Latest / The Bold Lounge / Mary Crafts: Choose Bold- Why Fear Can’t Hold Us Back

Transcript

Mary Crafts: Choose Bold- Why Fear Can’t Hold Us Back · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Mary Crafts.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Mary has built her award-winning multi-million dollar catering company from ground up.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: For over three decades, mary led her company to greater and greater levels of success, earning the respect and admiration of her hard-won business and wellness expertise through public speaking.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: In 2016, mary handed the reins of her catering empire to her three children and has devoted herself full-time to helping others build their dreams, whether those dreams are centered around a business, leadership, wellness or something uniquely personal.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Mary's unbounded energy and engaging spirit lights the way for others to choose a new path forward, a path empowered by courage and personal meaning and fueled by authentic vitality.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: And she's also the author of her book and about to write her second one.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: But her first book is called Unbounded From Sorrow to Summit.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So welcome Mary.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Wow, she sounds like an awesome person.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: I want to meet her.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I know let's meet Mary, so we'll start off with your definition of bold.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: How do you define it in your world?
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: For me, there are many things that are audacious, but there are a very specific requirement for bold, a very specific requirement for bold.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: So bold just doesn't mean that you burst into the room in your large self and call that bold.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Bold has to be an action that's motivated from a different place inside.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Bold is not look at me, but bold is I love who I am and I'm stepping into the world.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: So the point of view from which we take those actions defines whether it's simply being audacious or bold.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: And I love that phrase bold.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: In fact, I took it on as one of my words for the longest time.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: In fact, I took it on as one of my words for the longest time when I saw your book Be Bold Today.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I think that is the challenge for all of us to realize that we have a choice every single day to play small or to play bold.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I love this definition because we we've had so many different pieces and parts to the definition, you know, over all the episodes, and it's something I actually put in the book of like what were the you know.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: We looked at all the definitions and we compared, kind of what was the same and what was different.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I love what you said because you took the word audacity or audacious and said, you know, because sometimes people it is a synonym, but I thought and think it's very different, right?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So I think being bold isn't just being seen or doing something that is big.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I think it's can be extremely a quiet moment and a moment no one knows about.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Potentially.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: You only know that you did it right and that's why I love that.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: You connected to ownership and personalization, meaning it's it's mine really to see and to own and to to know what to do with.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: So I love that.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And the other thing you said is is an action and a choice, which I wholeheartedly agree with, because it is something you have to choose to be and it's it's something that you have to choose over and over and it isn't like, once I checked the box, I'm bold, Like you're.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Most likely, if you make one bold move, you're probably going to be put in a situation to make another one along the way.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: So when you think about your definition, what moment comes up for you as a memorable bold moment?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: When I thought about that question I realized that probably for me.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Realized that probably for me my first bold moment was when I was 50.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Now it's kind of crazy to think that I lived 50 years of my life and now I'm 71.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: So 50 years of my life without making a bold act.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Not that I didn't do things that looked bold, but the actual act of it truly being bold.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: So I chose many things that looked bold for the approval of others.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: The first bold act I took for no approval was actually when I turned 50, was in my fifties and I made the decision, at 284 pounds, to go to the gym and to go for the rest of my life.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: And the bold act of walking into the gym with a different mindset.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I had signed up to go on an exercise program.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: How many times do you think in 50 years?
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I think I've been on every exercise program.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: How many times, do you think in 50 years?
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like I think I've been on every single one, but to go in there knowing that this time it wasn't about proving something to the world or for the world's accolades.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: But for me I was still 284 pounds.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I did have the oversized black sweats on and I did go to the very back row, to the very corner treadmill, but I went with the mindset of I am bringing my very best self.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what other people may look at and think of me.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: This is a very bold act for me to say think of me.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: This is a very bold act for me to say I'm okay that you see me as I am because this is my very best self and when we step in that action piece to being our very best self, we can be bold in any number of ways.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: That confidence level that, whatever it be, it may not be what everyone else on social media has If it's my best, that is a confidence giver, not a confidence taker.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: When you do bold things in comparison to others, it strips you of confidence, but when you do bold things compared to your very best self, that's a confidence giver.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll never forget that day.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: I just was on the treadmill 15 minutes just flat, going at two miles an hour.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Couldn't do any more, ended, my treadmill got off and as I left the gym that day I thought this is different because tomorrow I'm coming back.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Did you have a moment that got you to that point, like you know, because you said you had tried things before and I can relate to that and certainly feeling judged or, you know, seen as really not who I am, because you know people make judgments, I think, based on weight.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: People say they don't, but I do think they do, they do, yeah.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: But what was the moment that you were like this is different as you were walking out, like you knew you were coming back, what had happened with the shift in your mindset?
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Well, there is always that kind of shift in the mindset and in the heart before this kind of bold act can take place.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Right For me, it happened at my 50th birthday party, and this is back when we didn't have cell phones.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: You didn't take photos all day, but during the celebration you had a camera and afterwards you took the film into Kmart.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or CVS or Walgreens yeah.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: A week later you go back and you get the photos.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: And so a week later I was excited to see the photos of my birthday party.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I went back and got them and as I was summing through them you know some of them are just gray mess you throw them to the side, some of them are keepers.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: And I came across a photo of me and I looked at this photo and it was like the first time I ever had that kind of wake up call.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Maren, your life may be half over what you consider the best years of your life which I know now they're not, but are behind you and you spent them like this.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I was devastated, thinking that I had wasted life, and then I realized the waste of life is only if you don't take the lessons, glean them and shift.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: If I had not done that, probably I would have been, I wouldn't have lived as long as I'm going to live now, but I would have, at the end of life, looked and said that was probably a waste of life.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to do that.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I made that shift, and the shift was this when we set a challenge that's greater than our fears, the challenge requires us to call upon that warrior spirit inside that bold spirit, and every one of us have it.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Some people never use theirs.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Other people discover it and use that warrior spirit to help them reach their goals and overcome the fears that have held them bound.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: That's why my title of my book is Unbounded because I cut through those cords of fear that had wrapped me up for so many years.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I was afraid to lose weight or to try, because I was going to fail again.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Who needed another stamp of you have failed again, and I was determined to not let those fears stand in my way.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: You're going to stay in this horrible, unhealthy, abusive marriage because you probably can't have anything else.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: No one else would love you.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Those fears I threw those fears off and, one by one, the fears that were controlling my life and determining every single decision in my life.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: I decided to work through and to look at them and understand them and step through them, rather than my whole life going around.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: So you, you really underscore an important part about being bold, which is you have to be the one to take the first step.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: You have to be the one to take, whether it's motivation or whether you've thought about it, those things don't turn into action automatically.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: You have to take ownership of those steps and be intentional, which it sounds like you were.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: The other thing is you have to admit you can't live like that anymore, which is aligned to kind of how I was when I was in total burnout.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: You and I have talked about this on your podcast, you know.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: But I had to choose me and it was time and I was 48.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: You know, like Jeff Homaway taught me this from the modern elder academy, if you've ever heard of that, but he, you know, he said there is a happiness curve and an unhappy curve and you have the most unhappiness or you're at the lowest happiness level, around 47, 48.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: So if you're feeling a nudge or you're feeling this kind of I'm not sure I'm, you know, this isn't me, it's people call it a midlife crisis, when really it's just we're realizing who we are and who we want to be and where we're misaligned.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: That's what I think.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: You know we're having an alignment crisis.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: That is exactly what it is Lee.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: It is an alignment that moment when you realize that the person you know you are inside is out of alignment with the person that you've been acting yeah, the external you is not aligned with the internal you and you want them to be the same.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I mean that you don't want to have workly and homely, which by then I absolutely had.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: That you know, I was a certain way certain.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: My mom even said I had a certain laugh at work versus you know.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: So I didn't know it, but I'm sure she's right you know, because my mom's right a lot.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: So I think from the perspective of the ownership that you had there, it also sounded like you said I'm going to choose me and my relationships.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I'm going to choose me and my health.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I'm going to choose me and how I operate and what's next for me.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Like did you feel like you had gone into autopilot a little bit and kind of stayed somewhere?
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: You knew you didn't want to be, but you just stayed there?
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: You know, it certainly had some autopilot pieces to it, but more I had convinced myself and this is going to ring true to every woman who listens to this podcast.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, there was a huge piece of me that believed the way to be present with people was to just be about serving them, helping them, lifting them, about making sure my children had food on the table either, assignments done at work it was, you know, doing this being available 24-7, having, you know, my notepad by the bed in case I woke up with an ad I could write thoughts about an event with someone else's thing and everyone else's needs came where In front of mine.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that moment as I went, that was the start, the catalyst, that day, with the photos.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: But as I went through these moments, in these times, I realized that no wonder I felt so out of alignment, no wonder I felt so depleted.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: I had told myself that the only way to get everything done on my to-do list was to simply sleep less.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: I couldn't work harder or faster, yeah.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I'm laughing because I can relate yeah 20 years.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I got four hours of sleep a night and I wore it like a badge on my shoulder.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Did you see that I can do this?
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Did you see what my checklist looked like?
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Did you see I can get by on four hours?
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: And I thought it was a badge of honor.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: But instead was my way of saying this is all I'm doing to make up for, for failing and the fear of failing and covering it up.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: And I think of that moment when I realized you know what?
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: I can't serve anyone else.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: I'm an empty bucket.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: I am going to choose me and by choosing me, I choose you.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: But if I only choose you, I end up failing you.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: I wasn't lifting and being the best mom because I was depleted.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: I wasn't my best self, even though I was the CEO and a very successful.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: I knew this was not fulfilling me.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And so you know what?
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: What if I took an hour a day for myself?
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I chose to go to the gym and in the beginning, the only way I could do it and not feel guilty was to go at 11 o'clock at night.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Well, baby steps Mary, baby steps Everyone at the gym knew Mary comes at 11 o'clock at night.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Oh geez.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Well, baby steps Mary, baby steps I was just like you know, everyone at the gym knew Mary comes at 11.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: She'll lock us up, she'll be the last one to leave, and that's when I did it.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: But at the beginning I started with baby steps.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Then I began to see that you know, wait, I actually can do this first thing in the morning.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Oh wait, I actually can do this first thing in the morning.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Oh wait, I'm the CEO.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: What the hell am I thinking?
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I can do this in the middle of the day, anytime you want to do it, yeah, yeah, who's holding you back?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Talk to your boss, yeah.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: So I think that's one thing that people think when they're making bold moves.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I think it's a myth I talk about in the book too that it has to be big, loud, like bold can be small and quiet and you know, like the moment you know your example of going to the gym and seeing that picture, I'm like I'm not going to live my life one more day like this.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: For me, when I decided I'm not going to live my life one more day like this, the way that I felt burnt out and working and I was sleeping two hours a day in the middle of the pandemic and just everything you know, just elevated and but it is, it's you're making that choice.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: But no one knew I didn't put that on social media, like no one even knew except my close family, of course that you know I was done and I didn't know what I was going to do.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't have the perfect plan.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I didn't have, you know, when you first started out, you didn't have Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: You just knew the one day was going to lead to the next day.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I only had to make a commitment for the next day, right.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I love that because I think people think it's like I have to have the perfect plan and it has to be a, you know, 30, 60, 90, 120.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And really it's just the next 24 hours.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: You know, can you do it again, like if you went for a walk today, can you do it tomorrow If you, you know, I cut out sugar.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: If you can cut out sugar, can you do it again?
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: You know, and you and I were talking before and I've lost 21 pounds since June and really just cut out one big thing, which was sugar.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: And the other day I took the sugar bags that you have and I bought some extra ones just because I wanted to see the visual and I also wanted to feel the weight.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I took, you know, 20 pounds, so it was a 20 pounds at that point, and I just took the four bags of sugar and I like held it up and I was like holy smokes, like my body was carrying this and this is why how it got there, it was just, it was a visual for me to see.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Wow, like keep going, and it's never as fast as you want it, no matter what your bold move is.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Most likely it's usually not overnight, even though that's what you see on the internet, and you just need to think about the next 24 hours.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So, when you think about how you went from 284 to your very healthy weight, that wasn't overnight, right, it took me six years.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, and what are the other things you had to align?
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: So that was just your movement and your mindset around movement.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: So you had other ingredients that have led you to where you are today, which includes being an author, coming out with your second book, successful podcaster, speaker, and still, you know your business is still thriving.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: So you know, but you don't have to be in it every day kind of handed those rings off.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: So what were some of the other milestones, or inch stones, as as Cassandra Worthy calls it along the way that kind of got you to today?
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Well, at that moment, when I realized because the blaring thing for me to look at was my weight Okay, it's what's out there that everyone can see, including myself.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: So that's the blaring piece.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: It's out there with a big drum.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: But I also knew that that big drum was not driving the bus, even though I could look at it that way, and people think, oh well, mary, you love to go to the gym, you love to hike, you love to play pickleball.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: No wonder you do it.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I hate it.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Do you think I started off that way?
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think I started off?
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: loving going to the gym, but I stopped telling myself that I hated it and instead told myself I love how I'm getting healthy.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: So the goal had to be more than just how I looked and what clothes I could wear and what other people thought of me.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: The goal had to be from deep, deep inside.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: It was a first step for me in learning to love myself.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I mean truly love myself.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Lee, I'm an incredibly beautiful woman.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I have so many talents.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: I would not want to be anyone else, but I didn't always feel that way.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: In fact, this is something.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Just a couple years ago, I was in my bathroom getting ready for work not work Cause I was a long since retired, but yeah but I was getting different types of work for something.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was listening to an Oprah podcast and she came on with what it felt like to truly be at a point where she loved herself and this is how she knew she loved herself.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: She loved her former self and this is how she knew she loved herself.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: She loved her former self and I thought about that for a moment.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Wait a minute, it's okay, and I get that.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I love myself now.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I'm like I am a badass.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that just like like old feelings grabbed me around the juggler vein and was strangling me.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: I can't possibly love that person.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: That means I might go back to that person.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I hate that person, I love this person.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And the tears were streaming down my face as I realized I have to come to a point.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: I get to come to a point where I see every piece of me as lovable.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: That how could I not love that person?
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Because that person led me to this person, right?
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Without that person, I wouldn't get to be me.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I slumped down into the lounge chair in my bedroom I was still just kind of in my night shirt, I wrapped my arms around myself and, after being 284 pounds.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Your body is never going to be perfect again and I began to feel those stretch marks from my children and the stretch marks from my weight.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: I began to hold on to my knees that weren't the best anymore and realized how much I loved this body, how strong it had been all those years.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Under that weight it grew a strong heart and my heart is beat so strong and I began to have this appreciation for me forever.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: And I sat there until I deeply felt this, just holding myself.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: From that day only I've had such gratitude for me.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: The entire process, and when it came to wanting to step into a new life, I realized that taking pills, doing surgery, would be a quick fix for me, but it wouldn't allow me to.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: It would circumvent the process of changing inside, because that's where the change needed to happen.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: That's why all those years you had, I had yo-yo dieted because I dieted and you can do that for so long.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: But the moment you stop dieting, the same thought processes, the same fears, the same not being enough comes right back and you gain the weight back plus more.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to change inside.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I wanted to change inside.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: The thought process was Every single thing I had done in my life was done with the motivation of fear.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: I feared I wouldn't be able to support my family, so I worked harder than anyone else.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I feared I would fail, so I was always there for my clients, no matter what.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: I feared that I would be laughed at for how I looked.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: So I began to take on the facade of my clothes, my jewelry, my purses, my shoes, my car, everything that would say to the world this person is successful, even though I felt so unsuccessful.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: And as I began to change that thought process and become intricately aware of every time, fear made a decision for me.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: What if I made this decision out of love?
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: What would that look like?
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Now I'm going to tell you the secret.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: There's two things, two things that changed my life.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: The first one I put on a post-it note and I put it on my bathroom mirror, and it stayed there for 10 years and this was what it said.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Every morning I read it and I looked at it and I thought what would you do today if you were no longer afraid?
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I would think through my day.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I would think through what was ahead of me, things that I would have either chosen to walk away from or things that I would have done only out of fear and covered up and I would think through.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I'd say today, is that networking meeting rather than driving around the block three or four times and then going home?
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Oops couldn't find a spot.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I've used that one, mary, I've used that one and go in and I'm going to walk up to the first person I see.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I would role play it and think about a person who's not afraid.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: What do they do?
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: And then I would do it.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: So that was the first thing the post-it note of asking myself every day what does that look like, a life of not being afraid?
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: And after several years, a decade of that, I asked myself the second most critical question what are you still hiding?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: And I came to this phrase, Lee, and it's the best piece of my book when it says the healing starts when the hiding stops.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: We only do pseudo healing as long as we are still hiding.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: The moment we stop hiding those pieces of us that we're ashamed of or that we think nobody's going to like, or that we're embarrassed about, or, okay, I'm happy to show you all these successful things, but please don't look over here, Don't look at the man behind the curtain.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's not really a man behind the curtain, that's something else.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: But the moment you're willing to yank it all off and stand naked, the healing can start and it just begins to roll out.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I am now remarried and I've been with John three and a half years and we've been married five months and I made a commitment in this marriage I was not going to hide from John anything, and do you know how hard that is after you've had a life of hiding and pretending?
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: It sometimes takes every piece of boldness that I have, but I've decided to do that.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: And you know what the crazy thing is?
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Those things that we think we want to hide, that nobody should really see, are the very things they embrace us for.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: When I show vulnerability to my friends or on social media, or to John, my family, suddenly they rush to embrace me.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: At what the very thing I thought I was going to be rejected for they want to embrace me.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: This just happened to me on Sunday.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I have three children my middle child and his wife, and their children, his wife.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: I've been distant from them and I, for the life of me, have tried to like be there at every turn for them or be supportive, or be fun or be giving, whatever it is.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Sunday they stayed late after everyone else left and we just shared.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: We shared about.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: I shared with them some of the things I'm still dealing with Fears.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: I still have Fears.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Just don't go away and never come back.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not easy.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: None of this is easy.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: I know you, you're my old friend.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Fear, and we're not going to do that today.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, acknowledge you're here, but I'm not gonna, you're not going to take over.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: So we did that.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: On Sunday, the very next day, I got all these text messages from his wife saying hey, we're doing this, do you want to come along?
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Hey, I'm going to be out of town with Caleb, maybe you could be with the grandchildren.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Hey, here are all the invitations to come to the kids' games and plays for the semester.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Suddenly, they just threw their arms right open and I walked in, but that was because I stood before them.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: They did not want to be around me because of those things, they threw their arms wide open.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: What relationships in our lives are we afraid of?
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Chances are.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: If you want to make a difference, throw your arms right open, stand before them emotionally naked, spiritually naked, mentally naked yeah you're standing in your worth, you're standing in your value.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: You're saying I am who, I am who I am and I don't care what you think.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I said this yesterday and I could tell when I I said it that some of the women I said it to didn't like it, you know, and because I said something to the effect of you know, I wanted to share what I had accomplished and I was talking about my accomplishments and I'm pretty proud of me and I don't think everyone wants to hear someone else's accomplishments.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: But I said, you know, I understand I'm kind of going through this, but I just wanted to make sure you understood, kind of, all the things I've done and all the things I still want to do.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: And it was appropriate, like sharing at that point.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: And I said I know I can tell just by reaction that some of you aren't comfortable with me just sharing what I did, but I don't care and I don't mean that disrespectfully, I just mean it that I'm honoring and respecting myself more than what I think others think of me.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And then, oh, okay, you know it was, but that's what I meant.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I that way, or she she has money, or she doesn't have money, or like whatever the you know the asterisks that we place on people's accomplishments, successes and their bold moves, because, like it's not, I'm not the official bold move, judge, you know, I'm sorry.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Like, if you say that's bold, whatever it is to me, whatever someone says, I'm like, wow, congratulations, you know, good, cause it's personal, it is personal and you know.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: We've heard this concept ever since Michael Jackson sang the song the man in the mirror.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: We've heard that concept, but it really wasn't until I started this journey that I understood it.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and now I understand it even more.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: For me, whatever I'm feeling inside about someone else I know is simply a mirror of what's in me.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: So if I see someone and I'm like who do they think they are?
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Or well, how come they're doing that?
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: That has nothing to do with them, that has everything to do with fears inside of me, that what I am not enough.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: But when people come up to me and they'll say things like oh Mary, I just admire you so much.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: You have this, you do this.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: I hope someday I can blah, blah, blah, I stop them.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: I put my arms on their shoulders, I look them directly in the eye and I say what you see in me already lives in you.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Or you wouldn't see it in me?
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Embrace it, you own it, you have it and I see it.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: You can see it because you saw it in me.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: You can't see in others what's not inside yourself.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: So, when you think about the power of belief, so when you know you and I have talked about the bold framework which is believe, own, learn, design, and you perfectly, you know, describe kind of your journey in those buckets as you were talking about it.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: But it started with the belief and the mindset shift and I'm not going to be this way and I'm going to.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: That's going to lead to the next bold move that I make about whether it's a relationship or you know where you are like, where you're living or how you're living.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: You know so it's those things and how you're working.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: So they all kind of started to move through.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: You owned it, I mean, you took ownership of it, and no one's coming to save you, as we've all heard and you realize, like, if I don't change, no, there's no way I can change and so I have to own that.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: So when, when you put those two together, so your beliefs plus owning, I do think that leads to these incredible actions that you're talking about.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: In, like you said, it's like people see it and hear it and they think, oh, that's easy.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Someone actually said to me I'm lucky, I'm like no, I actually worked really, really hard and like a bunch of things that were extremely risky or ups and downs, I mean because it's just not all ups.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: But when, when you're talking to someone like you said, like they have to see it in themselves, like you can't make it happen for them, like they have to see it, if someone Like you can't make it happen for them, like they have to see it, if someone's listening and kind of like man, like this is hitting home, like I know I need to do something different, or get curious, or let my curiosity lead me, what would you say to them?
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: How do they start?
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I would ask them to grab a notebook.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to use the word journal.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to use the word you know, whatever it is.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Piece of paper Too formal.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I use a spiral notebook.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love a spiral.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I opened it to the first page and at the top I wrote fear versus love, two motivating things.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: They are the exact opposite of each other.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is fear.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: And so, on the left hand side, I just I drew a line down the middle and I decided to keep record of every time I was aware and of course, once you start keeping record you become more aware of every time I felt fear.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Now I had deadened myself to what fear was so well, I had insulated it, obviously, with layers of fat, I had insulated it with busyness, you know, or what looked like success.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: But I had to get back in tune with fear.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: So if I made a major decision or a decision about anything like whether I should go to an event or whether or not, in the business, we should hire someone, I mean something as, like you think, well, what would that have to do with fear?
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Versus love.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: But when you ask yourself this person, am I going to hire this person?
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Out of fear, out of love?
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Am I hiring this person because I think they will be an asset to me?
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, Because you aren't enough without them.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Or because they enhance who you are and what your company is about?
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: If I don't hire them, another company might hire them.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: That's fear.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: If I hire them, I know we are going to be able to be in alignment.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: That's love.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: The action is the same.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: So I would like write down little things.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Driving home, I would think oh, it's a 7-Eleven, I need to stop and buy a couple Snickers bars.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, that was the action.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: When I would pull into the parking lot, I'd stop.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: My notebook was always with me.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: I'm like here's the action.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Am I doing this out of motivation, of fear or love?
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: That one is so obvious.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get those candy bars, because the emotion I'm feeling is fear.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: What am I afraid of?
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I want to numb myself to the fact that I'm going home to an abusive relationship and to be able to write that down.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: That I'm going home to an abusive relationship and to be able to write that down.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: And then, over here, what would the action be If it, if it were, based on love?
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so these were like the lenses that you use for every decision.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: And someone could just start there, because I do think those are two things people can clearly understand.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: You know, am I staying out of a job?
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Like, let me just tell you that, am I staying out of my job because I fear that I, if I don't have the money I can't have a life, I can't have a can't take care of my family.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: That was my fear.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: It wasn't good Fear no one else would hire me, Fear that I don't have what I take got my own business.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, fear that I'm too old to switch jobs.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: You know, I was 48 then I thought, you know, like I have this mental thing fear that I don't know what to do, fear that I couldn't be on my own like from a job perspective.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: So mine was.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: If I would have used those, I probably would have identified that it was time to move on sooner.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Right, you know, and I think, because I think I ignored the signs for at least two years, solid at least it could have been more, could have been been up to five years Because I think in my early forties I was like is this, it Is, this, is this work life, is this all there is?
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and, and it wasn't that I was, wasn't good at my job and wasn't doing good things and making a difference, but I, I think it became misaligned somewhere in there and then I it derailed by the time I was a burnout, so like someone starting to get your notebook piece of paper right.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Fear and love at the top, and sometimes, as you know, is it for love of yourself.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: You know, like you know, are you loving?
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: yourself.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: That's the best thing.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: That's the best thing.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, love of self yeah.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: If you're doing something for the love of self, if you only do things for the love of self, all the rest will follow.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Everything else is going to fall in place?
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's so backwards that we're taught.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's not what we're taught, you're taught, not to be narcissistic.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: That's narcissistic don't choose yourself, or don't be selfish, or you know, because that's the word I used when I was thinking about leaving.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: But it's selfish for me to quit.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I give up.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Like I'm not tough, like I'm tough, lee, you know I can do this.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: What is wrong with me?
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: You know, like, so, like that, those many years of negative talk to myself, I think I'm unraveling now and I'll sit and go.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Where did that come from?
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Like I can't point and say, oh, my mom did that to me, or my dad did that to me, or you know, like, like I did that to me.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: You know, there are moments where, like there's no one else's fault, but kind of how I spoke to myself and how I couldn't even look in the mirror at myself Cause I was like, oh, I don't want to see that person.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Um, she's not beautiful.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: So, like that is like heavy stuff that someone has to really start to work through.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: You know, like I started working through it at 48.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: And I think there's no too late to do that either, would you agree?
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that is the last sentence in my book.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: If I teach one thing, please know that it is never too late and nothing is impossible.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Believing those two things will change your life.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Women who believe that they're too old, it's too late, I don't have the circumstances you had.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: I don't have this.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: The excuses Excuse is the hallmark of fear.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Then come stand toe to toe with me, Call Mary and look me in the eye and say Mary, you were too late at age 50 to change your life.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Mary, you're too late at age 65 to climb Kilimanjaro.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Mary, you're too late at age 71 to marry your soulmate.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: It's never too late and nothing is impossible.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's an incredible amount of freedom that comes with figuring that out and still continuing to work on you Because, like you said, it doesn't just go away.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: It's not like it's perfect and like nothing bothers you or you never feel fear it happens, but you learn to figure out how to manage it, talk to it sometimes, cohabitate with it and continue to move forward and continue to move forward.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the most beautiful thing about your story, your journey and the inspiration that you bring to so many through what you do, your speaking and also the work that you do in the community.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: So, thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: All the information about Mary's book and I cannot wait for the second book to hear more about that.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: But all the information about our first book is below, along with all the details to connect.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Being bold is part about curiosity.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: What would that look like if I were bold today?
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: That's kind of like what would I do today if I were no longer afraid.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, put that on the same thing, yeah.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: What would that look like if I were bold today, if I was my truly best self?
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what would that look like?
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah because the one thing I know is that everyone has fear, and it manifests in many, many different scenarios but, it's all based on the same fear.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, it comes from the same root yeah, the fear of not being enough, and let us leave with our listeners today the knowledge that we hold that they aren't just like we are, and they're not alone in that journey.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.