Mary McCorvey

Episode 86 September 15, 2025 00:27:54

Hosted By

Rashad Woods

Show Notes

Mary McCorvey is a Gulf War veteran, entrepreneur, and storyteller whose life has been marked by resilience and reinvention. She has founded seven companies, produced for television, written books and plays, and hosted both radio and podcasts. Her journey includes surviving sarin gas exposure in Kuwait, rebuilding after betrayal, and outliving a terminal diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis. Most recently, she launched Experience Over Expectation—a book and podcast where she brings humor, honesty, and depth to conversations about identity, forgiveness, and second chances. Living in Pennsylvania, Mary continues to thrive, using her voice to transform hardship into hope.

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back, listeners, to the Tron podcast. This is your host, Rashad Woods. The Randomness of Nothing host. I want to give a very special shout out for the time she's carved out out of her busy schedule. Mary McCorvey, thank you so much. And what a fascinating journey you have and story to tell. [00:00:14] Speaker B: Thank you, Rashad, for having me on your show. [00:00:16] Speaker A: I appreciate it, I really do. You know, I got to tell you, you know, first of all, when you reached out to me and then I got a chance to listen to your accomplishments, your trials and tribulations, and ultimately your success and your story that you continue to tell, I was really inspired by it and I'm really glad you carved up time to tell people on this show. So please talk about yourself, please. [00:00:33] Speaker B: Well, I really appreciate what you're doing, Rashad, to reach out to people that are thinking about becoming entrepreneurs. And if, if that's the case, then the one thing that I would start out with is you are an entrepreneur. If that's what you think. [00:00:51] Speaker A: Thank you. I appreciate that. [00:00:53] Speaker B: So I've lived a very nonlinear life and what I would like to on in this particular program and for your audience is how I've lived that non linear life successfully. First of all, it didn't seem successfully all the time. [00:01:13] Speaker A: You hear that a lot sometimes when I'm from people I've interviewed and obviously, you know, it kind of finds itself along the way. So please dive deeper into that. Love to hear it. [00:01:21] Speaker B: Sure. So I became an entrepreneur when I was 19 years old and that was my first foray into broadcasting. And I was a DJ in clubs before DJs were in clubs. [00:01:38] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:01:38] Speaker B: Okay. That's how far it goes back, right? [00:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's awesome. I would have never thought you were a dj. I say that respectfully too. [00:01:46] Speaker B: Well, thank you. I'm all about that. And I still love broadcasting, as you can see. And I have actually my own podcast, which I'd love to welcome you on sometime. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Thank you. I saw that too. [00:02:02] Speaker B: So the thing about entrepreneurism, and in particular my, what I call curious insanity, is the founder space. Right. So being a founder and being an entrepreneur are two very different things. Or they can be. The reason why a founder is different is, is because the founder and I'll talk about my particular cycle. Right, Right. I conceive of an idea and I think about it and I ruminate on it. And one day, if it's right, a puzzle click will go clunk and I'll say, yep, I know I have to do this. And so I make the decision to go down this path. [00:02:46] Speaker A: Got it. [00:02:46] Speaker B: And once I make that decision, then I gather the resources around me, I capitalize it, I build a team and, and then I execute. So that is my very simplified cycle. And the difference between that and an entrepreneurial cycle is an entrepreneur has much greater talents than I do and in fact can step into a company that is growing or not growing, and build it and grow. [00:03:17] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [00:03:18] Speaker A: I never thought about the difference, to be honest with you. [00:03:20] Speaker B: Well, it took me a while. I'm a seven time founder or co founder. [00:03:24] Speaker C: Right. [00:03:24] Speaker B: And so for a while there I was a little worried that I just wasn't committed enough. [00:03:33] Speaker A: I do understand. [00:03:34] Speaker B: Couldn't decide on one thing and then, you know, go for that. Broke. [00:03:39] Speaker C: Right. [00:03:40] Speaker B: But the fact is that especially with my, I do a lot of mentoring of founders and entrepreneurs and I found a lot of them have the same issues that, that I've had in the past, which is why can't I be able to adequately answer the question, what do you do? Yeah, what is it that you do, Mary? And you know, for so long I was like, what day is it? I don't, I don't know, you know, and it was, it was really an awkward moment over and over again. [00:04:14] Speaker A: It's kind of humbling when you actually. [00:04:16] Speaker B: It's very humbling. It's very humbling and fraught with self doubt. [00:04:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:22] Speaker A: I've had some of this ask me like, what is the show about? And you're like, you start rambling and you're like, I haven't actually gotten the actual sentence of what I'm doing right now. What if I hope, if I say enough that somehow they'll interpret, they'll put the pieces together and then you're just like, oh my God, that was such a terrible explanation. [00:04:40] Speaker B: I totally agree with you. I totally, totally agree. [00:04:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:45] Speaker B: And you know, eventually what I came to understand is that the, it, it just happens that I thrive in the startup space, I thrive in the conception space. And so that's a very, very different skill set from running a business in its later stages. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:07] Speaker B: And so I came to understand. Okay, Mary, you know, basically you've been given a gift and I'm not talking about that. Brilliant. I've been given a gift. No, I'm not talking like that. It's like you've been given the gift of understanding. [00:05:21] Speaker C: Right. [00:05:22] Speaker B: That where you fit in the scheme of life is in the founder space. [00:05:27] Speaker A: Correct. [00:05:28] Speaker B: And, and you grow something and then you step away and let somebody take over and move it forward. [00:05:36] Speaker C: Right. [00:05:36] Speaker B: And then you go do something else. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. [00:05:40] Speaker B: It's a, for me, it's about a three year cycle. [00:05:44] Speaker A: Beautiful, right? Beautiful. You know, and I think knowing, like, and it's funny you said that because it was almost like when I created this podcast. Obviously you have your own successful businesses and you've done wonderful things, but knowing where your strengths are and knowing where your lane is and where your ability to grow and say, I can let that go, it also takes a lot of like, you know, pride swallowing in a way. And I've said this reference on previous episodes. It's like White Castle as a rest, as a fast food chain. The reason they, they were the first fast food chain know ever in America and the reason they've survived so long is because they never tried to compete with McDonald's. They stayed in their lane and they said, I'm cool with where I'm at. They're still family owned. They're not, you know, they didn't try to scale beyond what they could do. And that's the reason why they've survived all of these years is because, hey, we're a totally different brand. We have a totally different niche. And I'm not trying to get into the Happy Meal business. Right. You know. [00:06:37] Speaker B: Right. [00:06:38] Speaker A: Because you can just get swallowed whole. So that's a great, great learning lesson for people who are starting out to just know where your strengths and weaknesses lie at. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Yes. And it's, it's a very freeing realization. And that is a realization that I want to share with people that are, are like us. [00:06:55] Speaker A: Yes. [00:06:56] Speaker B: You know, that find themselves at four o' clock in the morning saying, what am I doing? Yeah, am I doing the right thing? [00:07:04] Speaker A: Right. [00:07:04] Speaker B: You know, and along about 7 o' clock you say, well, I don't have any choice. [00:07:08] Speaker A: I'm doing this for sure. For sure. Well, it's, it's like this podcast, right? Like, okay, well, you know, I don't have some of the experiences or the, the know how to do with some of these people that I've talked to have done, but I've always been curious. So I said, okay, well what if I, you know, I watch documentaries, I'll watch, you know, about sinking boats and just fascinating things. Discovery Channel, History Channel. So it just kind of dawned on me. I said, well, what if I talk to people who are, who have accomplished things that can better use my curiosity to see what did they do? How did you create that? How did you make that? How did that work? Where did this come from? How did that idea you thought of that kept you up late at night get to fruition? And that's why I have guests such as yourself, because I kind of found that lane for myself. [00:07:54] Speaker B: Well, you know, there's. There's two critical elements of the cycle, as I like to call it. And one thing is you can have a great idea. A lot of people have great ideas. I would like to do. So, you know, what? Well, what are you going to do? How are you going to make it happen? [00:08:11] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:08:12] Speaker B: And there are very, very few of us that actually make things happen from. From the notion of an idea and actually execute. So the two components that I've. I've found are really critical is that that third component, which is resources. So I come up with an idea, I decide to do the idea, and then comes the rubber meets the road. You got to capitalize it. You've got to build a team. You've got to make the pieces come into place in order for you to be able to execute. Right. So that third element is so important because there are many sub elements to it. So when you think about capitalizing a company, the first thing you think about is finding money. [00:09:04] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:09:05] Speaker B: How to make it happen with money. And that's a necessary element, but it's not the only element at all. So I've come up with ideas that I know have business worth, like landing on the moon. I thought. I thought that that was a great business idea. [00:09:21] Speaker C: Right, right, right. [00:09:23] Speaker A: You know, well, the government. It's kind of hard to outspend the government when they have the plan and means to do it. [00:09:28] Speaker C: Right. [00:09:28] Speaker A: You know, it's NASA also, you know, for lack of better terms. [00:09:31] Speaker B: Well, you know, my. My idea was that we put together a competition between young people around the world to come up with a buildable lander that could race on the moon. So they have to design it, and they have to build it, and then it goes on a rocket, and then it lands on the moon, and then they race it from a remote distance. [00:09:55] Speaker A: That's fascinating. [00:09:56] Speaker B: All of that is completely doable. [00:09:59] Speaker C: Right. [00:09:59] Speaker B: Am I a rocket scientist? [00:10:01] Speaker A: No. [00:10:01] Speaker B: No. Am I an engineer? No. Am I an astrophysicist? [00:10:06] Speaker A: Not at all. [00:10:06] Speaker B: No. [00:10:07] Speaker A: Not that I know of. You hadn't had in your bio? [00:10:09] Speaker B: No, I'm none of those things. Right. So what that tells me is, in a given situation, what you have to do if you choose to do something that is outside of your expertise. And I have always chosen to do things like that. [00:10:25] Speaker A: That's very good. [00:10:26] Speaker B: The things that, that I come up with as new ideas are never in the, the grand scheme of things. [00:10:33] Speaker A: They are never in your skill set. In my skill set, in your direct skill set, so to speak. [00:10:37] Speaker B: Right, that's right. But what I'm very, very good at is that I'm very good at putting people around me that know what they're doing. [00:10:47] Speaker A: That's amazing skills. That's amazing. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Yes. Well, if you, if you understand that strength about yourself, then you have, you're 80% of the way. [00:10:56] Speaker C: Right. [00:10:56] Speaker B: The, the 20% is going out and finding the right people and finding the right money. [00:11:03] Speaker C: Right. [00:11:03] Speaker B: And by the right money, I'm talking about not just cash. [00:11:07] Speaker C: Right. [00:11:08] Speaker B: I'm talking about people. You don't have cash, you barter. [00:11:12] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:11:13] Speaker A: Trade offs. Absolutely. [00:11:14] Speaker B: Absolutely questionable. And you, you negotiate the best deals that you possibly can, and you align yourself with people who are willing to take a risk like you are, but at the same time, you understand the need for mitigating risk. [00:11:33] Speaker A: Of course. [00:11:34] Speaker B: So all those pieces come into play in the capitalization stage, and you put those pieces together and you have the ability to execute well. [00:11:43] Speaker A: You know, it's funny when you put it all together, because I think a lot of times people kind of shoot from the hip, so to speak, and they figure out along the way. And one of the crazy parts, things I think is ironic is that all the information that you spoke about is out there to make sure people don't trip over themselves. But people get so caught up in trying to just formulate the idea in their head and they go on autopilot that they don't take that bird's eye view to try to say no. How is this stage working? Maybe I should talk to this individual. Maybe I need to pivot. It's almost like, you know, in sports, there's a reason why there's positions in sports. It's because your better skill set is in a particular position and somebody compliments what you do well. [00:12:20] Speaker C: Right. [00:12:20] Speaker A: And so ultimately, if you want to get to be good at sports, a team sport, you do have to surround yourself with the correct teammates because you can't do everything. [00:12:29] Speaker B: That's exactly right. [00:12:31] Speaker A: You just can't. [00:12:32] Speaker C: Right. [00:12:32] Speaker A: It will come to a point where you're going to have to depend, find the necessary people to have the proper complimentary skills, you know, and then be able to execute your final product. And it's, it is like, you know, doing this podcast, you know, you can be a great interviewer, but a terrible scheduler. [00:12:49] Speaker C: Right. [00:12:50] Speaker A: You know, and you have to be willing to have a person that's handling your appointments to make sure that you are a good host. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Absolutely. You're right on target. [00:12:58] Speaker A: So I do want to touch on some other bases for you because there's more to. There's so much about you. You know, you're a. You're a veteran. [00:13:05] Speaker C: Right. [00:13:05] Speaker A: And you were in, you know, the Gulf War. So first of all, thank you very much for your service. And you overcome very, very tough things in life. So if you are willing to share that information, please do. [00:13:14] Speaker B: Sure. [00:13:19] Speaker A: You know, just like, you know, I know you have experience in the military, then you said, you said you survived like, you know, sarin gas and things like that. So, I mean, like I said, I know that's traumatic and I don't want to make light of it, but I thought when you, when I heard that you speak about it, I didn't know if that was something you want to speak on. [00:13:34] Speaker B: Well, the. I. I would like to speak about that. Thank you for asking, Rashad. [00:13:39] Speaker A: Of course. [00:13:39] Speaker B: So the experience that I had in the military was truly. Except it was a life formation for me. And I was in the army when I was 18 years old. [00:13:52] Speaker A: Unbelievable. [00:13:53] Speaker B: I traveled the world. I got to know people and places and things that I would never, ever have gotten to know. It is something that I highly recommend to young people. [00:14:05] Speaker A: Beautiful. [00:14:06] Speaker B: Highly recommend. And those formulative years took me into broadcasting and took me into media management. [00:14:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:14:15] Speaker B: And when I became a civilian, that's something that has. Can you continued with me to this day. [00:14:21] Speaker A: Wonderful, Wonderful. And so, and yeah, it's. It's, you know, your story is so compelling. And then I went to your website and you have a book that's coming off and I love the title where it says it's over expectation. And I thought that it's not. It's a title that's catchy because there's a difference between. The experience of something is more important than what you had in your mind because something valued in the moment that it was actually taking place as opposed to what your thought of it could be. [00:14:47] Speaker C: Right. [00:14:47] Speaker A: And I was like that. That really resonated with me and I thought that that was very important. So can you talk about your book, please? [00:14:52] Speaker B: Sure. My pleasure. And I don't want to forget about the sarin gas exposure. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Of course, of course. [00:15:00] Speaker B: Okay. Because. No, I know you weren't putting it aside, but I do want to share that, that what happened was that I was exposed to sarin nerve gas when a chemical weapons plant was blown up. In. In Iraq, So nobody knew about it at the time. And that carried with me for decades. And I had Gulf War Syndrome, and it impacted everything in my life, but it could not be diagnosed. And so I had pts, ptsd, whatever it is that you want to call it. I had it in full. [00:15:36] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. [00:15:37] Speaker B: And it was not until literally three years ago, Rashad, that researchers were able to connect our sarin gas exposure to these symptoms. And so finally, after all these years, I was validated, and I. You know, we all understood what had actually happened. But during the intervening years, it was really, really tough. And that gas exposure also led to a terminal illness that I have called pulmonary fibrosis. That is a joy, let me tell you. [00:16:12] Speaker C: Oh. [00:16:13] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [00:16:14] Speaker B: When people. When, you know, doctors tell you, well, you know, you have a progressive disease, and here's the life expectancy. And so facing that and coming to grips with it and then continuing to live, all of it really tests somebody's resiliency. It certainly tested mine. You know, here we are on Tron, and, you know, I'm doing fairly well, so I am blessed. [00:16:40] Speaker A: I always find it fascinating that, you know, people that you walk past or you see, you know, every single day could have had an experience like yours, and you think you're having a bad day, so to speak. [00:16:50] Speaker C: Right? [00:16:50] Speaker A: So it's very important that you don't know what somebody. It sounds cliche, right? But you really don't know what somebody else is going through. And so I thought that when I read that, you know, if I saw your picture. Previously on LinkedIn. I would have said, you know, I would have never known that that was your background, and you went through all that. So it's a testament to your will and your. And your spirit that you've conquered those things in life. And, you know, I remember when I was in elementary school, no joke, we were writing letters to soldiers that were in the Gulf War. And here I am, you know. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:17:17] Speaker A: Honest to goodness. Honest to goodness is what, 92, I think. [00:17:20] Speaker B: 90. [00:17:21] Speaker A: 91. Yeah. 91. 92. Yeah. And I remember when I was in elementary school and we would write letters, you know, and here we are, you know, all these years later, you know, I'm talking to you. And so it's. It's kind of all kind of, you know, whirling through my head, like, what an experience just to even think about talking to somebody who went through that kind of experience. So, yeah, it's a testament to your will. [00:17:40] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:17:40] Speaker A: What is what, exactly? I saw too, in that you talk about, you know, you have a shoebox full of love letters and you keep rewriting the script in life. So what's that about? [00:17:49] Speaker B: Well, first, let's talk about experience over expectation. Is that okay? [00:17:54] Speaker A: Absolutely. I ramble. I really do, because I love. [00:17:57] Speaker B: No, you don't. No, you're good. You're right on point. I'm the one that rambles. So experience over expectation, Let go of the plan and live on your terms. That's the title of the book. [00:18:11] Speaker C: Right. [00:18:12] Speaker B: And it's based on my life and my nonlinear journey. So not only have I started and successfully run seven companies, but this nonlinear path is one that I've followed since my early years, and it's one that I. I've learned a great deal from. And what I really wanted to do was to share one person's answer to the question, what do you do? [00:18:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:45] Speaker B: And how do you answer that question? [00:18:47] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:18:48] Speaker B: So you had. You were mentioning before that enjoying experience over expectations that you may have in your mind about yourself, Right. Well, there's certain expectations that society has about you as well. [00:19:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:19:05] Speaker B: And so that's a. It's, you know, a double down on the expectation side. [00:19:10] Speaker C: Right. [00:19:11] Speaker B: So we grow up in life and we think, okay, we go to college, we get the degrees, we get the great career, we marry. Well, we have kids. [00:19:22] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. [00:19:23] Speaker B: You know, we do some more career, we retire, and if we're lucky, we leave a Legacy. [00:19:28] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:19:28] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:29] Speaker A: 100% agree. 100% agree. [00:19:32] Speaker B: My life was never like that. It was never like that. And I believe that most people's lives don't go through that path intentionally. They go through that path because they're conditioned to go through the path. [00:19:50] Speaker C: Right. [00:19:50] Speaker B: They're burdened by the expectations of others and unrealistic expectations about themselves. You know, then what to do about that? How do you. Do you manage that? And so that's why I started writing the book as a memoir. [00:20:05] Speaker A: Beautiful. Beautiful. [00:20:06] Speaker B: Except then somewhere along the way, I started continually referring to artificial intelligence. And by referring to artificial intelligence, what I mean is that I would go for references. I would go for historical references or context references. And what I finally woke up one day, Rashad. And I said, I wonder what it would be like if I put my story into AI Wonderful and ask it to analyze my life. [00:20:38] Speaker C: Right. [00:20:39] Speaker B: And that's what I did. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Beautiful. Beautiful. [00:20:41] Speaker B: And that's what the book became. [00:20:43] Speaker A: It's eerie. That's the program that you use, right, Iri, I don't want to butcher that AI Program. That you used. I thought that it's spelled E. Yeah, I saw that. I wasn't sure how to pronounce that. [00:20:55] Speaker B: It's pronounced AI. [00:20:56] Speaker A: Are you kidding me? [00:20:58] Speaker B: No, it's pronounced AI because that's the name that I came up with. [00:21:02] Speaker A: That's awesome. Here I was thinking it was like, eh. I'm like, okay, is it? I didn't even. It didn't even dawn on me that that's what it was saying because I just read it. [00:21:09] Speaker C: Right. [00:21:09] Speaker A: I didn't hear it. [00:21:10] Speaker B: That's okay. That is okay. So AI in this particular case is actually a combination of five different AI platforms. So we've got Chat, GPT, of course, we've got Perplexity, we've got Sonnet, we've got Deep Seek, and we've got Grok. So the AI component of experience over expectation is an amalgam of those five platforms for analysing, analyzing my life. [00:21:41] Speaker A: Got it, Got it. Was it kind of weird, you know, kind of having something analyze it for you rather than actually you telling it? I don't say that you weren't doing it, but like when you saw it come out and you're like, did it come out in the way that you wanted it to? It was there some things that were omitted or needed cleaning up, so to speak, that you saw? [00:21:59] Speaker B: Well, the book has 40 pages of citations. 40 pages of citations. Now I'm not including those in the book. I'm including those as a QR code so that people can go and look at all of the citations. It is really amazing. So when I went down this path, I had no idea what to anticipate. You know, it was a matter of curiosity that I said, I wonder what would happen if it was like I was validated through the whole process. [00:22:36] Speaker A: Beautiful. [00:22:36] Speaker B: It was like my, my decisions were, you know, so the prompt, there's our secret sauce is, is always in the prompts. Right, Right. And essentially to simplify the prompt that I gave it, it is analyze my story, my choices and my decisions. Those are the three things. The story, the choices and the decision. And so that's what I did on multiple levels and five different platforms. And then we combine them to come up with the analysis of mine, of my life, and also to come up with tools that people can use for self assessment. [00:23:20] Speaker A: And I think a self assessment. No, I don't. You know, sometimes people get caught up in the, in the everyday life. And I always reference from here on out. I think of one of my guests that I had, Brandon Barnum, he was a successful CEO of the. Of HOA.com and he said something very important. He said, there's life by design and life by default. And when he actually broke down the two. And you know this just because of the life you live, when you do by default, you know, you get up, eat your breakfast and start your car and you just go through the motions. And you're not a bad person for that. It's not a personal dig on anybody. [00:23:52] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:53] Speaker A: But when you have a systematic design of how you want things to operate and function, you know, you start taking that bird's eye view a bit more of how your day is going to go. This is what I'm going to eat. This is how I have my time carved out for things. This is how my schedule is going to be coordinated. This is how I'm going to have self care, you know, even like booking this, this podcast, you have to have blocks of time off to have compelling guests and content. And so as a result of that, you start getting more organized and structured to have good, compelling conversations like this. And it matters when you're trying to be structured. [00:24:25] Speaker B: Well, my mantra is finite heartbeats, infinite possibilities. [00:24:30] Speaker A: Yes. [00:24:31] Speaker B: So what that, what that. Thank you. What that means is that we have choices every day about how to invest our heartbeats. [00:24:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:24:41] Speaker B: And the choices that we make, we have an infinite number of them. [00:24:45] Speaker C: Right. [00:24:45] Speaker B: How do we make those choices? [00:24:47] Speaker A: Correct. [00:24:48] Speaker B: What are the outcomes that we want? [00:24:50] Speaker C: Right. [00:24:51] Speaker B: And what are the values around which we choose to live? [00:24:56] Speaker A: Absolutely. And ultimately, you take it a step further, you start making decisions of who you want to let in your life. Because I'll tell you. [00:25:03] Speaker B: Yes. [00:25:03] Speaker A: When you have to start making some conscious decisions on if you're going to start living your life a certain way or conducting yourself in a certain manner, professionally, personally, wherever the path that may lead, you're going to have to make some choices of those people that you're going to be around while doing it. [00:25:17] Speaker C: Right. [00:25:17] Speaker B: Yes. [00:25:17] Speaker A: You ultimately do, you know, and I can, you know, when you talk about experience over expectation, you know, just briefly about myself, it's like I do martial arts. [00:25:25] Speaker C: Right. [00:25:25] Speaker A: So even if you're never going to be the greatest martial artist in the world. [00:25:29] Speaker C: Right. [00:25:29] Speaker A: And it's hard to do that because clearly I'm not. But the experience of taking martial arts versus your expectation of, I have a black belt, but I wouldn't trade the experience of trade of training in martial arts, you know, for not being Jean Claude Van Damme. [00:25:43] Speaker C: Right. [00:25:44] Speaker A: Because it's a. It's a. It's a like you're in this culture of things that you do, and at the end of the day, it's a historical art that you're still training in. And it's a wonderful thing to be a part of that medium. [00:25:56] Speaker B: Yes. [00:25:57] Speaker A: It really, truly is. Where can people go ahead, please? [00:26:00] Speaker B: So, you know, I, I love that story because I'm a high performance driver. I like driving on racetracks. [00:26:07] Speaker A: Beautiful. [00:26:08] Speaker B: And, you know, the experience of it is just so enriching. [00:26:13] Speaker C: Yep. [00:26:14] Speaker B: That, you know, it's far beyond. Don't get me wrong, I like the checkered flag, for sure. I like it a lot, for sure. I like seeing people and other drivers in my rear view mirror. [00:26:26] Speaker C: Right. [00:26:28] Speaker B: But the actual experience of being on the track of driving, on the track of mastering the physics of it is really, really, it's fascinating to me and very gratifying. And if, if we can live our lives that way, where nine times out of ten it's fascinating and gratifying and not, you know, it matters, so to speak. [00:26:51] Speaker C: Right. [00:26:52] Speaker A: It matters more that you actually had a chance to. Because how many people are actually in that car right now? How many people could actually say they're doing that? There's very few people. So once you get that expectation that the experience mattered more than, you know, you know. [00:27:03] Speaker B: Yes. [00:27:03] Speaker A: Okay, well, I'm here and a lot of people aren't. Same thing when I was doing martial arts. I'm here and a lot of people don't do this. So I'm going to be living in the experience of this actual art that I'm taking as opposed to not being the greatest martial arts that ever existed. So I always ask this question, all my guests, where can people find you if they don't need me on this show, but where can people find Mary McCormick? [00:27:23] Speaker B: Mary McCorvey.com is the best place to find me. I also am on YouTube. I have a channel on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and all the places that you find your podcast. [00:27:36] Speaker A: That's wonderful. [00:27:36] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Rashad, for having me on today. [00:27:40] Speaker A: It's been an absolute pleasure. And like I said, I always, I always tell this, you know, to people who have compelling stories. I've been fortunate to be blessed with a lot of great guys. I love to have another part two, because I think, you know, what, your story is, is not capsulated in 30 minutes. So I really appreciate that. [00:27:53] Speaker B: My pleasure. Thank you.

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