Stacy Mayer: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Women Changing Leadership. I'm your host, Stacy Mayer, and I am very excited to be here with you with a special guest this week.

I was actually just on her podcast and it came out today and I was like blown away. She had a clip on Instagram. I woke up this morning. It popped right up in my own personal feed and I was like: that's me. And that's frickin brilliant. And the conversation that we had on her podcast, which I will link to in the show notes as well, is such an impactful conversation. And in the short amount of time that I have known Mary, which I would say is probably been about two weeks, I have really been taken by her and and also grown as a person. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that because Mary is a person who lights up the room by being in it. She's a reflector. She's a person who just really uplifts all the energy in the room. And I don't think, and based on her book that we're going to learn more about today, that she was always this way. I'm sure she was always brilliant and amazing and a total badass as she calls herself. And of course that's what I call myself. But we're going to learn about her transformation and her journey along the way. And I'm so thrilled to be bringing her to you today. Thank you, Mary. Thank you for being here.

Mary Crafts: Stacy. It's my pleasure to meet a fellow badass.

Stacy Mayer: Exactly, exactly. I have a more formal bio. Formal slash, informal bio. Because you're going to love this. I'm going to rewrite my bio this way because it's amazing. Here is a little bit more about Mary. It's been said with Mary, you get 100%. Building an award winning successful company? 100% done. Do you need service on boards and committees? She's there for you 100%. Her children and family? Yep, 100%. Her own health and fitness? She's got that covered too. And what about heart? How about 1000%? There are many heroic people in our world, and it's especially poignant to meet a woman who graduated cum laude from the School of Life, a woman dedicated to lifting others up by sharing her stories, her insights, and the many lessons she's learned during her journey thus far. Thank you, Mary. Thank you so much.

Mary Crafts: And Stacy, one of the things as you read that I thought, you know and all know this because you have your own podcast, not only do you lift others, but when I have the opportunity, when you have the opportunity to share, we lift ourselves, again. Oh, yeah, I did do that. Oh, that was pretty frickin amazing, wasn't it?

Stacy Mayer: Yes, absolutely.

Mary Crafts: Reclaim those things. It's not a one and done, I did that, check. It's like one and done. I did that. Now what's next?

Stacy Mayer: Oh, that is so good. And actually, since we're already on the subject, I just thought of something that I teach my clients is that when somebody else reflects back to you, your greatness, but you wrote it, it doesn't actually make it less significant. So a lot of people feel like if they have to advocate for themselves, then it means that they didn't earn it or they don't deserve it or all of these things. And I'm like: No, tell other people how you want to be treated. And then when you hear that back, you feel just as uplifted as if they had made the whole thing up, right. As if you didn't have any part in this conversation. And it's so true. I mean, every single time. Hands down.

Mary Crafts: Yeah, I agree with that. When I had my PR people first write that piece that's on my website, I read it and I was like: damn, they really they really reflected me. They know all the things I've done. And even though it was my life, to hear someone else talk about it was, had a little bit of reward in it.

Stacy Mayer: Yeah.

Mary Crafts: I've kind of in the right direction here. I like this. Yeah.

Stacy Mayer: So I always ask my guests when I start out what their secrets to success were, and I'd love to hear from you what some of your secrets are.

Mary Crafts: Oh, okay. Well, I have this hashtag that I've used now for about five years, and it's called #BadassWomanWithAPurposeGraceAndGrit. And I think you need all three of those elements, and they inspire me every day. That, first of all, we all need a purpose. And what is your purpose in life? Is it just to get through your work career until you're 65 and then it's smooth sailing? Or is your purpose something bigger, something grander? Were you really meant to do something? The big audacious dream?

And then grace. I always think that, particularly as women, if you claim the title of Bad Ass, you darn well better also have grace. Otherwise, what's the point of being a badass? Just to be tough? No, it's with grace. And that people know when they encounter me, I'm a strong, independent woman, but I'm also full of grace. And the last thing, which is probably one of the most important things to get to this age of 69, I did not do that by just being flopping over every time I was encountered with a trouble or feedback or a failure. You learn resilience and grit. You learn what commitment looks like and you stay committed, whatever your purpose is. And I think that grit has served me so well. It served me all through my career. It served me when I climbed Kilimanjaro. It serves me now as I just published my first book, and it would be easy to play small. But like, no. No matter how many times you get knocked over, you stand back up. That's who I am.

Stacy Mayer: I love that. And I was looking at your website and there was something that really stood out to me about your weight loss journey at age 50. And you were talking about how you had never really focused on health and wellness and you were a successful CEO of your own catering company, won several awards and had a tremendous amount of external success. And there was one line in particular that stood out because I thought, Oh, wow, that's not the Mary that I see today. You said, I guess I might have been afraid to fail at the time. And when I hear you now, you seem so strong and so powerful and failure is part of the process and the journey of life. But can you speak to that 50 year old woman that was like, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what to do and who I am and what I'm meant to be.

Mary Crafts: That process, Stacy, is what I call the hiding. It's when we might have those fears, but we do our best to hide them. We might be afraid that we're an imposter, but we hide it. We are so good at making the outward appearance be: I got all this handled. I'm a success. We spend so much energy hiding. Hiding our fears. And I realized that at age 50, I was very successful financially in my career mode, in the community. But inside, still afraid. Afraid of failure. Afraid of somebody was going to come along and really take all of that away from me because I've just been imposing myself on that. I wasn't really that. And so as I look and of course, at age 50, at my birthday party, if you've read a little bit of that bio, you realize that those photos from that 50th birthday party, when I looked at them at 284 pounds. I was overtaken with: I didn't ever think this is where I would be. I don't know how I got here. Well, that was a lie, first off. And then I didn't know how to get away from here. I didn't know the pathway forward. But I knew that the first step was to stop hiding. To be willing to be vulnerable. Willing to open up my my life and say, hey, I have these fears. I'm afraid of making these mistakes. I'm afraid to actually go to to networking events. Afraid that people will laugh at me.

How is that possible for Mary Crafts, who's a successful person? So success on the outside does not necessarily equate to success on the inside. And that's what I genuinely sought after. So one of my favorite quotes from my book is when I say the healing starts when the hiding stops. And I began to all those things that I thought I was hiding from the world, I began to let them in and let them see. And when I discovered Stacy was the biggest secret you'll ever imagine. Those parts that I was most afraid of, of letting anyone see were the parts that brought me dear to people, close to people. That allowed them to trust me. That allowed me to have empathy for people because they had empathy for me. We were so much alike. That's the biggest fallacy that we have, is that everyone else has all their stuff together and we don't. And I loved that piece when people were able to see me just as I was and love me even more. I never dreamed it.

Stacy Mayer: It's so amazing. I love that so much. And you talk about this journey in your book. Her book is called Unbounded From Sorrow to Summit, where she talks about the various summits we are all climbing at one given time in life and that you have to plan to get to the top successfully in how to unbound ourselves and step into the life we are meant to live.

Mary Crafts: Yeah. You know, I think about that's why my podcast is called Crafting a Meaningful Life. There's a little play on words there with Mary Crafts and Crafting a Meaningful Life

Stacy Mayer: I notice your your your catering company had that in it, right? There's a theme here.

Mary Crafts: There's a theme, Culinary Craft. But I think it's really true. If we just continue to stumble through life and just grasping at what comes next and waiting for life to hand us what's next in our life, we don't ever get to be in control and craft what we want. We are what? A victim. And one of the titles of my book in a chapter in my book is: Pack your bags. We're leaving Victimville.

And when when you are finally able to recognize all the areas in your life that you are allowing other people to be in charge of, then you can take charge. This is the good news. The good news about everything in your life that you're responsible for, is f you don't like it, you can change it. You can't change one thing about things you're not responsible for, but if you are responsible for them, then you had the power to change them.

So one time when I was explaining this concept, I had this woman get quite upset with me. And she said: so what you're telling me, and tears coming down her face, what you're telling me is that I was responsible for my dad sexually abusing me when I was young? Is that what you're saying? And I said, my love, no, because you're not responsible for him. But what you are responsible for now is how you conduct your life in the face of that. That piece is yours to bear. You cannot give your father control to still control your life. You can take control now and stop being a victim of that. You can't control anyone else, but you can control your piece of life.

I think the greatest example of this was Viktor Frankl, who was the famous Jewish person in the concentration camp. He had everything stripped from him. You know, he had his his his home taken his his wealth taken. He had his family taken. He had his wife killed. He's in this concentration camp. They've taken food from him. They're experimenting on his body. What else could they possibly take from him? They could not take his mind. And they could not take how he was going to react and deal with his situation. That has such power on me when I read about that. I realized I haven't had any of those things done to me. I should be able to be in control of my life, and I am.

Stacy Mayer: Yeah, absolutely. So when you talk about doing all of these things at 100%, 100%, 1000%, I'm exhausted thinking about it. But you don't seem exhausted at all. So can you share a little bit about that process. A fear that I personally have and a lot of people have is that when we go all in and we're like kind of barely hanging on by a thread now, how are we supposed to do more? And I would love to hear your take on that.

Mary Crafts: Okay. I agree. We can exhaust ourselves with these big audacious goals. For example, when I weighed 284 pounds, I realized that my goal was to lose half of my body weight and more than half of my body fat. Now, if I set that up, my goal on my mirror every day, that would have just seemed so overwhelming to me. So I set it in little increments. 20 pounds was my goal. And when I would get to that goal, I would celebrate. And all those people I share that goal with as many people as I can so they can all champion me.

When you get to that goal, you celebrate. That doesn't mean going out and having a hot fudge sundae, but that means like, Whoa, I'm ready for a new size of shirt. Can you imagine what my sizes of shirts and pants looked like? And so you take things in little bits of goals and you set you celebrate the smaller things.

When I set out with one of my big emotional goals, which was to let go of how fear was controlling my life. I didn't just say, okay, from this day on, we're not going to have any more fear. You're just going to let go of that, Mary. That's not how it works. I began to keep a journal of the fears I felt and when I would fear feel them. Like if I felt my palms getting sweaty. Okay. I must be. What? What am I feeling right now? Well, I'm a little nervous, I'm afraid. What of? And I would journal it. Well, I'm afraid of going in to meet this client, because what if. What if she says that she doesn't want to use me after I've given my all? And what does that say about me? And I would just journal it.

And this is going to sound really crazy now, but one of my big things was networking events. I was so afraid of them. What if you went in and no one talked to you? What if you went in and you did this? And they were all in pants and you had a dress on. I mean, just all sorts of crazy fears. And you just look at one of them at a time. And what would I do today if I were no longer afraid? Today, I would just walk into that networking meeting and rather than waiting for someone to walk up to me and include me, I walked up to them. What a novel idea.

Stacy Mayer: I love it.

Mary Crafts: Rather than saying: Oh, I've been here so many times. I've not seen you before. How about saying, this is my first time? Have you been here before? I see you have a nametag. Where do I get that? Is there a program or do we just network? You start and engage people in conversations. You are willing to show people your vulnerability and you let go of fears, step by step. You don't just all of a sudden go from having every single decision in your life being based on fear to having zero. You just step in? Bit by bit.

That's one of the biggest lessons I learned on Kilimanjaro. I knew where the summit was. I knew where I was going. But 99% of the time you can't see it. You can't see the summit. So you set little goals. You set goals of 100 yards. I'm going to make it that 100 yards. Then I'm going to stop. Take a breath. I'm going to take a drink of water. I'm going to rest. And then I'm going to go another hundred yards. But the biggest thing is that you also have to watch where every single one of your footsteps is.

Mary Crafts: So if you're in a weight loss journey, you can't say, I'm going to lose 145. I'm going to lose 20. But then you have to look where you're putting your feet every day. Having this hot fudge sundae is that keeping my feet pointed in the right direction? No. I would I would literally look down at my feet and say, Where are you going feet? You seem to be off the path. What's important to you feey?

And I would like I would turn them back and I would get them going along the same path. I'd be at the gym and I think: I'm exhausted. I got to go home. I look down at my feet. I go: Where are your feet going? Did you leave anything on the table or do you have something more you could give today? We have to inspire ourselves. We can't wait for the outside world to come along and say, You're doing such a dang good job. You really are a bad ass.

Stacy Mayer: No. I have a necklace on right now that says Chief Corporate Badass right here. Oh, it's so good. Oh, my gosh. I love that.

So it really feels like a little bit of embracing the fear. Like becoming friends with fear. You talk a lot about fearlessness, but it's the acknowledgment of the fear, right? I love what you said about about journaling, about the fear. These are the things that I'm afraid of. It doesn't necessarily mean that you went into that networking event telling everyone in the room how scared you were. You went in the networking event showing your vulnerability. Your vulnerability is: I'm going to talk to you first. That is an incredibly vulnerable thing to do. And then but in order to be able to do that, you looked at that fear. You said, okay: this is what I am truly afraid of. And I'm going to lean into that and I'm going to step into that and I'm going to show up anyway. It's so good.

Oh, my gosh. And this image of the feet. Oh, it's so good. I was thinking about weight loss and I've never put those two together. But of course, on a trail, if you're hiking up a mountain, you would be looking at your feet the whole time. You'd be thinking, okay, one step in front of the other. Don't go off the path. Of course not. You might die, you know.

Mary Crafts: Because every step matters. And you could trip, you could fall, you could lose your footing. My guide always said to me, make sure you put your feet where my feet are.

Stacy Mayer: Follow your guide. Let your guide lead you.

Mary Crafts: One time I stepped off. It was on the summit day. It's pitch black. It's 2:30 in the morning. You have a little headlamp. And my guide was six foot four African with these giant steps. And he took this one step and I'm like, Oh, I can't do that. So I stepped off. To make it easier for me. He rolled around and grabbed my arm, sent me back on this path, and just started yelling at me. Didn't I tell you to always watch? I'm like: yeah, but it was too big. I couldn't do it. And you couldn't ask for help? Oh. I've been up here 166 times. How many times have you been up here? Never. Why would you make your own trail? You almost went down 1000 feet. And that would have been the end. So what's more important to you? Your pride or asking for help? That's why I have a whole chapter entitled Find Your Champion.

Stacy Mayer: Wow, I got goosebumps on that one. So good.

So we talked at the beginning of this episode about the secrets to success and the different paths of success. And I know that in my work I talk about your next promotion is just the beginning, and a lot of what is happening for us in terms of traditional success is we're making that be the ultimate right. So if I get this promotion and we're spending all this energy and time and focus on the promotion as if that will be the thing, right. And I'm sure in your catering company, it was the same thing. It was like when I get this award or when we make it to this certain milestone, then that will be the moment and we spend all of our energy, but we're neglecting the real success in life and everything that comes after the promotion, what we're able to do with our life, once we stop fixating on these external rewards and we start really just embracing our fears and our challenges. And then I just feel like this whole other world opens up to us. Can you share about that and your journey with that?

Mary Crafts: You know, I think all of us have been in this situation. I certainly was. When I graduated from college then and then you graduated from college, like, okay, well, when I really get my feet on the ground and I've started this this new position, this company, then. And then like: well, when I actually start having $1,000,000 in revenue. Oh, well, when I have $10 million in revenue, then I'll be able to hire this person. And it goes on and on goes on. Well, when my children finally are graduated and I'm less focused on being a mother and I can devote 100% to a career or when this or when that, for crying out loud. I kept thinking of that one song. It's a horrible, depressing song that says, Is that all there is to life? Is that all there is? That we get to the end of our careers and we say, Is that all there is? This is it? This is the end? When I retired at age 65. I knew I had at least another 30 years. And I'm planning on I was planning on another 40. What am I going to do if I've done all my work here in this job? Is that all there is? And I always dreamed there was something different for me. So I'd like to talk to the word dreaming for just a minute.

I think that dreams are given to us for a very specific reason. I don't think it's just because our wild and crazy mind is like creating all these things for us. Sometimes when we ever sit and drink and daydream, we feel like we need to slap our face and get back to reality. Well, sometimes, but also let your dreams fuel you of what is possible. I don't think that's how the universe is set up, that allows us to dream and see all these wonderful things that maybe somebody else has or that we've dreamed maybe that were possible for us, and then says to us: Oh, but you don't get that. You have to settle for this because you're not enough. We dream those things to let us know that that is possible for all of us. It's never too late and nothing is impossible.

So I love your approach. Stacy, when you say: I want to make it easy for you to get a promotion so you can focus on the bigger things in life, not that all your energy goes into getting a promotion. Is really that the end goal? The end goal is to have crafted a magnificent, meaningful life. And if we get to the end and we say that, I'm a happy camper. Like publishing my book. This was the first step for me. This isn't an end goal. I want to publish a lot of them. I want to inspire a lot of people.

Stacy Mayer: When I published my book, a big turning point for me was my husband told me that it was my first book. And I was finally able to write it because I was like, before that it felt like THE book. It was like, Oh, I have this thing that I have to create. And he was like, No, you have a lot more books to write, so let's get this going.

Mary Crafts: How many books do you have inside of you?

Stacy Mayer: It's so many, so many.

Mary Crafts: Well, just give me a number. How many?

Stacy Mayer: Well, right now I have six.

Mary Crafts: That's amazing. So that means you probably want to be publishing a book every at least every five years, right?

Stacy Mayer: Yeah. Yeah, of course. I think 18 months. Every two years.

Mary Crafts: How long since your last book?

Stacy Mayer: It's been one year.

Mary Crafts: So when are you going to start your next book?

Stacy Mayer: It's already started.

Mary Crafts: So people often say to me, How did you even think about how to write a book? You're not a writer. You're a caterer, for crying out loud.

Stacy Mayer: Do people really say that?

Mary Crafts: Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah. And so I said: do you want to write a book? This is how you do it. You have a title. Think of it may not be your title, but what's in your book? What is it? And Unbounded from the sorrows of my life to the summits of my life. But start with the title. And then if you needed 12 chapters, what are 12 things that should be in your book? Let's see. I need a chapter on being accountable. I need a chapter on stepping into your own power. And you just write down those 12 things. Then you come back and you fill them in. It's. It's not that difficult. It's our own limiting beliefs that see it as difficult.

Stacy Mayer: It's the Kilimanjaro.The Kilimanjaro is one step in front of the other. The book is the same way. It's all of these things. But also what I'm hearing is, it is important to go for the the thing. So when I think about promotions for my clients, when I say let's make your next promotion easy because it's not the end all be all, you have so much more to do after that. What also happens for a lot of women is they won't actually even go for the next promotion. Because they're like, okay, I should be content with where I am. I should make this work because I can sort of be successful in my own skin. And so much of what we're talking about is actually creating bigger goals like above those goals. And to put ourselves out there to be vulnerable, to try something, to go for something more, to craft this meaningful life. And part of that is getting the next promotion, you know, losing 50 pounds, climbing a mountain. Doing the thing, you know, could even be running a5k, but it's doing the next thing that's big for you.

Mary Crafts: And so you ask you that question about: does it not seem overwhelming? And I addressed that as it is really one step at a time. But when you talk about a promotion. When I would talk about reaching a certain dollar amount in sales, was that really the be all end all, or was it a step in my life, a step in crafting how I envisioned my life to be?

And all of these things that we do are simply steps. Some takes longer. Some take shorter. But they are always part of that being my best me. And that's what my life is about now. When I get up in the morning, I just think what would today create to be my best me? This morning I woke up, over the weekend I'd had a little bit of a cold. I was doing a little coughing. I was like: Oh, I'm tired today. Well, if that's where you are today, that's your best. Don't beat yourself up about it. Except it. When I woke up this morning, I thought. Hmm. Well, I could cancel what I had on my plate today. Or by stepping into it, do I allow my still myself to still bring my best self? So I didn't call you and say, Stacy, I need to reschedule. I was just: whatever I bring today will be the best I have today. And that's all that matters. My best today.

I addressed this in the book as well about perfectionism. Perfectionism will kill you. If that's what you're about and you're seeking to be perfection, to prove to everyone how good you are, to prove to yourself how good you are, you're going to burn yourself out. It'll kill you. Bringing your best and striving for excellence will inspire you every single day of your life. Perfectionism is about beating yourself up. Whereas striving for excellence keeps your eyes wide open. What is my best today? When I'm at the gym, I say, Is this your best today? If I have to cut my workout short, I'm like: that was it today? Other days I'm at the gym: I say, Did you leave anything on the table? I did. And that's why I'm going to push forward for another 10 minutes, because I know what my best is.

Stacy Mayer: Yeah. I feel like what you were talking about with the perfectionism is the desire to have somebody else write that bio that you wrote or your team wrote for you. And we're always wanting the other person to write that, to give us the validation. But when we let go of the perfectionism, then it allows us to just write and craft our own life. It allows us to say: I am a badass and I am showing up today 110% and it's just it is my best, my personal best. And I just I love that so much.

You and I have so much in common. It's just been such a treat. I feel like there's so much more for us to do even together as a connection. I'm so excited about it. So as we close out today, I'm curious from you why you personally feel motivated to have a seat at the table? I speak with a lot of women. I work with women, and there is a table that exists for us that doesn't always look and act and think exactly like we do. And I'd love to hear your take on why it's important to show up and to have this success and to be a part of the larger conversation for women.

Mary Crafts: I think that each one of us, whether you're a woman or a man, we think individually. We have unique perspectives on everything because we've all had different experiences we bring to the table. When I was first called my first board position. I thought, what could I possibly bring to this? That old adage of: better to sit here and have people think you're smart and open your mouth and prove that you're stupid. I truly believed that. And that I was there to keep my mouth shut.

One day, as I was listening on this board, I thought: I see that differently. And the thought occurred to me. Why don't we share that? And I did. And everyone just stopped and said, I never thought of it that way before. We all have those unique gifts that allow us to see problems, situation as unique opportunities. And I am kind of a big picture thinker. And that was my gift as I took my seat, whether I was leading my own company or helping other companies lead theirs, to take a seat. And to know that I had value. Sometimes people come on boards or take a seat at the table because they want to prove their value. They want their voice to be heard. They want to be louder than anybody else. So people pay attention to them. That has to do with motivation. If your motivation for taking a seat at the table is so you can prove something or to be heard. Then it's time to take a look inside first. If your motivation for taking a seat at the table is because you genuinely feel you have something to offer here, a new perspective, a new hand-up for others. Then take that seat proudly and keep taking them.

What you check first is your motivation. Is it fear because you feel like you need to be recognized? Or is it love? Because you have something to give. That's the two different choices. In business, they don't want to see that. They don't want to talk about fear and love. They want to talk about performance. But whenever I talk to business people, I say the same thing. Either you have a fear based company or people are motivated by fear, or you have a love based company and people are motivated by love. And which is yours. And I want us to all start thinking of that. Our motivation.

My company completely changed when I started moving from a fear based company to a love based company. When I was afraid that I wasn't going to serve somebody well and fear of failure and fear of not having the money that they didn't pay me for my job or the fear of being rejected and all those crazy kind of fears. They all boil down to one, the fear of not being enough. When I shifted to: I want to serve these people because I cared about them as individuals. I cared about my staff as individuals, not because if they were to walk away, how would I survive? My whole company changed. My whole energy in my company changed. And if I could offer a piece of advice to those people who are looking for promotions. it's easy. Shift out of fear and shift into love, and that energy will be felt everywhere.

Stacy Mayer: So good. Thank you. Mary. Where can we find you and learn more about you? I will link to your book and the show notes. Anything else that you want to share with us today?

Mary Crafts: They can go to my website, which is MaryCraftsInc.com. And you can link to my podcast or anywhere you find podcasts you can just Mary Crafts podcast, Crafting a Meaningful Life, whether that be on Apple or Spotify, it's on all those major networks. And they can follow me on social media, they can buy my book on Amazon, Unbounded: From Sorrow to Summit.

When I want people to be encouraged about is that it's never too late. And nothing is impossible. I want to inspire people to courage. To step in.

Stacy Mayer: Oh, thank you, Mary. You have inspired me today. I know you've inspired my audience. You've touched my heart in these last couple of weeks that I've gotten to know you. And I'm so excited for you. And what's next in 2023?

Mary Crafts: I mean, I'm going to turn 70 next year and I'm still thinking, what's next? You asked me about, how do you have energy for all this? The more you're excited about the future, whatever it is, the more energy you have. The more afraid you are about the future, your energy is stripped. I'm so excited for the future. That's where my energy comes from. It doesn't come from fear. It comes from love.

Stacy Mayer: So good. Thank you, Mary.

Mary Crafts: You are such a delight. You're amazing. Thank you.