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Embracing the journey of growth, vulnerability, and self-worth by reflecting on past challenges and how they shape our future selves. This episode dives into the raw, unfiltered check-in between George and Liz as they unpack their journeys over the past year.
Show Summary :
In this special check-in episode, George and Liz reflect on their personal growth journeys over the past year while discussing vulnerability, self-worth, and the lessons they've learned. The conversation is honest, raw, and full of insights as they explore the challenges of consistency, embracing vulnerability as a superpower, and navigating the balance between boundaries and walls. They share their highlights and lowlights, address tough questions about self-belief, and offer practical advice for listeners on overcoming mental barriers and stepping into their true potential.
Quotes:
- “You can be on a football field and you know the boundaries. But if I lock the doors, you can't even get into the stadium. I wasn’t letting people into the stadium to play the game that is life.” - George B. Thomas
- “I was too loud, too tall, too strange—and I see worth in that now.” - Liz Moorehead
- “When you pour love into yourself, it becomes easier to pour love into your world.” - Liz Moorehead
- “If discomfort equals growth, why would I run from discomfort? I’m embracing it and moving forward.” - George B. Thomas
Relevant Scriptures:
- Psalms 46:10: "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
- Proverbs 16:3: "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans."
- James 4:6: "But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’"
- Philippians 4:6-7: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Reflective Questions:
- Self-Assessment: How has your relationship with self-worth evolved over the past year? Are you more or less confident in your abilities and value?
- Vulnerability and Growth: What walls have you built to protect yourself from discomfort? How can you begin to dismantle them to allow for growth?
- Consistency and Focus: What areas of your life need more focus to maintain consistency? Are you saying yes to too many things?
- Support Systems: Who can you trust to help you navigate moments of vulnerability and self-doubt? How can you strengthen these relationships?
- Belief in Possibilities: How has your belief in what’s possible for your future changed over time? Are you excited or anxious about the path ahead?
Creators & Guests
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.
You can be on a football field and you know the boundaries. In and out of bounds. The playing field. Off limits. Walls.
George B. Thomas:If I lock the doors, you can't even get into the stadium. You can't get into the stadium to even play the game. Liz, I wasn't letting people into the stadium to play the game that is life next or with me as a human being. And so, I'm trying to remove walls out of the way to be more vulnerable, to invoke or enable these way better relationships and outcomes, or at least get the discomfort to be able to grow through it, and then on the other side of it have a better relationship. And again, I'm if I can't do this for my circle, family, friends, how am I gonna even think that I'm gonna be able to do this for the masses, listeners from the stage.
George B. Thomas:So again, not a 3 step process, but a definite mental visual project that I'm trying to take down a brick of the remaining walls away like each and every day.
Liz Moorehead:Welcome back to Beyond Your Default. As always, I am your host, Liz Morehead, and I am joined by the one, the only, the man, the myth, the legend, George b Thomas.
George B. Thomas:How are
Liz Moorehead:you this morning, bud?
George B. Thomas:I'm Liz, I'm I'm on fire. I'm ready to answer some deep rooted, possibly slightly chaotic, hopefully lovable responses to some questions because we're on our, check-in episode. I don't know if I get excited about these or I fear these, but I'll let you know once we get to the end of this.
Liz Moorehead:Well, okay. So first of all, I'm loving all of the words that we chose. Chaos
George B. Thomas:Yes.
Liz Moorehead:And love. I feel like that that's pretty much the theme of these episodes. Now for those
George B. Thomas:It might be my life, honestly. It it
Liz Moorehead:honestly might. It honestly might. You know, these episodes, what we do is once every, what, 15 to 20 episodes, you and I like to check-in with each other and see how we're doing in our own beyond your default journey. And we love doing this for our listeners even though it does require us to get a little bit honest about how well things are or aren't going. We love doing these episodes for our audience because we want to be pulling back the curtain on what these this journey actually looks like.
Liz Moorehead:What does it mean to take steps forward in your own life that may run counter to your default programming? And what are the second and third order effects that could come out of that? But why don't we ease ourselves into this topic, George? What's your highlight and low light for the weekend? What's up?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. So highlight, I think, was actually I woke up on Sunday, and I've been watching this Matthew McConaughey, green lights, red lights, yellow lights, like, professional growth kind of video thing on mastermind. And so I woke up Sunday morning, I watched that. And during watching couple sessions of that, I walked 3 and a half miles. And then, I decided that it was time to do church.
George B. Thomas:So I decided to walk during church, and so I watched church online. And I did another I don't know. I ended up with like 5 miles, between the two things that I walked. And then also went out and did like Trader Joe's and grocery shopping. So like, I think I hit maybe 30,030 plus 1,000 steps on Sunday.
George B. Thomas:So that was like, alright. Like, I felt good about it. I was like rock and roll, like health health of the h elements check. We're rocking and rolling, but also holistic because I was spending time with my daughters and my wife while we're doing grocery shopping. And what was really maybe the highlight of the highlight was that we had really great conversations while we're driving down the road in the car.
George B. Thomas:And my daughter even referenced, like, we usually don't talk like this. And I'm like, well, I like that we're talking like this. So it was just kind of a Sunday was the highlight. It was a it was a good day. As far as low light, I mean, I was struggling this weekend a little bit internally, mentally, and honestly, around this show and how much I have been prepping or maybe over prepping.
George B. Thomas:We we had a conversation last week, Liz, about kind of, like, how do we make the podcast better and how do we add more value to the humans and how do we extract more raw information out of the brain that is, well, me. And so I was struggling with this, like, innate desire to be prepared and this passionate undertow of but you need to be flexible. And it's funny that I used the word chaos earlier because there was this thing of, like, you have to be willing to swim in the chaos of your mind to enable the elements that people need to hear. And so that was a really weird place to live in of this, like, how do I do this delicate balancing act of diving deep into my brain and my life and being vulnerable or having basically a entire show prepped and ready to roll. So, again, people can't see the inside of my brain, but that became a slightly ugly place as I was trying to navigate through it.
George B. Thomas:So what about you, your highlights and lowlights?
Liz Moorehead:So I have a distinct lowlight for this weekend. And this is not one of those where, oh, I'm making a lowlight out of no. I legit have a lowlight. So I am house sitting for some very dear friends of mine who are traveling this weekend. And one of my favorite things about it is I've it's almost like a big reset weekend for me.
Liz Moorehead:Right? I cancel any plans that I thought I would have socially. I will not make any new plans with other people. I will basically just devote my time to writing, working on our personal projects, and going to the gym and working out, and like just clean eating, clean food. They have this big beautiful kitchen that I get to cook in.
George B. Thomas:Nice.
Liz Moorehead:And the 1st night I was here, I accidentally fell asleep on the couch which is not something I can do over 40 because I woke up the next morning and I could barely move my back.
George B. Thomas:Oh, yeah.
Liz Moorehead:And I think I mentioned this to you because you and I had a podcast recording on Friday, and you and Max for our Hub Heroes podcast for HubSpot and inbound marketing. And at the end of our podcast recording, you jokers were still chatting. And I said, I gotta go. I can't sit up straight anymore. And it was about 24 hours of just excruciating pain and icy hot patches.
George B. Thomas:Mhmm.
Liz Moorehead:And
George B. Thomas:That's a low life.
Liz Moorehead:It was a really big struggle for me because I don't think anybody would look at Liz. You should be more positive about that. It was a chance to slow down. No. Like, my back freaking hurt, and it really sucked.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:But I had that moment of just man, I had to take better care of my body. I can't just lay about on the couch like I used to. I have to be more mindful about my body. I have to take better care of it. But then I started hyper focusing all this week on the weekend about, like, every creak I was feeling in my body.
Liz Moorehead:Until a friend of mine was finally, like, you do realize you're only 41.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:Like, I understand that you are learning new limitations of your body, but you are not indeed an ancient fossil.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Now trust me. You haven't arrived at my status yet.
Liz Moorehead:No. Yeah. And then when I let's see. I would say my highlight for this weekend is I've gotten my reset time. I've gotten my relaxation time, and I will say the one benefit of being forced to slow down Thursday Friday was me really digging into like, Liz, when was the last time you actually just didn't do something productive?
Liz Moorehead:Because I and you and I have talked about this on this podcast before. I criminalize lack of productivity.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:I'll criminalize what it is that I'm watching on television. Well, this is just brain rot, Liz. Why can't you just, you know, go do something productive? Is it Sometimes you need that though. So I allowed myself to brain rot this weekend.
Liz Moorehead:That was my highlight. I brain rot it. I watched an aggressive amount of Emily in Paris, which is an absolute trash show and I let you don't want to. Your daughters know.
George B. Thomas:That oh.
Liz Moorehead:Your daughters know. And this is gonna be like one of those things where I remember your daughter saying, hey, dad. You should watch bridgerton with us. The answer is no, George. Don't do that.
Liz Moorehead:That is a bad idea.
George B. Thomas:I got through about half an episode. I walked away.
Liz Moorehead:Why on earth would it
George B. Thomas:I attempted it. But I was like, no.
Liz Moorehead:Even I would like, I would want my dad to be in a different continent when I'm watching bridgerton.
George B. Thomas:Like Well, there was nothing funky happening, but I still was like, yeah. This is not my cup of tea.
Liz Moorehead:That you have with your children, and I mean that in a very positive way.
George B. Thomas:But
Liz Moorehead:still so yeah. I got to do a little brain rotting this weekend. Good. I got to do a little brain rotting this weekend. It was nice, and my back is finally feeling a lot better.
George B. Thomas:That's good. Yeah. Because pain sucks. Like, if you're not if you don't have to live a life, like, where you're in pain every single day, then god bless you. Because when you do have those moments, it's funny though.
George B. Thomas:I've come to the realization that for me, Liz, it's my small reminder that I am human, that I do need to pay attention to the vehicle, the one vehicle my body that I have for the rest of this, like, journey. And and also that, like, when I would, in my younger days, get the Superman complex and feel like I was invincible, I don't get those very much anymore because I'm like, oh, my knee. Oh, my yeah. It's just like
Liz Moorehead:And then you think back to all those times of remember when you thought you were invincible and maybe you should've taken it easy
George B. Thomas:a little bit. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Liz Moorehead:It's not time to take it easy on each other. It is time for us to begin our 3rd check-in. And I can't believe this. We've been doing this. Gentlemen.
Liz Moorehead:I know. We've been doing this for over a year. Yeah. This is only our 3rd check-in.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:I'm just I'm very excited about this.
George B. Thomas:So that's because we're, like, hesitant of having
Liz Moorehead:I love these episodes personally. I think they're great. I always get very excited about these episodes.
George B. Thomas:Well, that's good.
Liz Moorehead:But, George, here how about this? Since you're the one feeling so much chaos and love and definitely not a little bit of anxiety at all Yeah. Would you like to ask a question first or should I?
George B. Thomas:I can ask a question first, which I'll let the listeners know. When when I crafted these questions, I was doing it in a state of, like, going straight for the jugular. I want Liz to have to be vulnerable and unpack in, like, what I feel is for fundamentally important pieces of who we are as a human. And so with that said, look, Liz, looking back over the past year, which again is crazy of doing this Beyond Your Default podcast, I'm super curious. How has your relationship with self worth evolved?
George B. Thomas:Like, where do you see it today compared to when you started of, like, this is Liz. This is what I'm worth. This is what I'm bringing to the planet. Like, talk us through the journey of self worth for you over the last year.
Liz Moorehead:I say this with deep love, affection, and admiration, and definitely on the record, it should not be edited out. You're an asshole for this question. Just gonna throw that out there. Let's just let's just go ahead and start with that. Because when I saw this question, I knew immediately where I had to go, which is I started this journey with you kinda at the bottom of the barrel.
Liz Moorehead:Like, I had hit rock bottom in my life, and then for some reason, because I'm a tenacious little butthead, had kept digging. I kinda kept going. Yeah. You know, I had been through a divorce. I had my entire life in a storage unit in one town in Maryland while living in a short term rental in New Haven, Connecticut.
Liz Moorehead:Things in my business were not going to plan. There were very few things that had been going to plan. And what was mind boggling to me was that just a few months prior to when we had started, I had celebrated my 40th birthday, and I thought everything was perfect.
George B. Thomas:Mhmm.
Liz Moorehead:We had this big expensive Italian dinner. At the time, I was still married. We had friends in from out of town there to celebrate. I was eating the most decadent meal. Everything on paper was perfect, perfect, perfect.
Liz Moorehead:And flash forward, what, 6 months later and my whole life was on fire.
George B. Thomas:Mhmm.
Liz Moorehead:And I, in many ways, had been the architect of my own misery. And I was incredibly hard on myself about it. I was incredibly hard on myself about it. So at the time when we started this journey, I was not in an okay place. I knew I had value, but I really felt at that point my value was in propping others up.
Liz Moorehead:I had lost belief in my voice. I knew I had talent to extract out from other people for you from you for example, the greatness that I saw within you. It was the reason why even though I was at the bottom of the barrel, I was like, we should start doing this. We should start doing this now. This is the thing we should be doing.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. But it was not because of any belief in my own voice. It wasn't in belief of my own worth. Now what has been interesting is that as I've gone through this journey that obviously has shifted. You know, time has a way of, you know, things that feel like absolute trash cans in the moment.
Liz Moorehead:You have the ability to move through those. You know, time shows you that what you think is the end of your life or the end of the world very rarely if ever is. Yeah. But what has been interesting through this journey is that I remember when we first started having these conversations, even if I had an opinion, I kept it to myself. These weren't dialogues.
Liz Moorehead:These weren't conversations. I didn't have anything to add to the proceed. Yes. Listen to the girl whose life is on fire. Let her give you life advice.
Liz Moorehead:Let her talk to you about those different things. Right?
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:And so when I think about where I am today compared to where I started, you know, I'm not I'm still hobbling along. You know? I but I see myself as someone who actually has worth. Because part of the reason why I ended up where I did was because I wasn't seeking you know, this is something you and I talked about last episode. Right?
Liz Moorehead:I wasn't looking to belong. I was looking to fit in. I believed that I had to be someone molded and shaped and made palatable as opposed to someone who can shine and be as weird as you know I am, George.
George B. Thomas:I'm a
Liz Moorehead:weird girl. I'm very weird. I'm very tall. I'm very loud. Like, this is I was never born to be someone who could ever fit in.
Liz Moorehead:God made me physically and temperamentally. Like, I have been too tall for everything since I was like 4.
George B. Thomas:Right.
Liz Moorehead:Right. I've always been a little bit too tall. I've always been a little bit too loud. I've always been a little bit too strange. Like, I had been built to be different my whole life and now I see worth in that.
Liz Moorehead:That. Whereas I think at the beginning of this journey, like, I didn't see worth in anything.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. I I love your answer because there's a couple things you you mentioned. Like, I was to this, I was to that, I was to that, which by the way means it was just right. Like, it was literally the way that God made you. And when we can embrace it, it's the way that God made me, then all of a sudden, you know, we can start to build on that little piece and grow it.
George B. Thomas:And it's funny because I asked this question, Liz, because I have seen a dramatic difference just in, like, the newsletters that you write and the way that you show up for the newsletters. Like, there there was a definite difference. None of them, by the way, listeners, I'm saying are bad. But there's a definite difference from, like, the first set of newsletters that you're crafting and, like, the emotional and mental smackdowns that you are creating out of your self worth
Liz Moorehead:that
George B. Thomas:are happening in the news letter now. And so you can definitely see that there's been this amazing journey over the last year of, like, who you believe yourself to be and how you now will show up to the world because of that.
Liz Moorehead:You know, it's funny. I remember the day because I remember the issue where everything changed. And I remember you I remember you and I had a conversation where you said, I almost didn't say anything. I I didn't wanna tell you anything because I didn't know what had changed. But whenever you get too quiet when I start experimenting, I'm like, this is either really good or he's just gonna let me walk the plank for a little bit to see if this Campbell plays off, you know.
Liz Moorehead:And I was actually here doing a hard reset weekend, And I just said, you know, what would happen if you stopped pretending? If you stopped playing dress up and just started speaking. You know? So it's been genuinely I hate how much this word is overused, but it genuinely has been quite a journey. Because I think when you spend so much time either being programmed or quite frankly programming yourself, I mean, these are stories that we architect for ourselves.
Liz Moorehead:You spend enough time telling yourself that you aren't worthy. That's what you're going to believe. What's interesting is I can't pinpoint a moment where I suddenly started telling myself a different story. I think I just stopped focusing on trying to tell a story at all. Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:I just focused on Yeah. Living. So alright. Your turn. That.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:Your turn, George. You ready? I
George B. Thomas:think so.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. Yeah. Because in a previous episode, you mentioned the importance of incorporating quote, unquote selfishness in a positive way to prioritize your own needs. How have you been balancing this with the demands of your daily life? And what challenges have you encountered?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. It's interesting because I still think I call it selfishness but in a positive way. For instance, you know, there's probably plenty of other things that I could have done Sunday morning, but I was like, no. I need some me time, and I'm gonna go ahead and walk on the treadmill, and I'm gonna do this professional growth, and I'm gonna do church. And then when I'm done, I'll come out for the rest of the world.
George B. Thomas:On Sunday, that means my family, but I needed that time. I will say that I've been trying to do that even during the weeks where I'll get up and I'll be like, you know what? The first 45 minutes, first hour, it's just gonna be what I need, and it's gonna be walking on the treadmill. It's gonna be, you know, listen to something or watching something that adds value to my life. And before I was so hyper focused on, I've gotta hop right in email.
George B. Thomas:I've gotta help the other humans. I'm here to be of service. And the thing that I'm working through and realizing is if I cannot be of service to myself, I will not be able to be of service to others, at least to the level in which I'm trying to do this. And so I have good days, Liz, and I have bad days, but I'm trying to have more good days than bad days on this idea of, in a positive way, being selfish to fill my cup, selfish to make sure that I'm being healthy, selfish in a way that I'm focusing on the actual framework that I'm bringing to the world. Because how dare I not be selfish enough to be focused on the 10 h's and leave time and space for the 10 h's of the superhuman framework if I'm gonna be talking to individuals, teams, and organizations about how the superhuman framework, like, impacts my life and came from my like, so, again, it's I wanna say a daily challenge, but I don't know.
George B. Thomas:Maybe it's more of, like, a weekly challenge at this point than daily because, again, I've put in patterns and habits. Like, when you're just used to doing something, like, if the first thing you do for 7, 14, 21, 30 days is come into your office, step on the treadmill, and turn the TV on in a certain direction, that just becomes the norm. And what's interesting when I think about that is if you're setting up all your norms to be in a positive direction around the things that are important to your life, you might feel like, well, that's just the norm, but you have to look back and go, it didn't used to be and enjoy the success in what you're getting. So hopefully, that answers your question, but I I feel like I'm being selfish, but I'm not judging myself in a negative way for being selfish to fill my life and myself.
Liz Moorehead:You know, the way I always like to think about it is, do you ever say something wise and then people go, oh, that's wise. And you're like, was I possessed for a second? Did that Oh. What just what because that didn't come from smart me, but apparently it did. But one time I told somebody something that may be helpful here, which is when you pour love into yourself, it becomes easier to pour love into your world.
Liz Moorehead:Yep. And I think we have a complicated relationship with the word selfish. Right? Yeah. Because the immediate connotation is is one that is is quite distinctly negative.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:But these are radical acts of self care, of self love. You know, you pointed this out earlier when we talking when we were talking about my my physical ailments. Right? We have one vessel, one body Yeah. But we also have one brain.
Liz Moorehead:We have one heart. And I think sometimes we forget that to prioritize the self in a healthy way is to prioritize what we are capable of doing for others.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Right? Yeah. And I mean, it's funny because listen. You can say this, the word self care now, and I don't start twitching.
Liz Moorehead:It's amazing. You've grown so much. It took us, what, 25 episodes, but we got there, kid.
George B. Thomas:I'm just saying.
Liz Moorehead:I I still that is still one of the things that makes me the most happy, And not from the place of I was right and you were wrong.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:It's the I
George B. Thomas:mean, I was
Liz Moorehead:recognition oh, I mean, there's always that, but I wasn't gonna go there. No. But it's the recognition that you're worth caring about. Yeah. You know, that you deserve the same type of reverence that you give to other people.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. It's a magical day when you realize you love yourself enough to care about yourself and then do things for yourself. Speaking of which, I think it's my turn to ask a question. Isn't it? Go ahead.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Yeah. So I know I've dealt with this, and, therefore, I wanted to ask you a question around this. Actually, this even comes out of the it was a conversation at the Thomas family where my wife asked me about this concept of digging up the skeletons and what it was doing to my brain. So listen, each week we come here and we confront, expose to our audience the unearthing of historical skeletons.
George B. Thomas:And so I'm super curious how has digging through your history affected your ability and mindset on self forgiveness.
Liz Moorehead:You know, I love these lightweight questions you throw my way. This is Yeah.
George B. Thomas:They're just like feathers. Like feathers.
Liz Moorehead:Well, it has been interesting in that in order to have certain conversations, I had to start sharing pieces of my history.
George B. Thomas:Yep.
Liz Moorehead:Right? And for the first while there, I really struggled to do that because I had this fear that people would think I was trying to garner sympathy, or they would look at me differently even though we're not sitting in front of actual people when we're having these conversations.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:You know, these are these were imagined concerns that I had in my head. Unearthing old skeletons didn't actually start as something that began to help me with self forgiveness. It really started me more on a path of self acceptance and owning my own story. You know, we were talking in the previous question about how, like, I've I've I've I was built to be different. You know.
Liz Moorehead:And and in a way, we all are. Yeah. You know, conformity is something that we kind of force on ourselves. It's how we are biologically programmed to survive, you know. Like, we were cavemen who didn't wanna get eaten by dinosaurs, And sitting in keeps the tribe together, and those are all the amazing things that make us communities and communal.
Liz Moorehead:But where that goes wrong is where we think we have to sound and be like everybody else, and we prioritize that over seeking true belonging.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:So what's been interesting though about this entire process is as I've started to tell my own stories, it has forced me to not tell stories in a way that makes me feel the worst way possible.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:Which is usually how I tell those stories to myself. Remember when you did that terrible thing? Remember when you made that awful mistake? You know, when you tell stories here in these contexts, you have to do so without that type of narrative. Right?
Liz Moorehead:Because it's bad for radio. No one wants to sit here and listen to you be sad about anything. But it's also not an accurate reflection of what the beats of the story really are. You're editorializing. You're not talking about what actually happened.
Liz Moorehead:And so because of that, it did enable me to start seeing things more with more factual clarity. There have also been times where I have because I've had to mention a certain circumstance or something that has happened multiple times. Right? Like, if I have to call back to something, if I have to mention or re mention a specific story, it's actually helped me contextualize and recontextualize what actually happened. It's less about forgiveness.
Liz Moorehead:Although, I would say that has been part of it. I would say it's more of enabling an ownership over my own story. It has enabled me to really just say, this is who I am. Like, I'm only equipped to be having the conversations that we're having right now because of every single step I took to get here. Right?
Liz Moorehead:Now have I made lots of mistakes? Yes. Get in line. We all have. Right?
Liz Moorehead:In a way, what's fascinating is it's allowed me to embrace my own unique story but also realize we are hilariously not unique in our ability to screw things up, make mistakes, but that's because we're all capable of growth. It's about what we choose to do with the lessons. Like, you could literally go 10, 20, 30 years screwing everything up to a certain degree. Right? Like, we're not talking about murder or things like that.
Liz Moorehead:But, you know, it's you have the capacity one day to wake up and say this is different now.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. You are allowed to evolve into that newer version of yourself. And I think for a long time, I didn't think I was allowed.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. I listen. I screwed up probably the first 25 to 30 years of my life. So I'm I'm living proof that you can wake up and decide to change and be different. And and, Liz, there's a couple things out of that answer that I love.
George B. Thomas:I love that you, used the word owner, like the owner's mindset. I love the fact that it's, like, tell my story. Well, it's interesting because as you were talking about, like, having to bring certain topics up again and again, my brain went to, like, yeah, they're not as scary when you've talked about them 5 to 7 times versus running from them for 25 years or 10 years or however long it's been. It's like it's like the the darkness or mystique or whatever kind of goes away when you've shined a light on it 7 different directions. And it's interesting to be part of this this journey with you, and and that's kind of the thing that you're pulling out of that.
George B. Thomas:So
Liz Moorehead:Oh, well, think about horror movies. Right? They always become less scary the moment you see the monster. Yeah. They always become less it's like, you're they're still like, oh, they've got a knife and they're gonna
George B. Thomas:Unless you keep running. Still scared. But
Liz Moorehead:Chucky, I just hard pass. Hard pass. Yeah. I'm good. No thanks.
Liz Moorehead:No that who thought that was a good idea? Hard pass. Don't like it. The other thing I will say that has been interesting about this whole storytelling angle as well is that it has made me much more protective of other people who were involved in the story. Because these are my stories from my perspective, but there were other people other people involved in many of them.
Liz Moorehead:And it made me think about in some cases, do I forgive this person? Do I want to drag this person into things? And what was fascinating is that because you have to tell these stories from a factual perspective, not an emotional perspective. Yes. Because let me tell you ladies and gentlemen, you can't tell a story while you're still living the story.
Liz Moorehead:You can't you can't speak to trauma while still feeling and being traumatized. Right?
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:But what was fascinating is that as I told and retold these stories, it helped facilitate ways of me saying, you know, 2 things can be true. What happened wasn't right, and everybody deserves a chance to walk away from this and try again. So that that's been a fascinating little journey with that as well. Alright. Enough about me.
George B. Thomas:So Well, until I guess the next question.
Liz Moorehead:That is Well, that's not right now, is it? No.
George B. Thomas:Not right now.
Liz Moorehead:It's me. It's me. We're gonna talk about time. Because one of my favorite episodes that we did in this last batch was our conversation on smashing the reset button on our relationship with time. And I know time is slippery for you, my friend.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. And I would be curious if you've implemented any new strategies to manage your time more effectively because I know you have been trying to hit a balancing act. Right?
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:Right balance between productivity but also managing your stress levels, which I know is something you've been focusing on. So talk to me about that.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. I'm actually happy for this question. I hired an assistant. So, listen. I finally pulled the trigger, and one of my daughters has been doing, like, video script help and different things like that.
George B. Thomas:And so I literally had a conversation with her, and she was like, hey. I really wanna do more. And I'm like, are you sure? And she's like, yeah. And I was like, this is my need.
George B. Thomas:This is my need, and this is what it means. And here's the here's the 12 things that this job would actually be in charge of and what they would do and what they're supposed to protect me and this, that, and the other thing. And so today, by the way, is her first day. She has to show up at a certain time.
Liz Moorehead:That's amazing.
George B. Thomas:She has to be in the office. We literally have been working on a new multi inbox system for email. We've created a thing in ClickUp for a kind of streamline. This is what George needs to do today, tomorrow, by the time this week is over. And, again, all of this investment in her, investment in the position, investment in systems and processes is to buy back time in my life.
George B. Thomas:And, again, I think it's to buy back time in my life. So in some areas, I can be a little bit more selfish with the things that I need to learn, do, and be, but also be a little bit more of a blessing because now I'm not as stressed. Now I am able to kind of downshift a little bit and sometimes even be in neutral when it comes to, like, family things and different things that for the last, I'll say, 9 months have maybe been a little bit more difficult. I haven't really been excited or wanted to go on a vacation, but I'm like, I probably need to go on a vacation, which I was adamant, by the way, like, previous to that, 9 months of, like, go on a vacation, like, every 6 months or every so often.
Liz Moorehead:You are you you are consistently making me feel bad about the fact that I haven't been on a vacation yet in 2 years.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. And and so I wanna get back to that. And and so for me, it really is coming down to and it and by the way, this is just so the listeners know, this is a reprogramming of my brain. Things that I am talking about do not happen by default. I'm more of the give me the crayons, let me go into a corner, let me draw something, let me be creative, let me be the a creator.
George B. Thomas:And my mind is totally on systems and processes and templates and repeatable processes and humans, and how do I actually, you know, sell what the world can do versus listen. Here's another thing, Liz, and I'm not gonna say too much about this, but also in conjunction with getting an assistant. I'm having conversations with enabling a sales arm in the organization, which, again, what is that doing? It's taking things that are sales related quotes, invoices, conversations with humans, like, beginning ones, because I always wanna be on, like, discovery calls and, like, answer any questions that people have. But there's literally a second piece that over the last 30 days, I'm like, well, if I implement this and implement this, that gets me this back in my life.
George B. Thomas:And so it's funny because I think time is something that I am actively wrestling, like, you know, the steer wrestling in the rodeo. Like, I feel like I'm wrestling with time. Like, I'm like, you will submit to my will. And I do not mean in a that I'm gonna live forever. I mean, in, like, just my day in day out as a human, as a leader, as the owner of, you know, potentially 3 different lanes of revenue.
Liz Moorehead:Every time you go somewhere, you start a company.
George B. Thomas:Start a company.
Liz Moorehead:Every time. I know.
George B. Thomas:So I feel like I'm I'm doing good on this. But again, to unpack, it took a reprogramming of my brain, and it took me, taking us a leap of faith to invest potentially into other humans to come along for the ride and help in this time steer wrangling event that I'm currently in.
Liz Moorehead:Well, I think from a stress levels that I I can only imagine there's upside there because there's the mental load. Right? There's the I have to manage all of the tasks part that are part of the sales process.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:But then the psychological load is I am responsible for the entire ecosystem of success for this business. I am not actively pursuing revenue. There is no revenue coming in.
George B. Thomas:Right.
Liz Moorehead:If I am not actively delivering, there is no delivery going up. You know? And that is something that probably worked at the very start of your business, but you've stepped up.
George B. Thomas:First of all, the thing is at at the start of your business, not businesses.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah.
George B. Thomas:And also, it we like, client, not clients, right, at a multiple level. So, like, it has become bigger than I ever dreamed it would become, but I'm not saying that in any sort of negative light. Like, I'm excited as crap that this is where it has ended up and where we're headed. So
Liz Moorehead:And now you're acting accordingly.
George B. Thomas:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it took me longer than it should have to act accordingly, but at least I love myself enough to say, hey. Good job.
George B. Thomas:You're acting accordingly to where you actually are now in life. But here's the thing too. My brain goes to, like, fundamentally, I had to understand where I was
Liz Moorehead:Oh, yeah.
George B. Thomas:Before I could make decisions on how then I needed to be. Like, sometimes we actually arrive somewhere before we mentally and physically catch up to the fact that we've actually arrived there. Alright. Alright. I get to put you back in the hot seat.
Liz Moorehead:Fantastic.
George B. Thomas:I know you you I know you like that. It's like listen. I have very much the same feeling of, like, crap. I don't really have much more to answer to this. That means that she's gonna be able to ask another question.
George B. Thomas:But looking forward. Right? I've kinda talked about looking back in the last two questions when we talked about self worth, self forgiveness. You talked about ownership in the in that one. But looking forward, I feel like we can either be nervous about the path ahead or excited by the possibilities that it may bring.
George B. Thomas:So that mindset often hinges on one thing, Liz, and that's belief. So how has the beyond your default journey shaped your self belief in what's possible for your future?
Liz Moorehead:Self worth, self forgiveness, and self belief that thanks.
George B. Thomas:Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thanks. Yep.
Liz Moorehead:You came to party. But that's what these episodes are for. And I want to point out that while our listeners may be laughing at how squirrelly we get, this is part of the reason why we do this episode.
George B. Thomas:Yep.
Liz Moorehead:It's because it is uncomfortable and it's okay to be uncomfortable. Discomfort is a part of the process. It is both a feature and a bug. And now that I've danced around answering this question enough, I was wondering if you're getting too. Into it.
Liz Moorehead:Yep. Self belief. I've looked at this question for, what, like, 2 days. And for those who can't see me, I'm literally just pressing my eyeballs back into my my head because this is the one that is the question that probably kept me up the most.
George B. Thomas:You just gotta jump off the ledge. Once you start saying it, then it just it'll just go.
Liz Moorehead:I didn't believe I could have anything. I didn't believe I was allowed to have anything. There was a over the past few months, it's gotten a lot better. But for a while there, my whole life slowly came to a stop as if I was wrapping my entire existence around a moment. A moment that in my mind for a really long time exemplified and illustrated everything that was wrong with me and every mistake I had ever made.
Liz Moorehead:This is where we're going to go to a very deep place for a moment. Because I'm gonna talk about a belief I had that has informed in many ways the way I have acted my entire life. So I am an only child of 2 only children. K. That means I have no aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters.
Liz Moorehead:I was very close with my mother's side of the family. Because even though she was an only child, my grandfather had 4 sisters and 1 or 2 brothers. I didn't know the brothers very well, but I knew the 4 sisters. They were some of the most mythical, incredible, loud, Italian women I had ever met. They were 2 of them were 2 of the first women to ever take the foreign service exam, worked for the state department, traveled the world.
Liz Moorehead:They were just these incredible amazing women, and they were. I was very, very close with them. And whenever I was surrounded by that part of the family, my grandfather and his sisters, I always felt like I belonged and I was wanted. Unfortunately, so my parents had me when they were older, which was fine. I was an unexpected miracle.
Liz Moorehead:My mother had had 4 miscarriages before she had me, and then suddenly I appeared. And then I was born late with full head of hair. So, you know, just kinda, you know, I made an entrance.
George B. Thomas:Go figure.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. And then my parents divorced before I even remember them being together. I think it was before I was 2 years old. And I watched my mother completely unravel. She had some mental health issues that, you know, I think in today's society probably would have been handled with greater care.
Liz Moorehead:But she also had some serious addiction demons that would have probably undermined any
George B. Thomas:Mhmm.
Liz Moorehead:Any movement forward. So for a long time, I just felt like an artifact of a broken marriage, constantly reminded that I made life a lot harder for other people than it needed to be. And so the belief I've always had is that I am an artifact of a broken marriage and a disappointment. And this is kind of the belief I've carried forward for decades, which is a it's kinda hard to unwrap yourself with it because I've grown up kind of a little bit more solitary. Right?
Liz Moorehead:So because my mother was an alcoholic, I never really had friends over. Right? I was put into a position of needing to parent her and be the parent when I was very young. And then when I tried to move in with my dad, I tried to be the daughter that he wanted, but, like, I was already pretty messed up. Like, I was a messed up abused kid.
Liz Moorehead:Like, I was not in a good place mentally. Then I moved out on my own, and then I felt even more different because all of my friends are going off to college while I was worrying about rent and, like, trying to build a career. And then I felt so much shame around the fact that, like, I failed again. Like, again, the artifact, the the the remainder of a division problem that wasn't supposed to have a remainder. You know?
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. And a lot of my family, because my parents were older, died when I was very young. So I ended up not having, like, the actual family ecosystem. I've always had to be very, like, tightly compartmentalized. Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:So how does this lead to today? You know, one thing I will give myself credit for is that I continue to get up every single day. There's something weird in how I'm programmed where I never quite give up. There's always been something within me that's like you are destined to do something bigger. I didn't know what bigger was.
Liz Moorehead:I still to this day do not quite know what that means, but I've always still pushed myself to continue to show up. And this process, especially over the past year, has forced me to stop thinking of myself as different or unique and to realize I am allowed to believe in myself in the way that anybody else has the ability to. Right? It's that idea of, it it sounds contradictory, but it's not. Right?
Liz Moorehead:Like, we are all uniquely built in our unique ways and but sometimes that unique snowflake internal narrative works against us. Because we start to think, well, I'm just so different that I'm just so special in the negative ways. That these positive ideas around self belief and what we're capable of and worth, like, those don't apply to me. Because if somebody knew me really, they would say I'm not I'm the exception to that. And that's just simply not true.
Liz Moorehead:So it's this culmination of it's tied into the self worth and the self forgiveness. Right? At some point, you just have to stop telling your story and start like, stop telling the worst version of the story of to yourself and just start living. You know? Just start Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:Believing that you can get up the next day and try again.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. You know what I I say? And when I say, what I mean is what I hear is I'm excited for what happens in the next 2 years, the next 5 years, the next 10 years. Because when I hear your story, what I hear is against all odds, God brought a human to the earth to create an incredible story and impact people. But but God knew that for you to be who he needed you to be, that you had to, you know, diamonds, How diamonds are made.
Liz Moorehead:Under pressure.
George B. Thomas:Under pressure. And so you had the school of pressure for the beginning of your life. You had the lessons of how to see, understand, and connect. You have the ability to connect with people who have gone through journeys much like yourself, but the ability to actually navigate and story tell, and now with beyond your default, even under your belt, like, literally the tools to help these humans get to a place that they might not get to. And so so I hear your story, and while, yes, it would be very easy to run the negative narrative, I go, holy shit.
George B. Thomas:This chick is built to do, like, something. And again, you don't know what that something is. I don't know what that something is. God knows what that something is, and you are fully on the path of heading in that direction. So I'm Thanks.
George B. Thomas:Your your story excites me.
Liz Moorehead:I mean, it it it's taken some distance, you know, because I will say when you're in the middle of it, you're not going, this excites me. This pain
George B. Thomas:excites me.
Liz Moorehead:Oh, god. No. Good. Yeah. No.
Liz Moorehead:But but that's the thing that's always so tricky about these types of things. Right? And this is where our belief structure can get kind of not corroded, but sometimes you just have to understand, like, you're in the middle of plot right now. Yeah. And you just kinda have to let things play out.
Liz Moorehead:And that's something I've gotten a little better at as I've gotten older.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:But yeah. I don't know. I'm I'm I'm very curious to see where this wild ride goes, but I stopped
George B. Thomas:Without a doubt.
Liz Moorehead:Stopped trying to figure it out.
George B. Thomas:There is a transition moment because, like, I go back to and this is many, many, many, many episodes ago. I talked about the math teacher telling me I'd never amount to anything and how for, you know, 20 years of my life, if somebody said, well, what would you do if you met him? I would have been like, I'll punch him right in the face. That's what I'll do. But then getting to a point in my life where now I would go and thank him.
George B. Thomas:And that's the thing. Like, even though it can be like a negative narrative, it doesn't always have to stay the negative narrative because you can start to see it through a different perspective. If that pressure didn't happen to me at 17a half, I would not be the human that I am today. Even though it wasn't from a good place, it equaled a good thing. And when we can start to think in that way against the negative narratives in our life, now all of a sudden, we can start to unlock doors of possibility that we didn't even know we had.
Liz Moorehead:I'd love that. It's your turn again. You ready?
George B. Thomas:Yep.
Liz Moorehead:Because we're talking about vulnerability.
George B. Thomas:Is this the last one yet, or do I have 2 more?
Liz Moorehead:You got 2 more, and I only have one more. Yeah. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Well, they were they were hard questions, though, so I didn't wanna you know? I know. To be somewhat nice.
Liz Moorehead:You gave me the same number of questions that I gave you. You just happened to start 1st. So let's not let's not paint a picture here of, well, I've just been so nice
George B. Thomas:because I've been so blessed. No?
Liz Moorehead:No. No. No. No. No.
Liz Moorehead:No.
George B. Thomas:My bad.
Liz Moorehead:But we're talking about vulnerability right now because you you talk you talked about vulnerability during that conversation as a transformative superpower. And I would be really curious to hear from you how your relationship with vulnerability has shifted in recent months. And have there been any moments in recent months where those moments have significantly impacted your growth. Because I've watched you become more vulnerable, and I'm curious if that's by design. Like, I'm watching it happen in real time.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. It's funny because it's I don't know if it's something that I am doing on purpose. Meaning, I don't necessarily have a 3 step plan to becoming more vulnerable in life. But ever since we did the episode on that, it was a retriggering of something that happened back at an inbound event. So let let me explain.
George B. Thomas:There was an inbound event where Brene Brown came and spoke to the audience, and I had this massively visceral response to the conversation of vulnerability and being vulnerable and connected very deeply with what she talked about. And so I at that point, I was like, you know what? I wanna be able to be a man who is vulnerable. I wanna be able to be a man who talks about vulnerability. It it I almost relate it to, like, how twice in my life I had a calling to the ministry.
George B. Thomas:Like, I wanna do this thing. It it almost felt like a calling. Like, I was supposed to focus in on that because here was a great woman talking about vulnerability, but look around, and where where do you see a man that is doing that? Where do we see other men that are presenting that? Like, you know, in a in a when I grew up, it was like a suck it up buttercup, walk it off, like, put dirt on it, whatever.
George B. Thomas:Like, so for me, Liz, I've been refocusing on it. And honestly, the way I feel as I've been refocusing on it is there are a lot of years in my life where I had walls up, and I would let you in, but not let you in all the way. I would keep a safe distance. So maybe there was like 7 walls to George, we'll say. And maybe I would let you, you know, through the first five or so layers, but I would always leave enough space that I could run away before I got hurt because hurt equals discomfort.
George B. Thomas:And there's this interesting thing that runs around in my brain now of, like, if I know that discomfort equals growth, then instead of running from discomfort, how can I actually run towards it and embrace it to go through the process that it's gonna provide? Well, if that's the case, then how do I look at vulnerability and actually breaking down the last wall or 2 that I used to hold people at bay 2? Well, if I'm actively seeking discomfort because it equals growth, then being more vulnerable or removing the walls and letting humans in, lets the room breathe towards the potential for discomfort, but also, it gives it room to be the exact opposite of the discomfort that I might be fearing and be absolutely amazing. And so one of the things that I focus on is, especially lately, is how can I be a better husband? How can I be a better father?
George B. Thomas:How can I be a better friend? I keep coming back to that it's living a life with no walls. And living a life with no walls means I have to aggressively embrace. Now I don't mean boundaries. I mean walls.
Liz Moorehead:There's no could read my mind because I immediately wanna ask you. So what's the difference between living a life with no walls? Yeah.
George B. Thomas:And Boundaries boundaries. Boundaries are so here's the thing. You can be on a football field, and you know the boundaries. In and out of bounds, the playing field, off limits. Walls.
George B. Thomas:If I lock the doors, you can't even get into the stadium. You can't get into the stadium to even play the game. Liz, I wasn't letting people into the stadium to play the game that is life next or with me as a human being. And so I'm trying to remove walls out of the way to be more vulnerable, to invoke or enable these way better relationships and outcomes or at least get the discomfort to be able to grow through it, and then on the other side of it, have a better relationship. And, again, I'm if I can't do this for my circle, family, friends, how am I gonna even think that I'm gonna be able to do this for the masses, listeners, from the stage?
George B. Thomas:So, again, not a 3 step process, but a definite mental visual project that I'm trying to take down a brick of the remaining walls away, like, each and every day.
Liz Moorehead:Is it easier or harder than you thought it would be?
George B. Thomas:My brain goes to the snowball effect. Like, when I first started this, super difficult. The further I get on this journey, the I think the easier it has become. Like, I honestly think about it less. I go back to what I said earlier.
George B. Thomas:When you do things as a habit and it becomes the norm, you don't necessarily need to think about it as hard or as much because it now has become the norm. And so because this habit of removing something that is in the way is a constant thought, it becomes easier. My biggest fear though in this is that I hit a point where something happens. You know how people say it's like easier to gain weight than lose weight? Biggest travesty in my brain is that I get to a point that something happens that I don't foresee, don't think would happen, and all of a sudden, I throw the wall or 2 back up and have to rework this process.
George B. Thomas:That's my biggest fear. The process of where I'm going, I think, becomes easier. And again, the more I talk about it, the more I read about it, the more I think about it, the easier it becomes.
Liz Moorehead:I love that. Alright. Are we ready for the final question?
George B. Thomas:Yes. Consistency. Consistency is vital to growth. I love that face, by the way. You're listening that you can't see Liz's face, but the face
Liz Moorehead:So excited for this.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. She's she's just ramped up and ready to go for this. Yep. Consistency is vital to growth, but it also can be exhausting at times. So over the course of this journey, how has staying committed or being consistent to beyond your default impacted your resilience and ability to persevere through the challenges that you have been facing through your life.
Liz Moorehead:I mean, the reality is is that the first episodes, if you ever go back and listen to the first episodes of this podcast, you might not be able to hear the difference. But I was showing up as a as a shell of a human being, which I've already referred to it in answers to other questions in this episode. But I didn't really have a choice. I was the one who suggested we do this. And then once I did that, we used to record at a much earlier time in the morning.
Liz Moorehead:And then only in the past couple of months have we shifted it to later in the morning just to accommodate some new things in your schedule. Right? But it, I forced myself at the start of every week during the darkest part of my life to get up and have a conversation at 7:45 in the morning.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:About personal growth.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:And it was I couldn't break it. I had to keep show like, I didn't really have a choice. And so what's been fascinating about it is I didn't look at it each time of and this is going to be your lesson in consistency. It's just no. It's the it's the thing I have to do.
Liz Moorehead:It's the thing I have to do because I said I was gonna do it. And I knew deep in my soul, it was the right thing to be doing. Like, that was really it. Because, you know, when you're in those dark moments in your life, you're not thinking about some 4 dimensional chess version of, like, and this is how I'm going to achieve you bitch, you are just trying to get up. Right?
Liz Moorehead:You were just trying to get up and remind yourself that you have to breathe, and you are not special, and you need to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. My relationship with consistency has been fascinating as we've gone through this journey though, because it made me realize that I had too many yeses in my life.
George B. Thomas:Oh.
Liz Moorehead:So this has always been a nonnegotiable yes for me. And a lot of the work, obviously, that we do together, these are nonnegotiable yeses. And as I started kind of coming back to life, right, it stopped being the one pinpoint each week where I was consistent. Right? Other parts of my life started kind of coming like, it's like coming back online.
Liz Moorehead:Right? Like, my system started coming back online. I became less traumatized, less freaked out. It was also just like, Liz, at some point, you can't just stay in the hole. You gotta start trying to call your way out.
Liz Moorehead:Right? And I started to notice as I was bringing myself back online, so to speak, I had too many yeses. I had overextended myself personally and in some ways professionally. And I was looking around going, there is no way for me to be consistent. It's actually not physically possible.
Liz Moorehead:I wish I had come to that conclusion sooner than I did. It took a little while. Because at first, when you're showing up and you're being consistent, you're like, yes. I'm doing it. I'm finally living up to the promises, and then it takes a little too long for you to figure out why am I always tired.
Liz Moorehead:Oh. Why am I making these weird little mistakes. Oh. I'm slipping around the edges. And I and then I started to kinda point the finger back at myself.
Liz Moorehead:I said, see? This is just another sign that you're just a big old screw up. I said, no. No. That's not that's not how any of this works.
Liz Moorehead:Right? And so what was interesting is that it started back with this little morning appointment that we've been keeping for over a year. And I sat down myself, well, so what are the non negotiables? And this was at the top of the list because I went through and I was just like, let's just do it chronologically throughout the week. Right?
Liz Moorehead:And this was always the starting point. So I literally made a list and I got to the end of the list went, oh no. I haven't even written down any of the personal stuff yet. We have a big old problem. And it made me realize one of the keys to being consistent is being very choosy.
Liz Moorehead:Because you can't be consistent if you're trying to give yourself over to everything and everyone. And I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine about a month ago where he's one of my favorite people because he he's we have a similar mindset, we have a similar set of core values and beliefs, but he's looking at things from the opposite angle. Right? So he always gives me different ways of looking at the same problem in a way that is still in alignment with what I believe and what I think. But we had an interesting conversation where I actually showed him my perspective.
Liz Moorehead:And we were talking about the fact that like, I had learned how to step back from certain relationships in my life. Whether that be romantic or platonic or whatever. And he said, you can't just make a decision about somebody so quickly. I'm like, no you can. If you get very clear about who you are, what you want, what you don't want, that becomes very that is a very fast answer.
Liz Moorehead:What usually is the problem is we don't have the cones to be honest with ourselves about it. And also sometimes it does take a little time to learn what you do and don't want. Like, that that I can buy. However, later on, he and I were having a conversation where we were working through a pretty dense personal problem in our friendship that we were both committed to working out. And I had taken a week to kinda figure out what I thought was going on because I wanted to show up to this conversation constructively.
Liz Moorehead:And when we were in the middle of this conversation, I turned to him and said, see, this is the other side of what you were what I was talking about. You couldn't understand why I will sometimes walk away from something. It's because it allows me to devote my energy like this to the relationships that matter. If I'm giving myself away to everyone all the time, I cannot devote the time and energy to fixing things or showing up in the way I want to for the people who matter. And you are one of the people who matter.
Liz Moorehead:So when I think about consistency and the lessons that I've really learned over this past year, what has been fascinating to me is that consistency is deeply tied to choosiness. People could call that an act of selfishness. They can call it an act of self care. But the less I focus on, the more consistent I am able to be.
George B. Thomas:Love it.
Liz Moorehead:So that's really where I've kind of landed in this journey. Because it's it's little things. Right? It can be you spend so many hours in the day working or stressing about working or stressing about all these different things you have to take care of. You don't sleep well.
Liz Moorehead:So you oversleep. So you miss the next thing the next day. And then it spirals, and then it snowballs. And it's just I had said yes to too many things. And so I've gotten better at saying no and mindfully taking a step back from certain things.
Liz Moorehead:And then getting really clear on what are my benchmarks for something to become a yes.
George B. Thomas:So good. It's funny you you're you're throwing my brain for loop, which I know I'm gonna dive deep into, like, later, probably this week or next weekend of this cosmic relationship between focus and consistency. And, you know, the idea of, like, focus being the direction of your energy, but then consistency being the kind of sustainable progress that you wanna have. And where my brain really starts to explode or implode is like, well, you can journey 12 paths at once. Like, that's like an impossibility.
George B. Thomas:And so it's yeah. I I know I wanna dig deeper into that as as we move forward. But that's me, also stalling before you ask me my last question.
Liz Moorehead:Because this is your final question, and it's the final question of the episode. Yeah. So we've already said this a few times. It's been over a year since we started this journey together. I'd be curious what are the greatest and most surprising lessons you've learned?
Liz Moorehead:And is there anything you'd go back and tell yourself at the start of this journey?
George B. Thomas:Wow. So surprising or most challenging? And is there anything that I would tell myself at the beginning?
Liz Moorehead:I like how you heard most challenging because I think this is a challenging question for you. But all it is is what are the greatest and most surprising lessons you learned?
George B. Thomas:Oh, okay. I tried to start this podcast 2, 3, 3 years ago. I think I did, like, 3 episodes by myself. I knew this was something that I felt like I was supposed to birth to the world. So, surprisingly, to me, I think is just the fact that we've been able to do it for a year, and we've had topics every week for a year that have been challenging.
George B. Thomas:Listen, no topic that we've picked is, like, let's just pick one so we can kinda pussyfoot around it and, like, make a feel good piece of content. Like, every every episode I feel like that we've done has been in the trenches. Here's what people are dealing with. Here's what we've dealt with. Here's a story from our lives.
George B. Thomas:And so to consistently go through that every week for a year and come out the other side better instead of curled up in the fetal position.
Liz Moorehead:Sometimes that happens, though. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Like, so so surprising just how consistent we've been and how going into an all out mental, emotional war these have felt like to enable the people on the other side of the mic to free themselves, unlock themselves, become and believe in themselves in a way that they can so this this podcast truly has been, Liz, a catalyst. The newsletter has been a catalyst because we've seen it. We've had people write in, talk to us, and so that how easy it has been to trudge through what is a difficult set of conversations was surprising. I also think another surprising piece that has come out of it is the superhuman framework and the realization that that too was something that my mind birthed around 2014, at least the beginning portions of it when I would end my videos with don't forget to be a happy, helpful, humble human. And then I also wrote down a longer version in a document that stayed hidden for I think it was over 2, maybe two and a half years before I shared it with you that then was able to
Liz Moorehead:Wasn't it from the pandemic? Yeah. That's 4 years ago, bud.
George B. Thomas:Oh, 4 years ago. Yeah. So shared a document, and then out of that, we rebirthed the superhuman framework and started to enable and use that in different ways. And now to see where that's going from not only personal growth, but professional growth and organizational culture, like, that's shocking to me. You know, surprising.
George B. Thomas:Like, I didn't see that coming out of this. If I had to go back and tell myself something, boy, I would probably go back, and I don't know if it's telling myself or reminding myself of something. And what I mean is I would want to temper my expectations. So many times when we create content, create podcasts, we can fall into this trap of like build it and they will come. And sometimes when you're building content, you also think that, like, well, of course, my family's gonna listen.
George B. Thomas:Maybe not. Of course, my friends will listen. Maybe not. And so this idea of we're gonna create it and, you know, the masses will show up and watch the game and be excited. I would wanna temper that a little bit more because what's interesting is I think about the past year is we haven't really been playing a game that we should invite an entire stadium to.
George B. Thomas:We've actually been playing a game that is more along the lines of like, ping pong or tennis. It's about the right person being across the table or across the net from us. And us being able to mentally and emotionally serve up the ball that then they have the option to either hit back and continue to listen to other episodes or continue to work on themselves. And so what's funny is, I guess, Liz, what I'm saying is I would remind myself of my own methodology around the mathematics of 1. It doesn't matter if 1 person listens to 1 episode, or if 1 person listens to a 100 episodes, or if 10 people listen to a 1000 episodes, what you need to focus on is the mathematics of 1.
George B. Thomas:Because what will that one person listening to 1 podcast episode do to their life? What will that one person listening to 10 episodes do to their life? Who will they impact? Right? Because my mathematics of 1 is all about the eventual like ripples at the end of my journey, and I have to believe that even though some of my immediate expectations may have not been met from a business owner mathematical measurement side of things, I'm a firm believer that we've definitely over the last year created some ripples.
George B. Thomas:I'm fine with that, but I would probably go back and remind myself to be fine with that along the way.
Liz Moorehead:That's beautiful. I also think you know, it's interesting to hear you talk about that. Like, your friends might listen. Your friends might not listen. What I have noticed, though, over the past year is that then I'm surprised by who he is.
George B. Thomas:Yes.
Liz Moorehead:Like, I get random text messages from him. Like, wait. You listen? Yeah. I've been listening to every episode since the beginning.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. What? Or my god. I loved your newsletter. Or where is your newsletter?
Liz Moorehead:What is fascinating to me is that we are having very intimate conversations
George B. Thomas:Yep.
Liz Moorehead:About personal growth. Conversations that I think you and I are very comfortable having, but we forget that, you know, in a lot of ways, we aren't comfortable having these conversations. And a lot of other people are not comfortable having these conversations, which means they aren't necessarily going to be the loudest when they are the most tuned in. I am very interested to see what happens when we do, inevitably another check-in episode around our 2 year mark.
George B. Thomas:Oh, there's another one? Okay.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. Yes. Every 15 to 20 episodes, I'm gonna yell at you.
George B. Thomas:I'll prep.
Liz Moorehead:But I will say, George, this is this is an honor. Yeah. This is an incredible moment. So I would love to hear from you. What do you want the listeners to take away from this episode today?
Liz Moorehead:We've covered a lot of ground. Yeah. We've talked about a lot of different things. What is what is their takeaway from our lessons?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. So the thing that I would say, because Liz and I have gotten to the point where we weren't being nice to each other. We were we were asking tough questions. But what I would want the listeners to do is actually go back to the questions and write down, like, the core principle or mindset that we were actually asking each other. And I would use that as a little bit of check-in balance for yourself.
George B. Thomas:So for instance, how are you dealing with self worth? How are you dealing with self belief? How are you dealing with consistency and focus in your life? Like, these are just a couple examples of, like, the light feather light, you know, questions that I was asking Liz during this episode. So go back through those those questions and say, how am I doing on these things?
George B. Thomas:The good thing is there are episodes that tie back to everything that we have kind of answered or talked about that you can then dive in based on, oh, I'm killing it at this, but, woo, I need some help with that. Then go listen to an episode around that or email us and ask us questions around it. Like, literally, I that's the other p piece that surprises me is I don't know if the listeners understand how fully ready I am we are to, like, respond via email or text or phone if you have my text or phone, by the way. But, like, I literally am open to any and all of that because what I want the listeners to take away from this episode is we are actively in a battle to become 1% better each and every day, and we are here to help you with that. As you journey through life trying to achieve this elusive thing that we love to call a life beyond your default.