The Grit Factor Podcast w/ Karl Jacobi

Marc Schmidt was born with Opitz GBB Syndrome, a rare condition that arrives as a package deal. Cleft lip and palate. Surgical intervention required at birth. A speech pattern that has drawn stares and dismissive comments since he was four years old. Daily physical management that most people in his life do not know about and that he has learned to carry without making it a headline. Teachers who treated him differently. Kids who excluded him from birthday parties. A childhood that had him feeling like he was walking alone before he had the vocabulary to explain why.

And through all of it, a quiet pull toward television and broadcasting that he spent years talking himself out of. Who is going to want to watch me? Who is going to want to listen to me? Those were not passing thoughts. They were the operating belief system that kept him behind the camera instead of in front of it for years. The version of Marc that finally hit record was not built in a single moment. It was built through a decade of networking events that showed him people genuinely wanted to see him succeed, a promotion into management that cracked his confidence ceiling, a blog, and eventually a podcast he called Mark My Words, a tribute to the entrepreneurs who took unlikely paths to the lives they wanted.

Today Marc works at Disney Streaming, has nearly two hundred podcast episodes under his belt, speaks on stages, and creates content on Substack. He did not wait until the syndrome was gone or the voice was different or the confidence felt permanent. He did it while all of those things were still a factor. And he is still doing it every week.

This episode is for anyone who has convinced themselves they need to look or sound a certain way before they are allowed to hit send.