Taming Your Ego When You're Too Big for Your Britches

We've spent the past few conversations exploring the our ability to reach beyond our defaults and norms from the perspective of those who struggle to feel good about ourselves, or don't find it easy to trust or bet on ourselves.

However, there exists another extreme at the other end of the spectrum. A word that is hotly debated in terms of its worth, as well as how much an overdose of it can be highly problematic in our lives.

And that word is EGO.

The idea of our ego is highly polarizing. It's hard to hear the word without immediately flinching at an imaginary boardroom supervillain whose ego steamrolls every single person around them ... or those bad first dates where you spend 3 hours listening to someone talk about how amazing they are, without them ever asking you a single question.

⚡ Related: What Is Beyond Your Default? (The Start of the Journey)

But the reality is that our ego is meant to play a critical role for us mere mortals, when it comes to our psychology. It's the "I" lens through which our life experiences are filtered through – it's how we establish our sense of self. It's only when it's unchecked that we can potentially start running amok in our own lives (and, potentially, the lives of others).

So, that's what we're going to tackle in today's episode – the curious case of the good ego vs. the bad ego, how to know when you've gone too far, and what to do when you realize you've grown too big for your britches. George also shares a powerful story involving a motorcycle you won't want to miss. 

Questions We Explore

• When you hear the word "ego," what first comes to mind? What are the accurate or flawed assumptions we make about the word?
• Why does this conversation matter so much when it comes to the idea of living beyond your default?
• What is the difference between good ego and bad ego? When does our ego play a vital role in our psychology?
• How do you think well-meaning folks end up trapped on the wrong side of the ego spectrum? Even with the best of intentions, it can happen!
• What value does your ego still hold for you in every day life ... when you're on the right side of the spectrum?
• How do you bounce back from trips down the wrong side of ego lane?
• How do you keep yourself in check now when it comes to your ego? Are there certain questions we ask ourselves to keep ourselves centered?

Creators and Guests

Host

George B. Thomas

A catalyst for growth!

Host

Liz Moorehead

Content therapist and speaker.

What is Beyond Your Default?

What Is Beyond Your Default? "Everyone keeps telling me I should be happy, but I'm not." “I feel stuck.” “I have a calling, but where do I start?"

Right now, you have a choice. You can continue living within your default norms, playing it safe, clocking in and out every day, and scraping by to achieve what's supposed to make you happy hopefully. Or you can choose to accept the challenge of living beyond your default. Stop wishing to live your "best life” and start living your best life. Success leaves clues. And they're waiting for you to discover them.

George B. Thomas: 00:03

Being able to show up in a selfless way. Again, not to beat that drum, And it's funny because you talked about pride and being proud, and I've gotta be honest with you. There's this thing of, like, pride is that you're shouting it about yourself, but you can be proud when others are saying it. What it mean Luke 14:11 is a scripture that's a very interesting scripture. It says for everyone who exalts himself or herself, but the Bible says for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.

George B. Thomas: 00:34

I exalted myself at Faith Ranch. I got humbled with my motorcycle accident. But it goes on to say, and he who humbles himself or herself, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. You can be proud of the seeds you're sowing. You can be proud of the crop you're growing.

George B. Thomas: 00:54

You can be proud of the growth of those around you in your own growth. But here's the thing, I think that much of this is a delicate balance of keeping that ego what it should be.

Liz Moorehead: 01:11

Welcome back to Beyond Your Default. I am Liz Morehead. And as always, I'm joined by the one and only George b Thomas. One of my favorite questions to always start with is, how the heck are you? How was your weekend?

George B. Thomas: 01:23

My weekend was great. I got to fly back home from Boston because I was at the b to b forum, calling bingo and speaking on stages and hanging out with humans, which I always love hanging out with humans. And I got to go to a Luke Bryan concert, which, again, hanging out with humans and listening to music. And I know today is gonna be a good day because, Liz, I am literally drinking from my serenity coffee mug, so it's gonna be a good day.

Liz Moorehead: 01:52

I'm not drinking from a serenity mug. I am drinking from the district coworking space's finest polar premium seltzer brand. Not sponsored, but hey, Polar, if you like what you're hearing, we're always welcome to talk. I am excited about today's conversation because, okay, we've spent the past few episodes exploring our ability to reach beyond our defaults. Right?

Liz Moorehead: 02:18

Which not a surprise, The title of the podcast is beyond your default. But we've been doing so from the perspective of those who struggle to feel good, whether that's good about ourselves or overcoming fear or not finding it easy to trust and bet on ourselves. However, there exists another extreme at the other end of the spectrum, and it is usually labeled with a word that is hotly debated in terms of its worth as well as how much of an overdose can be highly problematic in our lives. And that's, of course, assuming we're all agreeing on what the definition of this term is. And that word is ego.

Liz Moorehead: 02:57

And the idea of our ego is highly polarizing. Right? It's hard to hear the word without immediately flinching at some sort of imaginary boardroom supervillain whose ego steamrolls every single person around him or those bad first dates. I once went on a first date where I've never learned so much about high school lacrosse. I never want to know that much about high school lacrosse ever again.

Liz Moorehead: 03:20

But the reality is our ego is meant to play a critical role for us mere mortals when it comes to our psychology. In psychology, it is the quote, unquote, I lens, me, through which our life experiences are filtered through. It's how we establish our sense of self, and it's only when it becomes unchecked that we can potentially start running a mock in our own lives and sometimes in the lives of others. So that's what we're gonna be tackling in today's episode. The curious case of the good ego versus the bad ego, and how to know when you've gone too far.

Liz Moorehead: 03:53

And my favorite way of the way you phrased it, so I had to put it in here, George, when we were prepping for this. What do you do when you realize you've grown too big for your own britches?

George B. Thomas: 04:03

I've been there. Right? Here's the thing. It's funny because when we were prepping for this and when I started doing research for this episode, I had a very interesting thing happen very much like when we did the Healthy Hustle, and I was like, I started to think about words and what words we use versus what they mean. And I even started to ask myself, like, if we're going to talk about this, what the heck is ego anyway?

George B. Thomas: 04:29

Like, am I using the wrong word or have I been using the wrong words for 30 some years when this thing happened in my life that made me dramatically pay attention to this? And I went back and kind of what you said. I looked at the definition of the word ego. It literally is a person's sense of self esteem or self importance. And I was like, well, that sounds positive.

George B. Thomas: 04:52

Like, why is that or should it be a negative? Why do we talk about ego in negative way? And so then I was like, okay. I mean, let me dig a little bit deeper. Then I started to read things and listen to things about how, like, ego is our thinking brain.

George B. Thomas: 05:08

It tells us what's good, what's bad, even what we like. It uses our life story, our experiences to construct, to create a construct. That word is gonna come up a couple times probably in here of who we think we are. It's the mind made identity. Okay.

George B. Thomas: 05:26

We're still not in a bad place. However, when I got to the words mind made identity, I believe we're more than that, and I was like, okay. Wait a minute. Like, what? I'm fighting here.

George B. Thomas: 05:39

So then I started to think, well, where does this go wrong? Here's the thing. We started to gain an ego, the word that we're talking about, around the ages of 3 or 4 because we're trying to figure out what the world is, who we are in the world, how do we navigate these things. Where it goes fundamentally wrong is many of us have never worked on the construct that our brain built at 3 to 4 years old. Even worse, we have let layers of crap over the years funnel into that construct and define us even more from this, like, infant style, and now let's layer this.

George B. Thomas: 06:17

Or or some of us have hung on to praise and become very, very self important. I am the center of my own universe. Like, we've all met that human. Probably mister Lacrosse, by the way, was very self important if I tie this back. So what's interesting is where my brain goes with this is an ego that clings is an ego that could lead to depression or being an egomaniac.

George B. Thomas: 06:43

And it's funny because I think when I let myself dive into this, I think of success and failure. Right? Ego is the mind's tool. When we have success and we go ego one way, we're like, oh, I'm successful, which means I can be successful at anything, which is not truth. It's falsality.

George B. Thomas: 07:02

We can't be successful at everything because we've been successful at one thing. And then on the failure side, we use ego as an escape goat. Like, it's, oh, well, you know, couldn't be me. And so, Liz, what I really wanna get to as we dive in here is I fundamentally now believe there's a difference between ego and being egotistical. Egotistical is excessively, conceded or absorbed in oneself, self centered, bloated self esteem, which equals, by the way, a hollow life, which I feel like that's where I was in life at one point in time where, sure, I had this ego.

George B. Thomas: 07:42

I had this construct. I had gone through these things. I had these layers of crap in life that had pointed to a thing, and then all of a sudden, things started to change, and that construct didn't know how to continue to survive in a place that was different. And all of a sudden my ego went right through the roof. And when I think about living a life beyond your default, I think about how powerful this portion of the word will show up many times, I think, in this episode, this portion of being humble.

George B. Thomas: 08:18

So when we think about ego in this construct and egotistical and the word humble, which is very important to my life, it's hard to be humble if your ego, if your construct about yourself is out of line, out of whack. Here's the thing that really bet my mind when I was diving down into this is that many of us think that we are the thoughts that make our ego. But when we start to get to this life of living beyond your default, and we start to dive into these words like ego, egotistical, and we start to bend belief and bend self, I think that we have to realize that we're not these thoughts. We are the awareness of these thoughts. We are a higher intelligence that can make choices and tap into what we truly are versus the construct that we might have built back when we are 3 or 4 and the layers that have been added on?

Liz Moorehead: 09:20

I mean, to be perfectly honest, I probably shouldn't be trusted to rely on anything I developed at 3 or 4 years old because I was still testing the vast majority of the world through my mouth. Can I bite this? Can I eat this? Can I balance on this? The fact that that kind of thing is developed at such a young age is quite telling.

Liz Moorehead: 09:38

And the other thing I find fascinating about this whole conversation is, like, let's even go back to how we were originally constructing this episode. When we were originally batting this topic back and forth, the initial pitch was completely through the negative lens. What happens when your ego makes you too big for your britches? And then we both had to sit there and go, well, wait a minute. The ego in its purest form actually bad?

Liz Moorehead: 10:02

That's what I find interesting about this whole conversation. When you gave that definition, and you said, that doesn't sound like a bad thing. It's well, of course not. It's like cake. Cake is good in moderation.

Liz Moorehead: 10:16

Carrots are good in moderation. I'm using cake and carrots intentionally because people are like, well, you can eat as many carrots as you want. Actually, no. You can't. It's bad for your system.

Liz Moorehead: 10:26

You will overload, and I think you turn actually orange or yellow if you eat too many of them. Anything to an extreme degree creates a big problem. But before we dig too deeply into this, George, I'd love to hear from you. Why is the conversation we're having today so important to this notion of living beyond your default?

George B. Thomas: 10:47

It's interesting because I feel like there's a couple things that come to mind, and that is that when we when we think about this word ego, I feel like it falls right in the middle of 2 other words that we should be talking about. And there are 2 words that are closely associated with ego or the potential becoming egotistical, and those two words are pride and humility. I do feel like ego is kind of in the middle of there, and you can go one way or the other. In my mind, I literally can see the three words and ego in the middle and me kind of straddling or the listener straddling and at least then having somewhat of a compass. I don't think, honestly, Liz, that many times we actually stop long enough to think about ego or the idea that our brain creates a construct or that it's many times we've talked about updating your software, maybe about how do you update your hardware, the construct, right, the actual blocks that you're containing this stuff in.

George B. Thomas: 11:59

And so why is this kind of important? There's a book that I'm gonna lean into. Well, there's 2 books, actually. There's one by Ryan Holiday. It's called Ego is the Enemy.

George B. Thomas: 12:11

It's a fantastic book. I'm gonna go back on, like, looking at this from the negative direction because trying to stay away from it because we'll get there. He believes and I have to agree or else I wouldn't be bringing it up on the podcast. He believes that ego sabotages us from long term goals and distracts us from mastery. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're trying to live a life beyond the default, you're probably gonna have goals, and you're probably gonna be chasing mastery because mastery, once you I don't wanna say arrive, but once you're on the track of being a master and then leveling up your mastery in that thing is where a lot of the magic starts to happen.

George B. Thomas: 12:53

This is not a professional podcast, but if I look at my life, it was 10 years of becoming mastery or creating mastery around HubSpot marketing, sales, communication that has gotten us to where we're at today, but that's because I kept ego at Bay. Hey. I'm a poet and didn't know it. Just right there in that line, you can rewind and listen again. Anyway, so here's the thing.

George B. Thomas: 13:16

I want to envision humility and pride, and I wanna be able to lean into the humility side. I mentioned 2 books. 1, ego is the enemy by Ryan Holiday. The second one is just simply the Bible, ladies and gentlemen. Believe it or not, I at least have to say Proverbs 112, when pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.

George B. Thomas: 13:38

I would much rather over index on being humble and wise than a disgrace and egotistical or an egomaniac. So if you think about this, like ego being the enemy and going in a level of humility and wisdom, ego can be or being egotistical can be an unhealthy belief in one's own importance. There's a couple things that I do based on some things that happened in my life, and that's one I don't take myself too seriously. Like, I just don't mind being a goofball. I don't always have to be right.

George B. Thomas: 14:14

Ego takes things like concern. This is again right out of the book. Ego is the enemy. Ego takes things like concern and turns it into obsession. Ego takes confidence and turns it into arrogance.

George B. Thomas: 14:28

And again, I'm leaning into that, not necessarily the ego that is the construct, but ego that is the term that I think we've mis communicated that might be the egotistical egomaniac, like the dark side, bad side of ego versus the good side that you kind of lean into. So that are just kind of some thoughts why it's important to this journey that people are on trying to beyond your default is, like, there are some major mindsets that this one kind of compass center point can affect or fluctuate the direction that you're gonna go in your life.

Liz Moorehead: 15:04

I wanna throw something out there, though, because I agree with you. Right? We have pride versus humility. And this starts dipping into some of the conversation you and I wanted to have today. Right?

Liz Moorehead: 15:14

Like, what is good ego versus bad ego? Ego is kind of like a vehicle. Right? You can hop in your vehicle and go to Pridesville or humility town. The choice is yours.

Liz Moorehead: 15:23

However, there is something to be said because I'm a word nerd. Are we saying I can't have pride about things that I do? That I can't feel proud of myself when I do things? What's that distinction for you? What's that line for you?

George B. Thomas: 15:38

Well, there's a difference between being proud and pride. Like, they sound like they're the same words, but they're not. Pride is like an elevated, unhealthy, potentially corrosive to those around you. It can be a turn off. When I think about this, right, I did something that I'm proud of.

George B. Thomas: 15:59

I go tell a 100 people it kind of turned into pride. And when I say I tell a 100 people, I don't mean I'm telling, like, a dope story from stage. I mean, I'm like a, look at me. I'm the guy. Like, that kind of thing.

George B. Thomas: 16:13

And so I also think when I think about the word pride, and I think why the Bible talks about, you know, pride comes before the fall, is that you've now put your blinders on. You have lost all social awareness. You've lost being able to see the direction that you're heading and probably potentially dragging others into. When I do something good, I'm allowed to be proud of that. I'm proud of myself for being the person who did that.

George B. Thomas: 16:41

I'm proud of, you know, those who actually maybe made the change based on things that happened. I'm just proud of the situation in general that something or someone believed in me enough to know that we could get the job done, and you can take that as worldly or as spiritually as you want, that last statement that I just made.

Liz Moorehead: 17:05

How do you think well meaning folks end up on chapter on the wrong side of the ego spectrum?

George B. Thomas: 17:09

Well, first of all, you're not checking it. 2nd of all, you're not thinking about it. I mean

Liz Moorehead: 17:14

How do you do that, though? Do you ask yourself specific questions? Is there, like, 9 AM every day?

George B. Thomas: 17:19

Well I

Liz Moorehead: 17:20

look in the mirror, so I check it myself before I wreck it myself. Used to. What are we doing there?

George B. Thomas: 17:24

I didn't used to, but there was a point in life where I started to have to, if that makes sense. First of all, I'm very happy that if you meet me today, I would be okay with you meeting me today, and I'm literally talking to all of the listeners or viewers that watch this because I've had the opportunity to do a lot of work, 1, but 2, I've been given a life where let's just say God knows who I am, and God realized that, occasionally, he might have to break me to get me where I needed to go. And and so let me just kinda tell this story. So there was a time where I believed that I would never amount to anything. Thanks, math teacher.

George B. Thomas: 18:08

There was a time that I thought I knew what I was gonna do in life, and that was join the navy and stay in the navy for life and retire. But I ended up in a medical honorable discharge because I had these things called hives, and I almost died. And we've told this story, and you can go back to that episode. But then I ended up at Faith Ranch after being homeless, by the way. I ended up at Faith Ranch.

George B. Thomas: 18:28

And this really weird thing happened from believing that I couldn't amount to anything and believing that my future dreams had been squashed to all sudden, I realized that I could learn and do pretty much anything that I wanted to learn and do, meaning I became a Western and English horseback riding instructor. I became a rappelling instructor, an archery instructor, a certified lifeguard. I was doing all these things at this camp for 3 years of my life. I've learned how to play the guitar. We would sing campfire songs.

George B. Thomas: 19:01

I was a camp counselor. I had been there more summers than probably several people, like, had become, as dumb as this sounds, the upper echelon of a Christian camp, and my head got inflated. I mean, big because going from you're never gonna amount to anything to, like, man, I am the ultimate guy. And here's the thing. Back in that day, like, I wasn't even George because that wasn't cool enough.

George B. Thomas: 19:30

Actually, there were 3 Georges that worked there, but people called me Geo. So Gio is this alternate guy who's very egotistical. And so in my brain, I'm always trying to keep Gio at bay and make sure that I'm living life as George. I have never told that part of this. Anyway, so what I wanna continue on is there came an opportunity where this motorcycle was for sale.

George B. Thomas: 19:53

And I said to the camp counselor, I'm gonna buy that motorcycle. I wanna have that motorcycle. He said, that's not a good idea. I didn't listen to the words of the wise because I was very filled with pride, and I wanted to be the cool guy. And the cool guy in the movies rides the motorcycle, so I'm going to get the motorcycle.

George B. Thomas: 20:12

I buy the motorcycle. I've got it maybe for a couple of weeks. We decide as a couple of group of friends of mine to go into town to Jewett, Ohio. We're gonna shoot some basketball hoops and get there. We shoot hoops.

George B. Thomas: 20:26

We're on our way back, and I'm kind of showing off. I'm going probably about 80 in a 55, and all of a sudden, the smallest of things is crawling across the road, and it's a possum. And to this day, by the way, I still hate possums, but there's a possum crossing the road to which I have to try to dip out so I don't hit the possum and dip back in going 80 miles an hour. Well, my front tire goes off the asphalt, hits the gravel. I remember trying to, like, lean off because I knew that this was not gonna end well.

George B. Thomas: 21:02

You could see 6 indentions in the bank where my bike had done flips. They found my gas tank a 100 and 50 yards on the other side of the road. I stood up. I was I was wearing a helmet, full face helmet, a leather jacket, a pair of shorts. I stood up, and I realized there was dirt all over my face mask, and I couldn't get my helmet off, and I didn't know why.

George B. Thomas: 21:27

Well, my friends pull up, and I'm like, get my helmet off. Get my helmet off. I'm standing up at this time, by the way. And they're like, we can't take your helmet off. You might have a neck injury.

George B. Thomas: 21:34

I'm like, I wouldn't be standing up if I had a neck injury. Get this helmet off me. I was very claustrophobic, like, because I couldn't see. So they get the helmet off. 1st responder comes.

George B. Thomas: 21:44

I sit on the back of his truck. They put, like, this blanket around me, and I looked down, and I realized my wrist does not look like most wrists should look, and I pass out. K? So now I wake back up, and I'm in an ambulance, and there's this lady. She's a larger lady, nice lady, but she's leaning over me, like, kind of working on me, and I choose for some reason to ask her to marry me, which I still do not know why I asked her to marry me, but I pass back out.

George B. Thomas: 22:15

Okay? I come to at the hospital just in time to wake up for them to re break my wrist and reset it. And I look over, and the camp counselor, his name was Bill, is sitting in a chair quietly just sitting there watching, and immediately, like, I'm like, oh, my God. He told me not to get this bike. I know he's gonna, like, yell at me.

George B. Thomas: 22:36

I know that, like, I did wrong. And, I'm just working up in my brain. All of these conversations that were gonna happen, none of them happened. He was loving. He was kind.

George B. Thomas: 22:48

He was there to pick me up and take me back to the camp where, in his mind, he knew I belonged. I wake up like it's, like, 2 days later. Long story short, I've got a dislocated shoulder, left side. I've got a broken right wrist. I've got stitches in my knee because I was wearing shorts, and we have new, camp counselors and new folks coming for the new summer that's about to happen, and we're doing training.

George B. Thomas: 23:15

And I realized that, oh, I've gotta use the bathroom. So I get up and I go to use the bathroom, and I'm done, and I realized that with a dislocated shoulder and a broken wrist, I can't pull my pants up. Now it's funny now, kind of, when I think back on it, but I had to yell out. I was yelling help. Can somebody help me?

George B. Thomas: 23:37

And this guy, I'll never forget his name, Chuck. Chuck came. I said, dude, I I can't pull up my pants, and he pulled up my pants for me. And he said, are you okay? And I said, yeah.

George B. Thomas: 23:46

I'm okay. And I literally shut the door, sat down on the toilet, and I bawled my eyes out because I realized that to get my attention, God literally had to break me, that I had to be at 24 years old not even able to pull up my own pants because I had let ego and pride win, and I had become egotistical. And, Liz, I literally had my fall. Right? Pride comes before the fall, and so at that point in time, I realized one of my life's mission was to stay humble and to work out a construct in my brain of somehow being able to not get a big head, not be filled with helium, to keep my feet on the ground, and like I said earlier, to keep Gio at bay and just be George, just be I'm just a guy.

George B. Thomas: 24:39

I'm just a guy, which was a great tool for a lot of years, but it also brought up some things that needed to be tweaked along the way. But the moral of the story is, listen, I could easily say that's not important in my life, and I would fundamentally be somebody else doing something else. And definitely, I can tell you right now, not being a guy who would be living a life beyond his default.

Liz Moorehead: 25:06

You know, you brought up a couple of things there that are worth noting, and and I know you rushed through that toward the end, which is, you know, it brought up a couple quirks along the way when you'd overdosed on the humility piece. But again, it comes back to what we were saying at the start of this. Right? Anything in extremes, anything in over moderation, it's about balance. It's about balancing the things you are proud of within yourself, as well as that humility piece.

Liz Moorehead: 25:31

What is interesting to me is that in preparation for this, you and I did quite a bit of of research on the different ways in which people talk about and think about ego. And I know that there was one in particular that you you had some thoughts about it. And so I wanna take a moment to have this conversation as people have overreacted to this concept of ego. Right? Kill the ego.

Liz Moorehead: 25:57

Set it on fire. Any sort of ego in any way is a negative. I mean, I've read that book by Ryan Holiday. Even the book's title, ego is the enemy. It is an absolute construct.

Liz Moorehead: 26:08

It is an absolute idea. But we have this other scholarship of thought that talks about, do we actually need to completely silence our egos? There was this one piece, the one I mentioned where it says, I think trying to purge the ego is a fool's errand to some degree or other. We all have our vanity, even delusions of grandeur. No one is selfless, and it's absurd to pretend we could be.

Liz Moorehead: 26:32

What were your thoughts on that?

George B. Thomas: 26:34

I mean, to be honest, I kinda felt like it was a pile of horse dung. Like, one of the things like, the well, let me back up. Not all of it is a pile of horse dung. One of the things that I disagree with a lot in life is absolutes. I think we and I said at the beginning, we're more powerful than that.

George B. Thomas: 26:59

Right? I literally said it's the mind made identity, but I believe that we're more than that. We're more powerful than that, And this idea of being a fool's errand to silence ego, which, by the way, there's a difference between quieting it and killing it. I have not ever killed my ego. Like, I haven't said death to ego, but I've silenced it to the point where I didn't become an egomaniac or I wasn't egotistical.

George B. Thomas: 27:30

And when it does rear its ugly head, I'm quick to beat it right back down to where it belongs. So I've seen in my own life that we do have the power to do that, and then here's the thing, like, I'm all about not being selfish. I'm all about wishing more humans would focus on the others around them than themselves and not in an unhealthy way because you have again, there's probably multiple episodes about self belief, self awareness, self love, and we've talked about, like, loving yourself and the relationship with you. Like, I'm not saying in a negative way. I'm just saying so many times we get wrapped up in our own little bubble, our own little universe, become our own little god with a little g, and it's just not where we're supposed to be.

George B. Thomas: 28:18

And, again, like, going back to another question that you asked me earlier this week, why do I do some of the things that I do when everything in the world tells me that I don't have to do those things? I don't care what the world tells me. I'm supposed to be with the people. The only way that I'm gonna be able to impact, heal, show is to be there. Like, I can't be in my little, you know, you're awesome tower hanging out with myself, you know, me, myself, and I, my my 2 buddies.

George B. Thomas: 28:50

Like, it's just not what's supposed to be. So I was reading that, and I'm like, man, you are really portraying a set of hurdles that directly impact anybody that I would talk to about trying to live a life beyond their default because they're gonna kinda believe in this worldly construct, this worldly belief instead of the way that I believe it can be for everybody.

Liz Moorehead: 29:17

The other thing I thought about when reading that, and I'll link this article in the show notes because one of the reasons why I wanted to share this is that ego is a topic that has immense amounts of scholarship. And, undoubtedly, there will be people listening to this who are like, I don't know. Maybe that's something I believe. It's called don't prevent vanity, vent it. What I found interesting about it is that it embodied something where on the one hand at a high level, I understood the spirit of what it was trying to convey.

Liz Moorehead: 29:45

And I agreed with some parts of it, but I also felt it was deeply cynical.

George B. Thomas: 29:49

Which, by the way, I think you just put a pin in why I didn't like it because this conversation and the importance of it and where it lies in our brain and how it impacts who we are is not a place for cynicism. Like, by the way, I questioned myself. Who am I to be talking about this topic? I am not a psychologist, a psychiatrist. I haven't gone to school to, like, be able to spit all of these smart, dope things out.

George B. Thomas: 30:24

I'm just a guy. Who am I? And you know what came to my mind? And I'll tell you. Some weird things have been to happen in my life ever since I listened slash read the book God Talks.

George B. Thomas: 30:34

Anyway, you guys can look it up. God Talks. It's amazing. But I was like, who am I? I asked the question, and, literally, the guy I built for this, the guy I built for this, the words, you'll be able to simplify it.

George B. Thomas: 30:49

People will understand it, and so cynicism and being cynical in a conversation around what I would call a major framework block to who we are as humans and how we believe about ourself and the world around us, I think that's why I just had a bad taste in my mouth when I was reading that article.

Liz Moorehead: 31:10

Well, that was the thing. It struck me when it said no one is selfless and it's absurd to pretend we could be. Look, I understand that if you were to boil down every single action that somebody takes even the most selfless, one could find an argument to it not being quote, unquote, selfless. But I have in a world right now where it is very easy to be all consumed by the negativity and and the true tragic acts that are occurring. I am also seeing acts of beautiful humanity.

Liz Moorehead: 31:41

And this is a conversation for a different day, but that is where I think we have to be very careful when you're thinking about your own ego and the role it plays and how you extend yourself beyond your default. You know, there's a difference between realism and cynicism. And I think sometimes cynicism can have the polish of being a little bit sexier, a little bit more punchy, a little bit more clickbaity, but I'd like to think the human experience does not have to be imbued with a sense of cynicism in order to be realistic. So, George, leading off of this and why I wanted to go down this road is because I wanna understand from your simplifying the complex perspective, what does the value your ego still holds? What does it hold for you in everyday life?

Liz Moorehead: 32:27

We've talked a bit about the fact that you, you know, check yourself and you check-in with yourself periodically about it, but how does it feel?

George B. Thomas: 32:34

Yeah. So here's what I'll say. It helps me in my everyday life with belief in myself because I'm creating a healthy construct. And here's what the crazy thing is. I've had to rebuild this construct more in the last year and a half than I've ever had to in my life because it needs updated on a weekly, if not a monthly basis of what's happening and where we're at and what conversations I'm having.

George B. Thomas: 33:00

Like, the fact that I was at an event this past week knowing internally that I wanted to publish a book and having somebody who is very revered in our space say, when you're ready, bring it to me. We've started a business to do this. I was like, God is in the house, ladies and gentlemen, because things are just happening. When those things happen, you have to rebuild your construct, your beliefs, what happening. So my belief in myself, it helps me with this lens of self awareness.

George B. Thomas: 33:33

Just the ability to even understand that I can update or rebuild that construct. I talked earlier about updating the software, but this is like the firmware. Maybe it's the hardware. I don't know what it is, but it's a piece it's like when you get a new tower and you put a new motherboard in. This is the box that holds, like, all the wires that are firing inside the brain and making things happen.

George B. Thomas: 33:56

And so one of the other things, though, I have to say is that it helps me in not becoming prideful. It helps me in not becoming egotistical. It helps me in being able to show up in a selfless way. Again, not to beat that drum. And it's funny, Liz, because you talked about pride and being proud, and I've gotta be honest with you.

George B. Thomas: 34:21

There's this thing of, like, pride is that you're shouting it about yourself, but you can be proud when others are saying it. What I mean Luke 1411 is a scripture that's a very interesting scripture. It says, for everyone who exalts himself or herself but the Bible says, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. I exalted myself at Faith Ranch. I got humbled with my motorcycle accident, but it goes on to say, and he who humbles himself or herself, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

George B. Thomas: 34:54

You can be proud of the seed you're sowing. You can be proud of the crop you're growing. You can be proud of the growth of those around you in your own growth, But here's the thing, I think that much of this is a delicate balance of keeping that ego what it should be, understanding what it is, building it to what it needs to be. And if you're not just on a daily, weekly, monthly, at least, God, once a year, stopping and thinking about what that is in your brain and what it triggers or keeps you or allows you to do, then that's a great first step. Like, if you listen to this episode and you're like, I've never really thought about my ego, and, definitely, if I did, it was like, you're the man.

George B. Thomas: 35:50

Now listen to the episode again and realize, like, it can be your lens to yourself and others. It is a construct that you can build and rebuild and and manufacture into what you need it to be, and it is such a foundational piece in between pride and humility and vanity and all of these things that we've talked about that it deserves to wait. It deserves the time to be putting your mind towards it.

Liz Moorehead: 36:18

How do you bounce back from trips down the wrong side of ego lane?

George B. Thomas: 36:22

Yeah. How do I keep myself in check? Give myself the forearm, pow, off the top rope.

Liz Moorehead: 36:28

No. Think about it then because we've been talking about this. Right? We've been talking about it as more of a proactive and preventative measure.

George B. Thomas: 36:35

Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: 36:36

But we are all only

George B. Thomas: 36:38

Human.

Liz Moorehead: 36:38

Human. To is divine. To make mistakes is how you grow. You know, there are so many different little mottos and ways of saying it. You know, think about it in the entrepreneurial space that you and I function in.

Liz Moorehead: 36:53

You know, if you're not failing, what are you doing? There is some element of failure that I think comes along with this. So how do you bounce back?

George B. Thomas: 37:02

First of all, I'm always on the lookout for and I'll use the word inflation of my own thoughts. Am I making things more grandiose than they should be? And that's one side of it. Right? It's very easy, by the way, to step off stage and have the handshakes, the fist bumps, the hugs.

George B. Thomas: 37:24

It's very easy to get emails in your inbox saying how much you're doing and how much people love you. It's very easy to, like, let that inflate your brain. I'm always paying attention to, like, am I making it more? Am I inflating my own thoughts? I've gotten really good at this because I don't wanna be broken again, by the way.

George B. Thomas: 37:44

It happened once. I don't need it to happen again. I'm always kind of just putting myself in check. When good things happen, I transport myself to my motorcycle accident. Now I take time to accept the good in my life, and more now, back in the day, it was like, just hammer it, like, motorcycle accident, broke, like, knock it off.

George B. Thomas: 38:03

I take time to accept the good in my life, but I make sure to deflate the helium that is being injected in my head so that I can keep my feet on the ground. And there's a big piece there that I want everybody to kind of hear is, like, this idea of keeping yourself grounded, rooted in what's important, built on foundations and principles that have lasted, that are timeless. Like, these are things like, you have to understand your own values and the priority of those values and then be able to keep the injections that are happening, opportunities that show up, you have to keep them filed in the right order and in the right way that they deserve. Again, at the beginning, I talked about, like, these layers of crap or, like, these layers of amazingness that just inject your brain into a place where it doesn't belong. It takes your ego out of being the tool that it's meant to be, and it becomes a detriment to who you are or what you can do in the planet.

George B. Thomas: 39:05

That's where I try to keep my brain. And almost over and over again, like, at almost every interaction point or every 3rd or 4th interaction point, I'll start to, like, deflate, check, thoughts. I'm just a guy. I'm just a guy. That's where I go.

Liz Moorehead: 39:24

You know, what I find interesting about that too, is that my mind went in a couple of different directions. I read something recently that had a found impact on me. There's a version of you from your past that would kill to be where you are. And we've talked about it on this show a few times. I've alluded to it.

Liz Moorehead: 39:42

Like, this year, I've had my own tests. I've had those moments where I felt extremely broken. I've had those moments where I'm just sitting there, like, how do I even bounce back from this? Is it even possible? And I saw that, and I said, oh, my gosh.

Liz Moorehead: 39:58

There's this little girl who was 19, who had moved out on her own, couch surfing, didn't really have a place to call her own for a little while there, Who would not even believe that I own my own business. Like, is my life perfect right now? No. We're doing some rebuilding. It's a new era.

Liz Moorehead: 40:16

And this is where I think being proud is important because if we get into that self flagellation cycle too much, we will always act as if we are living a life. To live a life, one must be always in a state of penance. 1 must always be in a state of I am not allowed to feel good about the life that I'm living. On the flip side of that, I think the other thing that is so important is that forgiveness piece. Like, at some point, we just have to say, hey, I'm a human, a human.

Liz Moorehead: 40:46

And if you human all over other people, you just gotta accept it. Like, we will get stuck and act as if we do not have permission to grow. That there is this invisible scorecard being kept somewhere of all of the different transgressions and things that we think we may have done wrong through our lives or things we actually did wrong. But if we're making the effort to get up the next day to actually try and learn from it and, you know, apologize where necessary, At some point, the only one who's really not forgiving you is yourself. Now I don't wanna go too far down this rabbit hole because we may or may not be having this conversation in the very near future.

Liz Moorehead: 41:24

But I think it is something like, forgiveness is a key element. I mean, we've talked about forgiveness in a couple of episodes as well. Like, we need to be able to do that with ourselves.

George B. Thomas: 41:33

I don't wanna go too far down this either because I know I'll fall down a a long pit of conversation. I do believe forgiveness is its own episode, and I think that it's literally forgiveness of yourself, forgiveness of others. Like, there's a whole bunch to unpack, even the reasons why. Anyway, I'm gonna stop right there before I fall into the pit because, yes, we should definitely talk about forgiveness in the future.

Liz Moorehead: 41:58

Why don't we leave our listeners today with some really good tactical takeaways? I wanna hear from you, George. What are the things that you do to keep yourself in check now when it comes to your ego? Because you've talked about it a bit in the abstract, but I'd love to hear, what are those, whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, periodic practices, what are those specific questions you are asking yourself?

George B. Thomas: 42:20

Yeah. I wanna give some questions for people to think about because it is it's what I think about, and I'm gonna tell you there's 4 easy ones, and there's 4 hard ones. Well, maybe even a 5th hard one. I'm gonna give some questions, and then I'm also gonna lean into a mindset, and this mindset comes out of some of the research that we did. So, first of all, if you listen to this podcast episode, which you're listening right now, you did, one of the things that you have to ask yourself is, do you have a system of checks and balances in place when bad things happen and when good things happen and how they should actually impact the construct of your brain that is your ego?

George B. Thomas: 42:59

The second thing I'm always trying to figure out is, do I ask for and am I willing to hear feedback about me or about the things I'm doing? And there are many years in my life where I'd be cut off and like, I don't give 2 rips about your opinion. Now I'm very much like, well, what do you think? What are your thoughts? How am I doing?

George B. Thomas: 43:20

Is there anything I could do better? And so building this questioning of, like, am I gathering enough feedback? It's almost like voice of customer in a professional sense, but it's like voice of humans around you. Here's another one. I'm like, I'm getting real tired of surface level, like, surface level conversations.

George B. Thomas: 43:40

So do you know people on a personal level, or are they just friends, fans, and followers in the social media world? Do you really know them, what their struggles are, what you could help them with, how they think about things that are important in life. If you're sitting at that surface level, is that because your ego, your construct is not built in a way for others, but built in a way for self? You can answer these questions. These are questions I ask myself.

George B. Thomas: 44:15

That's how this started. By the way, these are the easy ones. We'll get to the hard ones. We're getting there. But do you know yourself?

George B. Thomas: 44:22

The only way that I can rebuild my construct is if I truly do know myself, where I'm gonna fall down, where I'm gonna be able to run. Do you have systems checks and balances in place? Are you willing to hear and asking for feedback? Do you know people at a personal level, and do you know yourself? Now let's get to the hard ones.

George B. Thomas: 44:40

This one's hard, by the way, and I'm not saying any of these that I get right all the time. But if you're willing to ask yourself, how did I contribute to the conflict that I just went through and actually unpack your contribution to the ish show that you may find yourself in? Am I considering all of the context? Meaning, why would they say that? Why would they believe that way?

George B. Thomas: 45:05

Why would I actually engage or interact in that way? Like, what's the context of the conversations or the thing happening in that moment? Can I stop for a moment and see the things through someone else's eyes, or am I always using my lenses? Can I transport myself almost out of body into who they are and be like, oh, yeah? You kind of were a dick when you said that.

George B. Thomas: 45:33

I understand maybe why they feel that way. And here's the thing. This one for me has been the most impactful, powerful piece that I've asked myself along the way. Have you arrived, or do you still have room to grow? Because if you're listening to this and you feel like you've arrived, then you have a closed mindset.

George B. Thomas: 45:55

And I'm gonna tell you, as you journey down the or up the mountain more, you have to have room to grow. You have to have an open mindset. You have to be curious. So the last one, it's gonna lean into the mindset. This is a new one for me.

George B. Thomas: 46:10

After doing this research, I'm going to start to ask myself, where do you land? Where do you land? Let me explain. We've talked about not necessarily building up ego in the fear that it could become egotistical or an egomaniac. We've talked about rebuilding the construct that is ego in your brain.

George B. Thomas: 46:35

So one of the things I found fascinating was this idea of ego strength. So ego strength, I'm just gonna give you kind of the research that I read, and this is why the question, where do you land, comes to mind and what I wanna do in the future. A strong ego is exhibited in the following characteristics, objectivity in one's apprehension of the external world and in self knowledge, insight, capacity to organize activities over long time spans, allowing for the maintenance of schedules and plans, and the ability to follow resolves while choosing decisively among alternatives. The person of strong ego can also resist immediate environmental and social pressure while contemplating and choosing an appropriate course, and strong ego is further characterized in the person who is not overwhelmed by his or her drives but instead can direct them into useful channels. On the other hand, weakness of ego is characterized by such traits as impulsive or immediate behavior, a sense of inferiority or inferiority complex, a fragile sense of identity, unstable emotionally, and excessive vulnerability.

George B. Thomas: 48:02

Perception of reality and self can be distorted like one of those fun mirrors in the circuit. That they didn't say that, but that's where my mind goes. Right? Perception of reality itself can be distorted. In such cases, the individual may be less capable of productive work because energy energy energy is drained into the protection of unrealistic self concepts, or the individual may be burdened by neurotic symptoms.

George B. Thomas: 48:35

Ego weakness also underlies the inflated sense of self, which can be associated with being grandiose and a superiority complex. So the question that I must ask myself as I move forward in life is where do I land? The question that I hope the listeners would ask themselves is when it comes to the strength of my ego and the tools that I have and who I can be, where do I land? What work out of that answer, by the way, do we need to do to build a new construct of who we are and what the world actually is around us?