison talks about how it has to start small. Yeah, and we do. We think like, oh, if I want to grow, if I want to stop self-sabotaging, you have to do something extraordinary, something big. She says, no, it's the small little things that you start to. Build that confidence, build the capacity, that I am capable, because I'm showing myself that I can show up for myself and I can keep the promises that I make to myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, a couple of things came up for me when you were talking there. One of them it reminds me of is the way that, you know, dave Ramsey talks about paying down debt, and whether you're a Dave Ramsey fan or not, one of the questions that always kind of comes up for him is why are we not attacking the highest interest rate? Like mathematically, that makes sense? And his idea is like cause we're not doing math? If math was the only problem, none of us would have debt to deal with, right? What we're dealing with is like a merry problem. It's a head to the heart kind of problem. It's a behavior problem, and when we start with the smallest debt and we start to rack up some small but quick wins, it gives us the confidence to keep going through the ones that are going to take a longer time, because we can say like, look, I'm doing it, look, I've already like achieved that level and achieved that level, and so you know that's. It is like we could just be like let's go swing for the fences every day. But I'm here to tell you and I talk about this on that shift breakout page it's not that I'm not a fan of going big.
Speaker 1:I've had some huge go big moments in my life, from getting into Yale for law school to signing a five book deal, to a coast to coast speaking tour with my face on the side of a tour bus that we lived on for several weeks.
Speaker 1:I've had some swing for the fences moments, but the thing is, the very next day, the day after everything, the day after our hero gets everything they ever wanted, it didn't change a thing about whether or not I was going to second guess myself the next time. So it's not these like big swing for the fences highlight real days the 10, 20, 50, 100 days in your life that are going to be the headline big letter days. Right, it's what you do every day. John Maxwell says like your life will not be changed until you change something you do every day, and so that's. I had to kind of go back to the beginning and go okay. So of all of these, if I can go from the trailer to Yale Law, the number one law school in the country, and still feel like I was doubting myself at every turn, then clearly it's not an external solution.
Speaker 2:This was always an inside job. Yeah yeah, that's so beautiful and that also is too. What James Clear in Atomic Habits talks about is, if you want to build a habit in order to grow, don't focus on the goal flow. Focus on the small steps that's going to get you there, because if we just think about going big and, you know, creating these big waves it's just the small little increments that snowball into the compound interest.
Speaker 1:Essentially, yes, yeah, and he talks about it being an identity thing. Like you have to get right with the identity. I am going to be someone who's going to get out of debt before you know, or I am someone who's actively getting out of debt, or whatever the case is. Just to continue our Dave Ramsey example like you have to begin to see yourself as that thing. I had to see myself as an author to step fully into that role. You know, I had to do the things that moved me closer to being an author. I couldn't just say, when I'm an author, then I'll start to build all this stuff. And we think it's the opposite. We think we're waiting on that permission, we're waiting on that moment of arrival, we're waiting on, you know, somebody to give us the entire start to finish blueprint before we start showing up as the thing we want to be. And it's the opposite. You show up and then the blueprint arrives, or you make your own, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah. I think, if you, if you don't see it, it's like anything that's been ever created in this world has been imagined at some point Right, and then the person, the inventor, the creator, moves forward in taking those little steps to get there Right. The other thing that I really loved about your book is that you talk about this on page 21. You say that I know what it is to both simultaneously be driven by this unshakable sense of being called up to something greater, to know in your bones you are someone meant for more, and at the very same time, still doubt that person like you will never get there.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, this book is for every person who feels like they're being called up to something greater, called up to something more, and, at the very same time, simultaneously doubts that someone like you will ever get there, that there's something about you, your story, where you came from, who you are. Why am I the way I am? Why do I keep starting over? Why do I keep messing this up? Why do I get so close and it feels like there's this invisible force just shoving me back down the hill. Why do I always drop the ball at the very last minute? There's a running metaphor through the whole book of pushing a boulder up the mountain, getting so close to our breakthrough moment we can taste the rarefied air and then, at the last minute, we feel all these eyes on us watching from home and, like Wile E Coyote about to get his comeuppance, just before the bottom drops out and it all falls off the proverbial ledge. We freeze when we make eye contact with everyone watching at home, and then we blink, we lose our grip, we lose our way and the boulder rolls all the way back down the mountain. So just before that moment when it's like, oh wait, somebody's actually going to read these words, Somebody's going to actually listen to this podcast episode, Somebody's going to actually listen to that talk. Then it gets really real and we go just kidding, Just kidding, Let me step back from the brink, and in doing so I kind of trip back over myself and roll all the way back down the mountain as the boulder crushes me in the process. And so there's something that just happens you know, we talked about this earlier like this thing that happens in your brain when you don't grow up with a lot. There's just something that happens in hard story people and I have such a heart for hard story people I. There's this inner wrestling of like we feel our purpose. There's that thing we can't go a day without thinking about. We know we're being asked to be called up to where. We know there's a specific group of people we are meant to serve, but that there's just this like insecurity, this inferiority, this imposter syndrome that says, yeah, but somebody like me can never go do that.
Speaker 1:And in my book I talk about a book called the Triple Package.
Speaker 1:That was actually written by two Yale Law professors who were there when I was there Jed Rubenfeld and Amy Chua, and they identify these three unlikely characteristics that combine to create some of the most successful people and successful groups in the country.
Speaker 1:And they say, paradoxically, they both have a feeling of superiority, which I don't think that word totally gets to it, because or at least to the way that I interpret it I mean because that sounds like, oh, I think I'm superior than everybody else, but what I interpret that to mean is that feeling of being called up to more, that feeling of knowing there's something on your life that's going to be more than what people think it will be, and then that's paired with insecurity.
Speaker 1:It's like people have always doubted me, People have always overlooked me. I need to go prove these people wrong, and those two things kind of grit and push against one another. You know I'm being called to more but I feel insecure. I'm being called to more but I feel insecure, and the friction of the two kind of creates this drive, this like unstoppable drive to prove other people wrong. And so if you are sitting there and you're listening to this and you're tracking and the you can, you know the question how can we be so driven and so doubtful at the same time is like yes, that this book is for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And it's also this tension that you talk about of people who are um struggle with insecurities, are and are, who are self-sabotaging, are the overachievers. We're the ones that have the imposter syndrome, right, the ones who are trying, and they say that people who have a very low bar don't have imposter syndrome, which is interesting, that it's the. It's the ones that are striving and striving and you just feel like you're you're not making that mark and so you're continuing to feel insecure, but yet your bar is set so high and that's why you feel like you're not hitting that. It's that tension that is so interesting that people who aren't really striving don't struggle with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so imposter syndrome. The two psychologists who first coined that phrase were Dr Clance and Dr Imes and they actually called it the imposter phenomenon among high achieving women. And I joke in the book like I like that better, like syndrome makes me feel like I'm the lone patient zero over here struggling to self-doubt Phenomenon. Feels like we're all in it together, like it's all affecting all of us.
Speaker 1:you know amazing women over here and you know just this idea that it's going to impact. I mean, we now know that men can experience imposter phenomenon syndrome, but it definitely affects women way more, who are more likely. I talk about the science, dr Margie Worel. I'll share some really good quotes in the book about. You know, women are more likely to blame or to attribute external circumstances like luck or you know somebody just kind of like open the door for them, whereas men are more likely to attribute internal circumstances like hard work and grits and intelligence. And you know, just sort of like that idea of it's only going to attack you if you're aiming high, if you are a high achiever.
Speaker 1:Dr Worrell says like there's one upside, like chances are you're not ready to settle into the ranks of mediocrity. If you feel imposter syndrome, like if it's showing up, it's because you know you're being called to excellence and to greatness and to do the work that was prepared for you in advance. So yeah, we can kind of take it as a sign there's. You know, we can kind of take it as a sign there's you know the broadest terms I talk about if fear showed up. Good, you're about to do work that matters, because it wouldn't be bothered with you if it wasn't going to help anybody, if the work wasn't going to help people. So if you're feeling imposter syndrome, good, you're not settled into the ranks of mediocrity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love in the art of Stephen Pressfield's book. Yeah, the Art of War.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the War of Art. The War of Art. Yeah, that's what I was like.
Speaker 2:I have those two books and I'm always mixing them up. Stephen Pressfield book the War of Art, where he talks about how, if you have the resistance, the stronger the resistance towards something is. That's an indicator that you're supposed to do that thing. You know, the thing that we fear, that we're like, oh and that is, and you talk about different parts of fear and how fear is a liar, and and so there's there's 12 lies that you list. I'd love for you to highlight some of your favorite fears or fears that you that are just highlighted for you, where you're like, oh, this one At the Once For a Day podcast.
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Speaker 1:So one of the things that happened is, you know, now, in addition to being an author and a speaker and a podcast host, I also coach creative entrepreneur women who maybe they want to write a book or they want to speak on a stage what have you? Speak on a stage, what have you? And through coaching a bunch of women, I started to notice that the same lies of fear were hitting them all, and not only hitting them all, it was hitting them like in the same stage of the process, so like they make the first big commitment to make good on the dream, like maybe they've signed up to come here to work with me in person on their proposal, for example and it's like, ah yes, existential dread, like I have to think about my whole life. Maybe I got it all wrong, maybe it's a totally different book, maybe we should pause this, maybe we should put it off. And so kind of out of like my own angst and frustration at seeing how fear was getting these women tripped up and seeing how it's getting them stuck in such very boring and very predictable ways, I pulled out my phone one day and I just like filmed this quick video and, you know, made it go live. You know, hit post and made it go live and it kind of took off and I basically hopped on and I was like, without saying anything else, I was just like 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.
Speaker 1:I can't start until it's perfect. I can't start until I am perfect. I am perfect. I can't start until I have the perfect blueprint. I can't start until I know every step in the staircase. What if I start and I can't stay consistent with it? What if I start and I don't have the bandwidth? What if I start and the critics come? What if they say who does she think she is? What if my voice doesn't really matter? What if I don't really matter? What if it's already too late? And so that's just like you know.
Speaker 1:I kind of like then said like chances are, I just hit one or all of the ways fear has been attacking you lately and, like I said, it really took off. And then those don't specifically, you know, all correspond in chronological order to the way the chapters are laid out. But the way that I ended up writing this book is that every chapter that follows is a different name and a different face of fear. So we go through self-sabotage, second guessing, not enough, imposter syndrome, overthinking, procrastination, perfectionism, people pleasing, failure, criticism, distractions and even success, and then within each chapter there are like sub kinds of fear, different little sub masks that it puts on. So it's a very boring liar and this is kind of like I call it like the systematic takedown of fear we've all been waiting for. Yes, as I kind of go toe to toe with fear. Every time I capture him he shapeshifts into a different kind, but we keep going until we get them all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. I think this book is. It's going to serve so many people. I really hope that it spreads like wildfire. Oh, amen, amen, truly, truly, um.
Speaker 2:There is also another piece in your book that um really resonated with me and you said that every heart story person I know in real life has told me at one point or another that they feel like they missed out on being given a handbook for life and um. And here you say that somewhere in our minds we imagine that every other kid in America is sitting around the dinner table one night with this wealth of wisdom just being dropped in their laps like Chad passed the mashed potatoes. Oh, and, by the way, make sure you understand compound interest, and how many of us can relate to that? I mean, I know that I personally feel like everyone else has figured it out. I'm behind, there's something that I'm missing and as if everyone else got the secret, as you call it, handbook here, which I love that, that analogy for it and it's like you feel like there's a memo that you didn't get that everyone else got.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, I kind of go through. I take some great pains to kind of describe what I imagine the book to look like in my head. You know, it's sort of like the faded green, you know color of an old school National Park logo, and it's no embellishments on the cover. It's this veritable stealth wealth of wisdom that has been handed down from generation to generation, with notes in the margin, so that each generation has it easier than the last, has it easier than the last.
Speaker 1:And don't get me started on the secret formula on page 47, scrawled on the margins, for how to finally get the shiny, shiny, perfect Pantene hair once reserved for the JCrew catalog models and the most elite of the Martha's Vineyard summer set. So it is really. It's kind of like very playful, very tongue in cheek, very visual, because one of the things Fetke that I realized I wanted to do over and over again is because fear is so tricky it's shape-shifting into all these different faces and names. If I can help people come up with these very memorable quirky, in my writing course I teach people to veer from the expected, so it's very unexpected visuals Then it's going to make it a lot easier for them to go.
Speaker 1:Oh, princess and the pea problem. Oh, oliver Twist problem. Oh, dewey Cox. I see what's happening here and so you'll see a lot of those. You saw a lot of those all throughout the book For the handbook, in particular, the very visceral visual, because we know that humans learn and remember best by story and by metaphor. We're wired that way. I know some of your listeners not all, but some of your listeners are people of faith right, there's a reason that Jesus taught by story and metaphor, and when the people didn't get the metaphor the first time?
Speaker 2:he didn't go, okay, so here's what I was doing.
Speaker 1:This is what that stood for. He's like another metaphor, and so the metaphor I came up with for the handbook, and the missing handbook in particular, is this idea of we feel like we're walking around in the world without all the pertinent parts, like Edward Scissorhands, dropped down in the middle of some pastel suburban hell where the name of the game was always about blending in and keeping up with your neighbors. We're dropped down into the middle of the midday sun, our visible scars now burning on display, and when we're dropped into a world like that, where we break the rules because we did not know the rules, we shouldn't be surprised that it is then us who dies death by a thousand cuts. And so for the person who's listening and they were tracking already was like yes, I feel like I never got this handbook. Everybody else seemed to get.
Speaker 1:Now they have this really powerful visual metaphor for why it feels like they always show up and get it wrong, why they always show up and everybody else got the memo on what to wear and they somehow missed out. They always show up and somehow say the wrong, wrong thing. They didn't think to pack and prepare this or that on the way on the trip, or whatever the case may be. They get to the conference and they feel like everybody else knew to show up for the cocktail party and they didn't know what's happening.
Speaker 1:Whatever the case is, and then much more serious stuff too, like finances, your mortgage and how to parent and how to make a safe, comfortable home where it feels like a haven from the world. All of this stuff feels like we're playing catch up well into our 30s and 40s. And so now we have a very visceral visual that goes Edward Scissorhands, I'm just Edward Scissorhands. I'm just dropped down breaking the rules because I did not know the rules, but I get to be the one who learns the handbook and it ends with me Like I'll be the one to pass it down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love to. In your book you extend essentially the grace for the hard story, people saying that some of us just are starting at a very different point. You know we have to work through so much, so in your story how do you feel like that's resonated with you or that's been been true for you, working up from, you know, a place that was really different than a lot of the people around you.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to answer that question. I got to tell you as a podcast host myself like I am itching to know, like some of your story, because you've got the long form, 272 page version of my story in dirt. So, like, can you just give me like the you know a couple of minute, or or you know short, short version? So I feel like, um, like my answers will be, I can kind of, like you know, incorporate that into my answer. So, what's your, what's your hard story? Hi, nice to meet you. What's your hard story?
Speaker 2:I'm like I didn't know I was being interviewed on my podcast today. Gosh, there is a lot there for sure. I think for me, um, in the last couple years have really been a lot of unraveling of um, my mom passing away and that will do something to you as you talk about your dad passing away in the dirt and how that's just you know, really kind of impacted you, um, and so my mom passed away. I really wanted to. I felt like I didn't have the time to know who she was. Um. I moved out of the house a little bit earlier. I um and moved out of state when I got married, and so I didn't. There's just questions and stories I've heard mom say over and over and grandma and different things like that.
Speaker 2:But when my mom passed away, I just had this unbeatable desire of wanting to know who were the people who came before me and what was, what were their lives like, because there was something there for me that I couldn't shake off. And so I started researching and I found so many gems in their stories, like my grandmother having to walk and being taken from her home by the Nazis when she was 16. And um, and then being in a in a nazi concentration camp for three and a half years, coming back and being completely ridiculed for being a traitor of her own country, even though she was taken by force, um, and then becoming a person of faith and um, and then being taken to jail for that and sent to a gulag for eight years for being a person of faith. Wow. And my mom being a courageous person growing up in a communist country soviet union at the time and, you know, standing up for who she was, regardless of the consequences that you face as a person of faith in a place that's completely legal, or you were watched by the kgb 24 7. So learning all these things have set me on my own healing journey of working through some things that I never took the time to work through and realizing that you know, the women before me were so courageous and I have in some ways there's, you know there's trauma that's from hard stories right that are that are brought forward.
Speaker 2:But in another side of the coin is women who have fought so courageously to be true to who they are and their identity, and then, top of that, they have sacrificed so much for me to be here, even for me to live in this country for me to have the freedoms that I have as a woman to have. I have a. You know my husband. I own a business. We. I'm running a podcast. I'm sharing your story, you know we're we're having this conversation here and it's spreading all over the world and that's a privilege and an honor that they never got to have and so, in a sense, it it made me really reflect their stories, or reflection for me of like how do I want to live my life that honors their sacrifices and the people who they were. That that lives up, not just for them but because they have, because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants they're so courageous and so brave to fight for their stories who sacrificed so much.
Speaker 2:My mom had multiple jobs as an immigrant here.
Speaker 2:I mean, she worked just she tried to give us everything she could in order for us to have a better future, dropping everything you know in the country that you once lived at, because there's a chance, even though you don't know for sure, you have no guarantee of how it's going to pan out, but you know that it's better than what your mom went through and what you went through, and you take that risk.
Speaker 2:You go to a place you don't know the language, you don't know the people, and and you work really, really hard in order to build a better future. And so to me, that's part of my story and that's what really got me to sit even in a therapist's office and be like, okay, how do I create a different life for me and how do I? And so with that, I think what it's done is it propelled me to want to live a courageous life and also take other people with me on that journey of living courageously. And I'm on my journey myself, like I'm learning as I go, you know, and having these conversations, reading books like yours, and really just how do we live our stories courageously and also how do we help other people get there, how can we be their guide from the lessons that we learn in our heart story?
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, so exactly that right. Like building on everything you just shared. How did I think about like coming up from where I was to something more? Right it's? The answer is that it's complicated, and so let's talk about a few sides of that. On the one hand, there's my dad, who started working in the woods when he was 12. My mom came home from school one day when she was 15 and her mom had moved out and said the bills are paid through the end of the month. There's some macaroni, shells and canned tomatoes in the cabinet, like good luck, basically. And so they had. When my mom was little, they didn't have indoor plumbing Like they had.
Speaker 1:You know incredibly hard stories, and they married very young and they do eventually divorce, but like one thing they agreed on is that they were both going to work as hard as they could so that their one child, their one daughter, would have a different life. And so, growing up, I in some ways watched them. They were never complainers necessarily, um, you know they would share how hard the work was, but I also watched them live with regret about my dad. I think I'd always wanted to go to college. He would have loved to study history and he never got around to doing that and, um, I think they probably regretted buying the trailer, which is not really a built to last kind of home. It was sort of a quick fix. And then it became this, you know, shackle around their ankles. And so it became very important to me between like their sacrifice and and also watching them live lives where they didn't go after the things that they wanted, because they felt like this is just the only choice they had available to them. I think when somebody sacrifices like that for you and your story, you sort of make a promise to yourself and to them, right then and there, that you will never settle, because to settle would be to kind of dishonor that sacrifice. And so it created in me this drive of like. My story will only be redeemed, my story will only make sense, their sacrifice will only be worth it if I am such an astronomical success that it was a payoff of them betting on me like that rather than just feeling like I was worthy of love as their daughter, you know. And so there's that side of it. There's the like, work ethic and the grit and the tenacity that I think is put into you when you have immigrant parents who come and work so hard to give you a different life. When you have Appalachian parents who work so hard to give you a different life, like that work ethic is modeled In Dirt.
Speaker 1:I talk about how my grandma and my mom would take me to clean both homes and office buildings with them. And they took me to office buildings. They would clean overnight, so, four years old, in a beauty parlor, helping them clean, and I did the dishes in the little kitchenette and I didn't use soap and it would have been like spaghetti sauce, so you couldn't see it anymore, but you could feel it. It was super greasy. And my grandma and my mom sat right in the lobby and waited for me to rewash every one of those dishes by hand, because how you do everything is how you do anything is how you do everything. In the hottest water. I could stand scarlet red hands, as god intended. They had me rewash those dishes, you know, and so you get a.
Speaker 1:You get a grit and a work ethic from watching them, but you also in underestimated. I talk about this as, like these limiting, inherited, limiting belief leaks, these things that are sort of more caught than taught, so like when my dad would tell me I was going to college and I could be anything I wanted and I was going to have a different life than him, but then he would speak differently about himself. He would say this is the way it is, this is the way it was, this is the way it always will be. I picked up on a lot of that and I continue to do the work of unraveling myself from limiting beliefs that I heard my parents and my grandma Goldie say and the region I grew up in. We will probably spend a lot of our lives kind of unraveling. Is that the truth or is that just something I heard a lot when I was little.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I don't know if the audience can see, but I am crying over here from hearing your story.
Speaker 2:Um, what I love too about and what was interesting in your story this is taken from dirt more of your memoir is that you talked about this tension that your dad had of sacrificing so that you can get the education behind the encyclopedia subscriptions and making sure that you studied hard and you read a lot and you were getting good grades and all of those things.
Speaker 2:And at the same time, when time came for you to go to school and to move away, there was this resistance of you were leaving the identity of who you once were and the Mary that they knew, and struggling with that tension of being the Mary who you know lives in a trailer and is from the Appalachian trail or Appalachian, to being Mary who's educated and is striving and is trying to accomplish big dreams. And it's interesting how sometimes that's the way it is right People see you in a certain light and they can't let go of a new identity. They can't. They can't let go of this new version of you that you're evolving into and and ironically, that's the same people that wanted you to succeed, like your dad wanted the best for you from your memoir, like he wanted you to succeed. And then, when you were about to get there, it's like ah, come back Mary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, my dad wanted me to get out. The thing is, for him, getting out meant getting out of the trailer, getting out of our small town and going all the way to Morgantown, west Virginia, to go to WVU for my undergrad, which is where I did my undergrad and to him that was the height of achievement. He would have loved to go to WVU and that, to him, was just his dream. And do not get me wrong, I love WVU.
Speaker 1:I am so proud of WVU and at the time, like I talk about Dirt was terrified to apply because they had 22,000 students and I thought I was going to be like 22,001 in terms of grade rankings. I thought I was going to fail out because quantity clearly meant every other person there was going to be more qualified than I was. And when I get to WVU, it becomes this beautiful bridge where I'm on the debate team and I'm taking all these world politics classes and I'm getting introduced to a world outside of West Virginia. I kind of describe it as like this undulating heartbeat of a border that had always kept me safe. And and to my dad's you know credit I tell him that I'm going to go spend a year in England a week after September 11th, so you know I'm going to go get on a plane and go, you know, across the whole ocean away.
Speaker 1:He was not thrilled. He was not thrilled, but like I don't know that most parents would have been, but to him, yes, in particular, it's like wait, wait, wait, go go out. You know, chase your dreams. Wait, wait, wait, not that far, what are we doing here? And so there, he definitely got stretched a lot out of his comfort zone, as I was getting stretched out of mine. The difference is I was kind of like chasing it and he was kind of like no, like resisting it.
Speaker 1:And I think for a lot of us, more can often feel like a betrayal. It can feel like a betrayal of the people in the places who once raised us. One of my absolute favorite parts of underestimated it is it is when the day that I wrote this and it came to me, I was just like. It is when the day that I wrote this and it came to me, I was just like yeah, like that. And it says some of us, some of us, have a really complicated relationship with more. We were simultaneously encouraged to go out and excel and achieve, to break all the barriers and be the first in our family trees to make our hometowns and our families proud, but to never go so far out that they no longer recognized us. It was a delicate tightrope to walk indeed, this underdog story threaded through the eye of a needle, one where our hero never gets too big for her britches or does anything to act higher than her raising. They love the spotlight we're standing in, so long as the shine reflects well on them. Just watch out for that first perceived misstep. It's a real doozy on the way down and I feel like that's the tension you're talking about, where people feel like I feel like you changed. I feel like you changed. I don't feel like I know you anymore.
Speaker 1:And Steven Pressfield, going back to him with the War of Art, has a really beautiful quote I share in the book that talks about how resistance recruits allies and he basically says when the aspiring writer begins to actually write the book, expect all the people around her, especially those closest to her, to suddenly get really weird. They'll get really quiet, they'll have little comments. And that's because her overcoming her resistance is kind of reflecting a mirror that they aren't doing that work themselves. There's a lot to unpack there. There's a lot to unpack there. There's a lot to unpack there. But one other quick thing I'll add is from Dirt.
Speaker 1:Talking about more feels like a betrayal, is like there's that quote. That's like just when she thought her life was ending, the caterpillar became a butterfly, and I know that's supposed to be inspiring. But like all I can hear when I hear that quote, or think when I hear that quote, is, I bet it hurts the caterpillar. I bet it hurts the caterpillar you know to. Actually, I always thought like the wings just sort of popped out the back of the caterpillar and that's what we had. But actually, if you open up a chrysalis mid transmutation, what you will actually find is more like caterpillar soup. This thing has to disintegrate entirely in order to be made into something new, this thrill of hope, you know, or this death to self before the thrill of hope takes flight. And I guess, like scientists have done some studies where they've like tracked, like I don't know, migration patterns or feeding patterns, I don't know what it is, but they have been able to identify that even though the caterpillar completely disintegrates into this soup and is rebuilt into something new, it remembers who it was, it remembers the places that it traveled, it remembers what it ate, whatever the case is, and we can get into this or not get into this.
Speaker 1:I don't want to take all your time, but there's a part in Dirt where I talk about the paradox of Theseus's ship, where it's like a wooden boat has sprung a leak. You replace a plank with metal one. The process continues. How many planks can you replace until it's an entirely new thing? And I talk about, well, what if the ship gets to the other side, entirely brand new and looking so different to those who once knew it? But it still remembers who it was. You know yourself right, and so it's a complicated process. It's a complicated process honoring who came before and also saying this ends with me.
Speaker 2:This book is so good, guys. There's so much Mary and I could talk about, so much more we could talk about here for days on her book. I suggest that you guys get it wherever books are sold. I think it's on pre-order time right now, is that correct? That's right? Yes, it comes out April 29th. Amazing, and where can people find you, mary?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna tell you two fun things I want your people to do. Everybody listening who stuck with us this long. Here are two things I want you to do. I actually introduced these characters first in Slow Growth, but they all get carried over into Underestimated and it is sort of like the Achiever type. We've turned it into a quiz called the Achiever Quiz and it's these five different types and how they play small. So we have the performer, who is always on her toes and needs to show both herself but also other people how far she's come which is what I am.
Speaker 2:We have the tightrope walkers Nice.
Speaker 1:Nice, I had a feeling. I had a feeling we would be the same. The tightrope walker could care less who's clapping, but they need higher and higher death-defying feats to feel the same amount of good. The masquerader pushes other people into the spotlight so they can hide in plain sight. The contortionist is our classic people pleaser. They contort because it is easier than to be criticized. And the illusionist in the distance who doesn't believe that they can start until they and all the conditions to begin are perfect.
Speaker 1:And so the quiz takes about two minutes, to take like 10 minutes if you really overthink it. The questions are super fun, super lighthearted and then, true to Mary form, the questions are fun, the answers are deep, and so I go into. I go do like a deep dive for each type of like, why you are the way you are, why you get stuck playing small and how you can move forward. So that's achieverquizcom. Go take it, tell me what your type is and then if you go to namethefearcom, that's our site with all the book information we up there right now for everybody listening to your episodes Fetka. We have the first chapter up there entirely free, so they can go grab that, download that and start reading right away today and then, while you're there, if you want to pre-order the book.
Speaker 1:Pre-orders are the single biggest way you can love on an author that you hopefully now care about or a book that you want to support. They are literally the make or break in terms of whether it gets picked up in stores, whether it gets recommended on Amazon, whether it gets any kind of visibility at all, and so pre-orders are huge. If you pre-order the book and would love for you to do that we have the whole first three chapters for you and also the audio book, so it's like getting two books for the price of one. I read the audio book. So if you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love the audio book. And that's at namethefearcom, and then I'm at marymarians on Instagram. You can come tell me what you thought of the episode and what achiever type you got.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. That is awesome, mary. You're packed with a lot of EQ and IQ, which I love. It is such a unique pairing. It is so unique and I'm like I love this because it's and I love the visuals in this book. I'm a visual person, so all the little drawings and things like that I'm like highlighting circling, putting hearts and stars I did those.
Speaker 1:I mocked those up, so I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Okay, Awesome. Well, I end my podcast with asking a few questions. One of them is what is the bravest thing that Mary's ever done?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Okay, that's just a quick question there at the end. Okay, just really quick. What is the bravest thing Mary's ever done? The bravest thing Mary has ever done. The bravest thing Mary has ever done is to believe that sharing her story would actually draw people closer to her than push them away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sharing her story was actually a superpower, not something that disqualified her, and that it actually, like, was a huge component of what equipped her to be in the exact places and do the work that was prepared for her in advance, and that it's the crosshair intersection of the gifts I've been given and the story I've been given. It can't be one or the other. When those two intersect, it creates this purpose that's fueled by empathy. My friend Kim Butler says our deepest places of impact will come from our. Our greatest places of impact will come from our deepest places of empathy. And so, yeah, I think it's. It's owning the story. It's not showing up as the most put together woman in the room and pretending like it's all been perfect all along. It's saying it was muddy and it was hard and it was gritty and it was good. Wow, beautiful.
Speaker 2:We'll go with that. I have never had a podcast host that made me cry so much.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to say it out there.
Speaker 2:It's just so powerful. So your story is so powerful. And then the other questions. That is, what is one piece of advice that you'd love to pass on to the listener, or maybe someone, someone advice that someone else gave you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think like one of the biggest things. So you know, one of the questions we've gotten is like what are some of your favorite like practical parts of the book? And there's a ton of practical stuff in there. But the most important work that's being done in this book is giving you those really visceral visuals I was talking about earlier to be able to go oh, got it. The research riptide, the Oliver Twist problem, all those things I said earlier. I just did a podcast recording with this Changes Everything.
Speaker 1:Sarah from this Changes Everything and she compared it to the Wizard of Oz. You know, the great and powerful Oz pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and as soon as you pull back the curtain it's kind of this like you know, wimpy little wizard guy or whatever, Not really a wizard, even he's a. What is he? He's like a carnival huckster kind of guy, a snake oil salesman, that's what he is, and he just loses all of that fear and trembling and all that power and all that mystery. It's like you pull back the curtain and it's like, oh, that's all you are.
Speaker 1:So the advice I have is to spend some time writing down. I mean, the advice I have is to get this book and read it cover to cover, so you have the language to put to what kind of fear it is. But then, like once you do, once you know some of these different faces, write down which ones you think are actually the most common ones who are affecting you, Because GI Joe said knowing is half the battle. And so we begin by going okay, this is the way fear likes to attack me, and it's not going to be just one of them. It's not Fear's going to try to come in the front door.
Speaker 1:You get that one under control. He's going to slip in the side door. So these are the ways he attacks me. And then I now start to really pay attention and I can challenge myself to see how fast I can capture it. Catch it the next time, All right, that's just me feeling like Edward Scissorhands. I don't have the handbook for life, Got it Power diffused, and that would be the practical. That would be the practical. Learn the names of fear so you can catch it faster and faster.
Speaker 1:I love that, and what are some books that impacted your life? Purple Cow is a huge one. That's Seth Godin. The idea is that in a sea of 10,000 brown cows, we stop paying attention when everybody's saying and doing and being the same thing. But see a purple cow on the side of the road. You're going to pull over and take pictures and tell your friends about it. And so I. In everything we do from our photography business to our teaching, to our speaking, to the books that I write I try to be the purple cow in a sea of 10,000 brown ones.
Speaker 1:The E-Myth Revisited is an incredible book every entrepreneur should read. I put off reading this book for a long time because I thought, you know, E was going to be economics and it was going to make me do math. But it's actually entrepreneurial and it talks about the moment you have what he calls the entrepreneurial seizure the earth stops spinning, the record scratches and you envision your life working for yourself for the first time and you just can't go back and it sort of talks through like scaling and not burning out and knowing how to like outsource, and it's just a really fantastic book every business owner should have. And then I would say I'll add a more heartfelt one in there. We've mentioned the War of Art, for sure, add that to the list.
Speaker 1:I'm going to add Seananiqua's Present Over Perfect, because I bet a lot of people listening right now have been pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, pushing harder, always being the one to come through, always trying to perform so that somebody else will love them, so that they can find belonging, and they're the most burnout they've ever found themselves. They feel like this hollowed out shell of themselves and I've picked up Present Over Perfect when that's where I was and it was like a bomb to my soul.
Speaker 2:So that's my third recommendation oh, so beautiful. Well, mary, thank you so much for your time. You've been such a joy to have on the podcast, and again to the guests, who has made me cry and laugh a lot.
Speaker 1:I want a trophy for that. There should be, like ribbons, levels unlocked.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, you're in a new level of a podcast guest for sure, thank you. Thank you for listening to the Once we Dare podcast. It is an honor to share these encouraging stories with you. If you enjoy the show, I would love for you to tell your friends. Leave us a reviewer rating and subscribe to wherever you listen to podcasts, because this helps others discover the show. You can find me on my website, speckhopoffcom.