Latest / MESSmerized - Funny and faith based encouragement in marriage , family , Christian parenting , and finding purpose / Episode 136: Underestimated, Overthinking, and Showing Up Anyway with Mary Marantz

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Episode 136: Underestimated, Overthinking, and Showing Up Anyway with Mary Marantz · MESSmerized - Funny and faith based encouragement in marriage , family , Christian parenting , and finding purpose

• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is Cynthia Gannolk, and you are listening to the mesmerized podcast.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey guys, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So glad you're here.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: You guys, today Mary Morance is on the podcast, and this is like one of those interviews that just falls into your lap, and then you're like, what a gem.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: What an amazing lady.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I call her lady, and she's really a fraction of my age, so there's that.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we get to talk today with her about her roots and growing up in poverty and how that shaped who she is today.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love this on her book cover, the book is called Dirt.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: She says, because God does his best work in the muddy, messy and broken, it will only learn to dig in.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: man, what a good line.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're gonna talk about that, but then we're also gonna talk a lot about feeling underestimated.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what does that look like when we feel like we're not enough?
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what is the fear behind that?
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And how do we make this shift?
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And to doing the things God calls us to do?
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm thrilled for you to get to meet her.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're not familiar with her, like I was not, she's amazing.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so this is gonna be a fun interview.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope it's a challenging interview.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And also guys, thanks again for all the support of my book, how do I miss that?
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't have your copy, please, please, please, grab one.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: It would mean so much to me.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you do have one, and you're reading it, and would like to jump on and leave a review on Amazon or wherever you got it, that would be huge.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Help so many people find us.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And y'all have already been doing that because the reviews have been amazing and so encouraging.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So thank you for that, guys.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, appreciate all the support.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm glad you're here because we are gonna get a good word today from Mary Moranz.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Here we go.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mary, welcome to mesmerize, how are you?
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, Cynthia, thank you so much for having me.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: We just got to sort of turn the tables a little bit because I just got to have the huge honor I have in you on my show.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Mary, we're in show and so now I get to be in the hot seat.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's so fun.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was fun because I really, we have no overlap, but we have a mutual friend, Heather McFadion.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she kind of connected us.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we decided we were going to chat and I'm so glad because it's been fun and fun to friendship.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And tell everybody kind of where you live.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: As everyone knows, I'm in Texas.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're world's apart.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: You and I, so tell everybody about that.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I currently, I mean, currently, and for the last 20 years, live in New Haven, Connecticut, I grew up in West Virginia, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but you know, haven't for, it feels like home now, I've been here so long, and we are frozen over.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: We were just, we took a quick walk outside, and we are like the day after tomorrow outside, they're like 18 inch thick chunks of huge ice, the whole sound is frozen over, we live right on the water here in Connecticut, and it's, I've never seen it like this before in my life, and it's been like that for like 10 days now.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, but you don't lose electricity and have that whole nonsense like we do in Texas or do we're pretty lucky we're on like a there's a fire house at the end of our street So we're like a you know first wave if the power goes out we get it back the first So we don't we don't usually yeah have the trouble with that and they do a good job keeping the trees trim back things like that
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, when I was on your show, we talked to how we have one thing, one more than one, but one thing in common, we both went to law school.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And neither would have as practice law.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I did for a little while.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: You didn't ever practice law.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Did you?
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just in the summer, I did a summer, I split my summer between a law firm and London and one in New York City.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was plenty.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was all you needed.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just going to brag on you.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you went to gay law.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: You weren't messing around.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: You went and did the thing.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you had incredible job offers.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's right.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yet you went a different road.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're going to work through that.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, let's not keep everybody wondering including myself,
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, to be fair, I always, I never intended to become a lawyer when I went to law school.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was going to become a law professor.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Cynthia, I don't know if you had this, but so when I was in my undergrad, my professors were the least incredible mentors.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: They felt like friends when I did a master's in England.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: They, you know, we would hang out at the pub and talk about my thesis or what have you.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And law school started to feel there's so much pressure on the professors to publish.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's that whole publisher parish mentality.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: that it started to feel more transactional, like, you know, research from my next book and I'll write you a recommendation.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's just not what I love about teaching.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was in and very quickly knew that the path that I thought I was going there to pursue was not it.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for Yale, it's very, very hard to get in, but once you're in, it's actually very air quotes easy to stay in because a lot of people don't realize Yale is actually past fail.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, which they do kind of like bring down some of the competition of these very type A plus plus plus overachievers.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I definitely knew I wanted to finish that out and see that all the way through.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I did graduate, but I during that time met my husband Justin who had just graduated photography school and we were like, could we ditch all of this and choose the road less traveled and build a photography business?
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Could we do this?
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so when I graduated I had those law firm offers $150,000 plus bonuses plus benefits on one hand and then Starting a photography business without a penny to our name or a clue what we were doing But we chose an ordinary we always say it's not a word.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a real word.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I made it up But we chose an ordinary And that you know as Robert Frost would tell us although I think that poem supposed to mean it doesn't actually make all the difference But it has felt like it made all the difference and
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I don't know about you, but I look back like I did flex law for a while, but it wasn't my wheelhouse and I've said this many times like when you're doing things that are within your giftings or God given giftings, it's just a whole different deal and for law like I mean I think the partners I worked with probably said I was a good lawyer I can tell you I was not like I don't feel like it came naturally I felt like I
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It just wasn't my sweet spot, but then when I was willing to go to the place where God called me to do and do something different, like it just feels so much more natural and so much more at ease.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's hard, especially I'm listening to your story, it's hard when by the world standards, like you've got the job, you've got the offers, you've got the degree, but then by your
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Heart standards and faith standards like this isn't it and just kind of balancing those two things.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's really hard.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I pray over my kids all the time that they'll they'll chase after the things they were designed to do it not the things the world says you should be doing.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the world says you should be doing as a very, like let's underline that sentence because for the person at home listening and you maybe went to school for something else, you've already gone a few years down the road of pursuing something else.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's the fallacy called the fallacy of sunk costs and it tells you you cannot turn back.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: You cannot Ross Geller's to help pivot, you know?
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what I always say to people is,
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: None of it will be wasted.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You carry all of it with you.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the law, well, you know, I have a really good contract.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have a really good contract with my publisher because I have a lot of background, right?
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the digital marketing I learned is a photographer when we started doing courses, carries, or like it all carries over.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Cindy and when I first announced, you know, and this was even like pre-
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I guess Facebook had just started at the time when I first announced meaning I told my family and it sort of spread through this small town That I was not going to take the law firm offers and I was going to become a wedding photographer instead.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of Shot-in-foyda German word
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: where we take pleasure and other people seemingly stumbling and there was a lot of like both the golden girl has stumbled kind of a feeling.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I, you know, part of what I talk about in my most recent book underestimated.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So dirt, my first book tells the story of growing up in West Virginia and a single-wide trailer and going to Yale Law School.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this book sort of talks about how I've all my life used other people doubting me as sort of the jet fuel to propel me forward
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I would say that's, you know, like the do it, regardless of what the world tells you, do it in spite of what the world, you know, mocks about you choosing the road that doesn't make sense to them.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: You'll meet them later, you know, like just while when they snark, you'll meet them later.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we have to find a way to separate ourselves from like almost manufacturing that kind of underdog status when we need it.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's not actually happening to us just to move us forward.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a good point because I think that you would think like if people underestimate you and we'll get to that in a minute, but that you're going to say, well, I'll show you and that propels it, but yeah, propel yourself into what complete burnout and and at the end of the day, I mean, I, I've spent time, I'm a people pleaser unfortunately and I've spent a lot of time trying to prove myself and please people and only to get on the other side and realize like,
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: One, I'm not sure they even noticed.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure they've thought about me in 15 years, but I'm still trying to like outlive that comment.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Someone said, when I was in high school, and I'm in a place that wrong, and at what expense?
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I love that.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's, but let's go back in your first book, Dirt.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love that you talk about your background, because listen, you came from rural West Virginia, like you said, single wide trailer.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: to Yale.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's quite, um, that's quite a journey.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just wondering, like, what did, what did, what did growing up?
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I assume in poverty, like, what did that, um, instilling you good and bad, maybe?
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I, I'm so glad you said single-eyed trailer.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like to really like emphasize that point.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you have any picture in your head at all right now, like a nice, shiny double wide with the permanent foundation, this is not what that was.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's not what that was at all.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was no scurting around it.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: None of that.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: No.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, in fact, if you go to thebook.dirt.com, you can see the actual, the trailer on the cover is the actual trailer I grew up in.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting this word poverty.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's something I've learned in writing about, you know, writing my story into talking to other people who had hard stories.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've realized there are a lot of different kinds of poverty.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you can you can have the tension of having experienced one but very much not the other and it can become very confusing in terms of owning your muddy story.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So for example, I never had I wouldn't really say we ever had like poverty of food.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: We didn't always eat like we had sweet eight squirrel.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to lie about that we ate squirrel.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So maybe maybe a little bit of Texas.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that I'm that offended, but I mean I never eat.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: You get it, you get it, you know, and a lot of Venice in or what have you, which is, you know, fancy in the right restaurant, right?
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's not talk about it.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, but I for sure had poverty of home of house.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the roof was caving in, the floor that was caving in, it wreaked of mildew, we had snakes and mice and roaches and maggots and the sink very often.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So,
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Poverty of home for sure, but not poverty of love, not poverty of opportunity.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't say, and not poverty of food.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now I have another friend who did grow up in a really shiny, pretty, no one would ever guess, double white trailer.
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: They had food scarcity all the time.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think you're different on that, the poverty and what it shapes in you is the good and the bad.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's I think most of our,
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you think about most of our strengths are probably on a spectrum with most of our biggest vices or our biggest weaknesses, our biggest pitfalls, right?
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I have incredible work at, you know, ethic, I have grits and tenacity and I'll do it myself and like, you know, go ahead, underestimate me.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: That'll be fun.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then it takes into the other extreme, it turns into burnout and achieving for my worse and not feeling like I can be anything separate from the latest gold star.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: If I go too long without the latest gold star, it feels like I can't breathe.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: The achieving is our oxygen.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think those of us who didn't grow without a lot one way or another.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: This switch gets flipped in us.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is our Bible mode switch, Cynthia.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think we have a really hard time figuring out how to turn it off.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, did you grow up ashamed of your status in life?
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Was that something that you kind of fought back against?
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: What that look like in school and elementary years?
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Junior high years, high school years, especially like how did that play?
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I would say that like generally speaking, the area I grew up in, like nobody except for like one or two families I can think of, or just had a lot of money period.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, it's been so interesting after I launched dirt.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got a message from the girl who was a year ahead of me in high school.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: She, my junior year, the start of my junior year, she was head cheerleader.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was Coke.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: cocapped and co-head cheerleader.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we both were like, we had no idea.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: We had no idea.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: She had a little shack of a house.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I lived in a trailer.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: She had no idea.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that anybody who did see the trailer, they probably weren't little surprised, but it wasn't a huge deal.
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: But my very best friend growing up was one of those families who had a bunch of money.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were really smart with their money.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: She got a new car when she turned 16.
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: They would drive to the state capital to do the school clothes shopping, the good jeans equal a good life, you know.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I would say that being friends with her and seeing what could have been is when I started to develop some of that, oh, this is something to feel shame about.
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, how did that go with your family like you get in Yale?
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is there resentment around you like in your family or extended relatives or people like, let's cheer on, let's go, do you have guilt for leaving and going a different road?
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: How did that work?
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I'll just tell them.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, the full answer is, my dad, it was a very interesting tension because he was like, you are going to college, you are getting out.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is no question, don't I don't hear it.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: But to him getting out meant to go to West Virginia University, which is where I did my undergrad.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was getting out of our small mountain community.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I suddenly go there and the world starts to open up to me and I start to see what's possible and then I'm applying to law school's outside of the state and he didn't like that at all.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like all the best in the brightest leave the state and then you know how does how does like this law school ever get a better reputation or whatever and it has a great reputation.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying it doesn't, but if all the best in the brightest leave like that, basic kind of sentiment.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so there was a real tension when it was like, get out, but whoa, not that far, you know.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, there were definitely more like cousins of cousins who had comments about, you know, all your acting higher than your raising or what have you.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in dirt, I talk about this idea of leaving, can feel like a betrayal.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we always talk about just when the caterpillar thought her life was ending, she became a butterfly.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what I've always said is, I wonder if it hurts the caterpillar.
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: right, I wonder if it feels like you have to completely disintegrate to become something new.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's a yes, yes, and yes.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I felt guilt.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: There were people who made it feel like a betrayal.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It did create like, whoa, what are you talking about?
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And my dad has since apologized and said, you know, I was really wrong when I told you not to apply.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because now he's like the biggest champion, of course, of the fact that I did go to Yale for a law school, but, and the time it was a
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so as you can look back on just your upbringing, would you change it?
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like if you could, would you, would you grow up?
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, if you could pick, would you have picked to be raised in a more fluent household?
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or what would that look like for you?
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just wondering, the lessons from the dirt so to speak.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I'm going to say it's an answer that has evolved.
• 15:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a moving target.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when I was in the trailer, oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a scene in dirt where I talk about starting to go to church with that family.
• 15:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just described my friends' family and getting baptized in their Baptist church hoping that when I came out of that water, I'd be more Baptist than best, which is my maiden name, meaning it felt like God had his favorites and they were Ed and we weren't.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so if I could be more like them than I would be blessed too.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so there was like a heck yes, I would have changed my story in high school.
• 15:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then we get into this like, no, it built me, gave me the empathy and the grit and the tenacity and all of that.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then as I start to have more nuanced wisdom.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: lenses to look at my story.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's still the answer, but there is new ones around the edges of But it man did it come with years of trying to achieve for my worth feeling like the underdog feeling like I had a chip of my shoulder Feeling like I had something to prove and my husband Justin comes from the polar opposite background I once said did you have any traumas in your childhood and he was like
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: We had a mouse in the kitchen once, and I was like, no, that does not count, but it's not.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so, but because I have been able to witness how he then shows up with zero ego,
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: and with all serving heart and so rock solid stable in his emotions like he doesn't have to wake up every day and like unpack all of this healing first, there is a part of me that feels like that might be better.
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not an easy yes or no, right?
• 17:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and I think as people are seeing this that are raising kids and I know you don't have children, you have you have fur babies.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, but I think that there's this tendency to want
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: everything to be perfect for your kids.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And to you're willing to, I mean, hopefully not, but people are willing to go into debt to be in the right house and to do sell this or that or live without to get in the right school, I'll air quote whatever that right school is and all these things that we convince ourselves, this is the path and if they don't have all these things, and if we don't provide them, we've somehow let them down and
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I talked in my last book a little bit about just how my middle son had some learning stuff going on and how I prayed and prayed and prayed Mary that the Lord would take that away.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I did not want him to have that.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And how now it sees in college I'm like it's made a man he is like he is hardworking because he's had to be.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: because school is an easy, he is empathetic, he's kind, because he knows what it's like to feel like you're not as worthy, like you're not enough, and so obviously on a different level, a different kind of poverty perhaps, like you said, than what you grew up with, you get still filling that inadequacy.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I see it now as he's in college, like just,
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: what a great kid he is but I also can see some of what he carries from feeling not quite enough when he was younger and I just wonder for someone listening to this it's like still wrestling with their inadequacies like financially socially, educationally like spiritually what would you say to them about you just how God can build you from the dirt and how to kind of reconcile those things.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so there's a part in dirt where I say, you know, growing up without a lot just does something to your brain.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it's the prefrontal cortex, still developing or bad generational thoughts, turn bad generational patterns over time.
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, maybe it's just inhaling all the mildew.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: But whatever it is, it makes you expect to fail before you even start call it poverty mentality, self-doubt, self-loathing, scarcity mindset.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever it is, it makes you believe that whatever you do, you will never be enough.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I care, you know, that these two books dirt and underestimated are really kind of bookends, like if dirt is sort of the movie of my life underestimated is the textbook.
• 19:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Chapter by chapter, it goes through all of those different things that when we have a story, we believe there's something in our story that disqualifies us before we even begin, whether that's poverty or you made it really bad mistake or you went through a
• 19:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, not, you're being wild and partying.
• 19:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever it is, I don't know.
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: You but you feel like if they only knew if I were ever found out then I'd be kicked out of the club, right?
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Fear lives loves to live at that crosshair intersection where your gifts meet your story.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it knows that it has to attack you on both fronts because if it only takes you out on one, the other can still make an impact.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: My friend Kim Butler says our greatest points of impacts will come from our deepest places of empathy.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, when you are feeling disqualified by your story, when you're feeling like there's something that takes you out before you even begin, what I say to you is pay attention to that.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: If fear is showing up in your life telling you that takes you out, that's probably where you could be used the most because fear wouldn't bother with you if this work you were about to do didn't matter so much.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So,
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I would start there.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a good word.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think from a Christian perspective too, I think that being in a place of feeling inadequate and not good enough in knowing that
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: You really can't do this without God.
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's exactly where he shows up and he uses you the most.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we see historically, all throughout the Bible, people who have said, like, you know, we've got Moses.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't speak and God's like, yeah, I know.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna, we're good.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you see, just person after person after person that's like, I'm not good enough.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not qualified and God's like, yeah, you're exactly, I will qualify you.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you're in a spot where I need you.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's a lot of it in our lives.
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I see people and I know you did too, Mary,
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: have had everything growing up and they have all the right education and they have all the, I mean, on paper, you know, the resume that you're like, how are they not the most successful people?
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it doesn't always work that way, right?
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like that's just not how it always goes.
• 21:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, um, let's flip over to underestimated and before we, before we lodge totally into that, tell everybody what you do now and I probably should have asked that up front, but I know, but tell everybody, kind of, what is your, what is your, what are your
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I, so I'm a pretty full-time author at this point in 2019 after running my photography business with Justin for, at that point, it would have been, um, 3rd, 15 years, I guess.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I signed with my publisher for five books.
• 21:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've got since added another one, so it's six books.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Total, um, the fourth one comes out this October.
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I spend most of my days doing that so that I consider that like an offer business which includes for me the umbrella of hosting my own podcast doing a lot of recordings and reading books to prep for that.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Show notes and, you know, audio games and all that stuff.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I coach people who want to write books and want to have podcasts and want to even just unpack their muddy story that fear really is keeping them stuck.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: They sort of keep dropping the boulder at the very last minute just as they get to the top of that mountain and they don't know why they keep starting over.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm also speaker so that like those things are just sort of like the normal like check the box check the box and I don't want anybody to hear that and go oh okay, so you don't understand you know what my day to day is like I would say like the common thread among this whole story is that I spend my days.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: telling stories and helping other people tell their stories, whether that was as a photographer and entrepreneur, even just somebody who was a philosophy major in college and my master's, like, I just really like to ask a lot of questions and find out people's answers.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's that's pretty much where I am now.
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no law.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I've been on a podcast.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: She asked great questions.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I will say I think that's with a law equipped to me with.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll tell you that it taught me a lot.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I took a lot of Devositions and that's what a podcast is.
• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ask questions and listen and ask another question.
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so.
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so let's talk about this underestimated and I was thinking about this.
• 23:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am around girls all the time and guys, but girls in particular that I'm close with that totally underestimate themselves, but I don't think they know what they do.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: They don't even recognize that, and I'm like, wow, and so I'm just curious if someone's listening and they're like, I don't think I'm interested in myself, but what does that look like?
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned fear earlier, like, what are some of the inditia?
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Boy, that was a totally weird, by the way, inditia?
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are some of the, what's your question?
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, what's the right word for that?
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are some characteristics?
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what normal people say that.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Don't have PTSD from law school.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are some characteristics that you can look at and say, hey, I might be underestimating myself if I constantly go back to X, Y, or Z.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, okay, so I got this right here.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here we go, ready?
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody listening, let's just get her bingo cards out.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's go.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's all been done.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's all been no matter.
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's all been no my somebody the world actually wants to pay attention to.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't start until it's perfect.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't start until I'm perfect.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if I start in the critics come?
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if they say who do she think she is?
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if I start and I can't stay consistent with it?
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if I don't have the band with right now?
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if I fail?
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if I follow my face and I prove to every single person who ever said that I could never do it that they were right about me all along.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if my voice doesn't matter?
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if I don't really matter?
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if it's already too late?
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the whole book of underestimated is premonced on this idea of what if fear is actually a really boring liar That he has like a certain set of madlips scripts that he uses on every single one of us and What if in particular fear attacks people who do creative work because he's jealous that he himself is not creative at all
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: That he really just, you know, if you go back 2,000 years, he's using really these same, you know, you're not qualified, your voice doesn't matter Moses, right?
• 24:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's really been using the same scripts over and over, and so what's very powerful about that is if you're listening and you're like, oh dang, maybe I am, you're in this question, it's on repeat.
• 24:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, I do start to go try to do something and suddenly everything goes wrong, man, fear really is pretty boring.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that the second you can start to name it like if the whole work of underestimates or chapter by chapter we go through what I consider the most common faces of fear and posture syndrome over thinking, perfectionism, procrastination, even a fear of success, 14 faces in total.
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if I can give you these really memorable sort of like quirky analogies, like there's one where I talk about how Edward Siserhands represents people who second guess ourselves because we feel like we're walking around in the world without all the pertinent parts.
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: We never got this missing handbook for life.
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: If I can give you those short cuts, you know, abbreviations for fear, then you can catch it mid-syllable.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because like you said, most of the time we're walking around, we don't even realize it's happening because the fish don't know the water's toxic.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're so submerged in it.
• 25:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't even realize it.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if we can start to see how predictable and boring fear is, we can use that weakness against it, Cynthia, to go, how about we predict that when it shows up, we must be on the right track, fear just showed up.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: good.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're about to do work that matters.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's that's what I would say.
• 26:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if you think you don't have some underestimation or some fear in your life, just go down that list and see how many you can check off.
• 26:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's so good.
• 26:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, you know, I don't know if this is actually numerically correct where they talk about inscriptions or how there's like, you know, 365 fear not because right?
• 26:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's something to fear every single day.
• 26:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would guess there's somebody's listening, and I would just want to break this down practically.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: If the Lord's calling you to do something like, for me, it was foster care back in the day, but somebody's listening to us and they're like, I think I could probably teach the Bible say, but I'm not good enough, or I could give the money to this or whatever, but I don't know our finances.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's something we're all...
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: wanting to do we feel this urge to do this whatever this is you know the Lord calling us into and then we kind of shrink back and that's what I'm hoping we're looking at is this shrinking back because I'm just going to say straight up and the culture we live in we need Christians do the Christian things and to be able to
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: do the things you're called to do that are hard and that you don't feel qualified to do and good enough to do.
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if we can't step in and recognize fear and this underestimated mentality, then we're not going to get the job done.
• 27:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I was thinking about a quote I read in your book, it said, most people have a tendency to over-exaggerate other people's successes and minimize their own.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, over idealizing others and I thought that was like a good word because I, I mean, I do that.
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you not, I see other podcasts or something like, well, they're just better at it or, you know, they just, I mean, I tend to, um, or I think, you know, they've just got a better, bigger platform because they relate better to people and you just start looking at all the things, um, and, and just to soon.
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: that their successes are just so much bigger than ours, but then there's somebody that's looking at your podcast or mine or whatever and like thinking the same thing it's cyclical never ends and so I'm just wondering talk to us about this this our tendency to overexaggerate people successes and minimize their own yeah.
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, over idealizing others is really about this belief that no matter what we do, someone else will always show up better.
• 28:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I tell this very quick story about the time, I ended up pulling an all-nighter to pack for a two-day trip, which is not recommended, okay?
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: The backstory is as in college, I was on the debate team, I went to college on a debate scholarship,
• 28:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we were flying in January from West Virginia to Miami to a tournament.
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that sounds incredible in many ways.
• 28:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that means you have to like pack for Miami in January.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, she's been in sweaters and sweatshirts all winter long.
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now you're like breaking out the spaghetti straps or whatever.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then on top of that, winter storm blew through and knocked out of the power out.
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So now I'm trying to pack by flashlights and complete darkness for Miami.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: from West Virginia in January, and I just had a complete spiral, a complete spiral, and I decided I needed to pull out like every stitch of clothing I have, to try, you know, like the sort of like Marie condo, gone away.
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, to range Marie condo, this does not spark joy.
• 29:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever process of elimination to try to figure out, like I needed to make sure I looked at every single option and not made a mistake in forgetting to bring something because I just knew I was going to get there and somebody else would have just somehow known they would have gotten the memo of what to wear to show a better.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's that feeling of like they're all going to know and I'm not because we all feel like we're going to walk in and not belong And so we take that and then we amplify it out if it's not just about the clothes We suddenly believe they would never make that mistake with their business They would know how to grow this faster They would be more like they would be more outgoing in the room somebody would rather hear from them anyway
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we look at, you know, I think this is one of the biggest sources of imposter syndrome is we have to live our lives in real time, second by second, and fully bear witness in a front row seat to the messy middle.
• 30:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we are only ever seeing other people's finished products.
• 30:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we go, it's this messy for me, it's that shiny for them, let me just bow out, it's all been done, it's all been done better, it's all been done by somebody the world actually wants to pay attention to.
• 30:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that can silence so many incredible voices because there's this whole other group of people who never worry too much about that They're just like what like it's hard And they never even pause to consider whether they should stay silent and so they get louder and we get quieter
• 30:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and here's the reality of it, somebody probably will be better.
• 30:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, at the end of the day, let's just shoot.
• 30:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right?
• 30:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Somebody probably will be there probably at any given moment as to one better at the thing that you're thinking, man, I wish I could do that.
• 30:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's okay.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's the beauty of not having scarcity complex.
• 30:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, that doesn't mean that I don't have to be thank goodness.
• 30:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have to be the best lawyer to still be effective and representing a client that needed that, right?
• 31:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't have to be the best author to still point to biblical truth and people to be like, wow, that meant something to me.
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, there's room for all of that.
• 31:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that we live in these extremes.
• 31:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd love to know if you have seen this, but these extremes of if I can't be the top, then I don't want to be anything.
• 31:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not because we're all, like some people like you and I have those personalized, we're like, I want to be the best.
• 31:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think somebody is listening and saying, well, I don't really think that, but I do think most of us think that, like, well, to your point, it's already been done, somebody can do it better than me.
• 31:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, they've got a bigger platform.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: They've got whatever the thing is, they're more artistic or they know the Bible better.
• 31:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, maybe that doesn't disqualify you from still being able to do the thing that you were designed to do.
• 31:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know what I've been thinking about so much lately, Cynthia is, um, the Olympics are going on as we're recording this and I've been like for for two weeks every four years my entire personality becomes figure skating.
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm planning for those two weeks.
• 31:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm all here for it.
• 31:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, okay.
• 32:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, um, I have been thinking a lot because like, you know, um, yesterday was the men's short program in the individual.
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Competition and they started that at one thirty in the afternoon my time and it went into like five-five thirty And there are all of these like heats I guess we're lack of a better word of like you know they're letting people warm up five at a time and then they compete and then so on and I'm just thinking about these people who come to the Olympics knowing full well They do not have a shot in a middle
• 32:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: knowing full well as they go into it the other people have harder programs better execution they're not even in the conversation this is not like some underdog movie where like Doug Mosley and you know Doug was that one of the same as Doug anyway the cutting edge people Doug and Kate they're not going to come out and know it right so like
• 32:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: They come there knowing there's not a chance and they still train for hours and they still hurt their bodies and they still go out on ice and give it all that they have and celebrate like crazy when they went and my personality is like What do you what do you do in?
• 33:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you can't be in that final five, what do you even do in?
• 33:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I've it's really been like messing with me in a very good way of like sometimes there's just beauty
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think in a parallel biblical example, I think all the time about Moses coming right up to the edge of the Promised Land and being like, you got being like, you don't get to go in?
• 33:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to need to tap out somebody else is going to have the, you know, gold moment.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so am I willing to be obedient and am I willing to walk right up to the edge of where I'm being called, even if I might not get to see the results of my faithfulness in this lifetime?
• 33:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 33:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 33:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, so hard, but here's, yeah, I love your, I love your Olympics example and here's the thing.
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: They still went to the Olympics.
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like you still got to go to the Olympics, yeah, who didn't get to go to the Olympics, they were asked the people who didn't train and didn't stick their neck out there and didn't.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm, I'm never going to go to the Olympics and, and so, yeah, I mean, I mean,
• 34:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think you've got to be really careful how you define success and say it's culture and especially if you have some of those personalities that like you know perfectionistic, I'm not actually perfectionistic but there I mean that personality of wanting to be the best or be nothing at all well here's the thing you're missing the ride and you're missing the opportunity and like you would rather go to the Olympics and not place the never get to go if you love to figure skate
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can barely walk Mary, so this is very, this is a very far stretch for me, but right?
• 34:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I just, um, I love that you're saying, like, don't underestimate what the Lord has for you.
• 34:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's you?
• 34:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's you are called to do?
• 34:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love,
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: that we can think through the things that role of fear and that we let ourselves overthink under, under, underestimate ourselves.
• 34:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I guess the last thing I'd like to ask you is wrapping up because I know a lot of women in particular can struggle with this procrastination.
• 34:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I don't have this and it's fun because I'm married to a procrastinator and I'm so achievement oriented that I get so excited to check a box like, you know, like, I'm the other proverbial one that adds on the thing on the TV lesson already did because I want to check it.
• 35:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 35:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm married to a guy that's kind of a procrastinator and he gets life done, but he gets it done at the last bitter second.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh my gosh, but um, it somehow works for us.
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: But here's a question.
• 35:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Life is short, and we have limited opportunities right in front of us, and I mean, I know scripturally and I believe that this is the time the Lord created us for from Genesis to Revelation from the beginning to the end.
• 35:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: We could have been created at any time in any community with any people group, and it's now.
• 35:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we want to know why that is, and we want to do that well.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we kind of sit on our hands and wait for a better time when you know the kids get older or my husband travels less or our finances are better or whatever the thing is.
• 35:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then one day you wake up and the kids are grown and maybe the finances are better but you're like gosh, did I miss it?
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just don't want anyone to live in that did I miss it moment.
• 36:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: So what would you save the procrastination that are kind of just sitting on their hands waiting it out?
• 36:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so one of the things that we do in each way being me myself and I do have a different chapters is it's sort of we talk about what's the thing behind the thing what's the fear behind the fear and in fact there's a little Easter egg to that on the cover of underestimated where you look at it and you can very clearly see a compass right here, but there's actually a very subtle gray compass behind it so that's that represents the thing behind the thing.
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And with procrastination I believe one of the biggest reasons people procrastinate is the fear that no matter what they do It will never be as good as they want it to be.
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know that is true for me.
• 36:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I am also a huge overachiever But for me, I don't start on it right away because I have to wrestle with like what if no matter what I do It doesn't live up to my expectations and I fail anyway and all that stuff we just said about
• 36:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Olympics, and so I can only get my best work to show up when something I call the terror kicks in.
• 37:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: James Clear calls that the action line, when the fear, the far off future consequences become right now problems.
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: At that moment when you go, oh, I might not be able to pull off any plus if I don't get my act in, you know, in gear or whatever.
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so what I'm saying there is there's a reason why there's that saying perfectionism is the most advanced form of procrastination is because that chapter chapter 10 about perfectionism is what if perfectionism is really just hiding with better PR.
• 37:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know we love to say things like of course I haven't started yet.
• 37:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just such a perfectionist.
• 37:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I haven't launched that website yet.
• 37:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just, I have to fix all the details in such a perfectionist.
• 37:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: What we're not willing to say, Cynthia, is I'm afraid of putting myself out there of being seen in the critics will come.
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Of somebody saying, I don't have what it takes.
• 37:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so to wrap that up and tie that together, what I would say to people is we have to start acting like the clock is ticking.
• 38:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just before we hopped on to record, I picked up my phone and saw that James Vander because passed away.
• 38:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dawson Leary is gone right we you know I grew up watching him and I think he was like 48 49 and there's a really beautiful quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes that says most of us most of us Cynthia will go to our graves with the music still inside us unplayed and I feel like that should rattle our rib cages
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we keep thinking that there's this far-off someday, this elusive someday, when all the conditions to begin will be perfect, more time, more money, more energy, more focus, and what fear loves to whisper is, it doesn't never, it just says not yet, and so what I would remind all of us is that the clock is ticking, and we run the very real risk of never getting around to doing the work we were created to do, and that voice in your head, that voice of fear that loves to whisper to you about you should never even get started,
• 38:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: That voice is terrified of the day you realize that perfect records were never a pre-requisite for purpose.
• 39:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: We never asked you to be perfect.
• 39:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your perfect doesn't help us.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make us feel seen.
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make us feel left.
• 39:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: We never asked you to be perfect.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: We just asked you to show up.
• 39:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, quite a good word.
• 39:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I hope this is an encouragement for all of you that are listening to this, which is all of us that are like, man, maybe they'll be another time when I can do this or that, or you're like, I've always wanted to do this, but I'm just not the person, you know, you're underestimating to her point, or back to, yeah, dirt, her first book that, you know, you just don't know my past, or I don't come from that pedigree, or whatever the things are,
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think in Christian world we do that a lot while I didn't grow up in a Christian home or I don't have the Bible knowledge or I didn't go to seminary.
• 39:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I didn't go to seminary.
• 39:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think I got that a lot when I teach big groups in the Bible study.
• 39:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, okay, well, listen, I don't, I think seminary is amazing.
• 39:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I also think that the gospel was put in such a way that ordinary people could understand it and come to know Jesus.
• 39:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm an ordinary girl.
• 39:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's just fine.
• 40:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't have I'm glad there's theologians.
• 40:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's not who I am But that doesn't mean I don't have something to add to the kingdom and whatever your thing is like man Don't sit on it.
• 40:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so what a great word you guys listen you need to get Mary's books It's Mary Morance and it is underestimated and dirt Mary does it last name right?
• 40:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I did right.
• 40:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
• 40:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yep, right.
• 40:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like every like they're inseparable Yeah, Morance like dance and anywhere else that you would love people to find you
• 40:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think a really great place to jump in is I have actually put together something called the Achiever quiz.
• 40:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's five different types of Achievers we have the performer who needs always be on their toes to show other people how far they've come but also themselves.
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: A tightrope blocker who could care less who's clapping but they need higher and higher death defying defeat.
• 40:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Feets to feel as they do amount of good.
• 40:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our masterator hides in plain sight and pushes other people into the spotlight.
• 40:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our contortionist is our people pleaser, twist themselves up into tiny tethered knots because stick in toward is easier than to be criticized.
• 40:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And our illusionist in the distance is that person who's waiting for this far-off moment when all the conditions to begin including themselves are perfect.
• 41:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: before they can even start.
• 41:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so if you go to AchieverQuiz.com, quiz takes like two minutes, ten minutes if you overthink it, it's going to tell you your type in each type, they're different specific ways that each type gets stuck, they get stuck playing small, they get tripped up, and each type needs specific ways to break free of that and start moving forward.
• 41:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we have fun in the quiz and we go deep in the results.
• 41:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I will hear from a lot of people that they cry when they get their results.
• 41:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: because it's like, you are reading my mail.
• 41:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if you go to achieverquiz.com, ACH, IE, B-E-R, quiz.com, you can take that and that'll get you kind of into my world from there when you get to the results page.
• 41:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can find the books and the podcasts, come find Cynthia's episode.
• 41:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, let me know on Instagram what achiever type you get.
• 41:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 41:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Which one are you, by the way?
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: for sure the performer.
• 41:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, is that the first one?
• 41:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that you said me too.
• 41:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: What you said performer and something else with it, what was it?
• 42:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Performer and so the performers like I need everybody else and myself to see how far I've come.
• 42:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: The tight rope blocker doesn't care who's clapping, but they need to have like really, you know, like they're the adrenaline junkie sort of.
• 42:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's awesome.
• 42:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 42:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm going to do the quiz.
• 42:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've not and do it.
• 42:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I will do it myself.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we will link all this podcast notes and Mary, you're a treasure.
• 42:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: How fun that we got connected through our friend Heather and thank you for having me on your show.
• 42:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody go listen to that one and her show in general.
• 42:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And thanks for coming on this one.
• 42:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 42:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much for having me.
• 42:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So fun.
• 42:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, how much fun is Mary Moran's?
• 42:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love getting to meet her and first time to be on the podcast, and I hope to have her back.
• 42:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And also, I'm on her podcast.
• 42:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So check that out as well.
• 42:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've linked everything, her quiz, her books, everything in the podcast notes for you.
• 42:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's easy to find.
• 42:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then again, if you have not grab your copy of how I miss that, I would be so grateful if you would do that.
• 42:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you really loved it, I would love for you to grab a copy for a friend, a mom, a Sunday school teacher, a teacher, whoever that may be.
• 43:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alright, you guys, think you'll be in a part of the mesmerized family, you have a very best.