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.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, this book is for every person who feels like
they're being called up tosomething greater, called up to
something more, and, at the verysame time, simultaneously
doubts that someone like youwill 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 thisinvisible force just shoving me

(00:21):
back down the hill.
Why do I always drop the ballat the very last minute?
There's a running metaphorthrough the whole book of
pushing a boulder up themountain, getting so close to
our breakthrough moment, we cantaste the rarefied air.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hey friends, welcome to the Ones who Dared podcast,
where stories of courage areelevated.
I'm your host, becca, and everyother week you'll hear
interviews from inspiring people.
My hope is that you will leaveencouraged.
I'm so glad you're here.
Mary Morantz, welcome to theOnce or Dare podcast.

(01:01):
I'm so honored to have you heretoday.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Becca, I feel like we just met a couple of days ago
like a week or two maybe, evenlike a week ago and I feel like
we have been like fast friends.
We've been friends for a longtime already, so I've been so
looking forward to this.
I know that we'll probably getinto this, but you just even
like reading the book, gettingready for this and like sharing
kind of real time reactions toit has been so huge and I'm just

(01:25):
so, so thankful.
So thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm thankful that Erin got tointroduce us through email.
Yes, I am so thrilled to diginto your book and, like I said
in the email before, that I gettons of you know, books and
podcast hosts and I everyone Ibring on on the podcast for
those listening.
I really want to highlight them.
Books and podcast hosts and Ieveryone I bring on on the
podcast for those listening.
I really want to highlight themand there's a reason why I

(01:49):
select them to be the guests onmy podcast.
And there's guests that arerejected, believe it or not.
But, you know, has to alignwith the value and the vision of
what this podcast brings.
And mine's called the Ones whoDared, 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 bookUnderestimated, which I really
appreciate that the publishersent me the advanced copy.

(02:11):
It's so much better thanreading the digital manuscript.
I'm such a hands-on person andso the subtitle for this book is
Surprising Simple Shift to QuitPlaying Small, name the Fear
and Move Forward, anyways.
And I picked up this book andstarted 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.

(02:31):
This book is going to reallyimpact people.
So then I had to read yourmemoir.
I want to know more about Mary,and so it is incredible that
you were a the first person inyour family to go to college and
then then you graduated YaleLaw School and you just are such
an incredible human being.
So I just want to say that I amso proud of you for just the

(02:52):
walk that you had to walk andthe generational hardships that
you had to break and continue tofight for your healing and
create new standards and a newpath which you really outline
here and also in the dirt.
So thank you so much for beinghere and just being me, mary, oh
my gosh, you didn't read justone book, you read two books.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Goodness, but not you have slow growth.
Slow growth is the second Slowgrowth.
I haven't gotten to because Ithink it was a week between the
time that I got this in and thatI mean come on.
No, that's amazing.
And yeah, for everybody who'slistening, if you haven't read
Dirt, just kind of to catch youup.
I grew up in a single eyetrailer in rural West Virginia

(03:32):
in the 80s.
My dad's a logger, my momcleaned houses.
My mom actually leaves when I'mnine.
That becomes a big part of thestory.
And yeah, my parents bothbarely graduated high school.
My dad would have happily notgraduated and gone right.
He started working in the woodswhen he was 12, and he would
have happily just gone full timebefore even graduating high

(03:53):
school.
But they did both graduate highschool, but that's as far as
they went.
And so then I have all theletters.
I have a couple majors and a BAand then an MA and then the JD.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
And I'm just trying to play Scrabble over here with
a degree.
So it is quite the change inone generation.
Yeah, and in your book you talkabout that growing up without a
lot just does something to yourbrain.
Can you tell us a little bitabout that?
Yeah, I say I don't know.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
I don't know what it is.
I don't know if it's theprefrontal cortex still
developing and, you know, neuralpathways grown closer over time
.
These bad generational thoughtsturn bad generational patterns.
I don't know, maybe it's justinhaling all the mildew, because
the trailer I grew up in notonly was it just a single wide
trailer, but it was a singlewide trailer in, you know, I
think they bought it in like1978.
So these things were not builtto last and by the time I'm like

(04:45):
four or five, the roof is veryleaky.
I always say my people are thepeople who know what drywall
looks like or whatever ceilingsare made of, you know,
plasterboard, whatever.
Right before this pregnantpause, right before they give
way in a downpour, we had therewas the single-wide trailer and
then they kind of like built onto the side this sort of like
one room lean-to shack.

(05:06):
It was sort of like the upgradeof choice for single-wide
trailers in the 80s in ruralWest Virginia and we in that
room we had like this old woodstove that was never properly
fitted.
At the top I was to stackfirewood and throw logs on the
fire.
Even at a very, very young agewe would throw the logs on and

(05:38):
the flames would shoot acrossthe ceiling and singe the pink
panther fluffs of insulationthat were hanging from like the
open.
You know where the plaster hadfallen.
And so this was home, and thatleaky ceiling made the
floorboards crumble.
Leaky ceiling made thefloorboards crumble.
The carpet was kind of coatedin dirt from my dad's logging
boots and stray animal droppingsthat we would adopt.
These dogs and cats andmushrooms growing out of the
carpet and kind of every justsort of bug and undesirable
animal you can imagine.
And so I talk about the smellof mildew would hang thick to

(06:02):
your clothes and your verydignity.
So I don't know, maybe it wasjust inhaling all the mildew,
but it does something in yourbrain that makes you expect to
fail before you even start.
It is this idea that no matterwhat you do, you will never be
enough.
Dirt and this new book,underestimated, are sort of like

(06:25):
I've been calling them thefraternal twins.
I said that about Slow Growthtoo, but I didn't realize that
Underestimated was coming andthat's the real, I think,
fraternal twin, because if Dirtis the story of my life, then
Underestimated is sort of likethe textbook where we go back
and we go okay.
So when Mary said this like whyis that?
Why are we the way that we are?
For those of us who had hardstories, why do we expect to
fail before we even start?
Why do we have a povertymentality or self-loathing or

(06:49):
self-doubt?
Why do we walk around feelinglike it's always so much harder
than it should be?

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, yeah, that's so good.
And in your book too, you talkabout the simple shifts to stop
playing small and move fromstuck to start.
What can you tell us aboutthese simple shifts?

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, so, um, kind of picking up where I just ended,
uh, to kind of set up this partof the story.
Everybody listening, and nowyou, svetka, will have to know
that, um, well, you kind ofalready know this from the book.
Uh, one of my guilty pleasuresis following really, really
cheesy success accounts onInstagram.
Like some people have theKardashians, some people have
the bachelor.

(07:25):
I have success accounts onInstagram and I initially
followed them to kind of likehate, follow them, to make fun
of them in my head, and theseare the sort of accounts that
have like a lion and aLamborghini, you know, like roar
until you get everything youcame for.
But there's one day inparticular there was a post that
was just like a quick scroll by.
But this one day in particularthere was a post that was just
like a quick scroll by and itwas a picture of a shot glass.

(07:47):
And it said if you think youonly have the capacity of a shot
glass, then anytime you geteven a little bit more than that
, you will subconsciously shrinkback down.
And I added until you fit backinto the tiny containers you
believe you belong in.
And it was talking about wehave to expand our capacity and
expand it until it's an infinitypool, which of course it had to

(08:07):
be an infinity pool on anaccount like that.
But the idea was we have toexpand what we think we can hold
if we don't want to keepstarting 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 dowe stop doing this if it's
subconscious and we don't evenknow?

(08:27):
We're doing it half the time?
And we pulled up this quotefrom her book the Best of you,
where she was talking about.
For those of us who didn't growup with a lot of stability in
our childhood, for those of uswho kind of didn't have a lot of
safety in our childhood, we canfeel like we are in this
constant internal state of chaosand internal state of survival
mode.
And she said but we canactually, you know, sort of

(08:49):
parent ourselves, show ourselveswhat a sense of safety looks
like.
And she said we do that bysetting small, so manageable,
but small but important theyhave to matter to you
Commitments to yourself everyday and keeping them for a week
and then keeping them for amonth and keeping them for a
couple months.
We're stretching our capacityfor self-trust.
And she said, as you do that,you are teaching yourself that

(09:12):
there is now a grownup in theroom who can be trusted.
That grownup is you and Svetka.
I just burst into tears on thespot because I feel like she put
in that one sentence words towhat I kind of, in many ways,
had felt like I've been missingright, those of us who had kind
of harder stories.
We don't feel like we got somehandbook for life growing up, we

(09:33):
don't feel like we got all theinformation growing up, and so
that kind of became the paradigmfor all of these.
You know the subtitle is theSurprisingly Simple Shift,
singular.
And right after that chapter,chapter three, which is
self-sabotage, is a shot glass.
I have a breakout page where Italk about the shift overarching
and how we think in order toquit playing small.

(09:55):
We have to always go big, butin 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 Icite in the book.
And what if, paradoxically andironically, some of the most
important work we will do toquit playing small is actually

(10:15):
by starting small, with thosesmall but important commitments?
And so then, each chapter, adifferent face of fear, all the
different names and faces thatfear shows up with.
We end that chapter with aspecific, surprisingly simple
shift for that kind of fear,that face of fear, because there
are a lot of different waysfear is going to try to attack
us.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, and I loved this portion of the book where
you talk about Dr Allison'squote from the Best of you that
there's a grown-up in a room whocan be trusted and the grown-up
is you.
I have rewritten and have someof these things on my mirror now
, but I do want to read just anexpert from here, where you talk
about the.
It is a scarcity mindset, right, and essentially that the

(10:58):
reason that we don't trustourselves and we keep
self-sabotaging is because wedon't trust ourselves.
We don't trust that we have inhere.
You said I want us to thinkabout.
Capacity is the amount that wetrust to steward well, whether
it's the time, money, success,responsibility, attention,
applause or some of the morepotentially negative situations

(11:19):
too, like criticism, pressure,pruning, setbacks,
disappointment, a season.
Whether the case, capacity isthe amount we're able to hold
space for and navigate well aswe respond to it with wisdom.
In other words, capacityexpands in direction proportion
to our ability to become thegrownup in the room who can be

(11:40):
trusted.
Yeah, that was so powerful.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah, so powerful.
Let's just let that hang in theair there for a second.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, Because I think that is it's.
It's and I was just somewhatcoaching a friend who's you know
about to step into business andI was like there is a fear
that's holding you back fromtaking the step.
And what is the fear Like?
What is it that you fear?
And and I was reading throughthis book too, and I'm like
that's it.
You don't trust that you havethe capacity in order to do this

(12:11):
.
And the reason that we don'ttrust ourselves, as you lay out
in this book, is because we havelet ourselves down at some
point.
We started projects that wedidn't finish, and it's it's
kind of in our minds whenever weself-sabotage or we start
something we don't finish, itrecords that as like, oh, you're
not capable, you tried, but youfailed, so if you try again,

(12:32):
you're going to fail again.
So we're like, oh, there itgoes again.
You know, there goes that loop.
That's why I think Dr Allisontalks about how it has to start
small.
Yeah, and we do.
We think like, oh, if I want togrow, if I want to stop
self-sabotaging, you have to dosomething extraordinary,
something big.
She says, no, it's the smalllittle things that you start to.

(12:53):
Build that confidence, buildthe capacity, that I am capable,
because I'm showing myself thatI can show up for myself and I
can keep the promises that Imake to myself.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, you know, a couple of things came up for me
when you were talking there.
One of them it reminds me of isthe way that, you know, dave
Ramsey talks about paying downdebt, and whether you're a Dave
Ramsey fan or not, one of thequestions that always kind of
comes up for him is why are wenot attacking the highest
interest rate?
Like mathematically, that makessense?
And his idea is like causewe're not doing math?
If math was the only problem,none of us would have debt to

(13:25):
deal with, right?
What we're dealing with is likea merry problem.
It's a head to the heart kindof problem.
It's a behavior problem, andwhen we start with the smallest
debt and we start to rack upsome small but quick wins, it
gives us the confidence to keepgoing through the ones that are
going to take a longer time,because we can say like, look,
I'm doing it, look, I've alreadylike achieved that level and

(13:46):
achieved that level, and so youknow that's.
It is like we could just belike let's go swing for the
fences every day.
But I'm here to tell you and Italk about this on that shift
breakout page it's not that I'mnot a fan of going big.
I've had some huge go bigmoments in my life, from getting
into Yale for law school tosigning a five book deal, to a
coast to coast speaking tourwith my face on the side of a

(14:08):
tour bus that we lived on forseveral weeks.
I've had some swing for thefences moments, but the thing is
, the very next day, the dayafter everything, the day after
our hero gets everything theyever wanted, it didn't change a
thing about whether or not I wasgoing to second guess myself
the next time.
So it's not these like bigswing for the fences highlight
real days the 10, 20, 50, 100days in your life that are going

(14:33):
to be the headline big letterdays.
Right, it's what you do everyday.
John Maxwell says like yourlife will not be changed until
you change something you doevery day, and so that's.
I had to kind of go back to thebeginning and go okay.
So of all of these, if I can gofrom the trailer to Yale Law,
the number one law school in thecountry, and still feel like I
was doubting myself at everyturn, then clearly it's not an

(14:55):
external solution.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
This was always an inside job.
Yeah yeah, that's so beautifuland that also is too.
What James Clear in AtomicHabits talks about is, if you
want to build a habit in orderto grow, don't focus on the goal
flow.
Focus on the small steps that'sgoing to get you there, because
if we just think about goingbig and, you know, creating
these big waves it's just thesmall little increments that

(15:19):
snowball into the compoundinterest.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Essentially, yes, yeah, and he talks about it
being an identity thing.
Like you have to get right withthe identity.
I am going to be someone who'sgoing to get out of debt before
you know, or I am someone who'sactively getting out of debt, or
whatever the case is.
Just to continue our DaveRamsey example like you have to
begin to see yourself as thatthing.
I had to see myself as anauthor to step fully into that

(15:42):
role.
You know, I had to do thethings that moved me closer to
being an author.
I couldn't just say, when I'man author, then I'll start to
build all this stuff.
And we think it's the opposite.
We think we're waiting on thatpermission, we're waiting on
that moment of arrival, we'rewaiting on, you know, somebody
to give us the entire start tofinish blueprint before we start
showing up as the thing we wantto be.

(16:02):
And it's the opposite.
You show up and then theblueprint arrives, or you make
your own, you know.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
I think, if you, if you don'tsee it, it's like anything
that's been ever created in thisworld has been imagined at some
point Right, and then theperson, the inventor, the
creator, moves forward in takingthose little steps to get there
Right.
The other thing that I reallyloved about your book is that
you talk about this on page 21.
You say that I know what it isto both simultaneously be driven

(16:33):
by this unshakable sense ofbeing called up to something
greater, to know in your bonesyou are someone meant for more,
and at the very same time, stilldoubt that person like you will
never get there.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yes, yeah, this book is for every person who feels
like they're being called up tosomething greater, called up to
something more, and, at the verysame time, simultaneously
doubts that someone like youwill 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 itfeels like there's this
invisible force just shoving meback down the hill.

(17:10):
Why do I always drop the ballat the very last minute?
There's a running metaphorthrough the whole book of
pushing a boulder up themountain, getting so close to
our breakthrough moment we cantaste the rarefied air and then,
at the last minute, we feel allthese eyes on us watching from

(17:31):
home and, like Wile E Coyoteabout to get his comeuppance,
just before the bottom drops outand it all falls off the
proverbial ledge.
We freeze when we make eyecontact with everyone watching
at home, and then we blink, welose our grip, we lose our way
and the boulder rolls all theway back down the mountain.
So just before that moment whenit's like, oh wait, somebody's
actually going to read thesewords, Somebody's going to
actually listen to this podcastepisode, Somebody's going to
actually listen to that talk.
Then it gets really real and wego just kidding, Just kidding,

(17:53):
Let me step back from the brink,and in doing so I kind of trip
back over myself and roll allthe way back down the mountain
as the boulder crushes me in theprocess.
And so there's something thatjust happens you know, we talked
about this earlier like thisthing that happens in your brain
when you don't grow up with alot.
There's just something thathappens in hard story people and
I have such a heart for hardstory people I.

(18:14):
There's this inner wrestling oflike we feel our purpose.
There's that thing we can't goa day without thinking about.
We know we're being asked to becalled up to where.
We know there's a specificgroup of people we are meant to
serve, but that there's justthis like insecurity, this

(18:34):
inferiority, this impostersyndrome that says, yeah, but
somebody like me can never go dothat.
And in my book I talk about abook called the Triple Package.
That was actually written by twoYale Law professors who were
there when I was there JedRubenfeld and Amy Chua, and they
identify these three unlikelycharacteristics that combine to
create some of the mostsuccessful people and successful

(18:56):
groups in the country.
And they say, paradoxically,they both have a feeling of
superiority, which I don't thinkthat word totally gets to it,
because or at least to the waythat I interpret it I mean
because that sounds like, oh, Ithink I'm superior than
everybody else, but what Iinterpret that to mean is that
feeling of being called up tomore, that feeling of knowing

(19:16):
there's something on your lifethat's going to be more than
what people think it will be,and then that's paired with
insecurity.
It's like people have alwaysdoubted me, People have always
overlooked me.
I need to go prove these peoplewrong, and those two things
kind of grit and push againstone another.
You know I'm being called tomore but I feel insecure.
I'm being called to more but Ifeel insecure, and the friction

(19:37):
of the two kind of creates thisdrive, this like unstoppable
drive to prove other peoplewrong.
And so if you are sitting thereand you're listening to this
and you're tracking and the youcan, you know the question how
can we be so driven and sodoubtful at the same time is
like yes, that this book is foryou.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
And it's also this tension thatyou talk about of people who
are um struggle withinsecurities, are and are, who
are self-sabotaging, are theoverachievers.
We're the ones that have theimposter syndrome, right, the
ones who are trying, and theysay that people who have a very
low bar don't have impostersyndrome, which is interesting,

(20:17):
that it's the.
It's the ones that are strivingand striving and you just feel
like you're you're not makingthat mark and so you're
continuing to feel insecure, butyet your bar is set so high and
that's why you feel like you'renot hitting that.
It's that tension that is sointeresting that people who
aren't really striving don'tstruggle with that.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, so imposter syndrome.
The two psychologists who firstcoined that phrase were Dr
Clance and Dr Imes and theyactually called it the imposter
phenomenon among high achievingwomen.
And I joke in the book like Ilike that better, like syndrome
makes me feel like I'm the lonepatient zero over here
struggling to self-doubtPhenomenon.
Feels like we're all in ittogether, like it's all
affecting all of us.

(20:58):
you know amazing women over hereand you know just this idea
that it's going to impact.
I mean, we now know that mencan experience imposter
phenomenon syndrome, but itdefinitely affects women way
more, who are more likely.
I talk about the science, drMargie Worel.
I'll share some really goodquotes in the book about.

(21:19):
You know, women are more likelyto blame or to attribute
external circumstances like luckor you know somebody just kind
of like open the door for them,whereas men are more likely to
attribute internal circumstanceslike hard work and grits and
intelligence.
And you know, just sort of likethat idea of it's only going to

(21:42):
attack you if you're aiminghigh, if you are a high achiever
.
Dr Worrell says like there's oneupside, like chances are you're
not ready to settle into theranks of mediocrity.
If you feel imposter syndrome,like if it's showing up, it's
because you know you're beingcalled to excellence and to
greatness and to do the workthat was prepared for you in
advance.
So yeah, we can kind of take itas a sign there's.

(22:03):
You know, we can kind of takeit as a sign there's you know
the broadest terms I talk aboutif fear showed up.
Good, you're about to do workthat matters, because it
wouldn't be bothered with you ifit wasn't going to help anybody
, if the work wasn't going tohelp people.
So if you're feeling impostersyndrome, good, you're not
settled into the ranks ofmediocrity.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, and I love in the art of Stephen Pressfield's
book.
Yeah, the Art of War.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, the War of Art.
The War of Art.
Yeah, that's what I was like.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
I have those two books and I'm always mixing them
up.
Stephen Pressfield book the Warof Art, where he talks about
how, if you have the resistance,the stronger the resistance
towards something is.
That's an indicator that you'resupposed to do that thing.
You know, the thing that wefear, that we're like, oh and
that is, and you talk aboutdifferent parts of fear and how

(22:53):
fear is a liar, and and sothere's there's 12 lies that you
list.
I'd love for you to highlightsome of your favorite fears or
fears that you that are justhighlighted for you, where
you're like, oh, this one At theOnce For a Day podcast.
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Speaker 1 (23:48):
So one of the things that happened is, you know, now,
in addition to being an authorand a speaker and a podcast host
, I also coach creativeentrepreneur women who maybe
they want to write a book orthey want to speak on a stage
what have you?
Speak on a stage, what have you?
And through coaching a bunch ofwomen, I started to notice that
the same lies of fear werehitting them all, and not only

(24:10):
hitting them all, it was hittingthem like in the same stage of
the process, so like they makethe first big commitment to make
good on the dream, like maybethey've signed up to come here
to work with me in person ontheir proposal, for example and
it's like, ah yes, existentialdread, like I have to think
about my whole life.
Maybe I got it all wrong, maybeit's a totally different book,
maybe we should pause this,maybe we should put it off.

(24:31):
And so kind of out of like myown angst and frustration at
seeing how fear was gettingthese women tripped up and
seeing how it's getting themstuck in such very boring and
very predictable ways, I pulledout 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 itgo live and it kind of took off
and I basically hopped on and Iwas like, without saying

(24:52):
anything else, I was just likeit's all been done, it's all
been done better, it's all beendone by somebody the world
actually wants to pay attentionto.
I can't start until it's perfect.
I can't start until I amperfect.
I am perfect.
I can't start until I have theperfect blueprint.
I can't start until I knowevery step in the staircase.
What if I start and I can'tstay consistent with it?
What if I start and I don'thave the bandwidth?
What if I start and the criticscome?
What if they say who does shethink she is?

(25:13):
What if my voice doesn't reallymatter?
What if I don't really matter?
What if it's already too late?
And so that's just like youknow.
I kind of like then said likechances are, I just hit one or
all of the ways fear has beenattacking you lately and, like I
said, it really took off.
And then those don'tspecifically, you know, all
correspond in chronologicalorder to the way the chapters

(25:36):
are laid out.
But the way that I ended upwriting this book is that every
chapter that follows is adifferent 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 eachchapter there are like sub kinds

(25:57):
of fear, different little submasks that it puts on.
So it's a very boring liar andthis is kind of like I call it
like the systematic takedown offear we've all been waiting for.
Yes, as I kind of go toe to toewith fear.
Every time I capture him heshapeshifts into a different
kind, but we keep going until weget them all.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, I love that.
I think this book is.
It's going to serve so manypeople.
I really hope that it spreadslike wildfire.
Oh, amen, amen, truly, truly,um.
There is also another piece inyour book that um really
resonated with me and you saidthat every heart story person I
know in real life has told me atone point or another that they

(26:37):
feel like they missed out onbeing given a handbook for life
and um.
And here you say that somewherein our minds we imagine that
every other kid in America issitting around the dinner table
one night with this wealth ofwisdom just being dropped in
their laps like Chad passed themashed potatoes.
Oh, and, by the way, make sureyou understand compound interest
, and how many of us can relateto that?

(27:00):
I mean, I know that Ipersonally feel like everyone
else has figured it out.
I'm behind, there's somethingthat I'm missing and as if
everyone else got the secret, asyou call it, handbook here,
which I love that, that analogyfor it and it's like you feel
like there's a memo that youdidn't get that everyone else
got.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
That's right.
Yeah, I kind of go through.
I take some great pains to kindof describe what I imagine the
book to look like in my head.
You know, it's sort of like thefaded green, you know color of
an old school National Park logo, and it's no embellishments on
the cover.
It's this veritable stealthwealth of wisdom that has been
handed down from generation togeneration, with notes in the
margin, so that each generationhas it easier than the last, has

(27:41):
it easier than the last.
And don't get me started on thesecret formula on page 47,
scrawled on the margins, for howto finally get the shiny, shiny
, perfect Pantene hair oncereserved for the JCrew catalog
models and the most elite of theMartha's Vineyard summer set.
So it is really.
It's kind of like very playful,very tongue in cheek, very
visual, because one of thethings Fetke that I realized I
wanted to do over and over againis because fear is so tricky
it's shape-shifting into allthese different faces and names.

(28:03):
If I can help people come upwith these very memorable quirky
, in my writing course I teachpeople to veer from the expected
, so it's very unexpectedvisuals Then it's going to make
it a lot easier for them to go.
Oh, princess and the pea problem.
Oh, oliver Twist problem.
Oh, dewey Cox.
I see what's happening here andso you'll see a lot of those.

(28:23):
You saw a lot of those allthroughout the book For the
handbook, in particular, thevery visceral visual, because we
know that humans learn andremember best by story and by
metaphor.
We're wired that way.
I know some of your listenersnot all, but some of your
listeners are people of faithright, there's a reason that
Jesus taught by story andmetaphor, and when the people

(28:45):
didn't get the metaphor thefirst time?

Speaker 2 (28:50):
he didn't go, okay, so here's what I was doing.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
This is what that stood for.
He's like another metaphor, andso the metaphor I came up with
for the handbook, and themissing handbook in particular,
is this idea of we feel likewe're walking around in the
world without all the pertinentparts, like Edward Scissorhands,
dropped down in the middle ofsome pastel suburban hell where
the name of the game was alwaysabout blending in and keeping up
with your neighbors.
We're dropped down into themiddle of the midday sun, our

(29:13):
visible scars now burning ondisplay, and when we're dropped
into a world like that, where webreak the rules because we did
not know the rules, we shouldn'tbe surprised that it is then us
who dies death by a thousandcuts.
And so for the person who'slistening and they were tracking
already was like yes, I feellike I never got this handbook.
Everybody else seemed to get.
Now they have this reallypowerful visual metaphor for why

(29:34):
it feels like they always showup and get it wrong, why they
always show up and everybodyelse got the memo on what to
wear and they somehow missed out.
They always show up and somehowsay the wrong, wrong thing.
They didn't think to pack andprepare this or that on the way
on the trip, or whatever thecase may be.
They get to the conference andthey feel like everybody else
knew to show up for the cocktailparty and they didn't know

(29:55):
what's happening.
Whatever the case is, and thenmuch more serious stuff too,
like finances, your mortgage andhow to parent and how to make a
safe, comfortable home where itfeels like a haven from the
world.
All of this stuff feels likewe're playing catch up well into
our 30s and 40s.
And so now we have a veryvisceral visual that goes Edward

(30:16):
Scissorhands, I'm just EdwardScissorhands.
I'm just dropped down breakingthe rules because I did not know
the rules, but I get to be theone who learns the handbook and
it ends with me Like I'll be theone to pass it down.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yeah, and I love to.
In your book you extendessentially the grace for the
hard story, people saying thatsome of us just are starting at
a very different point.
You know we have to workthrough so much, so in your
story how do you feel likethat's resonated with you or
that's been been true for you,working up from, you know, a
place that was really differentthan a lot of the people around

(30:50):
you.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Okay, I'm going to answer that question.
I got to tell you as a podcasthost myself like I am itching to
know, like some of your story,because you've got the long form
, 272 page version of my storyin dirt.
So, like, can you just give melike the you know a couple of
minute, or or you know short,short version?
So I feel like, um, like myanswers will be, I can kind of,
like you know, incorporate thatinto my answer.

(31:12):
So, what's your, what's yourhard story?
Hi, nice to meet you.
What's your hard story?

Speaker 2 (31:18):
I'm like I didn't know I was being interviewed on
my podcast today.
Gosh, there is a lot there forsure.
I think for me, um, in the lastcouple years have really been a
lot of unraveling of um, my mompassing away and that will do
something to you as you talkabout your dad passing away in
the dirt and how that's just youknow, really kind of impacted

(31:39):
you, um, and so my mom passedaway.
I really wanted to.
I felt like I didn't have thetime to know who she was.
Um.
I moved out of the house alittle bit earlier.
I um and moved out of statewhen I got married, and so I
didn't.
There's just questions andstories I've heard mom say over
and over and grandma anddifferent things like that.

(32:00):
But when my mom passed away, Ijust had this unbeatable desire
of wanting to know who were thepeople who came before me and
what was, what were their liveslike, because there was
something there for me that Icouldn't shake off.
And so I started researchingand I found so many gems in
their stories, like mygrandmother having to walk and
being taken from her home by theNazis when she was 16.

(32:22):
And um, and then being in a ina nazi concentration camp for
three and a half years, comingback and being completely
ridiculed for being a traitor ofher own country, even though
she was taken by force, um, andthen becoming a person of faith
and um, and then being taken tojail for that and sent to a
gulag for eight years for beinga person of faith.

(32:43):
Wow.
And my mom being a courageousperson growing up in a communist
country soviet union at thetime and, you know, standing up
for who she was, regardless ofthe consequences that you face
as a person of faith in a placethat's completely legal, or you
were watched by the kgb 24 7.
So learning all these thingshave set me on my own healing

(33:07):
journey of working through somethings that I never took the
time to work through andrealizing that you know, the
women before me were socourageous and I have in some
ways there's, you know there'strauma that's from hard stories
right that are that are broughtforward.
But in another side of the coinis women who have fought so

(33:30):
courageously to be true to whothey are and their identity, and
then, top of that, they havesacrificed so much for me to be
here, even for me to live inthis country for me to have the
freedoms that I have as a womanto have.
I have a.
You know my husband.
I own a business.
We.
I'm running a podcast.
I'm sharing your story, youknow we're we're having this
conversation here and it'sspreading all over the world and

(33:51):
that's a privilege and an honorthat they never got to have and
so, in a sense, it it made mereally reflect their stories, or
reflection for me of like howdo I want to live my life that
honors their sacrifices and thepeople who they were.
That that lives up, not justfor them but because they have,

(34:12):
because I'm standing on theshoulders of giants they're so
courageous and so brave to fightfor their stories who
sacrificed so much.
My mom had multiple jobs as animmigrant here.
I mean, she worked just shetried to give us everything she
could in order for us to have abetter future, dropping
everything you know in thecountry that you once lived at,
because there's a chance, eventhough you don't know for sure,

(34:35):
you have no guarantee of howit's going to pan out, but you
know that it's better than whatyour mom went through and what
you went through, and you takethat risk.
You go to a place you don't knowthe language, you don't know
the people, and and you workreally, really hard in order to
build a better future.
And so to me, that's part of mystory and that's what really

(34:58):
got me to sit even in atherapist's office and be like,
okay, how do I create adifferent life for me and how do
I?
And so with that, I think whatit's done is it propelled me to
want to live a courageous lifeand also take other people with
me on that journey of livingcourageously.
And I'm on my journey myself,like I'm learning as I go, you
know, and having theseconversations, reading books

(35:19):
like yours, and really just howdo we live our stories
courageously and also how do wehelp other people get there, how
can we be their guide from thelessons that we learn in our
heart story?

Speaker 1 (35:33):
That's right.
Yeah, so exactly that right.
Like building on everything youjust shared.
How did I think about likecoming up from where I was to
something more?
Right it's?
The answer is that it'scomplicated, 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 schoolone day when she was 15 and her
mom had moved out and said thebills are paid through the end

(35:54):
of the month.
There's some macaroni, shellsand canned tomatoes in the
cabinet, like good luck,basically.
And so they had.
When my mom was little, theydidn't have indoor plumbing Like
they had.
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 goingto work as hard as they could so
that their one child, their onedaughter, would have a

(36:17):
different life.
And so, growing up, I in someways watched them.
They were never complainersnecessarily, um, you know they
would share how hard the workwas, but I also watched them
live with regret about my dad.
I think I'd always wanted to goto college.
He would have loved to studyhistory and he never got around
to doing that and, um, I thinkthey probably regretted buying

(36:39):
the trailer, which is not reallya built to last kind of home.
It was sort of a quick fix.
And then it became this, youknow, shackle around their
ankles.
And so it became very importantto me between like their
sacrifice and and also watchingthem live lives where they
didn't go after the things thatthey wanted, because they felt
like this is just the onlychoice they had available to

(36:59):
them.
I think when somebodysacrifices like that for you and
your story, you sort of make apromise to yourself and to them,
right then and there, that youwill never settle, because to
settle would be to kind ofdishonor that sacrifice.
And so it created in me thisdrive of like.
My story will only be redeemed,my story will only make sense,

(37:21):
their sacrifice will only beworth it if I am such an
astronomical success that it wasa payoff of them betting on me
like that rather than justfeeling like I was worthy of
love as their daughter, you know.
And so there's that side of it.
There's the like, work ethicand the grit and the tenacity

(37:41):
that I think is put into youwhen you have immigrant parents
who come and work so hard togive you a different life.
When you have Appalachianparents who work so hard to give
you a different life, like thatwork ethic is modeled In Dirt.
I talk about how my grandma andmy mom would take me to clean
both homes and office buildingswith them.
And they took me to officebuildings.
They would clean overnight, so,four years old, in a beauty
parlor, helping them clean, andI did the dishes in the little

(38:04):
kitchenette and I didn't usesoap and it would have been like
spaghetti sauce, so youcouldn't see it anymore, but you
could feel it.
It was super greasy.
And my grandma and my mom satright in the lobby and waited
for me to rewash every one ofthose dishes by hand, because
how you do everything is how youdo anything is how you do
everything.
In the hottest water.
I could stand scarlet red hands, as god intended.

(38:25):
They had me rewash those dishes, you know, and so you get a.
You get a grit and a work ethicfrom watching them, but you also
in underestimated.
I talk about this as, likethese limiting, inherited,
limiting belief leaks, thesethings that are sort of more
caught than taught, so like whenmy dad would tell me I was
going to college and I could beanything I wanted and I was

(38:47):
going to have a different lifethan him, but then he would
speak differently about himself.
He would say this is the way itis, this is the way it was,
this is the way it always willbe.
I picked up on a lot of thatand I continue to do the work of
unraveling myself from limitingbeliefs that I heard my parents
and my grandma Goldie say andthe region I grew up in.

(39:08):
We will probably spend a lot ofour lives kind of unraveling.
Is that the truth or is thatjust something I heard a lot
when I was little.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if the audience can see,
but I am crying over here fromhearing your story.
Um, what I love too about andwhat was interesting in your
story this is taken from dirtmore of your memoir is that you
talked about this tension thatyour dad had of sacrificing so
that you can get the educationbehind the encyclopedia

(39:37):
subscriptions and making surethat you studied hard and you
read a lot and you were gettinggood grades and all of those
things.
And at the same time, when timecame for you to go to school and
to move away, there was thisresistance of you were leaving
the identity of who you oncewere and the Mary that they knew
, and struggling with thattension of being the Mary who

(40:00):
you know lives in a trailer andis from the Appalachian trail or
Appalachian, to being Marywho's educated and is striving
and is trying to accomplish bigdreams.
And it's interesting howsometimes that's the way it is
right People see you in acertain light and they can't let
go of a new identity.

(40:20):
They can't.
They can't let go of this newversion of you that you're
evolving into and and ironically, that's the same people that
wanted you to succeed, like yourdad wanted the best for you
from your memoir, like he wantedyou to succeed.
And then, when you were aboutto get there, it's like ah, come
back Mary.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, I mean, my dad wanted me to get out.
The thing is, for him, gettingout meant getting out of the
trailer, getting out of oursmall town and going all the way
to Morgantown, west Virginia,to go to WVU for my undergrad,
which is where I did myundergrad and to him that was
the height of achievement.
He would have loved to go toWVU and that, to him, was just

(40:58):
his dream.
And do not get me wrong, I loveWVU.
I am so proud of WVU and at thetime, like I talk about Dirt was
terrified to apply because theyhad 22,000 students and I
thought I was going to be like22,001 in terms of grade

(41:19):
rankings.
I thought I was going to failout because quantity clearly
meant every other person therewas going to be more qualified
than I was.
And when I get to WVU, itbecomes this beautiful bridge
where I'm on the debate team andI'm taking all these world
politics classes and I'm gettingintroduced to a world outside
of West Virginia.
I kind of describe it as likethis undulating heartbeat of a
border that had always kept mesafe.
And and to my dad's you knowcredit I tell him that I'm going

(41:41):
to go spend a year in England aweek after September 11th, so
you know I'm going to go get ona plane and go, you know, across
the whole ocean away.
He was not thrilled.
He was not thrilled, but like Idon't know that most parents
would have been, but to him, yes, in particular, it's like wait,
wait, wait, go go out.

(42:02):
You know, chase your dreams.
Wait, wait, wait, not that far,what are we doing here?
And so there, he definitely gotstretched a lot out of his
comfort zone, as I was gettingstretched out of mine.
The difference is I was kind oflike chasing it and he was kind
of like no, like resisting it.
And I think for a lot of us,more can often feel like a

(42:23):
betrayal.
It can feel like a betrayal ofthe people in the places who
once raised us.
One of my absolute favoriteparts of underestimated it is it
is when the day that I wrotethis and it came to me, I was
just like.
It is when the day that I wrotethis and it came to me, I was
just like yeah, like that.
And it says some of us, some ofus, have a really complicated
relationship with more.

(42:43):
We were simultaneouslyencouraged to go out and excel
and achieve, to break all thebarriers and be the first in our
family trees to make ourhometowns and our families proud
, but to never go so far outthat they no longer recognized
us.
It was a delicate tightrope towalk indeed, this underdog story
threaded through the eye of aneedle, one where our hero never

(43:04):
gets too big for her britchesor does anything to act higher
than her raising.
They love the spotlight we'restanding in, so long as the
shine reflects well on them.
Just watch out for that firstperceived misstep.
It's a real doozy on the waydown 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 youanymore.

(43:26):
And Steven Pressfield, goingback to him with the War of Art,
has a really beautiful quote Ishare in the book that talks
about how resistance recruitsallies and he basically says
when the aspiring writer beginsto actually write the book,
expect all the people around her, especially those closest to
her, to suddenly get reallyweird.
They'll get really quiet,they'll have little comments.

(43:46):
And that's because herovercoming her resistance is
kind of reflecting a mirror thatthey 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'lladd is from Dirt.
Talking about more feels like abetrayal, is like there's that
quote.
That's like just when shethought her life was ending, the
caterpillar became a butterfly,and I know that's supposed to

(44:09):
be inspiring.
But like all I can hear when Ihear that quote, or think when I
hear that quote, is, I bet ithurts the caterpillar.
I bet it hurts the caterpillaryou know to.
Actually, I always thought likethe wings just sort of popped
out the back of the caterpillarand that's what we had.
But actually, if you open up achrysalis mid transmutation,
what you will actually find ismore like caterpillar soup.

(44:29):
This thing has to disintegrateentirely in order to be made
into something new, this thrillof hope, you know, or this death
to self before the thrill ofhope takes flight.
And I guess, like scientistshave done some studies where
they've like tracked, like Idon't know, migration patterns
or feeding patterns, I don'tknow what it is, but they have

(44:50):
been able to identify that eventhough the caterpillar
completely disintegrates intothis soup and is rebuilt into
something new, it remembers whoit was, it remembers the places
that it traveled, it rememberswhat it ate, whatever the case
is, and we can get into this ornot get into this.
I don't want to take all yourtime, but there's a part in Dirt
where I talk about the paradoxof Theseus's ship, where it's

(45:11):
like a wooden boat has sprung aleak.
You replace a plank with metalone.
The process continues.
How many planks can you replaceuntil it's an entirely new
thing?
And I talk about, well, what ifthe ship gets to the other side
, entirely brand new and lookingso different to those who once
knew it?
But it still remembers who itwas.
You know yourself right, and soit's a complicated process.

(45:35):
It's a complicated processhonoring who came before and
also saying this ends with me.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
This book is so good, guys.
There's so much Mary and Icould talk about, so much more
we could talk about here fordays on her book.
I suggest that you guys get itwherever books are sold.
I think it's on pre-order timeright now, is that correct?
That's right?
Yes, it comes out April 29th.
Amazing, and where can peoplefind you, mary?

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah, I'm gonna tell you two fun things I want your
people to do.
Everybody listening who stuckwith us this long.
Here are two things I want youto do.
I actually introduced thesecharacters first in Slow Growth,
but they all get carried overinto Underestimated and it is
sort of like the Achiever type.
We've turned it into a quizcalled the Achiever Quiz and

(46:21):
it's these five different typesand how they play small.
So we have the performer, whois always on her toes and needs
to show both herself but alsoother people how far she's come
which is what I am.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
We have the tightrope walkers Nice.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
Nice, I had a feeling .
I had a feeling we would be thesame.
The tightrope walker could careless who's clapping, but they
need higher and higherdeath-defying feats to feel the
same amount of good.
The masquerader pushes otherpeople into the spotlight so
they can hide in plain sight.
The contortionist is ourclassic people pleaser.
They contort because it iseasier than to be criticized.
And the illusionist in thedistance who doesn't believe

(46:53):
that they can start until theyand all the conditions to begin
are perfect.
And so the quiz takes about twominutes, to take like 10 minutes
if you really overthink it.
The questions are super fun,super lighthearted and then,
true to Mary form, the questionsare fun, the answers are deep,
and so I go into.
I go do like a deep dive foreach type of like, why you are

(47:13):
the way you are, why you getstuck playing small and how you
can move forward.
So that's achieverquizcom.
Go take it, tell me what yourtype is and then if you go to
namethefearcom, that's our sitewith all the book information we
up there right now foreverybody listening to your
episodes Fetka.
We have the first chapter upthere entirely free, so they can

(47:38):
go grab that, download that andstart reading right away today
and then, while you're there, ifyou want to pre-order the book.
Pre-orders are the singlebiggest way you can love on an
author that you hopefully nowcare about or a book that you
want to support.
They are literally the make orbreak in terms of whether it
gets picked up in stores,whether it gets recommended on
Amazon, whether it gets any kindof visibility at all, and so
pre-orders are huge.
If you pre-order the book andwould love for you to do that we
have the whole first threechapters for you and also the

(48:00):
audio book, so it's like gettingtwo books for the price of one.
I read the audio book.
So if you enjoyed thisconversation, 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 youthought of the episode and what
achiever type you got.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Yeah, I love that.
That is awesome, mary.
You're packed with a lot of EQand IQ, which I love.
It is such a unique pairing.
It is so unique and I'm like Ilove this because it's and I
love the visuals in this book.
I'm a visual person, so all thelittle drawings and things like
that I'm like highlightingcircling, putting hearts and
stars I did those.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
I mocked those up, so I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Okay, Awesome.
Well, I end my podcast withasking a few questions.
One of them is what is thebravest thing that Mary's ever
done?

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Oh my gosh.
Okay, that's just a quickquestion there at the end.
Okay, just really quick.
What is the bravest thingMary's ever done?
The bravest thing Mary has everdone.
The bravest thing Mary has everdone is to believe that sharing
her story would actually drawpeople closer to her than push
them away.
Yeah, that sharing her story wasactually a superpower, not

(49:07):
something that disqualified her,and that it actually, like, was
a huge component of whatequipped her to be in the exact
places and do the work that wasprepared for her in advance, and
that it's the crosshairintersection of the gifts I've
been given and the story I'vebeen given.
It can't be one or the other.
When those two intersect, itcreates this purpose that's

(49:29):
fueled by empathy.
My friend Kim Butler says ourdeepest places of impact will
come from our.
Our greatest places of impactwill 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 mostput together woman in the room
and pretending like it's allbeen perfect all along.
It's saying it was muddy and itwas hard and it was gritty and
it was good.
Wow, beautiful.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
We'll go with that.
I have never had a podcast hostthat made me cry so much.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
I'm just going to say it out there.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
It's just so powerful .
So your story is so powerful.
And then the other questions.
That is, what is one piece ofadvice that you'd love to pass
on to the listener, or maybesomeone, someone advice that
someone else gave you?

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Yeah, I think like one of the biggest things.
So you know, one of thequestions we've gotten is like
what are some of your favoritelike practical parts of the book
?
And there's a ton of practicalstuff in there.
But the most important workthat's being done in this book
is giving you those reallyvisceral visuals I was talking
about earlier to be able to gooh, got it.
The research riptide, theOliver Twist problem, all those
things I said earlier.

(50:33):
I just did a podcast recordingwith this Changes Everything.
Sarah from this ChangesEverything and she compared it
to the Wizard of Oz.
You know, the great andpowerful Oz pay no attention to
the man behind the curtain andas soon as you pull back the
curtain it's kind of this likeyou know, wimpy little wizard
guy or whatever, Not really awizard, even he's a.

(50:53):
What is he?
He's like a carnival hucksterkind of guy, a snake oil
salesman, that's what he is, andhe just loses all of that fear
and trembling and all that powerand all that mystery.
It's like you pull back thecurtain and it's like, oh,
that's all you are.
So the advice I have is to spendsome time writing down.
I mean, the advice I have is toget this book and read it cover

(51:13):
to cover, so you have thelanguage to put to what kind of
fear it is.
But then, like once you do,once you know some of these
different faces, write downwhich ones you think are
actually the most common oneswho are affecting you, Because
GI Joe said knowing is half thebattle.
And so we begin by going okay,this is the way fear likes to
attack me, and it's not going tobe just one of them.
It's not Fear's going to try tocome in the front door.

(51:34):
You get that one under control.
He's going to slip in the sidedoor.
So these are the ways heattacks me.
And then I now start to reallypay attention and I can
challenge myself to see how fastI can capture it.
Catch it the next time, Allright, that's just me feeling
like Edward Scissorhands.
I don't have the handbook forlife, Got it Power diffused, and
that would be the practical.

(51:55):
That would be the practical.
Learn the names of fear so youcan catch it faster and faster.
I love that, and what are somebooks that impacted your life?
Purple Cow is a huge one.
That's Seth Godin.
The idea is that in a sea of10,000 brown cows, we stop
paying attention wheneverybody's saying and doing and
being the same thing.
But see a purple cow on theside of the road.

(52:15):
You're going to pull over andtake pictures and tell your
friends about it.
And so I.
In everything we do from ourphotography business to our
teaching, to our speaking, tothe books that I write I try to
be the purple cow in a sea of10,000 brown ones.
The E-Myth Revisited is anincredible book every
entrepreneur should read.
I put off reading this book fora long time because I thought,

(52:38):
you know, E was going to beeconomics and it was going to
make me do math.
But it's actuallyentrepreneurial and it talks
about the moment you have whathe calls the entrepreneurial
seizure the earth stops spinning, the record scratches and you
envision your life working foryourself for the first time and
you just can't go back and itsort of talks through like
scaling and not burning out andknowing how to like outsource,
and it's just a really fantasticbook every business owner

(53:00):
should have.
And then I would say I'll add amore heartfelt one in there.
We've mentioned the War of Art,for sure, add that to the list.
I'm going to add Seananiqua'sPresent Over Perfect, because I
bet a lot of people listeningright now have been pulling
themselves up by theirbootstraps, pushing harder,
always being the one to comethrough, always trying to

(53:22):
perform so that somebody elsewill love them, so that they can
find belonging, and they're themost burnout they've ever found
themselves.
They feel like this hollowedout shell of themselves and I've
picked up Present Over Perfectwhen that's where I was and it
was like a bomb to my soul.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
So that's my third recommendation oh, so beautiful.
Well, mary, thank you so muchfor your time.
You've been such a joy to haveon the podcast, and again to the
guests, who has made me cry andlaugh a lot.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
I want a trophy for that.
There should be, like ribbons,levels unlocked.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yes, exactly, you're in a new level of a podcast
guest for sure, thank you.
Thank you for listening to theOnce we Dare podcast.
It is an honor to share theseencouraging stories with you.
If you enjoy the show, I wouldlove for you to tell your
friends.
Leave us a reviewer rating andsubscribe to wherever you listen
to podcasts, because this helpsothers discover the show.
You can find me on my website,speckhopoffcom.