Natalie Franke
Have you ever struggled with the speed of your own success? Does it ever feel like sometimes you are staying stagnant, even perhaps getting stuck while the rest of the world is accelerating towards their dreams? Well today on the podcast we are talking about the power of slow growth. I have an incredible opportunity to speak to Mary Marantz. She is a best selling author, entrepreneur and keynote speaker, who has made a career out of understanding the power of growing slowly and the impact that we can have as a result on other people’s lives. Mary is the best selling author of dirt as well as her follow up slow growth equals strong roots. And she is also the first in her family to graduate from college and a graduate of Yale Law School. I’ll let her share a little bit more about her journey and today’s episode, but buckle up, because this one you don’t want to miss. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you Michi.
Natalie Franke
Mary, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Mary Marantz
Oh my gosh, Natalie, I am so excited for you and proud of you. I know you’ve talked about doing this for years. So I’ve literally been counting down the minutes since we got this on the calendar. So thank you for having me. Oh, thank
Natalie Franke
you for having me. We’ve known each other for a very long time. So for listeners that aren’t aware of Mary, I’m going to tell a quick story about Mary. I have known, loved, respected, looked up to and adored Mary Marantz for the entirety of my independent business career. And I will never forget one event in particular, I was speaking on a stage for the very first time. And I was terrified, I was utterly terrified, palms sweating hands shaking. And actually Tyler who is our video producer will laugh at this because he looks at me and he goes, You do this all the time right now. minutes before I went on stage to which my stomach did a flip. And I felt like I was gonna, you know, Puke the contents of my meager breakfast. I run into the ladies room. And I’m trying not to hyperventilate and who is in there. But Mary Moran’s just washing her hands, fixing your makeup getting ready, because I can’t remember if you spoke before me after I think you were opening. So I think you were getting ready to go up. And she looks at me absolutely terrified. And I will never forget, it’s like walking into a room where your hero is just standing there. And you just were there for me, you just talked me through it, you supported me you prayed with me, I have never felt so seen that in those moments right before taking the stage. And I will never forget it. It taught me some very important lessons, one of which being that, you know, true leaders really do look out for one another, support each other. And in that moment where, you know, I just was really feeling vulnerable, you became this force for empowerment, support. And you’ve done that throughout your entire career for so many people. And so I went up on that stage, I’m not sure I did a great job, I will say I didn’t puke, the winning, right like that was the the win the win there. But I’ll never forget Mary the way that you so fiercely supported me and empowered me in that moment. And you’ve done that throughout your entire career. Now, at that moment in time, though, this is before both of your incredible books had ever been published dirt, slow growth. This is when you were at the time of wedding photographer. And so I want to sort of start there, because it really does align with what we’re going to be talking about today. Share with us a little bit about that journey, you know, from even prior to wedding photography. Where did this all begin for you? Did you always know you are going to be an independent business owner? I know the answer to that question. But I’d love for you to kind of start us there start us in the early days of where you got started. And then we’ll lead into where we are today.
Mary Marantz
Oh my gosh, well, first of all, you were incredible in that talk. So let’s just back up and pause right there. And from that, even before you took the stage, but from that moment on, I knew that you were boring for all of this work that you’re doing. And so to watch it play out over the last few years, it’s just been phenomenal to see. And, you know, I think as somebody who has made a life’s work of reminding us all that the fastest way to success is actually to slow down and see people I could not be more excited to kind of dig in to talk about this right. So so I know that we’re in good company here. And I think like it’s really good to just sort of start with like this 32nd elevator pitch of my story if maybe people are sort of finding me for the first time here born and raised in a single wide trailer in very rural West Virginia. We sort of added onto it. And that kind of 80s in West Virginia sort of way, with a lien to shack. And so that was home from zero to 18. Dad’s a logger, mom cleaned houses. And then fast forward a few years and I find myself at the number one law school in the country, which, contrary to what Elle Woods would tell you is actually Yale, not Harvard. Actually, they hinted that at that in that movie, because Warner’s more successful brother was there. And, and also, contrary to what Ellen’s would tell you, it is very hard. And so as you know, I’m on this path, my parents were like, sets, that is the set safe life right there. And as I’m going through law school, I end up meeting and falling in love with both a photographer and photography. And when I graduate in 2006, even though I have six figure offers in London, in New York, we decide to check it all at start a photography business, without a penny to our name or clue what we’re doing. And that was in 2006, we’ve been full time since then, as entrepreneurs in one way or another, has a photography business for close to 17 years, I think is the math, and have also since branched into other businesses and courses and now author. And so you can say it in 30 seconds like that. But the thing I want everybody to hear is that it actually takes a very long time, none of it happens overnight.
Natalie Franke
Let’s dig in. Because I think there is this myth of overnight success. And so many of us experience the world through that lens where it can sometimes feel like our life is stuck staying the same stagnant. And yet, everybody else just has some magical moment where everything just happens for them. Yeah, instantaneously and without friction. And one of the things that I really love about your values and the pillars that you stand for, and that you’ve you’ve advocated for for such a long time is that that truly is a myth. And so I want to kind of lean in there, and let’s talk about it. Why do you think that so many of us really struggle with this understanding of slow growth? Why is it hard for us to wrap our minds around? And what has that been like for you? Have you struggled with it, too?
Mary Marantz
Yeah, I love this question. Because I’ve actually spent a lot of time as you can imagine thinking about it the last couple years of like, Where does this where is the message that fast is better even coming from because I don’t know about you, Natalie, but I never ever, when somebody’s introducing me, or whatever the case may be, I never want the most interesting thing about me to be how little time I’ve been at this work, how little effort it actually took, like when we think about it that way, that’s actually a pretty insulting life story to stand for, like she didn’t even really have to try hard at all the end. And that is not a movie any of us will go see, by the way, what I think happens is we get into these very micro silos of the industries that we’re in, where overnight feels like the dream, it feels like the pinnacle of success. But when we zoom out into our culture into humanity into the way that we’re wired as humans, that those are not the movies we go see. Those are not the stories we share from stage we love when our heroes have to go through some stuff to get to the result, we don’t even really care about their results. We care about who they became fighting to get to that place. Right? My friend Kim Butler always says our goals are not about what we get by achieving, it’s who we become. And so that’s kind of an interesting, like, why where did this even come from? And I think it’s got two levels that I would love to address. Number one is this echo chamber of a fire hose of social media, highlight reels. And you know, this fleeting currency of success. If you are following somebody, and you start to pay attention that the only things they ever talk about are how much how many, how fast, I’m going to challenge you, it might be time to reevaluate following that person. Now, listen, we’re I know you love data. I know you love science. I know you love strategy. I have no problems with any of those things. But if all somebody can say is the reason they have a spot at the table is how much how many, how fast, we have a problem. And so I think like That’s level one is like all we’re exposed to on a daily basis is like I started seven days ago, and I’ve made $1 trillion. It’s like, Have you have you really. So that’s sort of like just what we’re inundated and it starts to feel we’re inundated with it and it feels normal after a while. But the deeper level and this is where I want to slow down and kind of sink into it is that thing when we talk about wanting to see results fast? It actually has more to do with this crosshair intersection of imposter syndrome. And this I’ll be happy when this fill in the blank. I’ll be happy when so it’s a combination of I don’t feel equipped to do this thing. I don’t feel qualified to do this thing. Who does she think she is? Who do I think I am to do this thing. So at least if things start happening quickly, then it feels like a permission slip that I’m on the right track. The problem with that is the inverse is also true. If it doesn’t start happening as quickly as you want, if you aren’t seeing the results as quickly as she is, then it feels like a pink slip, that you should just go ahead and quit. This permission slip versus pink slip, I think is a really powerful thing for us to pay attention to. Because the other thing is the, I’ll be happy, when I’ll be happy when I have what she has, I’ll be happy when I am where she is, if I can just get to this place, then I can calm down, then I can kind of clock out and start to enjoy my life and actually be present in my real life around me. But the point and the problem is that that becomes a moving target. And there’s always somebody up ahead of you, and you never get around to actually living your life. So we think we have to do it fast. To get to this place where I’ll be happy, we have to do it fast to prove that we have what it takes and that we do matter. And then we chase it and we chase it, and we never get there. And it just you can spend your whole life doing it. I did a post the other day that was like, we have to be careful. We can Instagram and tweet and Tiktok are entire lives away and the clock is ticking. The clock is ticking, we can be a firehose of information, and never once get around to doing this work that matters.
Natalie Franke
Well, with that in mind. Wow, I relate to all of that. so deeply. I remember when I, you know, started my own business, my own photography business, I remember thinking, when I just book a wedding for $5,000, I will have made it, I did it. And then it was when I booked one for $10,000, I will have made it and then I did it. And I did that over and over and over again. And I’m sure folks listening to this, have experienced that as well and have those things right now sitting before them where they feel like, once I’ve done X, I will have made it and yet, what you’re really pointing out here is that in some ways, by repeating that narrative to ourselves, we’re simply upholding ourselves to a lie, right? We’re holding ourselves to this idea that, you know, if I just hit some worldly measure of success, then all of these insecurities, all of these doubts, all of these fears, all of these things I struggle with that make me feel like I’m not enough will vanish. But yet we know better. We do. Because so many of us have already hit some of those metrics, whether that was you know, in high school, I once I graduate from high school, I’ll feel like an adult. That’s right. Spoiler alert. 32 I don’t feel like an adult. I still wonder sometimes, like who let me you know, do this, any of this any of the things that I do. And I love that with the permission slip because again, it’s so whether it’s a pink slip or a permission slip, I absolutely love it. One thing that this community in particular struggles with, and again, I’m speaking somewhat from personal experience, but I know you know, over the past decade of being a business owner, myself, the past eight years of being in community growing communities of 10s of 1000s of business owners, I see it repeat over and over again, this struggle with achieving and this struggle with striving, always striving for more, this hunger within us to do more, be more be better improve ourselves. At every turn. I even I think it was Jon Acuff who tweeted something to the effect recently of like, you know, a morning routine that involves like, a fast greens powder, getting 30 minutes of sunlight, walking 10,000 steps, like all of these things, and it just made me chuckle because I thought, wow, if that doesn’t sum me up, and the expectations I’m holding myself to and striving and so many of us as entrepreneurs struggle with that, I’d love to dig into that dig into this striving, this achieving mentality, you know, is this something you also see business owners struggling with? And where do we even begin to unpack that?
Mary Marantz
Yeah, so when I wrote you know, they say you don’t write you think you’re gonna write the book that helps all of the people, and it does, secondarily, but first is going to work on you. And so I’m writing this book about giving up overachieving for your worth slow growth equals stronger. It’s my second book, and it’s the you know, subtitled fighting grease, freedom and purpose in an overachieving world. And the whole premise is not trying to Goldstar your way into mattering, you know, not trying to highlight reel your way into belonging, not having a i There’s a part in dirt where I talk about this Butler, who introduces me into every room and lists my whole resume this like you feel it bubbling up in your throat and you can’t even choke it down this need to say, but I’ve done all these things now because you want people to be impressed because because you don’t want them to feel like you’re wasting their time. Just just your mere presence. I can connect you. I can teach you something I can share something with you. I’m not a waste of your time. Right? And so for some of us, especially if you grew up with something in your story that makes you feel like you are disqualified before you even begin. In both dirt and slow growth. I talk about the girl in the red cape who’s running her way out of the deep dark woods trying to escape from something these branches clawing and scratching her clothes in her skin leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind from this place she calls home. The Big Bad Wolf ripping at her heels. I turned breathless and exhausted and I finally at last see it. I am the girl in the red cape running from my story. But I’m also Are the wolf. And that voice in my head telling me to run and never stop running that voice is my own will in slow growth, we revisit that scene exactly. But this time, it’s from the perspective of the wolf chasing and can’t stop chasing this version of me. I was born to protect I, my heartbreaks that I’ve scared her away again. And when I wail out when I roar, it’s not because I am dangerous. It’s because this thorn in my paw these wide open wounds and these ones unscarred poems. And at a certain point, the big bad wolf learns to be afraid of us because we learn how to twist that thorn to keep it running. Because if we can’t stop moving forward, it can’t stop chasing us. And so I talk about this in slow growth, these different kinds of versions we become of ourselves in order to perform our way into mattering into into this, you know, our greatest fear is that our whole life will pass by unwitnessed, that this time here won’t count for anything. And we start to think the only way to escape our past, the only way to escape this failure that might be wired directly into our DNA is to not stop running. So I deeply passionately understand the need to keep striving I wrote dirt in that scene, because I wanted people to understand how visceral primal and survival achieving can really become. It is not a must be nice, like the only side effect of your heart story was success, like, what’s the problem? No, it’s that we don’t know how to breathe. If we go too long without a win, achieving becomes the oxygen. Perfectionism is the penance we pay to take up space in the room. So I’m deeply empathetic. And I also have done the field research for all of us. And like you said, I’m telling you like, I think the one that maybe started to make sense for me is like, if you can get into the number one law school in the country and still feel like you are worthless, that maybe it’s not in things. Maybe it’s not, you know, achievements and accomplishments.
Natalie Franke
I remember when I first read the part of dirt that touched on, you know, I am the girl in the red cape, and I’m also the wolf. Yeah. And I’ve, honestly, I love your writing. But I’ve never resonated more than in that moment. I even remember I doodled it and, yes, it, it truly touched me. And I realized in my own life, too, I am so often the wolf nipping at my own heels and propelling myself forward, but not from a place of, you know, not not from a good place of wanting to make impact, but almost out of out of fear, right. And so much of what you touched on in both books, resonates so much with me. I’m curious when it comes to achieving when it comes to being an achiever? Are we all the same? Are there different, you know, types of achievers? Are there different roles that we try to play in our lives? In that regard? I know you’ve done so much research. So I feel like I’m asking the expert here.
Mary Marantz
Yeah. What’s really cool is that a little bit of a backstory that I actually like talk about in the author’s note of slow growth is that six years before I ever had an agent or book deal or anything like that, Justin and I become very burnout. As photographers, we felt like everything we were creating was us being beholden to someone else, someone else’s vision or checklist of creation. And so we put together some shoots that were purely just for us, we did one in New Haven of ballerinas. And then we flew a small team of us to Venice and did a few different looks there. And then came home, edited, like three of them, put them on Instagram, the ultimate and highlight reels. And they sat on a hard drive for six years, we didn’t know what to do with them. We just we didn’t know what that was about. We were like, well, that was cool. But weird. I guess we’ll just keep these forever, on a hard drive. Fantastic. And then I start writing slow growth. And I’m trying to really put words to the pain of what it is to be an achiever, what the pain of what it is to feel like you’re just pushing and pushing and banging your head against this brick wall. And I’m creating these characters without even meaning to it was not, I wish I could say I like had some strategy going into it. But it didn’t. It was just like these, like, I’m this tightrope walker, I’m up and I’m down and everywhere in between, you know, the latest highlight reel catching me just in time, my days have always been defined as good or bad by the latest good thing that’s happened to me. Or maybe it’s the performer always on her toes, never ones being able to blink and let on that it’s a performance wanting to show other people how far she’s come and also herself. And so we I wrote the book. And we had a totally different design for the book total, like just wildly different. Much more just sort of like Draper James I would say, and it just didn’t fit. It was like that’s a really pretty coat for somebody else. But it does not fit me. And so we went back to the drawing board redesigned it. Justin Moran’s who is a genius and is responsible for the phrase slow growth equals strong roots. He said that to me in year one of our business also said, what if we did something that was more like our photography brand, a little Vanity Fair. And so we use those photos and we started to realize, man, they’re lining up with each of these characters. And so after the book was out, I actually even put together a quiz. We call it the achiever quiz, where you can endowed with five different avatar types of this different yet all the same person who is always performing Are you the performer So the performer cares about hitting goals not only to prove it to themselves, but to prove other people how far they’ve come, which is what I am. I’ll be interested to know after you hear these which one you think you are. The tightrope walker doesn’t really care so much about anybody else. They don’t care who’s clapping, they’ll clap for themselves, but they need higher and higher hits of dopamine to get the same amount of joy from them. The Contortionist is not personally driven by goals that much themselves, but they twist themselves up into tiny tethered knots to make other people happy. Because to contort is easier than to be criticized. The masquerader doesn’t go after goals because they don’t want to let themselves or other people down. And then the illusionist, who’s sort of our outlier doesn’t go after goals in either case, either. But it’s more because they can’t start until it’s perfect. And so we put it together in a quiz, it takes like two minutes to take, it’s at achiever quiz.com or Mary Moran’s dot com slash quiz. And you can find out which type you are where you get stuck and tripped up and get in your own head about moving forward. And what your strengths are also as that type and how you start to move forward with purpose. So if you take it everybody listening, send me a DM and let me know what type you got. And I’m very curious now, Natalie, which one do you think you are?
Natalie Franke
I think I’m likely a contortionist. Although perhaps a performer, I have to take it, I’m going to take it and what I will say to you is we’ll link it in the show notes to the episode so that everyone has quicklink access. But who? Man I the more that we all learn about ourselves, the more fuel it gives us to build that self awareness and move forward. I am eager, I’m going to take it right after our recording and find out find out if my hunch is true. I want to share one thing that you share it you published recently, and it really resonated with me, especially as you know, we’re kind of talking about purpose. We’re talking about achieving we’re talking about these these layers here. So you said instead of asking, what might go wrong, ask who couldn’t help. One is based in self preservation, the other and significance. You can’t bubble wrap purpose. All this staying safe keeps you playing small.
Mary Marantz
Yeah, that one hurt.
Natalie Franke
It’s a personal attack against my soul. But let’s talk about it. Tell me about that.
Mary Marantz
Yeah, you know, I mean, here’s the interesting thing, here’s the thing people get wrong about slow growth is they hear that and they go, Okay, so there’s no amount of slow that’s wrong, then like, let me just slow this all the way down. And let me just think about it for you know, be like Dewey Cox and think about my whole life before I go on stage. And in reality, sluggers actually happens right in his sweet spot in the middle. And if we go too far to either direction, either if we try to fast track it, and overnight our way into success, we get into trouble. But we also get into trouble if we go so slow, that we actually stop that we become stuck. And so what I hear from the women, I coach, and the women I talk to who read the book, and just conversations with friends, is that we tend to get stuck, because of all, you know, I did this reel where I was like, let me see if I can guess them. It’s all been done. It’s all been done by someone better. It’s all been done by someone the world wants to pay attention to, I can’t start until it’s perfect. I can’t start until I know the blueprint and know every single step of the way. What if I started and I can’t stay consistent? What if I don’t have the bandwidth? What if the critics come? What if they say, Who does she think she is, et cetera, et cetera. And so chances are just hit one for somebody listening at home. Because fear is pretty boring. The scripts that it uses on all of us are pretty much the same. Like it has a very limited arsenal to keep us stuck. And what as soon as we recognize that we can actually take it as a good sign that we’re on the right track. Cool, cool. You’re telling me that my voice doesn’t matter, you must be really terrified of what will happen if I use it. Great. Let me lean into that. And so, you know, when we think about this idea of bubble, wrapping ourselves bubble, wrapping our purpose, you know, imagine just sort of like picturing like, Ralph fees, little brother, is it, Ralph and Christmas wearing his little brother, whatever his name is, with, like, all the codes, I can’t put my arms down, right? We do that to our dreams, we do that to our purpose, because we think it’ll keep us safe. We think if we don’t put it out until it’s absolutely perfect, nobody can ever criticize it. Until we realize nobody has ever been able to make the whole world agree on anything. And so when we talk about instead of saying what could go wrong, ask who could it serve? I was just speaking at the graceful gathering in April. And I put up this slide that I’m actually really proud of, it’s actually a pretty original idea. And I don’t feel like anybody’s really talking about this. So there is this process of survival, to stability, to security, to success to significance, that sort of a progression. That part’s not my original idea. That’s something people have talked about for a long time. And I presented it as a bar graph like these steps, the steps and plateaus of leveling up from survival. Can I even pay my bill bills, put food on the table to Okay. Things have leveled out incomes kind of predictable stability, security Geilo more than enough success known in my industry. And then we think that if we just stay in it long enough, and that long, slow climb, that significance or industry will be inevitable. And two years ago, I had a flash of a picture in my head go through where I realized, there’s actually a huge Keanu Reeves speed, it’s finished on the map, where the gap between success and significance and that gap we have to make is when we start making it about us. And we start making it about other people. Because whether we realize it or not all of those fears, where we’re trying to keep ourselves safe. What if I’m criticized? What if I fail, and it’s embarrassing? What if I try and it doesn’t work? That’s really all about us. That’s all about looking inward, us being embarrassed as failing us having to start again. But when you reach a point, and so if you climb all the way up to success, and you don’t make that leap, the boulder rolls all the way back down to the hit bottom of the hill. And you got to start over, it’s this vicious loop of, you know, survival to success, the way we sort of transcend and get to the other side, as we go, there will be critics, period, it will hurt period, there will be failures, period, and also who it helps and how it helps them is worth it. And we make that sort of, you know, that’s that one time, we kind of like speed up to make that leap, we’re gonna go faster, right. And we’re going to jump the bridge and make it to the other side, where we start to live our lives by the use of my gifts in service to others for the rest of my life. That’s it. And ironically, when we make that switch, that’s when the growth starts to become exponential.
Natalie Franke
I believe that wholeheartedly. We have been exploring a lot, you know, in the realm of the science of self made success, what does it look like? What does you know? What are the component pieces that lead into it to help somebody achieve their dreams, and what’s been really interesting to us, especially in the service based business world, which is, primarily the majority of our community is a service based business owner and independent, working with a client, what we see over and over again, is that the business owners that are succeeding, share one little thing, and it’s often dismissed, it’s often seen as insignificant, very difficult to quantify, if ever, although I have aspirations in an upcoming survey to dig into this a little bit more, but we just kept seeing it come up. And I’ve, you know, been working on building community amongst independents now for over eight years in different ways. And it has consistently been a key ribbon throughout all of it. And you touched on it right now in your own way. And that quality that we see over and over again, that successful independence have is joy in service. Yeah, finding joy in serving others, finding joy in creating incredible experiences for their clients finding joy in using their craft to make an impact, having a purpose that is rooted right in something greater than themselves, something that isn’t, you know, held to our own sense of ego or achievement, or striving just for the sake of it, but rather sees a connection between the work that is done and the impact that is made, the legacy that will live on beyond that, and legacy, something, you know, you truthfully, you and Justin really kind of instilled in me growing in my own businesses, seeing not just the impact that’s made today, but seeing the impact that because the focus and the purpose is rooted on impact made today then becomes impact that, you know, is built far into the future far, far beyond the work that we’re even doing right now. And so I want to lean into that a little bit, you know, in, in all the work that you’ve done in evaluating slow growth and some of the things that we’ve talked about around achieving, talk to me a little bit about that gratification and kind of the need that we feel sometimes for, you know, wanting to see that impact today, even right, like we want it now. Patience, as we know is a virtue. And scientists, for example, have study this at length. We all are most of us have probably heard of the marshmallow experiment, if you haven’t. It was an experiment done at Stanford, I think as far back as the 1960s, maybe early 70s. Although it’s been done multiple times throughout them. There have been subsequent studies where, you know, they have a child sit down, and they put a marshmallow in front of the child and they say, if you wait until I get back, you’ll get another marshmallow, you’ll get two. And the researcher leaves the room and the child sits there for 15 minutes staring at that marshmallow. And what’s really fascinating is that they then followed the, you know, kind of children long into the future and the children that you know, waited and didn’t eat the marshmallow actually delayed gratification. until the second marshmallow was given to them at the conclusion of the study had a whole slew of successes at the end, they had higher SATs scores, they were noted as being, you know, more social and achieving more in different areas simply because the researchers hypothesized they have this ability to delay that gratification. Now, there have been more recent studies on this where they’ve brought things like affluence and abundance into the conversation versus scarcity. If a child is, you know, used to or aware that good things can come in the future. Some children don’t have that luxury, although, you know, again, as adults, that’s something a lot of us battle with abundance and scarcity. The point being here that there is power in delaying gratification, and being someone that knows that good things could be on the horizon that we don’t need the immediacy of that success. I want to talk about that, you know, what, how do you view that? How do you view kind of the impact that, you know, isn’t just made today, but the legacy of impact that could be made tomorrow?
Mary Marantz
Yeah, man, I love that. I don’t know if I have actually, I mean, I, I’ve seen that going around on like Instagram that like, what happens if you leave the kids with your with a Halloween candy or whatever. But I didn’t realize the full study around it. So that’s very fascinating. It kind of reminds me of a study that I heard Adam Grant talks about recently, which was your Internet browser can determine your level of success in a job? Because it was basically like talking about if you have Chrome or Firefox, I guess, then you had to go beyond the built in browser and say, is the default option a good one? Or should I look for but you know, am I going with what they just told me to go with? Or am I looking for something better, and that the people who had these other browsers were much more likely to be the creatives to have the original ideas to innovate. And so I think that’s really fascinating. Because, you know, we get in such a hurry. And we get really, really impatient. And we, you know, I feel like people who talk about like, life is really short it is. But it’s also really long, right? And so what I mean by that is like you can race and rush and elbow and trample over other people to get to this finish line. And then you’re standing at the finish line, and you have to be you at that finish line, we forget that the work product comes with us to every finish line we go to so I can hurry and rush and race and try to hit a list for example, where we were talking about books before we hopped on right we can we can really just make it all about do we hit the list or don’t hit the list. And I get a weeks or days worth of celebration of crossing that finish line. But the book comes with you, the book and the work product in it and the effort and the excellence and the originality versus, did you cut corners and just do a book report of other people’s ideas to get there? Did you make it all about the marketing and nothing about the excellence, you get a week of celebration, and then a lifetime of your name tied to that work product. And so we have to be patient if we truly want to live a life of impact. Because when we rush things, when we sacrifice our integrity or our excellence to get to an end result, we don’t, we don’t get to leave that at the line, it comes with us. And these little cracks in the facade become these giant crumbles. Even if we get especially if we get a lot of eyes, on the things we’ve done that’s like a giant magnifying glass. And so I would rather not that like this is these are the only two choices. But if I have to take my time getting a lot of readers on books, and then as soon as it hits that sort of tipping point, Malcolm Gladwell style, every book that came before I’m like, Good, I’m proud of every single one of them go look at him, versus I cut corners to get there quickly. And then for the rest of my life, people talk about the book was fluff, you know, maybe you don’t get another shot at writing a really good book, because everybody looked at the first one and said, Ooh, that was not very good, or whatever. Like I would rather focus on taking my time, leaning into excellence, leaning into originality, and I want to talk about the science with you. Because I feel like this is gonna be such a fantastic conversation. I’ve been studying a little bit of the brain science around where creativity lives. And when we’re operating out of this like fight or flight frantic frenzy to have to get to the finish line the fastest. That’s not worked. That’s the amygdala, the entire different part of your brain, like the hippocampus and other parts of the limbic system, even if you’re just focusing on like being very efficient and working things off the list. That’s the prefrontal cortex, versus this part of your brain. Where true origination lives. So we want to be originals. We want to create work that matters and moves the conversation forward, we have to slow down. If you’re bored, we have to be able to imagine all those things. So I’m interested in that you, you are clearly more of an expert on the brain stuff than me, but I just find that fascinating.
Natalie Franke
When I was doing my research for my next book, gutsy that is coming out in a few weeks, I kind of went down the rabbit hole of the science of play. And what you’re touching on here is so beautifully in parallel because one of the things that I uncovered in that research is that when we are in that state of fight or flight or we’re experiencing a significant amount of pressure Right. And that can be in our careers and our businesses and our personal lives. That pressure actually changes, right our neuro chemistry. And it impacts levels of cortisol, for example, yeah. And when all of that happens, it puts our brain in a state in which it’s no longer as plastic meaning it can’t innovate and be creative and build new neural pathways. It’s locked into survival mode. And so when we think about, you know, growth and slow growth over time, I think it’s it is 100%, it’s so important to open ourselves up to the possibility to allow ourselves the opportunity to play. And it sounds simple, right? It sounds like, Okay, but what does that mean? But I want you to think about when was the last time you gave yourself the opportunity to play not caring if you failed, not caring? If you looked like a fool, if you were silly for just a moment, if you if the world was watching, and they judged you they criticize you setting that aside, and truly allowing yourself the childlike wonder of exploring, because what I found in that research was that when we allow ourselves to do that, that neuro chemistry shifts and our brain becomes more plastic and play, you know, is the tool through which children uncover who they are, I watch it in my kids all the time, play is where they get to experiment with being the leader versus being the follower where they get to figure out, you know, the social hierarchy and explore that and challenge that and rebel against it. And we stopped doing that at a certain point. And we allow that pressure to hold us and trap us, perhaps even of our own making night. And so much of what of what you touched on there, I agree with wholeheartedly and knowing the brain science behind it. And we’ll link to this in the show notes too. You know, it just further encourages us to allow ourselves, the time, the time and the patience, to explore, to create, to play to bet on ourselves, not give ourselves the pink slip at the very first sign of failure to put all the pressure on ourselves, like you’re talking about, but instead almost free that pressure where we can to carve out the spaces to go to Venice and do the photoshoot or have the ballerinas right and to be in a place where we we allow ourselves that opportunity. We don’t treat it as a luxury for someone else. But we, we guard it, we safeguard that chance to play. Yeah, I
Mary Marantz
love that. There’s a video that’s going around, again on Instagram of Taylor Swift accepting the Innovator of the Year award. And in it, she’s talking about the 1000s of bad ideas, she had just to get to the few good ones that people remember her for and like just this permission to have bad ideas to this permission to play this permission to just like, see what it you know, shapes up to and then smash the clay down, back down, whatever. And we don’t get there. If all we’re doing is worrying about fighting it out for the biggest piece of the pie and slow growth I talk about. Right after mine in Justin’s very first photography conference, we drove out into the desert because we needed a break from the fluorescent lights in the process what we just learned, and we pulled off for a stretch our legs break at Lake Mead. And at the time, it’s not so much now but at the time it was this big, beautiful blue Crystal Lake totally full, you know, and we’re walking down to the lake and at a certain point, the walkway gives way to floating dock and it’s actually a hatchery for fish there. So you’re walking in and all of a sudden you’re like, off kilter, and the whole water is alive and turning with these gulping screamingly silently screaming gray fish and they are jumping on top of each other flopping on top of each other, pushing each other down just for their share of the crumbs they think you’re about to give them. And meanwhile, here are these wild things in captivity. And if they just turned around, there’s an expanse of freedom behind them. And I feel like way too many entrepreneurs and business owners right now are playing like the Lake Mead fish, or like a bad game of kindergarten basketball like wherever the ball runs, we all chase it. Nobody’s playing zones and kindergarten basketball. It runs over here, we all chase it, it runs over here, we all chase it. And we just stay in that fight or flight, life or death. If it doesn’t happen today. It’s never going to happen at all place. And what what we sacrifice here’s what I think we sacrifice it’s two things our originality and our resilience. Our originality, because we cut corners, we just say what everybody else is saying we chase the ball, just to get something out to keep up to feed the beast of social media and that fire hose there. And then resilience. Actually, I will say three things originality, resilience and humility, resilience, because we think if things happen for us quickly the first few times than the first time it doesn’t come so quickly or so easily. We think we’re out we quit and humility because when, ironically in a very ironic way, when things happen in this sort of windfall way and this overnight success sort of way. We start to think that’s about it. So how good how popular, how liked how talented we are. Whereas slow growth where we are actually rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands dirty building the thing we are contributing to it doing that work over the long haul. It allows the work to work on us. Right? That’s why if not, if you don’t hear anything else from today, that’s the one I hope that they hear the most. If you are truly committed to your craft, if you are truly committed to being a lifelong student of this thing that you love, be willing to go away for a while to be hidden for a while to turn out the noise for a while and let the work work on you distracted work will never be our legacy. Deep Work will. And that does not happen if all you’re doing is trying to keep up with everybody else. Push somebody else under just to get your share the crumbs.
Natalie Franke
If I was a smarter woman, I would end on that note that I do have a final question that I want to ask you. Wow. And I asked all of my guests this question. I’m really curious to hear your response, Mary. What do you believe differentiates the businesses that succeed from the ones that fail?
Mary Marantz
Hmm, I think the first thing that comes to mind for me is this sort of adapt or die kind of mentality. And I don’t mean that in a back in the fight or flight kind of conversation. What I mean by that is this willingness to go, okay, the, you know, the first draft, not great. At that moment, a lot of people will go, Well, I’m done. I’m out. Genuine backstory, I am not making this up or leaning into hyperbole at all. I genuinely genuinely thought that to write a book, you had to sit down, write it start to finish in the exact order, it would ultimately end up in a perfect singular manuscript, you got one shot at it, you send it off to publishers or a publisher. They said yes or no. And that was it. That was the whole writing career, you either got it in that one, you know, Eminem style, you get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow. That is how I thought book writing wins. And then you get into it, and you realize you get drafts in life. And in book writing, you get drafts and drafts and drafts. And Adam Grant talks about this, he says, the people who become what he calls, the originals, they are willing to look at something and go, I have fear about this. But the fear is not in myself. The fear is not in my belief of like, what I’m capable of creating. The doubts that I have are just about this version of it, this version of the work product, this version of the course or the business or whatever. So let me go back to the drawing board. Let me be willing to take my time and to do drafts, upon drafts upon drafts to take a step, evaluate, you know, pivot and move forward. And so drafts and drafts and drafts, we adapt, and we adapt, and we adapt until it’s something we’re proud of. We don’t take that first. That wasn’t so good as a sign we’re not cut out for it. It just means we have more work to do.
Natalie Franke
Wow, Mary, I have no doubt that our listeners are going to want to find out more about you follow you in all the places where can they get a copy of your books? Where can they learn more about you? Yeah,
Mary Marantz
so the central hub that’s sort of the easiest is just marry marantz.com ma ry, ma RA and tz.com. From there, you can click over to the two books, there’s dirt, and slow growth equals strong roots. You can find the podcast which is the Mary Moran show, you can search for Natalie and listen to you have two episodes coming up with three episodes on there. And you know, I think like probably the best way like the best move forward from here, he’s gonna take that quiz at achiever quiz.com. And then DM me at Mary Marantz on Instagram and let me know what type you got. Because I’m very curious.
Natalie Franke
I love it. I’ll do that. I’ll make sure to do that. And I’ll encourage all of our listeners to do the exact same Mary, thank you so much for joining us today.
Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social. Thanks again for listening.
