Here's to the Misfits

Embracing Your Unconventional Path and Refusing to Stay Small

Mary Belden-McGrath

Co-Founder

Driven Leadership

Here's to the Misfits

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"

I've loved that line for a long time because I've spent most of my life challenging the status quo-the norms, the expectations, and the way things are supposed to be done.

So, when I was asked to write about a time I broke a tradition, an expectation, or a long-standing belief, I had to sit with it. Not because I couldn't think of one, but because I've done it so many times that I didn't know which one to choose.

Here's one of the big ones.

I broke the traditional path:

• Graduate.
• Go to college.
• Build a career.
• Then get married.

That was the order. That was the plan everyone hands you. The definition of doing life "the right way."

I eloped at 18 while I was still in high school and figured the rest out along the way.

What followed wasn't easy.

There were people, events, and seasons that wanted me to become smaller than I was. I was told in a hundred quiet-and sometimes not-so-quiet-ways that I was too much. I challenged beliefs. I pushed back. I questioned ways of thinking that limited people and placed them into boxes.

At first, it was easier to stand up for other people than it was to stand up for myself. I think that's where the fight inside me began.

When you've been encouraged to be small, getting up isn't simply a habit.

• It's an act of refusal.
• A refusal to stay down.
• A refusal to disappear.
• A refusal to allow someone else's expectations to determine the size of your life.

Instead of letting my unconventional beginning-or the painful chapters that followed-place a ceiling on my future, I kept reinventing myself.

I became an entrepreneur. A leadership facilitator. A content creator. A business owner. A mentor. Today, I teach principles that many people first encounter in a college classroom.

My path wasn't traditional. But it became an education in its own right.

I won't pretend it was clean.

For years, I struggled with imposter syndrome. I worried that I wasn't good enough. I waited for someone to discover that I didn't have a college degree and decide I didn't belong in the room.

My journey wasn't always a courageous declaration of, "I'm going to challenge tradition!" Sometimes, I was simply very stubborn. I never wanted to be put in a box. I wanted to prove I could do it differently.

And I worked hard. I mean, I worked hard.

I could outwork just about anyone in the room. Once I had a belief, a vision, and a focus, I locked in.

But there were tough times.

• Times when I was scared and cried myself to sleep.
• Times when I was lost.
• Times when I didn't have a clue.

There were days I pulled the covers over my head and just wanted to stay in bed.

But there was always this voice inside me-this fight inside me-that wouldn't allow me to stay there.

It would begin as a whisper.

Get up.

Then it would grow louder.

Get up. Get up. Get up!

And sometimes I would yell it out loud.

"Mary... GET UP!"

And then I would.

I may not have known how to fix everything. I may not have been able to control the circumstances, the people, or the outcome. But I learned to focus on what I could do instead of what I couldn't.

One of my mantras became, "What am I willing to do to get to where I want to be?"

Then I would do that.

• One foot in front of the other.
• One step at a time.
• One action at a time.

I also learned that if someone's primary concern was whether I had letters behind my name, I probably wasn't the right fit for them.

And that was okay.

Some will. Some won't. So what? Next.

That understanding set me free.

Then Simon Sinek came along with the Golden Circle, and it lit me up. The idea that people don't simply connect with what you do-they connect with why you do it.

That understanding set me free.

Once I stopped being afraid of being asked about my degrees, and once I began openly owning who I was, where I came from, and what I brought to the room, I reclaimed my power.

Because here's what I do have.

I see ideas, concepts, and processes like pieces of a puzzle. My brain begins turning them, connecting them, and fitting them together.

• I research.
• I study.
• I take classes.
• I earn certifications.
• I learn from mentors and coaches.
• I listen to the voice inside me that says, Create!

I am genuinely in awe of the outcomes we help produce. Again and again, people tell us:

"I've attended so many leadership trainings and team-building programs, but I've never experienced anything like this."

I've even had students who work with psychologists tell me,

"You say the exact same things my psychologist says."

In the early days, when I was still afraid of being found out, still playing small, and still avoiding the bigger risks, the mentors and owners of the leadership company I worked with continued pushing me to step up.

One of my mentors, along with my therapist, asked me a question I've never forgotten:

Would you rather learn from someone who has letters behind their name but very little life experience, or from someone who has been forged in the fire? Someone who has been there, lived it, learned from it, and come out the other side?

That question gave me permission to step up and step out.

My mess. My message.

• My mess.
• My fears.
• My mistakes.
• My education through the school of hard knocks.

They have all become my message.

Not because I did everything perfectly. Because I didn't quit.

This story isn't only about breaking tradition. It isn't about whether someone went to college, got married young, built a business, or followed an unconventional path.

• It is about what happens when life doesn't unfold according to plan.
• It is about what you do when you feel unqualified, underestimated, behind, afraid, or uncertain.
• It is about deciding that the circumstances that shaped you do not have the authority to define you.

Too many people are waiting.

• Waiting until they feel confident.
• Waiting until they know enough.
• Waiting until someone gives them permission.
• Waiting until every plan is in place, every "i" is dotted, and every "t" is crossed.

But if you wait until everything is perfect, you may never take action.

Confidence rarely arrives before the first step. More often, confidence is built because you took the step while you were still afraid.

Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's feeling the fear and doing it anyway. It's doing it scared.

I'm deeply grateful for the people who helped me believe my dreams were possible-that I could build something meaningful without following the "normal" path.

But eventually, I had to believe it for myself. And so will you.

Maybe your beginning is messy.

Maybe you've been told you're too old, too young, too inexperienced, too emotional, too intense, too different, or simply too much.

Maybe you don't have the degree, the money, the connections, the background, or the perfect plan.

Maybe your beginning is messy. Maybe your life looks nothing like you thought it would.

That does not mean your dream is impossible. It may simply mean your path will look different.

My superpower is believing in the impossible. But believing in the impossible doesn't mean sitting around hoping something miraculous happens.

• It takes courage.
• It takes work.
• It takes a willingness to think beyond the box.
• It takes challenging the norms and questioning the rules that were never meant for you in the first place.

And yes... Sometimes it takes being a little crazy.

So here's to the misfits.

• The crazy ones.
• The ones who see things differently.
• The ones who refuse to shrink themselves to make other people comfortable.
• The ones who were told they couldn't and decided to do it anyway.
• The ones creating paths where no path existed before.

I didn't write this simply to tell you my story. I stood up for other people long before I learned how to stand up for myself, so consider this my way of standing up for you.

If I can build a life I love from a beginning no one would have chosen, you can create something meaningful from the life you've been given, too.

To whoever is reading this and needs the reminder:

• Challenge the status quo.
• Question the "traditional" way of doing things.
• Follow the dream that refuses to leave you alone.
• Listen to the voice inside you that keeps saying there is more.

That dream was given to you for a reason.

Will you have to do the work? Yep. Will it be hard? Heck yeah. Will it be worth it? One hundred percent.

I refuse to reach the end of my life carrying the weight of dreams I was too afraid to pursue.

My mantra is simple:

• What can I do?
• What else can I do?
• What else can I do?

• Action creates movement.
• Action creates evidence.
• Action creates results.
• Inaction creates regret.

So when fear tells you to hide, when failure tells you to quit, or when life knocks you flat on your back, listen for the voice inside you.

It may begin as a whisper.

Get up.

Then listen again.

Get up.

And one more time...

GET UP!!!

Your story is not over.

Mary Belden-McGrath
Driven Leadership