All It Takes Is A Goal

ATG 22: The Overachiever's Guide to Unattaching Your Work from your Worth with Mary Marantz

May 31, 2021 Jon Acuff Season 1 Episode 22
All It Takes Is A Goal
ATG 22: The Overachiever's Guide to Unattaching Your Work from your Worth with Mary Marantz
Show Notes Transcript

My guest, Mary Marantz, is a podcaster, entrepreneur, and bestselling author of the book, Dirt. Mary grew up in small rural town in West Virginia, and from an early age excelled in everything she did. Despite the limited opportunities her hometown offered, with the enduring support of her dad and years of hard work, she went from a five-room schoolhouse to the hallowed halls of Yale University.

Her journey is nothing short of incredible, but along the way her achievements and her identity became one in the same to her. Untangling the two was a long process, but she joined me this week to share the process it took to undo the mindsets that a lifetime of overachieving instilled in her. Listen in for an incredibly moving conversation about how you can achieve big goals without letting them define who you are.

Links from this episode:
Mary's book Dirt
Mary's Website
Jon and Mary's conversation on The Mary Marantz Show
Goal coaching at The Whiteboard Room

Follow Jon on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

Order Soundtracks, Jon's newest book available wherever you find quality books!

Jon Acuff:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the All it Takes is a Goal podcast. The best place in the entire world, including all of Canada, to learn how to build new thoughts, new actions, and new results. I'm your host Jon Acuff and today I've got an awe ome interview with an au hor named Mary Marantz. I was on her podcast a few week ago and immediately thought, "O, she's doing some amazing thin s with goals. I need to intervie her." I think you're going to love this episode. But first, today's episode is sponsored by Medi-Share. Have you guys ever had buyer's remorse? You know that feeling of intense regret because the thing you thought you just had to have was only something used once or twice? For me it was the time I bought a really expensive road bike because I thought I was going to get into cycling. I proceeded to hang it on the wall in my garage and feel ashamed for six months. Well, I know some of you are experiencing buyer's remorse right now for something much more frustrating. You know what I'm talking about. It's the healthcare you rushed to get during open enrollment last December. Well, I have some good news for you. You've probably heard me talking about our main sponsor for this podcast, Medi-Share. And these guys have the answer to healthcare buyer's remorse. Check this out, members of Medi-Share save up to 50% or more per month on their health care costs. They say the typical family saves up to $500 per month. And here's the best part, you can become a member at any time. So that means it isn't too late to ditch your buyer's remorse and switch to a more affordable health care that will save you money and help you sleep better at night. If this is your first time you're hearing about Medi-Share, it is the best alternative to health insurance that allows you to share the burden of medical bills, offers access to 900,000 plus health care providers, and has a proven 25 year track record. Plus in addition to saving hundreds per month, as a member of Medi-Share, you will also have access to free telehealth and free telecounseling. You won't find that with any traditional health insurance provider. Guys, it only takes two minutes to see how much you could save. Go investigate that for yourself and your family at Medi-Share.com/Jon. That's Medi-Share.com/Jon. Remember Jon doesn't have an H in it. So it's a M-E-D-I, that's Medi, share, S-H-A-R-E dot com slash J-O-N. Alright. Here's Mary's bi. Let me go ahead and jump into this because it's amazing. ary Marantz grew up in a tr iler in rural West Virginia. "Ru al" is a very difficult word. I once put that in an audiobook nd I had to change it to "coun ry" because I couldn't say it well. I don't know if I s id it well in our intro, b t the first of her immediate fam ly to go to college, she we t on to earn a master's degree i moral philosophy and a law d gree from Yale. After turning do n a six figure salary la firm offers in London and Ne York and starting a busi ess with her husband Justin. To ether they have gone o to build a successful online ed cation platform for 1000s of cre tive entrepreneurs worldwide Mary is also the host of the ighly ranked podcast The Mary arantz Show which I've been n and was a blast, which debu ed in the iTunes top 200. She a d Justin live in 1880s fixe-upper by the sea in New aven, Connecticut. That soun s lovely. With their two very f uffy Golden Retrievers, Goodsp ed and Atticus. Those actual y sound like hipster kid names. don't think those are dogs at ll. And she's got a book that e're going to talk to her about today amongst a bunch of other stuff called Di

Mary Marantz:

And now all I'm doing is picturing my dogs as hipsters, which is amazing. I feel like they'd wear a little skinny jeans.

Jon Acuff:

People name their dogs Rusty, like Goodspeed is a very elaborate dog name.

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, you know, so okay, I want to tell you because in Connecticut, where we live, there's an opera house called the Goodspeed Opera House. And most people say oh, like the Goodspeed Opera House. It's actually Dr. Stanley Goodspeed from The Rock. Because Sean Connery says, "I'm sure you're familiar with the etymology of your surname Goodspeed as in Godspeed." That's where it came from

Jon Acuff:

That's where it came from? You name your dog Wow, that is a real Has anyone ever gone "Is this from The Rock?"

Mary Marantz:

One person.

Jon Acuff:

One person? Yeah, that person is a wizard.

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, that's right. We became instant friends.

Jon Acuff:

You would have to. You would have good for you, I take it back. It's from The Rock, which no one would accuse of being a hipster film whatsoever. So I'm so glad you here today, I think we're gonna have a ton of fun. I've had the pleasure to be on your podcast. And it's always fun when you get to do each other's podcast, because you get to form relationships. And you get to ask a bunch of questions, and you get to be on the other side of it. So when I was on your podcast, I immediately said, Okay, I want to have you on mine, because I think this is the start of a fun conversation.

Mary Marantz:

Yeah.

Jon Acuff:

So I want to start with, imagine you're at a dinner party, and someone says, "Mary, what do you do?" How would you answer that question?

Mary Marantz:

You know, it's really, really interesting is I've just turned in the manuscript for my second book. And it starts off with this scenario it's talking about the inciting incident. This Sharpie through the calendar as my friend Hannah Brencher calls it. This before and after that sets off the action for the main character. And I said, "Trust me, if you are at a cocktail party, among passed champagne and miniature pigs in the blanket, you could say something like words, words of my friend. I write words, sometimes people read them," or you could wax poetic about the inciting incident. And so I think I would do that. I would wax poetic about this, and the before and the after. And we're all on the precipice of our after. And then I would say, I write books for a living, and sometimes people read them.

Jon Acuff:

No. So when you say turn in a book, does that mean it got accepted? Or is this first draft?

Mary Marantz:

This is we're going on copy editing. So we share publisher as an umbrella publisher, Baker Publishing Group, and I actually have five books with them. So this book two of the five.

Jon Acuff:

That's amazing!

Mary Marantz:

Yeah.

Jon Acuff:

That's amazing. So you, this is a big deal. Like when you get the, okay, it's moved on to copy editing, like, that's kind of it's locked and loaded. You're gonna, you know, you'll probably edit out a lot of your vulgarity. A lot of swears if I had to guess, knowing you. But that's awesome. Congratulations.

Mary Marantz:

Thank you. Yeah, there were cupcakes. I'm not gonna lie.

Jon Acuff:

There should be like, that is a big moment. It's a moment I've only had seven times in my entire life. Like it's a big moment. So congratulations. Which brings us to your first book, or your memoir, Dirt, which I love the title. I've got a copy. And you go on this wild journey from West Virginia, West Virginia trailer home, to Yale Law School. So what would you say are some of the hinge moments along that path? You just said inciting incidents. So the moments where you say okay, and then the plot changed. And then the plot changed. Because most people don't assume "Okay, trailer home in West Virginia, you end up at Yale Law School, like some stuff has happened in between those two things." What were the moments that that really changed things?

Mary Marantz:

You know, I've thought about that question kind of in reverse. Like if you think about all the dominoes falling, like, well, what was the first domino that would have possibly tipped over. And as far back as I can trace it, and I talk about this in Dirt. I was four years old. You know, as these story start, I was four years old. There's an interesting parallel narrative arc in Dirt between my dad's story and my story, we kind of flash between the two. And so my dad and I ended up growing up in the same yard because the trailer got put on the back half of my grandma's property.

Jon Acuff:

Goldie.

Mary Marantz:

He ended up going to the same, a tiny five room elementary school where like grades, third and fourth had to be in the same room to have enough room. And we were going to the same Sunday school. We were on this very same trajectory. I would say, you know, like, not much has changed in a generation on the mountain where I grew up. And he saw that playing out. And so he decided that, you know, he barely graduated high school, and he there wasn't a ton he could do it in terms of education, but he knew that when he went to kindergarten, he had not been very well prepared for that. And he got a few questions wrong and got laughed at and it burned into his brain, his little five year old him, that he was stupid, that he was not cut out for anything, to go to college or go to school that he was just a, you know, in his words dumb old logger. And so at four years old, he started bringing these workbooks home from the like grocery store on the racks next to the bubble yum. They were like very dot matrix child of the 80s printing with like the picture of a kid, but it was made out of like ampersands and pound signs or whatever. And so the theory was, you would get these workbooks for your child for whatever grade they were about to go into. And you could get them in reading or math. And that was the expectation, but I'd say JR Bess was never big on expectations. And so he just kept bumping me up a grade after I finished them. So that between being four and nine months later, when I started kindergarten, I was in a sixth grade reading and a fifth grade math.

Jon Acuff:

That is amazing to me. And I loved hearing that story in the book. I'm curious, he obviously had a moment that said, "Okay, I want you to be something more than I got to be." I'm sure that felt like a number of things, like a slingshot. in some regards. There's pressure there too. Him believing in you, and also believing in your opportunity, like, what did that do for you?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, I mean, I think what you just said there, Jon, is so important is that there are two sides of this. There's the somebody believed in you, somebody said, you can go do anything you want to, you're gonna have a different life than I did. That's a huge gift. You know, I do believe that words have the power to speak life or death. But there is that whole shadow flip side. And we started to get into things like the enneagram of the mask you put on when you're little. You start to become aware of the world around you. And things tell you, "Oh, so that's what I need to be in order to be loved. And for me that became like a 50/50 split between the achiever three and the individualist four, which essentially means appropriate for your show. Not only do I have to have goals, they have to be goals unlike any other goals, than anyone has ever set before.

Jon Acuff:

Your goals have goals. Yeah.

Mary Marantz:

My goals have goals. And so I think like the flip side of that, and that's been a big journey of my adulthood, I'm still working on it, it's a big part of what book two is about, is making peace with having goals and going after big things, but not achieving for your worth, or for people to love you. And so you know, I think like that message became kind of clear of, the better you do, the more proud they are, which felt like the more they loved you. And so I literally had a worth attached to my achieving. When I was in grade school, I got paid for my grades. So an A+ got me $5. An A got me $4.50. An A- got me $4. And I very quickly learned if it was a C- or below I had to pay them. So there was a cost to being average.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, yeah.

Mary Marantz:

You know, and, actually, there was a post today from Adam Grant I saw that was talking about, like, the high rates of depression and anxiety among kids who go to the top colleges. And I left a comment and I was like, "Yeah, it's like that meme, where all the gifted kids from grade school are now the adults with anxiety" and I was like raising my hand over here.

Jon Acuff:

That's, that's amazing. I wonder about that, how you kind of process that going forward as an adult. Because I recently interviewed Greg McKeown, the author of Essentialism and Effortless. And his new book, Effortless talks about having a, like, kind of a lower limit, like a bare minimum and an upper limit. So his example was, he wanted to start journaling. So he set a minimum,"I'm going to write at least one sentence a day." But then he set a maximum, "I'm only going to allow myself to write five sentences a day." And he said, most people, especially high performers, achievers never set the maximum limit. And so they do three pages one day, and none the next. And then again, it goes all up and down. Have there been times in your adult life that you've said, "Okay, I've got the gas pedal so far down. I feel, you know, thin, emotionally, you know, I'm going to get stuck. I'm going to burn out. How do I pull back? Are there any places in your life where you set that upper limit? Because writing books, podcasts, you mentioned five books, you have a five book deal, like that's a lot of books. Where are some upper limits you've set?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, well, I mean, the first part of your question, like have you ever felt a time when you were running really thin? I would say yesterday.

Jon Acuff:

Right? Yeah, way back yesterday. Oh, I remember that day.

Mary Marantz:

I have this really, I think it's a really important working theory, and that is that we don't give up achieving for our worth once and then we're done. We do it, like anything we become addicted to, it's one day at a time. And I've been working with a goals coach Kim Butler from The Whiteboard Room for, we're starting our sixth year together. And I was so frustrated in the beginning because she was like really, like, hammering in the fundamentals. Like what are your daily personal goals? How much water are you going to drink? How much are you going to work out? Like how many hours of sleep are you going to get? And I was like, I don't know. I have stuff to go do. And it really took me a very long time to embrace that if I was going to go anywhere far, or for a long time. I was gonna have to get right with that stuff. Because the thing they don't tell you about burnout, people think burning out is like coasting to the side of the road when you run out of gas and it is not. It is like 90 miles an hour and then you hit a brick wall. And it hurts. And it takes a really long time to come back to that when you hit the bottom of the tank. So I would say those, those are the first things I've started to put into place, but upper limits in terms of productivity, that might need to start happening in my life, because I have not thought of it that way. I've thought of it as like minimum.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, it's an interesting concept. They kind of got me like, oh, ok, like that one steps on my toes a little. Let's jump back. You just said something interesting. So you have a goals coach. So I think most people, myself included would go, "Wait, wait, wait, what is, like, what is that? How did you find a goals coach? Like, what does that process look like?" Okay, you've been with her six years. So walk us back six years and a day ago, where you go, "I think I might need a goals coach." What does that mean?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, so the way that I found her was that my friend Hannah Brencher, who I mentioned earlier, the Sharpie marks through the calendar, who's an author, and has just released I think, her third book, she had worked with Kim getting ready for her first book. And so she was kind of Kim was presented to me as the coach that will actually make you make good on writing this book. And so I thought maybe she was like a writing coach. She's not she doesn't actually like, give feedback on the writing necessarily. She will, she will help me like whiteboard the concepts. Or like, if I'm getting stuck on something, we'll talk it through, but she's really much more interested in who Mary the human is and who I'm becoming versus what I'm achieving. And so that's how I got the connection. I was speaking at the same conference that we spoke together years ago in Rome, Georgia. The Pursuit Conference, and Kim drove up. And in that main lobby at Winshape there's a popcorn machine in the back corner. And so we're sitting like, tucked away hidden in this back corner, an old timey popcorn machine, we're eating out of it, like the little like circus bags.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah.

Mary Marantz:

Kernels spilled out on the table between us. Salty tears, you know, the whole scene was in the book, and I'm basically saying to her, that I just watched this very charming movie about, you know, doctor gets stuck, and it's like a Doc Hollywood remake. It's got Candace Cameron Bure and it's amazing. And they're talking about pecan trees, and how pecan trees, left to their own devices, will grow so many good things, and hold on to so much of the fruit that they will literally split themselves in half. That if you're going to tend to a pecan tree really well, you have to be an expert in pruning. And I said, I'm a pecan tree and I'm about to split in half.

Jon Acuff:

Ah, gosh. That is so good.

Mary Marantz:

Yeah. So she spent some time pruning.

Jon Acuff:

What's the name of her company? So we can

Mary Marantz:

The Whiteboard Room. So she helps you whiteboard.

Jon Acuff:

The Whiteboard Room. Alright, we'll make sure that we link that in the show notes, too. So what is What are some of the things that she helped you prune? Because that's the challenge right now. We live in a world that's never done. Like you have a podcast, you could try to scale that podcast 1000 different ways. You have a social media platform, you have books, like there's no natural limit to the things you could do. So when you're kind of"Okay, I'm stuck in a cycle of there's more, there's more, there's more, there's more" like, what does the pruning process look like?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, and I would just add to that, especially when some of these platforms are basically saying, I mean, I didn't see it personally, but through a friend passing it to a friend passing it to a friend, I saw these new like guidelines for Instagram with like, seven reels a week.

Jon Acuff:

Oh, yeah.

Mary Marantz:

All this other stuff. And I'm just like, this is a full time job just in and of itself. So you're right, you could spend your whole life doing it. So she really set about the first thing we started to rein in is, like you mentioned in the intro, we had a digital, have a digital online program for creatives. And we had all of these different courses, that were having all of these different launches. And so we really kind of just went through and said, "Alright, 80/20, what are the ones that are giving us 80% of the results? What are the ones we should hone in on? Do we really need to launch this? You know, do a launch a quarter? Could it be launched every other quarter?" Or you know, just like getting the most impact. So we just started like, taking one thing away. And then you know, I kind of, oooh, you know, and freak out.

Jon Acuff:

It's terrifying. It made me sweaty to hear you say that sentence.

Mary Marantz:

I know. And then you take it away and you realize, okay, that wasn't that big of a deal. And that actually made this other thing grow better. Like who knew pruning, actually, is a real thing. But she was really good. And she has a particular gifting for the patience of overachieving entrepreneurs who say they want this thing, but then they just pile it back on and that tendency to create a vacuum and fill it right back up. So she just kind of kept showing up, getting in my face saying, "You know, you really said you wanted to do this this year, and I don't see how you're going to do it when your calendar looks like this." And so it's, I mean, it's a gift to have somebody be such an honest mirror to your

Jon Acuff:

100%. And it's a gift that it's not your spouse, priorities. because I think if you want to have amazing marital fights, try to hire your spouse as your goals coach.

Mary Marantz:

That's right.

Jon Acuff:

And let me know, let me know how that goes. Yeah, let me know how that goes. So we've talked a little about the book. When I read the book, you're writing reminds me a lot of Sean of the South, like the voice. I don't know if you're familiar with him. Look up, Sean of the South, brilliant Southern writer. You'll love his work.

Mary Marantz:

Okay!

Jon Acuff:

Just your ability to tell a story, paint a picture, use words and in ways that really make you feel like you're there. This storm is rolling in and you're standing there and there's lightning. Who would you say are your writing influences when you say "Okay, oh, here's when I read so and so that influences my voice or here's kind of like" maybe I'd say it this way, who's on your Mount Rushmore of writers? Like the four people that are on your Mount Rushmore of writers.

Mary Marantz:

Oh, four. Okay.

Jon Acuff:

And when you read Sean of the South, you're going to be blown away.

Mary Marantz:

You know what, now that you say it, I feel like Caleb Peavy who I think we both know said that to me.

Jon Acuff:

They work together, they work together. Yeah, you'll Yeah, you'll love his stuff. But who's on your Mount Rushmore, I

Mary Marantz:

Well, I feel like number one across the board, cut you off, I'm sorry. mostly because she was just one of the first people who I read one of her books and then I got the rest of them is Shauna Niequist. I love Shauna's writing. Very similar where you just feel like you're there with her, you're tasting the blueberries, you're feeling the salty air on your face. I had the gift of reading Blue Like Jazz in between draft one and draft two of Dirt. And I'd really been struggling with writing a memoir in particular, because everything I read about sophisticated memoir said you were never allowed to acknowledge the reader was even there. You just had to kind of tell your story. It is what it is. They take what they take. And I really wanted, I didn't want to necessarily like break the fourth wall to talk to them. But I did at least want to sort of think aloud for them of these are some things that I was processing or taking from that and Blue Like Jazz did that. And I was like, oh you're there's permission you can do that. So that would be number two. And I feel like Anne Lamott at the same time. So Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, Blue Like Jazz were happening at the same time in my life. Um, gosh, number four. Ooo, I think it's gonna be Bill Bryson.

Jon Acuff:

Oh, yeah!

Mary Marantz:

I just, I mean, he was one of the first books that just made me like laugh out loud the whole time.

Jon Acuff:

So good. His Appalachian Trail, Notes from a Small Island.

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, there was one called The Lost Continent, I think was the first one I read where he's going around to small town America. Just brilliance. Just hilarious and brilliant and beautiful writing.

Jon Acuff:

I love that. That's a great Mount Rushmore. I can, I can totally see that in your writing. So jumping into the book on page 22, I'm going to read a quote from you to you, which sometimes is awkward when people do that, but I think it's a really great quote, you say"So yes, I've known since I was little that one way or another, whatever else I had to do to make it happen, I would get out of that trailer and make a different life for myself." So I'm curious, you've obviously done that in some spectacular ways. Has there been any survivor's guilt? Has there been any "Okay, I made it out of this thing. I feel bad that I made it out of this thing." It was a goal you had it was a desire you had. Like, how have you processed that?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah. Oh, that's such a good question. There absolutely has been I think it's on two levels. You know, there's like my actual family. And then there's this like, broader family that is the family of West Virginians. And, you know, West Virginia is the butt of a lot of jokes, a lot of unfair jokes. People think they know everything that they need to know about a place they probably haven't even visited. And when I was looking at colleges, and especially when I started looking at law schools, because for college, I really only applied to WVU. I didn't, you know, even think about going out of state, but for law school, I did. And I remember my dad saying to me, "You know, if all the smart kids leave the state, if all the brightest kids keep leaving, like how is West Virginia gonna grow?" And so there was a certain level of like, it felt like a betrayal not only to my dad, who did not want to see me leave the state and liked to keep me safe within this irregular heartbeat of the state boundary. But it felt kind of like a betrayal to my whole state. You know, like, "Oh, we raised you, we brought you up, we gave you everything."

Jon Acuff:

You're letting down John Denver, like you're letting down john Denver,

Mary Marantz:

John Denver, personally will be disappointed in you. Yeah, and so you know, I do write in Dirt about how leaving a place can feel like a betrayal. There was like a second cousin twice removed, who I heard, say this phrase once. And it wasn't even about me. It was about somebody else in her family. "She's acting higher than her raising." It's another version of "too big for your britches," I guess.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah. Wow.

Mary Marantz:

And so it was kind of, you know, I'd say an admonishment in advance. You know, a warning shot across the bow of there, there's this implied ceiling and don't go beyond the ceiling. And so yeah, that was there was a lot of how do you reconcile calling a place home, but also making a home somewhere else? I mean, I've lived in Connecticut longer than I've lived in West Virginia.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah. And no one compares the two. No one is like, "You know what? New Haven is just like West Virginia." No one has ever confused those two locations.

Mary Marantz:

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.

Jon Acuff:

They are very different. So I love there's just moments where you could see something shift. Where somebody would believe in you, you you'd catch the vision of something. I think one of them was when, I believe his name was Josh, a boyfriend said, "Hey, why don't you apply to Yale?" Yeah. So which you weren't even thinking about. You're applying to law schools. He says, "Why don't you apply to Yale?" Yale is number one in the nation law school. And the way you find out is so beautiful for your family. It's so beautiful for your story. I love to watch like moments where somebody does really well on a singing show, you know, or a talent show like it works and they ring the golden buzzer or whatever.

Mary Marantz:

The gold confetti.

Jon Acuff:

And it felt like that. I wanted to cheer for you when I read that story. How did you find out that you this impossible dream, you get into Yale Law School. How did you find that out?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah. So what like, like you mentioned to to begin with, I don't I honestly have tried really hard to remember. And I cannot figure it out, if they did not have application fee waivers at the time, or we just didn't know about them. But we're spending$75-100 per application. Which you didn't have. Which we did not have and you know, like you said, Yale's number one. I also sent one to Harvard and Columbia. So it was like 1, 2, 3 at the time. And we're you know, I'm just like looking at this, I call it like rich people math or something like that, I'm like, blanking on what even call it in the book, but it was talking about like, you have to start playing the odds about reaching but reaching not too high that it's a waste, but like also taking a chance on yourself. It's kind of like playin' the ponies.

Jon Acuff:

You're doing ROI, you're constantly doing an ROI.

Mary Marantz:

Yeah. 100%. And we were, you know, I'd done like a dozen applications at that point. I was out of money. I was out of, you know, energy to do it. And my boyfriend at the time, Josh, we were in England together doing a Master's, and he said he saw like the combination of grades and SAT scores and all the other stuff in the story. And he said, "What about Yale?" And I was like,"Why don't you just set $100 on fire for all that's worth?"

Jon Acuff:

Why didn't you say the moon? Why don't I apply to the moon?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, but like, like I hear SpaceX is gonna have a law school at some point. Let's do that. So he actually paid the check and send it in on my behalf. Which is like, I mean, who has that happen in their life, you know. And like the way that one person who we don't even like in that, we're friends still, but we don't have an end up together, can completely change the trajectory of somebody else's life. And so we're in England, circa 2002, with a little like, gosh, starts with a V. I can't even think what the company's called. Like the little cell phone. That's like so classic UK with the

Jon Acuff:

Like Vox or somet little

Mary Marantz:

Vodaphone! That's it!

Jon Acuff:

Vodafone.

Mary Marantz:

It's a little like, ring, you know, ringtone that's so signature. Anyway. And so circa 2002, transatlantic cell phone calls, surprisingly to no one, do not work so great.

Jon Acuff:

Probably wearing tweed with a little drivers cap. They drop a lot. And we were in Cambridge, where Josh was getting his master's. We're watching these swans in the the River Cam. we're watching punters taking their first

Mary Marantz:

Elbow patches.

Jon Acuff:

Exactly, exactly.

Mary Marantz:

Swans are smoking pipes.

Jon Acuff:

They're all reading CS Lewis. Swans are so smart.

Mary Marantz:

Very regal, very regal. And so you know, my dad calls. And my dad hadn't started like switched, he did like a 180 from like, "Don't apply to schools outside of the states" to when we started getting a few acceptance letters, Georgetown had come in, Columbia come in. He suddenly like had his sights set on Yale and he kept asking me about it."Oh, is has Yale or Harvard call yet?" You know.

Jon Acuff:

I love that. So he goes from logger who wants you to stay in West Virginia to "I want the best." And he wanted the best for you the whole time, obviously. But "I want the best for my girl and Yale is the best and my girl is the best and let's go."

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, I think like it just took like, I think he was just afraid I'd be disappointed. I think he just like maybe there's a part of him that was still holding on to like, "They're all gonna be No's. So do what safe. Do what's a Yes." And as soon as he was like, "Oh, this is working! Like let's go!" you know. And so he kept asking. And on that particular day, it was like the 20th time he'd asked. It was like May I already have my housing, my financial aid at Columbia. I was going to New York, which I was not wild about but that's another story. And he asked and I was like "No, they're not gonna call. Like can we please stop asking about this? Like, can we be happy with the results we had?" And he just

Jon Acuff:

You thought the door was shut?

Mary Marantz:

Closed. I mean, really, truly. I had not heard anything. I hadn't even heard waitlist I hadn't heard Yes, I hadn't heard No. I'd heard nothing like for all I knew I didn't even make it across the pond to them. And so you know, he says he does this thing like"Oh, is that a fact?" And he basically said "Huh, cuz they called the house and talked to your grandma Goldie." And if you read Dirt, Grandma Goldie is a powerhouse character all in herself. And she was trying to like strong arm them into telling her. And they weren't allowed to because I was over 18. And so they had to tell me. And so for like two hours this Yale Law admissions woman is trying to connect with my cell phone across an ocean. And the like, call keeps dropping and it was just like torture. And I keep trying to call her back and she keeps trying to call me back and she's not supposed to do this, but finally she was like,"I can't get ahold of you." I think we were able to like find a landline or something like that. And she said, "Mary, welcome to Yale Law School." And it was just like what in the I did not like stop shaking or sleep a wink that night you know. And it really was like if there had been a golden buzzer confetti moment I feel like that's the feeling.

Jon Acuff:

That's how I felt! And your storytelling's so good that it feels like that. And to go back to the kind of what your dad's thought about not wanting you to be disappointed. Let's fast forward to modern times. It's today. It's, you know, you're going to launch something new. yYu're going to do something new that's brave. It's beyond what you're currently doing. And I think there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast that might go, "Okay, but if I hope in a big way I can get hurt in a big way. So I'll mitigate my hurt by having smaller hope." How do you actively work against that? And sometimes it sounds like it's friends, like Josh that goes"Hey, like we're going. Like we're doing it." But how do you, looking forward at new big challenges, new big goals, new big whatever's, how do you put aside that part of you that goes"Be careful. If you really dream, it'll cost you a lot. You'll get hurt." How do you deal with that?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah. Okay, so, the two shows that I'm bingeing right now, this matters, it comes full circle. One of them is Young Rock, because I'm obsessed with Dwayne Johnson.

Jon Acuff:

He's very obssessful.

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, it's very obssessful. Similar, you know, didn't come from a lot, just super super driven kind of mentality. And the other is we started watching Wahl Street, W-A-H-L Street, about Mark Wahlberg's, like seven different entrepreneur empires that he's building. And then from that, we are so obsessed, we went back and started watching all the Wahlburgers. And there's this scene in Wahlburgers, where Mark and Donnie and Paul, the like non-famous brother, I mean he's become famous at this point, but he's the the chef, are playing basketball. And Paul says, they say, "Oh, shoot, shoot from that range. Shoot from beyond the three point range." He said, "I don't have range like that." And Mark says to him, "How do you know if you haven't tried?" And it just like, it's so simple, but it was just like this, like thing clicked in my head of like, that is the mentality that takes people from Dorchester, Massachusetts, where I know, I know, you're from Massachusetts, or from you know, Hawaii turned Nashville, turned Miami, turned Connecticut at some point for Dwayne Johnson, this just like mentality of like, you say, you don't have that range, because you haven't tried. And like you will never know.

Jon Acuff:

Oh, so good!

Mary Marantz:

Yeah. And there's another scene in that show where his son is like going up for competition. And he's like,"Study really hard and practice really hard." And he, it was like a spelling bee, he got out on an early word, and he took him out to a dinner to celebrate, because he was like,"You put everything on the line. You did every ounce of effort. There's no regret. You know, that you did everything you could to prepare, and you just have to leave it at that point." So I don't know. I mean, the short answer is Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg are giving me master classes and they don't know

Jon Acuff:

That's a great answer. I'm curious, so to that point, like the leaving it all on the line, you're trying your best, I think that when you're a child, you might think "that's just something my parents say. It doesn't really like, we don't care if you were to lose it as long as you tried your hardest." But now that I'm an adult, now that I'm in my mid 40s, I'm like, No, that's actually 100% true. Like, if you have given it your all on a book launch, on a business, starting on a podcast, on, you know, on a weight loss, whatever, there is a really sweet permanent satisfaction of I did the thing I could do. Like, I don't control the results, but I did the thing I can do. What would you say are some other things that you might go, "You know what, as I think about motivational ideas, this one is actually true, or this one has actually helped." Are there some that come to mind?

Mary Marantz:

Oh, man. Okay, so I have two answers. First of all, just building on what you said about it really, really is true. There's something so powerful about just this idea of no regrets. I think like growing up the way that I did, I had told myself so many stories about "You're not going to have very nice this. You're not gonna have a very nice that." One of them in particular was our wedding. I was just convinced that for some reason that I was just going to like get married in the basement of our church. Not that there's anything in the world wrong with that, but like my parents had done when they were 17. And there was, it was this mentality of you started with a little, so that's the limit of what you can expect. And so a huge part of my life, I've made my decisions behind what does it look like not to have regrets? You know, that one has proven true, just I would, I would reiterate that but also one that the second one I will say, that's painful, and I kind of wish wasn't true, but it's become sort of the mantra for our life. It's the tagline of my podcast. Justin said it to me in our first year of our business we were building. He said, "Slow growth equals strong roots." It's like, man, be careful what mantras you pick for your life because life has a funny way of assigning you that. You will be the like, underdog, underdog, underdog, underdog, underdog, overnight success, you know, 15 years later. And I we always joke like why didn't we think to say "Overnight is easy." Or like"Everything we touch turns to gold!"

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, something like"We slingshotted into the lottery."

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, that's right. So but I mean, it is honestly true. It is this idea of, you have to find a way to show up and be consistent even when nobody's clapping. Well before anyone is clapping. You have to find a way to catch the vision and cast the vision. My Coach Kim and I talk about this all the time, that leaders have to go first. And that's one of our like, burdens we bear is that we see it before anybody else does, which means we have to move people towards it long before anybody else is clapping, long before anybody else gets it, long before anybody else is like "that's a great idea." That can be very lonely and very exhausting.

Jon Acuff:

Super lonely.

Mary Marantz:

So true. Slow growth, strong roots.

Jon Acuff:

I love that. What a great answer. That relates to something that I really liked. It was page 49, chapter three, where you talk about a Mrs. Bart, Burette. I don't know if I'm saying her name right

Mary Marantz:

Barrett.

Jon Acuff:

Barrett. Talking about that you're actually smart. And it was one of the first times that you said, "Wow, okay, maybe I'm smart." And you said "Labels became a lifeline, a lens through which I started to see my life for everything that it could be and not just what it was. It started to change everything. Words have the power to speak life or death." We've talked about that."When they call you smart, you act smart. You play up or down to what is expected of you." So you encourage a ton of people especially, you work with a lot of photographers, just you know, one particular category. What are the words that you speak to somebody to help them get to the next level? Because I think a lot of people that listen this podcast go, "Okay, I want to either start and try the thing. Or I'm ready to you know, I've done the thing a little bit, but I want to go to the next level." What are the words you speak?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, I think for me, knowing all of the time that you're going to spend in those obscurity moments. Working when nobody's clapping, working when nobody's paying attention, working before people know your name. You talk about speaking with John Maxwell, and like theline for him, the line for you. Knowing that how much time people are gonna spend being an entrepreneur. How hard that is. How lonely and how many times you question yourself. For me, it is about putting and pointing people back to why they are doing the thing. And that's, you know, not an original idea to start with why, Simon Sinek, what have you. But with photographers in particular, I would always say like, "I'm going to be like the four year old in your face right now. For everything you say, I'm gonna say, but why? But why? And I'm not going to be satisfied 'til we've gone seven layers deep. And there is like an umbilical cord tethered to what you are doing with your life tied back to a visceral moment in your life, when something mattered to you." And so for me, we did wedding photography for 15 years. And, you know, there's a photo of my grandparents, black and white silver 8x10, four corners of a frame. And it's a photo that Justin took of them and they're holding their wedding photo. And two weeks after he took that photo, my grandfather passed away. And it becomes in that exact moment, anybody who's lost somebody, you know, the very first thing you run to you, that you can still hold on to are the photos. That's like, it's like the most bizarre thing. They're here and then they cease to exist here. And the photos are what remain. And I said to people, "Life goes along in this very linear fashion." Even us starting this interview, we can't get any of that back. It's already gone. You know, life's going along, cruising right along. That moments gone, that moments gone, that moments gone. But photography, and photographers by extension, get to step in with our whole calling our whole job, we get to step in and grab one of them and go, "Yeah, but not that one. That one stays."

Jon Acuff:

Oh, c'mon!

Mary Marantz:

So I think when you have something like that, that drives you, and wedding photography, I did it for 15 years, it can be a very, you know, "Oh, that's the help" or very thankless, very unglamorous job. But when you can see that bigger picture that long after you're gone, your work will remain. And authors get that as well. Our words will remain. Just thinking about that legacy that lives on. I think that's what most people need to be reminded of.

Jon Acuff:

That is so good. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad we did this interview. I think most of this episode is just me going. That's awesome. I love that. That is, that is so fantastic. So one of the things that I love to ask is there's not a normal day, like there's not an average day, there's not a typical day, every day is a little bit different. But walk me through like one of your days. Like I need to block the mornings for like solitary work, so that I can create the things that are then going to go out and become something. And then the afternoon, I need to do social things. I need to record a podcast. I need to do some meetings. So I'm kind of learning to block my days into half like that. But as you look at your week, like are you a"It's Sunday and I lay out every hour" or are you a "I have rough rules I try to follow." Walk us through your process for the week and how you invest your time.

Mary Marantz:

Yes. So one of the things that I've realized is that for me ss an introvert, if I have even one meeting on the calendar, I spend, and I think all the introverts are gonna say amen. I spent all that morning like thinking about and getting mentally ready, and you got to like, think about what you're gonna wear and get showered and like, hyping yourself up for it, and then like the rest of the day, like recovering from it. And so I have found that if I have meetings, you know, like one a day, pretty much the whole week gets shot, just mentally gearing up to those. And so I have learned to block meetings. So I have days where it's like, we'll record all the podcasts or we'll record all the interviews, that also helps with like getting showered and getting ready once. And then I need to have entire days on the calendar where there are no obligations to speak of, or no meetings. And that's what I'm doing kind of like that deep work. For me it's like a deep versus wide situation. And I do sit down on Sunday and kind of block out what that week looks like. But I would say that I start to kind of rebel if it gets a little too carved in stone. Because I became an entrepreneur to set my own hours or whatever.

Jon Acuff:

I struggle with that. Commitment feels like a prison. So like, even if it's a good commitment, if somebody's like,"Hey, you want to go skiing in six months?" I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa." Like, even if it's something I love, I have to work to go, "You're gonna be so glad you chose to do that. Like, it feels like you can't right now. But you'll be so glad at some point that you chose to do that." So that's interesting that you block, you block your day that way. I'm curious, what would you say are your hobbies? Like when you're not doing goals, you're not, you know, what are your hobbies?

Mary Marantz:

You're putting me on blast, Jon Acuff.

Jon Acuff:

What is it going to be? There's no hobbies? "Work is my hobby!"

Mary Marantz:

You know, I've been having this conversation a lot, actually, with my husband, Justin, because they kind of started out, I mean, for him more than me even, that photography was just something that he really loved. And then it became our career and then writing because it was like an outlet for me, something I really loved.

Jon Acuff:

And once you get a book deal, it's like it's not a hobby.

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I know I love movies. I love movie nights. We always walk. We live like we have the seawall right outside our house. We walk right by the Long Island Sound

Jon Acuff:

Oh awesome.

Mary Marantz:

I don't know if walking can count.

Jon Acuff:

Walking 100% counts. I think one of the hobbies is everything counts. Like, yeah.

Mary Marantz:

Okay, good. I don't know, I feel like I don't know. He's maybe going to get into gardening. I kill everything. So we sit on our front porch a lot with cheese boards. I don't know if that's a hobby.

Jon Acuff:

That's a hobby, too!

Mary Marantz:

I don't know, I need to work on it. I need to work on something. Especially like, my agent Jenny always says"If you work with your brain, Sabbath with your hands." And so, you know, rest with your hands. And so I like that.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, that's good. And I'm not I don't have 50 hobbies. So that was a hobby judgment question. Where I'm like, "That's weird. Mary doesn't have 100 hobbies, like I do. I'm whittling right after I get off his podcast to release the tension of the day." Like no. I'm somebody who's not naturally good at hobbies. So I'm always curious about that. With the follow up question. How do you celebrate? Like when something, something you crush, you get a million downloads of your podcasts. Whatever the thing is. You turn in the second draft of the book. How do you celebrate?

Mary Marantz:

You know what we've got in the habit of doing is we get those little lamarcus splits of Prosecco that we have in stock and like there's some up in that cabinet. And there's like one or two always chillin in the refrigerator, because they're just enough for like a little glass each, for Justin and I without, you know, like that champagne headache, or whatever. So it's just enough to celebrate, just enough bubbly and then you don't have like a whole bottle of champagne going flat in your refrigerator. So we, I mean, getting in the habit of celebrating has become very important to me, because if left to my own devices, I'm very guilty of "On to the next thing. C'mon let's go!"

Jon Acuff:

I'm moving on. I don't even acknowledge that no, like, we don't have time for cake, like let's go.

Mary Marantz:

But cupcakes and champagne.

Jon Acuff:

Cupcakes and champagne. I like that a lot. It's definitely something that when I talk to people on the podcast, it's a question that I'm always curious about, because I think everybody's, everybody's answers a little, is a little different. To how do I celebrate? Well, I took the team

Mary Marantz:

What is your answer? out for a dinner the other night, and that was a lot of fun. So I've got four people that I, that I get to work with in town. And so we did that. And I had a big cake. So we had a big cake too. So I'm learning to do it. It's not something I'm naturally good at. Because sometimes I think like, if I celebrate, the thing will fall apart. And I don't have time. Like I gotta keep moving like, you know, and so I'm learning to go like no, like, this is good. Let's admit it's good. Like, it's okay to be excited about it. So it's not it's a work in progress. I'd say a lot of the questions I ask are personal questions as well. Like, "What is she doing that maybe I could do?" Like I wrote down Kim at The Whiteboard. I'm like, I'm gonna look up, Kim. Oh, yes, you should absolutely check out Kim at The Whiteboard Room, she's amazing.

Jon Acuff:

That sounds fantastic. This has been a blast. I want to end it with one last question. So you've got a ton of resources for entrepreneurs. Your website is really, really fun. And I'm curious, what do you think are some of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make? You work with 1000s of entrepreneurs. What do you feel like are the mistakes that entrepreneurs tend to make?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, I feel like the two that are really coming to mind right now is, one is not looking at the data. And as an achiever, and as a, "Ooh, I just like to go do the things and make things happen." I have for many, many, many years considered data, the enemy. Because data tells me I'm failing. Data tells me it's not working. Data tells me "You're falling short, or this could be better.

Jon Acuff:

You could have done more.

Mary Marantz:

Oh, and it's, it's painful, but like, you know, for a lot of the entrepreneurs we've coached, I'll say to them, like,"What are your costs on that?" And they don't know. Or, you know, "What's the markup on that?" "Oh, that's a really good question. I've never thought of it that way." I'm like, "What are you talking about? You haven't thought of it that way? We've got to know the numbers." And then I'm like, oh right, I also ignore data. So I get it. So you know, making friends with the data and not taking the data personally. It's not judging you. It's not saying you are a failure. It's just giving you an honest reflection of what's working. And I would say probably the other one is not going into it with a mind to scale. Not going into it with a mind for how this could ever happen without you there. And I just actually somebody else who I've just added to my team, Dahlia, her whole specialty is she she calls herself an integrator. She's a system specialist. And so she's coming in, she just did a whole system for the podcast start to finish of "How does this happen if all Mary does is show up and record?"

Jon Acuff:

Oh, that is good, Mary. Come on!

Mary Marantz:

It's amazing! It's amazing! And it's not at all how my brain naturally works. So I would say if you are not that person, find that person. Dahlia is my person.

Jon Acuff:

That is awesome. An integrator. I love that. I'm writing that down. Okay, this is the other last question, because I said the last one was the last question. So how would you, and this is completely unrelated, but I just love the way your mind works, how would you say"no" to somebody who asked you to go to coffee that you didn't want to go to coffee to? Like I'm saying like you run into them, you know, you don't have the time. You know, like, your friendship circle feels really full, you know. You know, and they say, "Hey, we should get coffee sometime." Somebody said no to me in a really elaborate way. And I was like, Oh, I wonder how like, now I'm curious, what's the best way to do that?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah. Oh, that's a really good question. Is this somebody who wants to be friends, or somebody wants to pick your brain?

Jon Acuff:

Oh, somebody wants to pick my brain? Forget it, I got answers for that. I'm saying like, this is somebody in New Haven that you might see again, that goes, "Hey, let's grab coffee." And they act, maybe even take out their phone. And they're like, "Let's just like, let's grab coffee without a phone." It's like, that's fictional. If somebody doesn't take out their pocket calendar, they don't want to have coffee with you. Because I don't know the answer. And sometimes I'll think well, give me your email address, because then I can tell them no via email versus like, right to their face. So what would you do in that What do you do in that situation?

Mary Marantz:

Oh, you know what's interesting? First of all, it's a great question. And it's a hard question.

Jon Acuff:

That's not easy. That's, that's a real hard, tough one. At the end, I saved a doozy.

Mary Marantz:

I know. You really did. I feel like maybe like the old me Okay, so I don't know if you're gonna love this answer. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna talk it through, we're gonna see what happens. I feel like the old me would have probably done something like, "Oh, yeah, you know, like, getting ready to page the second book. So life's a little crazy. But like, let's find the time" and you know, and it would have been just fallen off, like you talked about, it's not real. But honestly, going back to my earlier answer, you know, just really paying attention to what people do that seems a little counterintuitive, that become very successful. On the show, the Wahlburgers, and also Wahl Street, you see regular scenes of them, like Mark sitting there, he's a lefty, signing, signing, signing, signing over and over and over again. Or like going and staying till the very last guest or, you know, fan gets a selfie. Or Paul checking in with people at the restaurant. And they talk a lot about this idea of blessing people with your time and being available and not taking your fans for granted. And I'm not saying this person is a fan or whatever. But as an introvert, it was very convicting for me, because I tend to like really self protect with my energy and my time. And it's really hit me hard the last six or seven months that I've waited a lifetime to be an author. And now I actually have author, reader emails, and DMs, and I get overwhelmed as an introvert and I'm like, "Oh, I'll get back to that later." And I was like, you know, like, slap yourself in the mirror a little bit like "Buck up here, champ. You've wanted this your entire life, and now you have readers." And so I feel like I'm going a little bit on a tangent, but it's this idea of something I'm pushing myself on a little bit more is to say yes, even when I might want to say no. So that's not at all the answer you're looking for. Because you were looking for a "no."

Jon Acuff:

I think that's a fine answer.

Mary Marantz:

But that's where my brain is these days. Probably because I would be so I would have, my tendency would be to say, "Oh, I'm just in a crazy season. Let's do it soon!"

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, no, I think my version of that is I'm learning to go, I want to put real time against it. So like if I decide"Hey, I want to interact X amount of times a week" like and super serve like not if somebody is in my funnel, but like somebody asked me a question and they say, "Hey, I'm a new writer," because other writers answered those questions for me 10 years ago, like how do I say how do I encourage somebody if somebody you know, hits me up on LinkedIn and says, "Hey, here's this," you know, what does that look like? If I make time for it, then I think I can really do it, which it sounds like that's the Mark Wahlberg approach. It's funny how often that Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch popped up on this podcast. It was more than I anticipated.

Mary Marantz:

I'm telling you watch it. Wahl Street. So good!

Jon Acuff:

That is such a fun recommendation. I love that.

Mary Marantz:

I will say one more quick thing, just to that note is when I was like 24 or 25, October Sky, which is my favorite movie, it's about West Virginia, the Homer Hickam character reminds me of my dad so much. It was on TBS, I watched it, bawled my eyes out, again, sat down and wrote a long, long, long, long email to Homer Hickam. And he wrote back, and he wrote back pretty quickly, but it was like one paragraph to my like, you know, long, long email, but it was beautiful, very gracious paragraph. And I will just say that full circle moment, I now understand, like, what a gift that was, you know. Because like, you get those emails and people are pouring their hearts out. And you don't feel worthy of like, what am I going to say back to something like that, that's going to be worthy of a response to what they've just done? And so for him to like, not get overwhelmed and just close it and not get back to me, but actually say something, it means the world to me. So that's also driving my buck up and pull it together.

Jon Acuff:

I love it. I love and yeah, Steven Pressfield did that for me 10 years ago. I remember where I was when I got the email back. I asked him to endorse a book. And he wrote the kindest email back that essentially said, "Whatever else you're doing right now quit and be a writer." And that was, I've still got it. And I printed it out. And so yeah, I completely and it was a couple sentences. And he ended up endorsing the book. And it was, it was amazing. So I love hearing your version of that story. So last question, where can people find out more? I've mentioned the book Dirt. It's fantastic. It's such a beautiful memoir. It's really, really fun. It's really, really honest. We didn't even touch on how amazing the photos are in it. I think that's a whole other side of you that the photo journey through it is so personal and so perfectly timed. It's not like there's a clump of photos in the middle of the book and you're like "How do these interact?" Like every photo tells an additional story. But in addition to checking out the book anywhere books are sold, where else can people find out about you?

Mary Marantz:

Yeah, so if you want to read a free chapter, we have that on TheBookDirt.com T-H-E, B-O-O-K, D-I-R-T.com. It is a little book that can called Dirt, inspired from the dirt and mud on my dad's work boots. And you can also check out MaryMarantz.com. That's a central hub that links out to The Mary Marantz Show, the book Dirt, all the other things we have going on the blog. You can check out Jon's episode on The Mary Marantz Show that's out. That was amazing. And@MaryMarantz on all the socials.

Jon Acuff:

Awesome, awesome. Well, this was a blast. I knew it was going to be. There were so many moments today in the interview where I just had to stop and go "Oh, that's amazing. That is so good."

Mary Marantz:

Thanks!

Jon Acuff:

Like that's always my, my wife calls it "foyer ideas." Like ideas that if you came over to my house, I wouldn't let you let you pass the foyer before I was telling you about them. And there were some foryer ideas in this episode that I just couldn't, I just couldn't do anything would go "Oh, come on. That is amazing." So thank you for sharing that.

Mary Marantz:

That's awesome. And we didn't even get into Bill and Ted this time.

Jon Acuff:

No, no, we didn't even go on to that. And our our episode was a blast. So I knew this one would be super fun. You're absolutely killing it. I think you're gonna inspire a ton of people and everybody listening go check out Dirt. I think you'll find it really encouraging. The scene alone where she finds out about Yale, to me, is worth the price of the book. But it's a whole journey about believing in yourself and people that come around you to believe in yourself. So highly recommend. Mary, thanks for joining us today.

Mary Marantz:

Yay, thanks so much for having me.

Jon Acuff:

Wasn't that a fun conversation? I loved getting to interview Mary Marantz. I have a long way to go, I think. I really feel like I do. I have a long way to go until I feel like I'm a good interviewer. But great guests like Mary make it a lot easier. Thanks for listening today. It would mean the world to me if you followed this podcast and wrote a quick review. The reviews you've been leaving have been awesome. That's it for today. See you next week. And remember, all it takes is a goal. This episode of the podcast was brought to you by Medi-Share. Text JON, J-O-N to 474747 for more information. Huge thank you to Medi-Share for sponsoring it. J-O-N to 474747.

Producer:

Thanks for listening. To learn more about the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast and to get access to today's show notes, transcript, and exclusive content from Jon Acuff, visit Acuff.me/podcast. Thanks again for joining us. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast.