Myth-Busting: Myths Around Success with Mary Marantz

Jessica Honegger [00:00:03] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Going Scared Podcast. This is your host, Jessica Honegger, founder of the world changing brand Noonday Collection. Join me here every week for conversations that encourage you to live a life of purpose by leaving comfort and going scared. This is going to be our last episode for 2022, and we're going to take a long pause until we relaunch the Going Scared podcast. After we hear from you, our listeners. What content do you want to hear from us next year? For our final episode, we have a second guest who has been on our show before. Mary Marantz. Mary Marantz is a Yale Law School graduate and the first in her immediate family to go to college. I absolutely loved her first book called Dirt, and she now recently launched a new book called Slow Growth Equals Strong Roots. Guys, if you have tuned in to hear Going Scared at all in the last year, you have heard that that is a theme that has been so present in my life. I used to be all about fast, quick, and more, you know, enneagram seven vibes. And what I'm learning and what life is teaching me is that actually what really matters are deep, strong roots so that you can grow a tree that becomes shade for generations to come. And that really is what Noonday Collection is all about. We are shade makers. We are planting seeds now that will become trees for women to be able to stand under for hundreds of years to come. And we do that by empowering people economically throughout the entire world. We have an incredible global marketplace throughout America that our Noonday Collection ambassadors promote, sell, and talk about. Let a Noonday Collection ambassador, be your personal stylist, be your personal shopper. We have corporate gift giving for all of your holiday needs. We also will take care of your entire list. We are a full one stop ethical shop. And why not? If you are already going to invest in a holiday gift for someone, do it by voting with your dollars and using your purchasing power for good by empowering people in emerging economies around the world. Mary Marantz is the host of the wildly popular podcast The Mary Marantz Show, which debuted in the iTunes Top 200 list. Her work has been featured by CNN, Hallmark, Southern Living, Business Insider, Thrive Global. And I just love how she really speaks to rest. Give it a listen. Well, Mary, I am so excited to talk with you today.

Mary Marantz [00:03:02] Oh, my gosh, Jessica, I just I love you. You are one of my all time favorites. I oh, gosh. I was what? You were one of the very, very first podcasts I was ever on, like, years ago. So anytime I get the chance, I'm. I'm here.

Jessica Honegger [00:03:14] Well, we're glad to have you. And we are in the middle of a myth busting series. And I wanted to have you on to talk about the myth of the before and after. Mm hmm. Well, and I love something that you wrote on Instagram, you said, and you're going to need to tell us a little bit of your background, which you wrote about in Dirt, your first book, which I had all my kids read. It's so beautifully written. It's such a powerful memoir. Oh, my God.

Mary Marantz [00:03:39] Thank you.

Jessica Honegger [00:03:40] An amazing memoir. But I love what you say here. You said "this grown up girl after the trailer version of me has been chasing a thousand, supposed to be versions of herself in the distance. These superior beings living for the mountaintop moments who only ever care enough to look down on her, and who never once slowed down enough to let her catch up. She's not enough of something for them. So they go on without her, leave her behind, and the heartbreak of losing herself." You say "my eyes have been forever fixed on the horizon, always facing forward to the next high ground I can reach for. And yet I haven't once realized all along this grown up version of me has been doing the very same thing to that nine year going on ten little girl. The girl in the trailer wasn't enough of something for me. All I could ever do was look down on her and try my best to leave her behind. Just as I have been reaching for a thousand supposed to be versions of us up ahead. All the while she's been reaching for me. Help me to turn around."

Mary Marantz [00:04:47] Yeah.

Jessica Honegger [00:04:48] Hmm. I think all of us, even if we didn't grow up in a trailer and eventually go to Yale and then become one of the world's leading, leading photographers, we all have these before and after. Right. And we think that this after version is what we're living for. And we strive. And we strive. And we strive until we eventually run out of breath. So I would love to start off by you sharing a little bit of the myth that you write about so much and that you talk about so much of the before versus after.

Mary Marantz [00:05:24] Yeah. Oh, man. You know, you have like single handedly just zeroed in on this passage. It is on Instagram. And I was also in my second book, Slow Growth Equals Strong Roots. And when I was writing that book, that epiphany came to me mid writing. [00:05:41]It was happening in real time and I just wrote it in real time because it knocked the wind out of me. This moment of realizing like, oh, man, we I think all of us have this version of ourselves. We imagine we will one day be. And on that day only will we ever be enough. Will we ever be happy? Will we ever actually get to enjoy our lives? And it's this version of us with our perfect handwriting and our organized person, the kale in our refrigerator actually gets eaten. And, you know, we have no hair out of place and the outfit is cute and on trend and we everything is Instagram worthy. And so we let day after day little pieces of sand through the hourglass slip by where that day wasn't enough and that day wasn't enough. And we aren't quite there yet and we just keep chasing it. And we, we realize at a certain point that these versions of us are not waiting on us to catch up. And they do look at us with these superior eyes, and it's just so easy to make them the mean girls in our future. [55.8s] That's like one level of self realization, right? Like, oh, they're reading and judging me, you know, like, I'm never going to be enough of something to sit at their table. But, man, to realize that you are also doing that, not only are you doing it, but you're doing it to this most vulnerable little version of yourself that that was like a kick in the gut to me, because I thought I was the underdog always. And it never occurred to me that I was being the mean girl to this little baby version of me. You know, that was hard.

Jessica Honegger [00:07:06] Please tell me, you know, internal family systems know. Oh, my gosh. You okay? You got to go down the bunny rabbit trail. It is a therapeutic framework that this perfectly encapsulates, but it is this idea that we have all of these different parts of ourselves and there is a bully part and there is the vulnerable part, but it's often that bully part that's protecting that little girl, you know? And that's just what really struck me as I was reading that quote from your book. Talk to us a little bit about that nine year old girl in the trailer.

Mary Marantz [00:07:46] Yeah, well, what's interesting when you said that the part about the bully parts, it did kind of remind me of something of one of my coaching clients who's a therapist has talked about and taught about, which is, you know, like we have these protect your person. Realities that can often sound like the inner critic. So I have heard a little bit of that. [00:08:03]And what's interesting about this little nine year old girl is there's a part in Dirt that I write about for the first time that we then revisit from the other side of the scene in Slow Growth. And that is the idea of the Girl in the Red Cape escaping her way out of the deep, dark woods. This big bad wolf ripping at her heels she runs because she knows if she stops, it just might kill her. But at a certain point, breathless and wild eyed, I look over my shoulder and I realize I am the girl in the red cape, but I'm also the wolf. And these different versions we become in order to survive and in order to feel safe. [32.7s] And so in Slow Growth, Jessica, we revisit that from the scene in The Wolf, like chasing always chasing this version of me. I was born to protect. I will out in agony because I've scared her away again. And it talks about how at a certain point, the big bad wolf is now afraid of us because we realize that if we want to keep running to achieve more and more and more just to feel safe, the wolf can't stop chasing us. So he twists the thorn to send it into fight or flight mode. We cage this wild animal and make it dance in our three ring circus show, one where we always get to be the high wire act. Because if we can't stop, it can't stop until we realize when we twist the thorn, it's now our palms that are bleeding. All right, we've learned how to, you know, dig our thumbs into these wide open wounds just to get the result, because we're all terrified. If we stop running, we might just disappear altogether. [00:09:29]And so that nine year old girl, four year old girl, whatever, like as long as I can remember, got the message that I was only as worthy of love as the latest good thing I'd achieved. And I didn't know how to stop. It's you know, a lot of people think you grow up that way in a trailer in West Virginia. You go to Yale Law like, okay. So the only side effect was success. Like, how bad could it be? But what everybody who's gone through something like that listening knows is that is not the side effects. The side effects. The whole disease is not knowing how to stop running once you start. [31.9s]

Jessica Honegger [00:10:03] The myth of momentum.

Mary Marantz [00:10:05] Yeah.

Jessica Honegger [00:10:06] Let's talk about that, because I know that we all have this belief that if we stop pushing the boulder up the hill for a second, that it will roll all the way back down. And so that perpetuates just the wolf in all of us, the you know, and so talk to us like bust that myth for us and for that person that's listening that is like pushing that boulder up and is afraid. I can't now. I can't stop, you know. What would you say to her?

Mary Marantz [00:10:38] Yeah. I'll honestly never forget the first time I ever voiced this out loud. This idea of, like, chasing goals to me feels like pushing a boulder up the hill. There were four of us, all business owners, who had gotten together for, like, a girls lunch in the afternoon. And we had gone to get manicures and pedicures afterwards. And the way that the pedicure chairs were set up is we were actually all in the back corner and all four chairs, like, faced each other like a square. And I was saying this thing out loud, assuming that everybody else was going to be like, Yeah, totally, I get it. [00:11:08]I was like, you know, I just feel like if I let go for a second, if I blink for a second, if I flinch for a second, it's going to roll all the way back down the hill. I'm going to have to start over. And I said this like, of course it is. Of course, that's what everybody feels. And one of the girls in the group looked at me and she was like, No. Like, that's not how it works. Like, there are wide open spaces, there are plateaus along the way. And it was the first time I realized I had been putting that pressure to hold my progress, to hold my momentum, to continue that forward trajectory. I've been putting all that pressure on myself and acting as if I alone carried it. That rest was the equivalent of not only losing momentum and ground, but it actually being, you know, forced us to start over. [47.9s] And there is this Greek mythology of Sisyphus who is doomed to push the boulder up the hill over and over and over. Just when he gets near the top, he loses his grip and loses his way. And then, you know, it's like the ultimate horrible Groundhog's Day of having to basically carry heavy, heavy things for the rest of your life. [00:12:16]And this realization that that's not what we're called to and that's not what freedom looks like and it's not what purpose looks like, and that we actually go a lot further when we plan rest into the journey. [11.1s]

Jessica Honegger [00:12:28] Hmm. So true. You know, I've talked about this so much over the last couple of years on the Going Scared podcast, I've been really open about Noonday’s success and how I always define success is up to the right, you know, it's just it's like a spaceship. It just takes off and it just keeps going forever and ever up and to the right, into the glorious outer space. And that's just not life. That is not real. And, you know, with. Think that that's what success is. And our perception of other people is that, oh my gosh, it's just always up and to the right. And yet that's not how stories go. I mean, there's climaxes, there's denouement, there is the crisis. There's the protagonist going through the hero's journey in the story. And at some point you have to surrender that myth of success and learn to redefine it. So what did that journey look like for you?

Mary Marantz [00:13:31] Well, first of all, I love that visual so much, and I've never heard anybody say it quite like that. And I think that's such a business owner's imagery, because as soon as you said it, I immediately pictured that chart. Right. And like that just sort of like maybe there's a few little bumps in this heartbeat of your business, but up and to the right like that makes so much sense to me. And to be looking at those bottom lines and those profits and losses and all the people who are depending on up and to the right. So I feel that so much. And I love what you were saying about the hero's journey and the actual like rising fall and crescendo, this climax of action that is the hero's journey. [00:14:07]And I mean, what we don't realize is that absolutely nobody and I mean nobody would pay to go see that movie if it was just always up and to the right. Nobody would read that book. Nobody. You know, how boring would that be? And then the hero got another thing they wanted. And then another. And then another. And so we recognize that when we're putting ourselves in the seat in the movie theater or opening the book, but we hold ourselves to this thing that even if we got it, I don't think we'd actually want it. Because what a boring story. [29.0s] Who wants to be that guy at the cocktail hour saying, Oh, yes, actually, everything I touch does turn to gold. It's been super easy every step of the way. Like it's just not interesting. And more to the point, I've actually gotten to the to this place where if somebody is talking to me about how easy it was, about how overnight it was. My red flags actually go up, Jessica, because I think to myself, if it if it has been that fast and it has been that easy, there's been a serious gap in the character development. And I mean that in both sense, right? Like the character development, like a movie, and also just like the character development, the backbone, the grit, the having to start over, the humility, the, you know, keeping your word when it's hard. And also for me, excellence was never immediate. So if something is happening that fast and that's what all the talking points are, I call that this, you know, fleeting currency, this currency of fleeting, which is how much, how many, how fast. If somebody only wants to tell you how much, how many, how fast in their story without more, you know, like let me then tell you when I lost it all and had to start over, I just I'm like, I wonder where the place for excellence was in all that speed.

Jessica Honegger [00:15:49] That's true. And so for you and your story, you know, you have this definition of before and after from trailer park to successful business owner. What have been some of your turning points along the way since then?

Mary Marantz [00:16:09] Well, I feel like my life has been like one big exercise. And in Ross Gellar, you know, pivot. I am forever in the stairwell trying to squeeze my way out of a life I've backed myself into. You know, from being on this trajectory of, well, I went to my freshman orientation and knew I wanted to go to law school. And the only major I could see that remotely related to law school was political science. So I spent four years getting that degree, plus a philosophy degree to then, you know, finding myself in law school only to go, well, I don't actually want to work 100 hours a week in some law firm and have sleeping under my desk be a mark of honor or be told that when I have to cancel my vacation, the firm will reimburse me. So I saw myself getting back into a life, you know, that I it was like Christmas Carol. Like I saw a future that I was not proud of or excited about. And so my husband, Justin and I started a photography business and we built that from the ground up for 15 years. He was the first one to ever say to me, slow growth equals strong roots. And then to kind of walk away from that at the height of its striving to become an author. [00:17:20]And so for me, I think for a very, very long time I became a person who didn't know how to exist without my resumé introducing me. [10.0s] And there's a part in Dirt where I talk about like I have a butler who introduces me and I picture my butler is Dwight Schrute in that episode of The Office, where he's introducing everybody to the farm. And I have to let people know it's not that I want them to be so impressed with me. I just didn't want them to feel like they were wasting time, that I had something I could offer them, that I had something I could connect them to, somebody I could introduce them to, whatever the case is. And so I think what's been really interesting about becoming an author is I've now had the experience of being a beginner in the photography world, rising to the very tippy top and now being somewhat of the beginner. I mean, I've released my second book, so a little less so now, but being a beginner again in the other world, and this time it was very important to me that the people who are going to be with me on this journey were not just here because of what I could do or what was on my resume or, you know, that they loved me for me, not for these achievements, not for these gold stars that I had told know 40 some years. I'd spent my whole life saying, That's all you're worth.

Jessica Honegger [00:18:31] Now you talk a lot about identifying as an underdog. Let's bust that myth that always being yourself as the underdog is actually good motivation.

Mary Marantz [00:18:42] Well, I mean. Well, first of all, just. Yes, first, I'll just say, like, it is good motivation in the sense of it will motivate you. But in terms of good, healthy, long term motivation, I actually I think that kind of goes back to this idea of like the wolf and how we just keep twisting the thorn. And there's a part in Slow Growth where I talk about how we have this currency of confirmation bias and the filter that we see the world through, or more to the point, the filter that tells us how the world sees us, that we start to look for that and we find it everywhere because we're looking for it. And I say, you know, my filter does not like me to talk to it much about these stories where I wasn't left out, where I wasn't discounted, where I wasn't the person standing alone, you know, on the sidelines in the room while everybody else got chosen. Because like Marty McFly, his family disappearing from the four corners of an image. It can't survive if you change the story, you're telling yourself too much. [00:19:43]And so if you spend your whole life telling yourself a story that you are the underdog, you will always be chosen last. You always have to rise up. To a certain extent, it will serve you well. But then you reach a point where you've gotten away from scarcity, from survival, you've moved more into stability and even tasting success. I believe you will never truly cross over into a place of significance in your life if you continue to nurse that underdog filter of yourself because you cannot become a person of significance if you're always worried about you if you're always worried about what everybody else in the room is thinking of you. Until you find a more solid identity that says even if nobody else in the room gives me their approval or their sanction or taps me on the forehead or invites me to the table, there is a plan and a purpose for my life. I have this combination of gifts and story that I have been called to show up and serve. And so I believe you can climb your way out of survival, all the way even up to seeing success with the underdog story over your life, this filter over your life. But we only move into significance when we turn that filter outward, and that involves being willing to give up these old stories we've told about ourselves. [74.5s]

Jessica Honegger [00:20:59] What was your journey like to giving up that that particular story?

Mary Marantz [00:21:04] Well, it's ongoing. I will say that I write in Slow Growth, that achieving is like it's not something that you give up once and then you're done forever. Like anything you've become addicted to. It's over and over one day at a time. And that in particular, that underdog filter this achieving for success achieving for worth it has a really sneaky way of you get it under control, come in through the front door and it slips in the side door. So you get it under control in your business, your marriage, motherhood, whatever the case may be, and you think you got it, you know, kicked and then something else comes in. So moving from a photography business for 15 years to writing books where there literally lists the checklists of success, it's definitely been a daily check in a daily checking my motives.

Jessica Honegger [00:21:53] I am interrupting for a hot second because I didn't realize that you left photography to become a full time writer. I thought you were parallel pathing that to tell me a little bit about that.

Mary Marantz [00:22:05] Yeah, we are definitely parallel pathing the two. We are, we are and will always be photographers. We semi-retired not even semi-retired from wedding photography, which was a big part of our business. But we're very much still into editorial and studio photography. A lot of the images you see in Slow Growth were taken in our studio or we traveled to Venice, Italy for a bunch of them, and we are very, very much photography educators. We just relaunched our one of our lighting courses. So it's just been like closing the door on this one thing we were very known for a very long time. Yeah.

Jessica Honegger [00:22:42] How did you pivot that? What did that look like practically?

Mary Marantz [00:22:45] Yeah, that's a great question. I actually hired a coach named Kim Butler from the Whiteboard Room in 2014 or 15 and told her that the real dream had always been to write books. And I had backed myself into a life that was very, very successful. And my calendar was so crowded with the good that there was no room for the great. And we were going to have to do some serious work to scale back because, you know, you book weddings a year or two years out. So we were going to have to really put that plan in place and workshops and traveling to speak at conferences. There was a lot of really good I had to let go of in order to make room for this great. And I told her in our first meeting pecan trees, [00:23:25]I just watched a Candace Cameron Bure movie where they talk about pecan trees will grow and grow and overproduce so much fruit in their lives that they will actually break themselves and half their back will break under the weight of it. And I said to her, I'm a pecan tree and I'm about to break in half from all these good things. And she said to me, that is because you are putting the hope in the fruit and not the one who grew it. And so I really had to be willing to let other people take speaking opportunities and turn down weddings and say no to very lucrative workshops to create the space and the silence that the words required. [38.5s]

Jessica Honegger [00:24:05] Okay. And then you start writing. And I mean, I know, good lord, I thought, oof, I am not a three on the Enneagram as I know that you are. And so I often hear some achievers and it's like it can show up similarly for a seven on the Enneagram, where we kind of just chase the next thing. But the it's coming from a little bit of a different place. It's coming from this idea of freedom. Like if I had more, I would be more free, more free. And so it creates this constant discontentment because what is freedom, right? Like, yeah, you know. And so I think that when I wrote Imperfect Courage, you know, sometimes when you do something from that pure heart of like, I can't believe I get to do this. I'm like, I get to do this. And it's that deep gratitude and humility and just like, oh, my God, I just, I mean, I just I can even believe I got a book contract and that feeling of, like, I just get to do this. And then somewhere along the way, I lost that. I lost it so hard. And I think it's because I had a couple of significantly good friends running this race with me who had, by the way, written a million books before me, but they were becoming New York Times bestseller. And so there is like a literal gold star in this world of being a writer. It's called The New York Times best selling list. And for some reason, first time authors that are friends with other authors that have achieved this somehow think like I, and it's very much it's a mysterious gig, right? Like no one knows exactly how you get it. It has to do with like book sales, but a million other things happening at the same time that are completely out of your control. And I was surprised to find that I started off on this beautiful, pure journey of I can't believe I get to do this to launching my book and finding disappointment, ingratitude, entitlement. Oh, my God. I can't believe I didn't get on that interview and I can't believe I didn't get make that list. But I made that list. But it's not enough because I didn't make that one. And man, that caught me off guard and it was hard for me to even find my way back to just that that joy of like it's like when you land your first huge photography gig, right? And you're like, Oh my God, I can't believe I got this. And then somehow you start pushing the boulder up the mountain and you're like, but I need more, but I need more. And I think for you it comes more from like Gold Star equals worthiness. You know, you achieve more then you find yourself more worthy in other people's eyes, you know? And for me, it's like, gosh, if I just get further, then maybe I'll finally get to like rest or travel more or shop more or whatever it is, whatever the more is. Right. So what's that been like for you? Because that is it is it's a lot to go from leaving behind something that you're obviously you've got the gold stars to prove it and then use begin writing, which is a very vulnerable process. And like you say, it comes in the side door. What's it been like for you holding those tensions now? 

Mary Marantz [00:27:13] Well, you know, what's really funny is for a very, very long time, I did think I was in the Enneagram three and the last time we talked, that's what I told you my answer was because that's what I thought I was, but there were. I suppose the more I started to read about enneagram threes, there were things in the description of it that I was like, Nope, that makes no sense to me. Like, for example, an Enneagram three can be a very big social chameleon where they figure out who you need to be to win in a certain circumstances. They can adapt to it very quickly. And I'm like, No, the opposite of that. Like, I only know how to be one, like to the, to the point of often thought it was like a flaw to not have a such a fierce, you know, version of myself that I only know how to show up as an introvert as me. You'd be off in the corner having deep conversations while everyone else is having fun. And so Ian Morgan Chron was on my show and he said you should look up self preserving for where they achieve to get to safety. But authenticity, integrity, excellence, originality, these are their driving.

Jessica Honegger [00:28:12] Motivations.

Mary Marantz [00:28:13] Values, motivation.

Jessica Honegger [00:28:14] Self preserving.

Mary Marantz [00:28:15] Well.

Jessica Honegger [00:28:16] That makes a lot of sense. Now you're a photographer. You're an artist, right?

Mary Marantz [00:28:20] Yeah. So that that helped a lot right there, first of all. But you know, what's interesting is what you're describing, you know, it's sometimes it feels like my wing is like, you know, 49%.

Jessica Honegger [00:28:32] It's like. Right. Totally.

Mary Marantz [00:28:34] And so this idea of you need the more and the more. You get on this path. You book your first gig, you get your first opportunity. I get to do this, and then it becomes like second nature. Like, Oh, it's no big deal. It's kind of reminds me of throughout Slow Growth, I introduced these different characters of the woman always performing. There's the performer, the tightrope walker, the contortionist, the mask reader and the illusionist, and the distance and the tightrope walker is that one she is living for the bigger and bigger dopamine hits, and she needs the bigger swings of the high highs, even if she hits the lower lows because she just needs a bigger hit in order for it to feel the same as the first time.

Jessica Honegger [00:29:17] Yeah. So true. Yeah. I think as you're describing me, I want to hide right now under a blanket.

Mary Marantz [00:29:26] Well, it's so interesting because like the performer, which is what I think I am, she needs to achieve goals both for how she feels about herself and how other people feel about her. She needs to show people how far she's come. The tightrope walker could care less who's clapping. She just needs the bigger swings, the bigger because the celebration window gets shorter and shorter between, like, got that thing. And I see this in myself too. I bet a lot of people resonate. How long does it take from email comes in and you get the best news ever? Happy dance up and down to your brain goes, okay, what's next?

Jessica Honegger [00:29:57] Oh, totally. I was shopping with my kids yesterday and one of my kids was about to spend money on these new Nike shoes. And I just reminded him I was like, This is going to give you a hit. It's going to give you a dopamine hit. It's going to feel real good. So why don't you sleep on it for a few days before you decide to spend your money on this? Because that hit it's it hits hard, it feels good and it goes away like, I don't know, with maybe about a month or two.

Mary Marantz [00:30:25] Oh, my. I you know, I wish it was a month or two for me at this point because I'll tell you what, I will order something online that I like think about it like, Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so glad I order that thing. And by the time the shipping notification.

Jessica Honegger [00:30:36] Well, that's true too. I mean, I get things that I'm like, I don't really remember this. I do like how my kid responded, though. He goes, Well, I get the hit from wearing the shoes and I was like, Well, that's good then. That's good. But anyway, I just yeah, it's I relate I relate to that. You're right. It can be it can be a very tight window.

Mary Marantz [00:30:54] [00:30:54]So there's this part in Slow Growth that also really resonates with what we're talking about, where I say I sometimes feel like I have two versions of myself. The problem is one is nested inside the other. There's this inner core version that is at peace. I know what I was created for. I know what I was put here to do, the use of my gifts in service to others for your ultimate glory for the rest of my life. That's it. And then that version of me gets, like, spiritual amnesia, and it's like, surrounded by this other, like, almost like those nesting dolls. It's surrounded by this other version that is just one big kind of picture those suits they put people in when they're going to do like really intense CGI with like the sensors everywhere, you know, it's like one a bunch of raw nerve endings out into the world and every little shift of cool air can send me screaming into, I need more, any more, any more. And I say, That version of me is insatiable. That version of me, there aren't enough stacks of sweaters, you know, or I have stacks of sweaters so big there could never be enough versions of me to wear. [59.5s] And, you know, I'm the I'm the ultimate top cookie seller getting everybody around me addicted to these sugary sweet hits and highs, these, you know, merit badges of honor that I wear like a sash. Right. And so it's like this idea of like we sort of walk around as two versions of ourselves, the one that really is at peace, knowing what we were called to do, and that it will all unfold in its own perfect timing, exactly as it's supposed to and what is for us will not pass us by. That version is just inside this maniac with all these raw nerve endings. We don't really know how to silence yet.

Jessica Honegger [00:32:29] And so what do we do?

Mary Marantz [00:32:30] [00:32:30]Well, honestly, for me, I think it's been about the way that that book kicks off is with what I call the inciting incident. And I say our inciting incident is this at last exhausted and just got a really cool thing that most people don't realize is that the way Slow Growth kicks off the passage I'm referring to is actually one of the very last passages of Dirt where I thought, this is the end of the hero's journey. I thought it was about making peace with the past. It was tying everything up in this nice little bow. And as soon as I handed that book in, I realized that we're only to that point of no return. We're only about halfway through the journey, and that becomes the inciting incident that says this at a certain point, breathless and at last exhausted. You double over at the pain of a lifetime spent proving you've run so hard for so long. You've gone so far out into the world trying to be enough of something, right? Only to find out these chains, these heavy chains around your ankles you never asked to bear dragging around are this: no matter how hard you run, you can't outrun you. And so you have to start to make peace. It has to be an inside job. Piece with your story, piece with your past, peace with these things you think disqualify you. Realizing the things you think completely take you out of the race are actually the things other people find the most interesting about you. You know, for me is being an introvert, having grown up in a trailer, it's feeling all the deep feelings and everything has to be so like, let's think about our whole lives before we go on stage. Like for my people, the people who really, truly need me in the world, I wouldn't do what I need to for them without those things, you know? Yeah. So I think it's just making peace with how we were made and that that story. Me that story that you're just so terrified for anybody to find out like that is a crucial piece in the puzzle to you becoming this version of you that was always in mind. [117.2s]

Jessica Honegger [00:34:28] Okay, that's your next book is an inside job. It's an inside job.

Mary Marantz [00:34:32] Dude.

Jessica Honegger [00:34:33] There you go.

Mary Marantz [00:34:34] Okay. That might have to happen. That's very good. Oh.

Jessica Honegger [00:34:39] Well, thank you so much for joining us today. And I mean, I absolutely love both of your books, your most recent ones. Slow Growth Equals Strong Roots: Finding Grace, Freedom, and Purpose in an Overachieving World. And then, of course, your first book, Dirt, a beautifully written memoir. So thankful to have you on the show, Mary.

Mary Marantz [00:34:59] Oh, my gosh. I got so excited. Finally, I like punched to the microphone. That's how good that was. Thank you so much for having me. And you will definitely get all the interior credits for that.

Jessica Honegger [00:35:19] Our music for today's show is by my good friend Ellie Holcomb. And I'm Jessica Honegger. Until next time, which it's going to be a few months, let's take each other by the hand and keep going scared.