From Rejection to Renaissance: Mark Mustian’s Rise from City Hall to Bestseller
The Mike Litton Experience
Mike Litton
5.0 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2025
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this powerful episode of The Mike Litton Experience, we dive deep into the extraordinary life of Mark Mustian—lawyer, novelist, and former city commissioner—who proves that persistence, purpose, and paying it forward can lead to literary and personal breakthroughs.
From the tough lessons of early rejection to building a literary festival and mentoring the next generation of writers, Mark shares what it takes to survive in both law and literature. His novel Boy with Wings—a story about redemption and belonging—is only the tip of the iceberg in this raw, inspiring, and deeply human conversation.
What You’ll Learn:
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The truth behind traditional, hybrid, and self-publishing platforms
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How rejection shaped his resilience as an author
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The importance of mentors and how Mark now gives back
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Emotional lessons from public service and parenting
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The creative spark behind Boy with Wings
“Everyone has a story—and this one will stay with you long after the credits roll.”
Don’t forget to subscribe for more unforgettable interviews with trailblazers, thinkers, and risk-takers. Available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And then there's a whole self-publishing thing where you can go on Amazon and other things and publish your own book. |
| 0:06.2 | And, you know, when I started in this, so, you know, 20-plus years ago, I mean, self-publishing was really sort of looked down on. |
| 0:14.0 | That was called there were vanity presses, you know, stuff like that. |
| 0:18.7 | And, you know, Amazon and the Internet have changed that a lot. I mean, |
| 0:22.5 | there's something to think about. There's a whole bunch of people in there that never got to |
| 0:27.5 | where they wanted to be. My grandfather was a honest to goodness American success story and the most |
| 0:33.5 | influential person in my life by far. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. |
| 0:38.3 | One of the things that he told me was he said, listen, I grew up in the Great Depression. |
| 0:43.5 | And so I have an aversion to risk. And it started two years ago when they came to him and said, |
| 0:49.3 | we want an allowance. All of our friends have allowances. We want an allowance. He said, nope, |
| 0:54.0 | I'm not giving you an allowance. What I will do is Iances. We want an allowance. He says, nope, I'm not giving |
| 0:54.5 | you an allowance. What I will do is I'll send you to a real estate mastermind so you can learn |
| 0:58.9 | how to underwrite properties. You go find the properties. I'll bring the crews, the expertise |
| 1:04.3 | and the money, and we'll split the proceeds. So one of the things I learned as a city commissioners, |
| 1:09.3 | and you learn a lot, you know, being, you know, and so, but I found that people, you know, they would call, you know, constituents would call and, you know, and show up at the meetings of some time, but they mainly just wanted you to listen to them. |
| 1:24.8 | They didn't really care if you agreed with them. |
| 1:27.2 | Did you know there's a technology that's actually an app on your phone that uses sound waves |
| 1:31.8 | to tell your brain what you want your brain to do? We had a young man that was a guest on our |
| 1:37.3 | podcast, the Michael Lidon experience, who had a traumatic brain injury. He was sleeping three hours |
| 1:41.8 | a night. He's using Newcomb now and he's sleeping more. |
| 1:44.9 | Go to Newcom.com.com, Mike 15 promo code. Newcom promo code Mike 15 for an extra 15% off. Go today. |
| 1:53.4 | Welcome to the Mike Litton Experience podcast. Everyone has a story. And our passion is to help them tell it. |
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