BEST OF Episode: Slow Growth Strong Roots with Mary Marantz

Unedited Transcript

Mary. I am so thrilled to have you today to talk about your new book, dirt. This is so much fun because we were talking before we hit record. I have, I have seen many episodes of your show. You've seen a few episodes of mine and we have a lot of mutual friends, but we've yet to get to meet and talk yet.

And so I'm really excited to have you today. Oh my gosh, Rebecca, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks so much for making the time. Um, getting us in here. I know you have like a busy recording schedule, so I'm just so thankful to spend time talking about this book and getting to know you. Yes. This is so fun.

And you have had quite the last few weeks, it looks like with this book coming out, you've been in Nashville. I saw LA was it last week? Have you been having so much fun? We have, you know, I feel like I'm finally getting into the, like, having fun part. Cause you spend so much time just like with all the, to do's that have to get done.

And everything's sort of like urgent and like, you know, down to the wire. And so now, like the things are done and so we just kind of get to go out and actually let it soak in that this book is out in the world. So we are having fun now. I see that. And I love taking a look at it, just so many of the messages that have came out into the world during this time.

And yours is one I would now add to my list that I think God sovereignly planned for this time. And I love that, that I've talked to so many authors lately that, you know, there's sort of this common denominator of. Two years ago when I signed that book contract, I had no clue what our world was going to look like.

And I love that your story is coming out for such a time as this. And I think that's so important to bring out and. That's why we're here to talk today. So your new book, dirt growing strong roots and what makes the broken beautiful. And I'd love for you to just jump off and start by sharing a little bit about why, you know, this, your, you know, your memoir was kind of the first message you wanted to release into the world and books.

Mm. Yeah, that's such a great question. You know, we, we did go back and forth on that because there is so much to learn when you're launching your first book and there is sort of like, We've started to internally lovingly call it like the first time author standard, where every conversation you have about the expectations for the book, people will say to you in this loving way, like when you're, you know, cut yourself inside your first time author, like, or like, this is what it's going to look like as a first time author and like, These are sort of the expectations you can sort of hope for as a first time author.

And I started joking with my team. I cannot wait until I'm married. Second time author, stop calling me this first time author. Um, and so there was, you know, there have been moments of like, should you cut your teeth and make your mistakes and learn your lessons and build a little bit of a readership with a quote unquote easier or less important or less like the story book.

Um, and then come back and do the story of wanting to write my whole life. And I've been in meant and called to write my whole life. Once I have that experience under my belt and what I kept coming back to you. And I think it's something a lot of authors experience is the, if I got hit by a bus standard, you know, if something happened this week and you know, the only book I got the chance to write was this one.

Although, there are a lot of things I hope I can still do with my life. And I hope that it's not the case. I know that I could die without regrets, knowing that the story was out in the world like this, there, I'm sure that I will get new assignments after this and new callings after this. But this moment that we're sitting in right now, I feel like God has been calling me to, since I was five years old and I turned 40 in may.

So it was a lifetime coming and there's almost like a sense of relief of like, whatever else happened. That thing got done, you know, I didn't, I didn't miss that chance here on earth to make that happen. So yeah, I would say, um, You know, we, we did kind of go back and forth, like, should I just write a business book?

Should I just write a marketing book stuff that was like in my wheelhouse for years as a small business owner. Um, but I just, I think the combination of first-time author this story this moment, this year, it was, God knew what he was doing. The timing was very intentional and it was always meant to be, and we're actually Rebecca getting some very interesting messages over and over and over from people who are reading the book.

They're saying, I read it in a day and a half. They're saying they read it really fast. They're saying my story could not have been more different than yours growing up. And yet, how do I see myself in all of these pages? And they're saying, this is what 2020 Dean needed. This is, this is what's going like, uh, you know, bring hope back to this year.

So I do, and I, I had somebody say that to me early on a friend of mine, we were doing a podcast for my show and she said, I just feel like the timing is going to be really important with your book. There's just something about it. Coinciding that message with what's happening in the world. You know, we're leading up to a very divisive time in our country.

That's right. She said, I just feel like this, this there's like the timing in particular is really important for this book. She said, I don't know what that means, but I just really, God's telling me to tell you that. And I was like, well, that does sound like COVID and an election to compete with and all this other stuff.

But what we're hearing from people is this is a spark. This is the spark of forgiveness. Does this spark a reconciliation in a year? That feels really different. Yeah. Oh, that's so important. I, I would echo your, um, your comment about it being a page Turner. I was reading some of the endorsements of your book and Nicole , who I adore.

I interviewed her when from loss of found, came out and she just, I felt like she was instantly a dear friend, and I love that she endorsed it and said, I put it down in a day and a half. And when I read that, I thought. Like we talked, this was sort of a last minute interview for us. And so I'm really excited to get my hands on the book and read it from start to finish as well.

But I think one thing I have heard from you as I've heard you talk about the book. That reminds me of another mutual friend of ours, Allie Worthington. One thing she said recently to me that you've probably also heard her say, as she was writing her book that just came out. Um, she had a sticky note in her office that said, tell the truth.

You, no matter what, that's, what she wanted to do throughout, you know, The, the writing of that book. And I think that's also what you've done, um, here as, as you release this message into the world. And so for those listeners who maybe have not heard your story yet, Yeah. In dirt, you share your journey from a single wide trailer in the mountains of rural West Virginia, to the halls of Yale law school.

You say that dirt is a story about the places where we start. And I'm just curious, why was it important that we begin there? To be able to see how God makes the broken. Beautiful. Yeah. You know, I'm thinking particularly of that book, which I love, I love this book, um, that we give it to every high school graduate and it's oh, the places you'll go.

And so many times our world rewards and celebrates the places that we end up and the successes we achieve and the platforms that we stand upon and the place where we start becomes this. One liner just to set up the success. Yeah. But this concept of saying yeah, yeah, yeah. Law school, but let's go back and sit in the trailer for awhile.

What was really intriguing to me, like yeah. Yeah. You know, Let's go find out how that really happens. And I think, you know, there's this part near the end of dirt that says a lot of people hear a story, like a single wide trailer to Yale law school, and they become interested in the upward explosion. This upward mobility, me, I got interested in the spark of change that came the generation before.

And to understand that we have to. My mom and dad's life, how they grew up and we even get into like their parents a little bit, because in a lot of ways, dirt is this tension of how do we break generational chains without severing ties, without losing that thread of my story, to their story, to the parents who came before.

And each generation is trying to take back some reclaimed ground of freedom. And we do that. Knowing that generations to come will be better for it, but we also need to remember the ground. We got to take back because of the generation before. So it's the balance of, of embracing and honoring and giving dignity to your past, even if that was a muddy, not so picture perfect story without trying to skip right over it to the, yeah.

Thank goodness you got out. Thank goodness. That's not unique. I love that. So was that hard as you wrote the book? What, how did God work in you? Does that make sense? Yeah. Oh, yes. Ma'am uh, draft. So this is, this is, I mean, this, you know, talking about it now there's a little bit of like, I Twitch a little bit like the PTSD of it.

Um, what I mean by that is. Spent all of these months and wrote 50,000 words of a first draft thought I was done, turned it into my editor. I was. So we saw some friends to celebrate. Yeah, I'm moving. And I was like, guys, I feel like maybe we'll change some commas, but I think we're done. Yeah. And there he is.

So what happened was I turned it in, I like fully expected, not in a, an arrogant sort of way, but just in a like yeah. You know, we did it, we crossed the 50,000 word threshold were there. I fully expected my editor to write back. Totally this, I think we're really ready to move on to the next stage. And she was finishing up a project.

So I didn't hear right back from her. And I got to have this day to sit with it and I call it my Christmas Carol moments where you start to get a glimpse of a future. You do not like, and I could picture what it would be like to have that version of the story on shelves. And along the line, you know, you asked the question specifically, what was it like for God to like really work on me, to get to that place of being okay with let's go sit here.

Mildew soaked mushrooms growing out of the carpet filthy floor of this trailer for a while. Let's go sit cross-legged and talk about it for awhile. Um, I had people early on like random people, which is how I kinda know it was God. Cause that's the only explanation say to me, I had a high school teacher.

I randomly talked to, hadn't talked to in 20 years, I had a neighbor. We've never talked about my story. You say it to me. I had a coach that would make more sense, but different people from different walks of life saying to me all the same message. How can you tell this story and not embarrass your family?

How can you tell the story and not rule out the possibility of reconciliation? And so that Christmas Carol moment was like that that version of the book does it does not give honor. It does not give grace. It's angry. It's bitter. It's the first time I'm getting it out on the page. And it's, there's a very real possibility that it would close the door on reconciliation with some of those characters forever.

And so I said to my editor, we're going to scrap it. And I'm going to rewrite 50,000 new words. So we gutted 30 and then we ended up with 70, so 50,000 net new words in two months, December 17th to February 17th. And I was already at the end of myself, Rebecca, I was exhausted. I had poured it all out on the page.

I had struggled through demons and things I'd put in nice tidy boxes and not touched in years. December was a very dark month. I did a podcast about this. There were some dark thoughts running through my head. Yeah in that month, because you're just unleashing a lifetime worth of things. You haven't allowed yourself to grieve.

And now at the bottom of my self, into myself, scraping the bottom of the barrel, I have to climb this mountain of 50,000, not just, you know, 50,000, any words, but 50,000 right words in two months time. And every single day I would get up at 7:00 AM. Listen to M and M that's awesome. Get one shot. Do not miss your chance to bliss.

Um, and then write for 12 hours. And then I would Peloton. That was my other like self care book in, and the Peloton they talk about. We didn't come out to face this mountain to crawl up it. We came to rise. We're not out here to Teeter on the edge of legendary, the, the edge of greatness. We're going to see this mountain and we're going to run up this mountain.

And so they were, they like the way those messages lined up every single day. With what the battle I had done that day was uncanny. And so there's not a doubt in my mind to be at the bottom of myself and sit down at a computer and go, I have no idea what I would even write about. And then sure enough, another manner of the section would appear, um, sometimes in a one big poof and sometimes for 12 hours of it.

But section by section, there's not a doubt in my mind, God rewrote the book that, you know, Wow. That is incredible. Okay. First of all, I'm about to buy a Peloton and this makes me even more excited about it because I have been such a fan of spin for a long time. And when everybody and their mother did the free trial of the Peloton app during quarantine, I did the free trial of the Peloton app and I fell in love with it.

And ever since I have been wanting to get a bike, and I think so I'm trading in my gym membership for that soon. Really excited, but I could see how that would just carry you through some of those long riding days. Um, yeah, so that's yeah. I mean you're so in your head, yeah. Your brain is getting worked out for 12 hours and then your body's like, hi, come back to me for awhile.

Come back to the present for the while, come back to reality for a while. Yeah. Which is ironic with the virtual bike. But yeah, it was, it was honestly like. Really melted down if I didn't have just that those two anchors, Eminem and Peloton, that's really the moral of this episode. Yeah. I love it. I love it.

Well, you know, as we kind of walk through this year, which has been so weird and so hard and so different, I know there are people listening who have their own version of feeling broken and disqualified, or maybe they have a relationship that feels UN recognized. Salable. Yeah, they have their own version of this.

So how would you encourage them today to take steps forward? You know, you've taken, uh, you've you were at the bottom of your story and. You know, several months time, you allowed God to do this redemptive work. But again, back to what you said in the beginning of a lot of times, we skip over that hard part where we get from a to B.

So that's what I don't know I want to do here. How would you encourage that person? The first thing that I will say, and I think. This book is going to end up, you know, there's that great question of like, how do you feel like this book will change readers? And one of them, I knew going into it, what's the plan, the hope.

And the other one caught me completely by surprise. And the one I knew was that it was going to become this Anthem for giving up achieving for your worth. But there's no amount of more that can make you stop feeling like less. And these gold stars will never backfill this hole that you're walking around with in your heart.

And then the one that caught me completely by surprise. I think this book is absolutely also going to become an Anthem for reconciliation and forgiveness. And one of the big things that happened between draft one and draft two is that I ended up doing a three-hour phone call with my mom, who in part one of the book, the book's divided into two parts, the girl in the trailer and the girl after the trailer, she ends up leaving when I'm not in.

And so, you know, I'm sitting here and I'm trying to tell my story and because I am a human on planet earth, we, my story involves other people's stories. And how do we do that with. And fairness and truth. And so there's a great adage in writing that story should go from, as you're writing your story and going through your drafts, they should go from true to truer, to truest.

And going back to what Allie was saying about, just tell the truth, you know, there's a great quote. I think it's Hemingway or Fitzgerald. I'm going to say Hemingway. Um, maybe it was with Joan. It doesn't matter. One of them said write one true thing, right? The truest sentence, you know, and then write it down.

And so what I would say to people who are listening is that shame, shame trades in the currency of telling you, you are the only one. If shame can get you to believe that you are the only one who's had that thing happen to you, who has that thing in their past, who failed when they tried to do that, who's missing this thing whose marriage went through a hard season whose finances went through a hard season.

If shame can tell you you're the only one, then they can keep you isolated and it can keep you off to the side where it gets to be the only voice in your ear. And so what I hope this book will convince people of is you have no idea right now, how much energy you are spending, clenching your fists, digging your nails into what used to be these wide open palms, shaking, just trying to hold it all together, to keep those corners tucked in.

You know, the very first line in dirt is very intentional. It says. You know, his hands looked even dirtier than I'd remembered, laying against the crisp white sterile sheets of the hospital corners or the, of the corners flung into the far-flung hospital corners, something like that. And so it's a double play where he's actually in the corner room of the hospital, but it's also talking about that method of making the sheets where it's just so tucked in so tight, we do that.

We tuck in these corners, right? Pristine white surfaces, not a spot or a blemish to be seen. And we think if we can hold that together long enough, the world will not see the smudges that our story leaves across east fingerprints across our lives. And so we do not realize the frenetic energy we are spending just clenching our fist, holding it all together, not even moving left or right or forward or backwards is to stay in one place.

And the second we let go of that, the second we open our hands, the second we stopped saying, I have to hold it all together. Or I'm not even worthy to walk in this world. We are going to free up a store of energy that is going to propel us forward into our purpose. And there is a whole generation of women not stepping into their purpose because they're just trying to hold on to, they're trying to hold their hands together, trying to hold it all together, clenching those fists.

And I want to live in a world where all of those women are out there running towards their purpose because they're freed up of trying to be this person. They think they have to be just to belong. So that's what I would say to the person. Last name is you have no idea, the energy that's being wasted, just trying to hold it together.

It reminds me of this meme that I see on Facebook from time to time, that's like, stop, relax your shoulders, soften your brow, take your tongue from the roof of your mouth. Stop, clenching your jaw. And I'm like, Ugh, I was doing all of those things. Yes. And you don't even realize it. Yeah. That is really freeing to an Enneagram three animals in Enneagram three.

I was about to ask you. Okay. Yeah. I thought maybe that was the case. And I, I love how, and I see this so often in authors. I love the work God does when we write about. Our struggles and things we've overcome or things. Yeah, because of maybe a pattern of thinking God redeems. And man, I think he's done that here.

And that's so encouraging for, for, I mean, I was just sitting back listening and taking that into my own heart. So thank you for that. I love that. And, um, okay. So I. Okay. I have one more really selfish question, which my listeners will be totally fine with. So I am actually working on my first book now with very early on.

So I'm working with my agent on even still my proposal. Okay. But now that you're on the other side of releasing a book baby into the world, if you. Sit with a first time author now that you know, you get to wear that hat, how would you encourage him or her on the other side? Yeah. Uh, you know, actually just like straight direct answer to you in particular, I feel like you, I should put you in touch with my coach Kim who's in the book dirt.

Um, she becomes a character in the book because she is a goals coach for creative Christian women. And I hired her specifically to help me. Stay on task and reach this goal of writing this book. And that started for us because we were running a thriving, busy business. So it started with like, how do we start to phase these things out and clear the calendar and actually make time for this.

And then it started to move into more specifics. Where are you on the proposal? Have you gotten this done both for today? And she, she texted me morning and night, uh, once, once in the morning, once in the night to make sure I'm on task for the goal. So it's really nice to have somebody kind of holding you accountable.

If it's not a coach in particular, just having that friend, who's not afraid to kind of get in your face a little bit about, like you said, you wanted to do this. Are we going to do this? Because it's a really easy to put off the thing you have been called to do your whole life, because it just feels too.

Big. It just feels too complex and too many moving parts and too overwhelming. And, you know, I did that for years and I wouldn't change it because I really do believe that the year I turned 40, the year of 20, 20, the year, the book is coming out, I think it was all meant to be. But I also know that like, maybe that was God having to make that beautiful because I put it off and get to work just as well at 30 years, 35.

Um, so I think having somebody who holds you accountable is a big part of it. And then just from a practical standpoint, I would say. Really don't think of writing a book is just so I put words on page and I wrote a book. Like you have to be prepared to be the marketer and have a whole plan for that. And like, you, you do this whole thing and you cross the finish line and you hand off the manuscript and then it's like amazing race.

Number two is kicking off right now where you start running for the marketing. So I would say just, um, preparing yourself for a video. Long marathon where you will wear a lot of different hats. Yeah. Yeah. I was telling a friend the other day, I feel like a common theme of a lot of things that God tells me to do involve endurance and the older I get, the more I see that theme running through my life.

So I'm a runner. I, my whole life in sports. Only ever excelled at like long distances of anything. So it was a swimmer when I was super young and everything I ever excelled at was, was super long. And then in running, I ran several marathons several years ago and I love like digging into a goal like that.

It's just so fun to me. And, um, have you seen this movie? I was just going to say, have you seen that movie overcomer? Yes. Yeah. So like cross country running and like that, that scene where she's being coached by her spoiler alert dad. Um, and he's just like, you know, like we're going to pace ourselves here and then we're going to sprint up this hill when everybody else slows down.

That's very metaphorical. For the book and watch that scene. And it's very metaphorical for the book in times when you go to whole piece and there are times you got to sprint and all of it is one big marathon. I, I love that you bring that movie up. I need to watch that again, because that scene in particular, and I'm so sorry if we're spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the movie, but it's, it won't ruin it for you.

It's a great movie, but my dad and I. So my dad is a big runner as well. And when I ran my marathons, he would, if he wasn't there in person with me, he would always track on, you know, the app that most races have, where you can track the runner on the course. And in a very similar way, I would always have my phone on me and he would text me.

As he would watch my pace change or things like that. And coach very literally just like that dad did in that movie, coach me as he coached her. And I just wept when I saw the movie for the first time and it just reminded me so much. If my relationship with my dad. So I think that's a great metaphor. I love that you bring that out and yeah, that's some great advice.

I love it. Okay. So there is one question that I ask every guest that comes on the show, and I'm excited to ask you that is if you had to say the best piece of advice that you've ever been given, what would you say, man? That's a big question. You know, I, I feel like, um, it seems weird to give advice from your own book, but I, but I do truly believe that when you write a book, it's, it's most it's first and foremost for you, you know, like it's the message you needed to hear.

And then hopefully in writing that message, it becomes the message. Other people need it as well, because we shame is wrong. We are not the only one and other people need to hear it too. And it's something along the lines of. No matter how hard you run, you, can't outrun you. And what I mean by that to keeping with our running theme is that one of the huge arcs, and we talked about this earlier, me being an Enneagram three, you being an Enneagram three, um, or just anyone really who has felt like they had to go out and checklist a certain, you know, lineup of the good life, the right house or the right, um, family or marriage or car or whatever it is.

Um, A lot of us who are achievers, especially if we grew up with, uh, with hard things in our story, people can look at that and they can go, okay, so maybe the trailer wasn't ideal, but as a result, you became this incredibly successful driven person who was able to turn that into achieving an ambition and like, look at all the stuff that like, you probably wouldn't have done if maybe like you were in a suburb.

If that switch hadn't been flipped. And so people can start to look. Someone, you know, who achieves like that as Forrest Gump? I say, if I'm making a joke here, I would say it's like Forrest Gump, where they hand them the football and nobody tells them when to stop. So he just keeps running into the end zone victory after victory.

That's what it can look like. Like, oh, nobody told me it was safe to stop running. So I guess I'll just keep winning. All I do is win. But it's not like that. Yeah. And that's, that's one of the biggest things that I both wanted to speak to. People like me who know that and to other people who might be looking at people like me and go, so it's the big deal.

Like your life turned out fine. I wanted people to know just how visceral and primal and survival achieving can become for people like us, where it's like this switch got flipped. Like staring at a reflection, a mirror when you weren't ready to handle a reflection and it's shattered into a million pieces.

And all of these studies are us just trying to put the pieces back together. I said, achieving is like oxygen. Hmm. It's like our oxygen perfectionism, the pennants. We pay to take up space in most rooms and nobody ever told us that's no way to breathe. And a sense of my running is not like Forrest Gump victory.

After victory. My running is a girl in a red Cape, trying to escape her way out of the deep dark woods. The branches climbing at her clothes and skin leaving breadcrumbs behind her, the big, bad Wolf ripping at her heels. She runs because she knows if she stops, it just might kill her. But when I look back over my shoulder breathless and wild-eyed, I see it, I am the girl in the red Cape, but I am also the Wolf and that voice in my head telling me to run and not stop running, that it will never be safe for me to stop that voice is my own.

And so one of the biggest redemptive moments in dirt is near the end. It says eventually. Doubled over in pain exhaust. Finally at last exhausted from a lifetime spent running like you have to almost do that. You have to reach that. Finally it lasts exhausted moment. You lay down and put your face on the cool ground.

You let your fingers dig in and feel the ground break up beneath you. You grow roots. There's a new thing. Growing in the wilderness. Now this mind that hold you was never a shackle. The spine is power. It is fire and freedom and dirt. And from that place of being rooted, we rise there's power in us now.

And like Peloton we rise and that whole lesson is you can run and run and run and run and stumble into success and stumble into all these things. But you'll still be with you because you're you. And until you make peace with that, your story, the younger versions of you, the other versions of you inside, like those nesting dolls till you make pieces.

Your whole life can be undone, just trying to outrun that. Wow. I have chills. That was beautiful and such a good reminder, especially to even me today. So, Mary, thank you. Thank you for that. And I am just so excited about this book being out into the world finally. And I'm so excited for my listeners to get their hands on it and get to turn the pages just as quickly as so many others already have.

And so Mary's share with everybody where they can get in contact with you, order the book, listen to your show, all the things. Yeah. So if you head to the book, dirt.com, that's sort of the central hub for the book. Um, you can read an excerpt, you can watch the book trailer has all the links to places you can order.

If you want to do that. And then, you know, from there, you can also click over to the, you'll see the podcast in the menu to see all those episodes and just like my main website. Um, but I would say like, if you listen to this episode, if you do get the book and you start reading, like DM me and let me know.

And I love to, I, you know, I actually answer them. And so I love to hang out over there on Instagram at Mary ants. Um, and hearing from people who are reading this book has been, it's made every single one of those. Like, we are not going to climb this mountain. This is the darkest of days it's made every single struggle.

Hurts and fear moment of it's never going to happen, worth it in just a couple of weeks. Like all of that got redeemed and animal life. I'm really got redeemed. Just hearing from people. How is this my story too? Yeah, I love it. Wow. Thank you for telling the truth. Thank you for telling your story and I'm just so happy it's out in the world.

So Mary, thank you for being my guest today. Thanks so much for having me.