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It doesn't matter whether we consider ourselves introverts, extroverts, ambiverts, or some other yet-to-be-discovered "vert," we humans are social creatures. But the one person we spend the most time talking to isn't our best friend, a parent, or a spouse.
Whether we realize it or not, that person we talk to the most is ourselves. Morning, noon, and night — consciously or not consciously; with mental pictures or with an inner dialogue; out loud or with our "inside voices" inside our brains – we are constantly chattering away to ourselves ... often about ourselves.
I'll be the first to admit that, when I catch myself talking to myself out loud when I'm by myself, I sometimes worry if I'm crazy. But for those of you out there who may be like me, there's tons of scholarship out there that shows talking to yourself (out loud or to yourself) is a totally normal way and often essential way to process thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Now, if you live alone (like I do), you may be more prone to do this out loud rather than simply in your head. However, the substance of your dialogue with yourself about yourself (referred to as "self-talk" by many) matters quite a bit:
- Self-reinforcement: "I am prepared for my talk, it will go great tomorrow!"
- Self-management: "Don't forget to call the bank today."
- Social assessment: "When I ask him out, he will likely say yes."
But what if we don't default to more neutral or positive talk tracks about ourselves?
- "I sounded ridiculous during that call."
- "I can't ask him on a date, why would he EVER want to date someone like me?"
- "Of course I forgot to call the bank today. I can't trust myself with anything."
- "Why did I volunteer for this presentation?! I'm going to make a total fool out of myself."
- "I'll never amount to anything, why even bother trying?"
On its surface, these are just words, right? Not quite.
We've talked about this throughout a number of episodes so far, but the language we use to talk to ourselves – particularly about ourselves – is tremendously important. The words we use to describe ourselves and our surroundings dictates how we think about ourselves and our surroundings. From there, our actions take over, in accordance with those thoughts.
That's why this week, we're digging into the linguistic relationships we have with ourselves, and how simple shifts in our self-talk can have a massive impact on our ability to live beyond our default.
Questions We Explore
- How has George's relationship with the language he uses to talk about himself shifted over the years?
- What was the turning point that made George realize that the language he was using to talk to himself about himself had a dramatic impact on his life?
- What do our day-to-day self-talk rituals look like in practice?
- 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!
- When do we find it the most challenging to keep the language we use about ourselves positive? How do we combat those more challenging moments?
- You talk a lot about everyone having the ability to CHOOSE THEIR DAY based on the language they use – what does that mean?
- What becomes possible when we are more mindful about the language we use with ourselves?
Creators and 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.
We're stuck in this narrative because of the words that we can use around it verse what I would almost say their freedom based on the words that didn't exist. So this got me to think, what if moving forward, we spoke George or we spoke Liz or we spoke Billy, and it was a subset of words that we allowed or did not allow in our vocabulary based on what created or moved us into being the best beings we can be. Also, I have to say, I love that Hopi time, if you do a little bit more research, is about cycles, rituals, and mental preparation for key events. So I gotta do something here. If you listen to this podcast right now could spend more time in dreams, thoughts, desires, and life forces, and realize the important flow that you're looking for in life is around the cycles, rituals, and the ability to have mental preparation for key events in your life.
George B. Thomas:And you could dictate the words that you're allowed to use and not allowed to use, how would just that block of information change your life?
Liz Moorehead:Welcome back to Beyond Your Defaults. I am Liz Morehead. And as always, I am joined by the one and only George b Thomas. How are you this morning?
George B. Thomas:I am doing great, Liz. I'm super excited for this conversation. I think I always start out every episode that way, by the way, of being excited. But, man, this one for me, it's funny. It was a journey, and it was a little bit more difficult than I thought it would be as far as, like, the research and picking things out of my brain, but I'm actually excited to see what is gonna come out of this episode from both of us.
Liz Moorehead:Let's go ahead and let the cat out of the bag. Right? So today, we're gonna be talking about the potent power of the language we use to talk to ourselves, often about ourselves. Right? So I'd be curious to hear from you before we dig into this conversation.
Liz Moorehead:What made it such a challenge? What made it more challenging than you expected?
George B. Thomas:Sometimes in life, you do things by default because you've just kind of over time programmed yourself to do it that way. What I'm trying to do on many of these episodes is peel the parts away so that I can talk about them versus just do them in my own life. And so coming up with those mindsets, those principles, the best practices that I have worked really hard to just kind of become me and become the way I do it. Picking those apart and finding out or thinking about what words were important to use today and what words could be left aside for a future conversation. It was just a real interesting journey.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. And I think we have a lot of preconceived notions about how we talk to ourselves. Right? Because it really doesn't matter if we consider ourselves introverts, extroverts, ambiverts, some other yet to be discovered vert. Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:We humans are fundamentally, at our core, social creatures whether or not we like to admit it. But the one person we actually spend the most time with and the one person we spend the most time talking to isn't our best friend, our parent, our partner, or our spouse. Whether we realize it or not, that person we talk to the most is ourselves. Morning, noon, night, consciously or not, or subconsciously. Right?
Liz Moorehead:With mental pictures or with inner dialogue. I learned that recently that did you know some people do not have an inner dialogue? They only see visuals in their head when they're thinking.
George B. Thomas:That's interesting.
Liz Moorehead:I know. But we're often just chattering away to ourselves about ourselves. Now, I'm going to be the first to admit here that when I catch myself talking to myself out loud when I'm by myself, I sometimes worry, is Liz crazy? Has she gone a little too far off the reservation? But for those of you out there who may be like me, there's tons of scholarship just to let you know that says talking to yourself out loud or otherwise is a totally normal and often essential way that we process our thoughts, our feelings, our experiences.
Liz Moorehead:Now if you live alone like I do, you may be doing this a little bit more out loud. Living alone kind of gets a little lonely. But the substance of your dialogue and how you talk about yourself referred to as self talk, and that's how I'm gonna be referring it to, to it during this episode, matters quite a bit because there are 3 different types of ways that we talk to ourselves. Right? There's self reinforcement.
Liz Moorehead:I am prepared for my talk tomorrow. My presentation is going to go great. Self management. Don't forget to call the bank today or walk the dog. Social assessment.
Liz Moorehead:When I ask him out, he'll likely say yes. But here's what's interesting. What if our default isn't neutral or positive? What if it sounds more like, I sounded ridiculous during that call? I can't ask him out.
Liz Moorehead:Why would he ever wanna date someone like me? Of course, I forgot to call the bank today. I can't trust myself with anything. I don't know why I volunteered for this presentation. I'm gonna make a fool out of myself.
Liz Moorehead:I'll never amount to anything. Why even bother trying? Now on its surface, these are just words. Right? Not quite.
Liz Moorehead:You and I, George, have talked about this through a number of episodes so far, but the language we use to talk about ourselves is tremendously important because the words we use to describe ourselves and our surroundings dictates how we think about ourselves and our surroundings, and from there, our actions take over in accordance with those thoughts. In essence, our words become the reality that we see and create. So this week, we are digging into the linguistic relationships we have with ourselves and how simple shifts in our self talk can have a massive impact on our ability to live beyond our default. So George, the past few years I've known you, I've always known you to be very mindful about the language you use to talk about yourself. And I bet you knew that this question was gonna come.
George B. Thomas:I bet
Liz Moorehead:you knew this quest yeah. However, when you and I first started working together closely over a year ago, one of the things I used to ding you on freaking constantly was how you talked about yourself. Because the weird thing was you were never overtly negative, but you would always put yourself in these boxes. Right? Well, I can't be this and I can't be that.
Liz Moorehead:Or you would put yourself in this kind of like side character energy instead of main character energy. You were always leveling down your potential. So 1 year later, I'd love to hear from you on how your relationship with self talk has evolved. What has changed over this 1 year ish period? Because you have become more observant in how you talk about yourself, and I've noticed substantive changes.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. So first of all, I gotta back up just a a little bit here, and I just wanna start with because I wanna simplify the complex. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're sitting here listening to this and your mind is like, well, the words I use don't matter. Words are just words. No.
George B. Thomas:If you don't take anything else away for the next however minutes we end up talking about this, words are not just words. They matter. And when I say matter, I mean, a capital m a t t e r. They matter, especially internally, but also externally. Now, also, Liz, it's funny.
George B. Thomas:I giggle at this question a little bit because you're like, you know, you've never been overtly negative. Listen. We gotta unpack that statement first. We'll get to the what has happened or changed over the last 12 months here in a second, but I need everybody to understand that I had worked real hard. I had about 49 to 50 years to get where I was with this conversation when we started to have it.
George B. Thomas:And to understand the crux of what's happened in the last 11, 12, 14 months from being a business owner and and moving forward, Look. There was a ton of years that I thought that I would never amount to anything in life, and I told myself that you'll never amount to anything in life. There are a ton of years that I thought of myself as a loser. There are a lot of years that I was afraid of who I was or who I would become. Legitimately fearful of myself and who I would end up showing up to be on this planet.
George B. Thomas:There were a ton of years. I'll just say it this way. I was lost in this world of a negative mindset. I felt like a victim. I felt like the world owed me something, and I oftentimes would run the narrative, why am I even here?
George B. Thomas:Why am I even here? Now I know if there are people listening to this podcast who have known me for the last 10 years, they'll be like, wait. What? Where was that guy? Right?
George B. Thomas:Who is that guy? That can't be you because you're right, Liz. For at least the last 10 years, I had gotten to the point where I'm like, oh, it's all about positivity. It's all about adding value to the world. It's all about being significant and being a servant, and all of these things, it's about going to play.
George B. Thomas:It's about making sure that I pray. It's about making sure that I have these positive emotions to myself and to the world, but it wasn't always that way. So the reason I I explained that is because you have to understand that this last 12 to 16 months, it's been the easiest. To be completely honest, the last part of this journey has really been easy compared to the original hell that I had to go through to even get to the point where I was able to make the changes that I have been able to make. You know, I had to get past these crazy moments or thoughts in life.
George B. Thomas:Look. I haven't shared this with a lot of folks, but when I go back to that moment in time of you're loose or you'll never amount to anything, why are you even here? Like, some people don't even know there was a time where I was homeless. Like, I was couch surfing from my cousin's house to a pastor. His name was Willie May to my grandparents' house, and sometimes just, like, wherever.
George B. Thomas:It was me, my skateboard, during the day, my friends, and then I would just try to make the best out of it. Being homeless, meeting pastor Willie May in Mineral City, Ohio ended up me then journeying to Faith Ranch, which everybody needs to understand that Faith Ranch is the 3 years of my life where I started to see little wins that provided a self belief in myself. Liz, you literally said in the intro area of, like, I don't trust myself to do this thing. Like, you have to believe in yourself and trust yourself. And I started to have self belief in myself like I had never had before.
George B. Thomas:These 3 years in Faith Ranch. 3 years, I had learned about or was learning about love and how to love others. And for 3 years, I was being injected with faith and how God felt about me and all other humans on this planet, by the way. I learned this thing where I could start to program my brain over those 3 years, And one of the first things I can remember programming my brain, Liz, was God don't make no junk. God don't make no junk.
George B. Thomas:And I had to tell the I'm a loser. I'll never amount to anything. Why am I even here? God don't make no junk. God don't make no junk.
George B. Thomas:And I hope all of our listeners know that they have been wonderfully crafted to do something on this planet that no one else can do. I had to realize that I'm wonderfully crafted to do something on this planet that nobody else can do, which, by the way, I get goosebumps thinking about that because I think about the book or books. I think about the times that I step on stage. Like, nobody else could do it the way that I can do it. I've never really been able to have that belief before.
George B. Thomas:I hope the listeners realize that they're special. Here's the thing. The only thing that I didn't really learn in those 3 years that I've learned over the 12 to last 16 months that you are a catalyst in, and we're getting there. I swear. I knew I had to kinda set this up a little bit.
George B. Thomas:We're getting there. I didn't take or didn't pay attention during those 3 years on how to love myself. Like, I learned what love was, and I learned that you're supposed to love others. But I had a real difficult time with understanding. I know God don't make no junk.
George B. Thomas:I can like me, but I don't have to love me. I hadn't really spent that time to, like, you gotta love yourself, and it took me a lot of years to figure this out. I mean, I've made a boatload of mistakes, and I still have time to make a boatload more in this life. But you see, it's really easy to get stuck in this mindset of mistake, hate yourself. Mistake, hate yourself.
George B. Thomas:Mistake, hate yourself. Like, it becomes a freaking loop in your life, and it's hard to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you make against yourself. And many times, we look at it as it's like mistakes in the world or mistakes in my job, but when you internalize those and you're like, oh, I make that mistake against myself. God don't make no junk. I gotta love myself.
George B. Thomas:Right? So now we get to, like, the part that you actually asked me. It's like, what happened over the last 12 to 16 month period that made you become more observant? Listen. The first thing that came to mind when I looked at that question was I took the biggest leap of my life ever other than being married and getting saved by Jesus, starting a business is a massive freaking leap.
George B. Thomas:And you're right. It made me get out of my historical comfort zones. I'm a great number 2 to a number 1. I'm a great Robin to a Batman. BS.
George B. Thomas:Like, you can't run that narrative when you're the captain of the ship. And so I had to have, you know, a conversation about showing up as a whole ass human. And I know that you're smiling about this list because you were part of this conversation. You literally said to me, what does it look like if you showed up as a whole ass human? Because it had gotten to the point where I knew what love was.
George B. Thomas:I knew that I was supposed to love others, and I had started to even love myself, but I loved the new me. I need everybody to understand that I love the new me. I still hadn't figured out how to love the old George, the dirty George, the George that made a buttload of mistakes. And we had this conversation. Well, actually, you kinda slapped me around a little bit, and you said
Liz Moorehead:I'm sorry. I did it from a piece of love.
George B. Thomas:I totally agree. And you said, what does it look like if you showed up as a whole ass human and you loved yourself? I pulled up this Facebook post because I think the Facebook post says a lot about when I took the time to think about that question, and I thought about the narratives that I was running in my head and the words that I was using against myself, Listeners, what words are you using against yourself? Like, I need you to start to pay attention to that and document that, but the words that I was using against myself versus the words that I needed to leverage to get the power and the energy to become who I needed to be and shine a light onto the world from a business perspective, personal perspective. So I wrote this post, and I wanna share it on this podcast episode.
George B. Thomas:It starts out by the way, I warn everybody, Liz. I freaking warned everybody. Authentic and personal post ahead with an exclamation mark, and it goes like this. I'm working with a coach on voice tone and messaging. You know, the really important stuff for any business.
George B. Thomas:She asked me this very important question today. What does it mean to show up as a whole ass human? This is the unedited typing frenzy that occurred after that question when my mind had time to sit down with it. To be a whole ass human is to understand you are a spiritual being in a human body. Love yourself no matter what You have to love the dents and the bruises.
George B. Thomas:You have to love the shine and the darkness. You have to love the punches, chisels, and chainsaws of life that made you this way. To be whole, you have to read the room and read yourself. You have to tell your story, the stories that they need to hear, not that you want to tell. You have to be empathetic and be a servant.
George B. Thomas:You can't let anything get in your way. It's all about GST. Get stuff done. Being a whole human is always trying to better my capabilities while at the same time understanding I was fully made with everything I need to be successful. I'm gonna read that again for the people in the freaking back row.
George B. Thomas:Being a whole human is always trying to better my capabilities while at the same time understanding I was fully made with everything I need to be successful. Being a whole ass human means I can be a blessing bomber to others in and around my life. Meaning, I can be a blessing bomber to myself. It means always be learning, always be educating. It means that I pray, play, and make their day.
George B. Thomas:To be whole is to be a father, a husband, a son. To be whole is to be an author. To be whole is to lead a community towards a better life. Folks, this was way before we started this podcast. I'm gonna say that again.
George B. Thomas:To be whole is to lead a community towards a better life, to live in the moment and not be distracted by outside forces, phone, email, Slack, etcetera, to be a catalyst or impact that others need or want in their lives to get to the next level. Giving, compassionate, empathetic person who leads with love for others and myself. Leading by loving yourself so that you can deeply love others you meet. Liz, that's what changed. Like, that script, that narrative, that understanding that I had been doing the work and the missing piece, the key to make it all be fundamentally, like, fall in line, I just had to love myself, and I had to use the words that let me know that I finally loved myself.
Liz Moorehead:Wow. There's so much to unpack there. First of all, I think one of the most important things that you said there is this idea of trusting ourselves. And this is something you and I have talked about in previous episodes, but we also had a really long conversation about it last Friday during what we call affectionately our human time, which I think I've referred to before. But every few weeks, George and I get together even though I think we talk to each other all day, every day about work stuff, but we have set aside a human time to talk about human things.
Liz Moorehead:When we got on this conversation about this idea of this was something I've struggled with throughout my entire life. Right? I one of the things I do love about myself is that once I see something or know something, I can't unsee it and I can't unknow it, particularly when it comes to myself. But that has made me incredibly hard on myself and you can so easily get stuck in those loops. You wanna start talking more nicely to yourself.
Liz Moorehead:You wanna start being more kind to yourself, but there's always an asterisk. Right? You're always that Patriot season with the asterisk because of the deflated football. Right? There's always the I'm a great person, except for that thing I did 2 weeks ago.
Liz Moorehead:I'm a great person, except for that thing I did to someone else 2 years ago. And it becomes this thing where it's like you look at yourself like a bank account where you have depleted so much from some sort of moral center that you can't extend beyond. But that's simply not true. I remember you and I having this conversation, and I'm saying this by the way, for audiences at home. I'm saying this as much to you as I am as a reminder to myself.
Liz Moorehead:The thing I also remember telling you, George, is that at some point, you are going to have to stop putting your old self into boxes and realize the reason you are standing here is the person you are is because of the person you were. There is no now without him. There is no now without who you were 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, when you and I were both doing homeless fun stuff crashing on people's couches. I did that too in my very early twenties when I first moved out on my own. But let's talk a little bit further.
Liz Moorehead:You already started talking about, you know, going back in time and how we got to this point, but tell me a little bit about your day to day now. How do you engage in self talk at all in your day to day? What does it look like? What are some of your do's and don'ts?
George B. Thomas:Let me set that up a little bit because I think there's a piece that people need to understand that came out of that conversation and came out of that post is historically, I had been real good at compartmentalizing. It is in some cases, but in many, it's not. In this conversation, I'm gonna say it's not. If you look at yourself and go, I'm great at boxing pieces here and there and here, compartmentalizing. If you're like, that's a superpower I've got.
George B. Thomas:Be careful. Because one of the things that I had to actually destroy in my brain was this idea of compartmentalizing. It's okay to love Tupac and Chris Tomlin at the same time. It's okay to watch The Chosen and Fast and Furious. It's okay to have these things in your life that just make you you, and they don't have to be the good you, the medium you, the bad you, the oh, shoot.
George B. Thomas:Let's hide that from everybody you. No. No. No. No.
George B. Thomas:In this conversation of talking to yourself and being the best you, that area just needs to be like, you know how they go in and do home renovations and they're like, knock this wall out and this wall, and it's just like open space. When it comes to you, you need an open space. You need an auditorium because, listen, an auditorium is easy to communicate in. A house filled with walls is hard to communicate in. There's things that muffle the message.
George B. Thomas:When you're talking to yourself, you can't have a muffled message, so you have to build your brain into an auditorium when you're getting ready to talk to yourself. Okay. So you asked me, how do I engage with self talk? You know, how do I manage this day to day, and do I do I actually manage? Like, I'm still a human, ladies and gentlemen.
George B. Thomas:But most days, the answer to this question is yes. But some days, I forget to be my own leader. I forget to be my own mentor. I forget to be my own coach. I have those days.
George B. Thomas:Now those days that I forget to be my own leader, my own owner, my own mentor, my own coach, those days are always worse than other days. The days that I wake up and I remember that that's what I'm supposed to do, that I'm supposed to love myself, that I'm supposed to mentor myself, that I'm supposed to lead myself, that I'm supposed to coach myself, those days are always great days. Good days at worst, but usually great days. What does that look like? So it starts first thing in the morning, to be honest with you.
George B. Thomas:Like, I get up and I think about this, and I start to talk about myself and to myself. There's a video that I wanna try to find a link to, and we'll put it in the show notes. But this professional speaker, Mel, she's amazing. She talks about 90% of the human race not being able to stand in the mirror and look at themselves. I took that as a personal challenge.
George B. Thomas:So one of the things that I do in the morning is I'll be brushing my teeth or whatever, but I'll stand in the mirror first thing in the morning. I'll look at myself in the eyes, and I'll be like, George, you're one hand no. I'm just I'm just kidding. I don't say that. I say, George, you are humble.
George B. Thomas:George, you are happy. George, you are a helper. George, God created you to be a blessing bomber. George, you're smart. George, you understand the things that you need to do.
George B. Thomas:I'll just run this narrative in my brain and basically, like, believing in myself, loving myself, and pumping myself up for the day that is about to occur every morning. And when I find myself walking away from the mirror, I actually go, no. No. No. No.
George B. Thomas:Turn around. Stand your happy ass in front of that mirror, and do what you know you're supposed to do. Like, I'll literally catch myself, and I think that's part of what I want the listeners to understand is you gotta get good at catching yourself when you're not doing these things, when you're not treating yourself right, when you're not loving yourself. Catch yourself, and then just flip the switch and do it. Now second thing or second time that I do this, what it looks like, Liz, before I step on stage.
George B. Thomas:Anytime I'm about to step on stage and to be honest with you, I have 2 conversations every time before I step on stage. One conversation with myself. You know this information. You got this. You understand the audience.
George B. Thomas:You're gonna be amazing. Sure. You're gonna black out along the way, but when you get to the end, people will think it's awesome because you're here to serve. Like, I'll have that, but then the second I used to have a conversation with God. Let it be your words, not mine.
George B. Thomas:Just let the people have ears that hear what they need to hear for what we're talking about today. Right? But I'm putting into myself at that moment. Anytime I get stuck on something, that's another time where, like, I can feel myself, and I catch myself. I can feel myself going down that negative road if I was just a little bit smarter, if I just had a little bit more money, if I just had a bigger team.
George B. Thomas:George. George. George. George. George.
George B. Thomas:Shut up. Shut up. And just, like, hey. We're blessed. We've got these things.
George B. Thomas:These are the positives in life. And I start to tell myself, George, you've got this. George, you've got that. George, this has happened in your life. George, other people like, I had by the way, I'm gonna go on a total side changing for a second.
George B. Thomas:I had to tell somebody about a week ago these words. You understand that in chasing your dream, you're leaving somebody else's. Right? I realize that I might be living a life that is somebody else's dream. That jukes usually any negative things that are running around in my brain, but anytime I catch myself with negative talk, I try to catch it and I spin it around.
George B. Thomas:Then here's the thing. When I say catch it, what I really mean by this is I try to use god eyes. I try to use god eyes when looking at myself in my life. Meaning, you've ever had those moments where you just kinda leave your body and you see the words that you're saying, you see the words that you're saying, the way that you're acting, you almost feel like you're in a second or third person, like, visually seeing, like, your life happening in that moment. I I call that god eyes.
George B. Thomas:How can I manufacture that I can pull away from what I'm actually doing and look around at myself and the folks in the room and really get the right not my perspective, the right perspective of what's happening in those moments? So do's, I don't have a lot of do's or don'ts other than what I've shared, like, the times I do it, but one thing that I always put in my brain because I think it's a superpower in a lot of things of life, One of the major dos is stay consistent. Stay consistent. Stay consistent in loving yourself. Stay consistent in catching yourself.
George B. Thomas:Stay consistent in these rooted elements of just, like, this framework. Right? I have these four times in my life that I know that are possibly when it we're gonna have a downfall. Pay attention to those four things. Make sure you're consistent.
Liz Moorehead:I love that. I I'll admit from me personally, I spend a lot of time talking to myself. I do a lot of self talk and but to be fair, you know, I think I'm at one of those points in my life where it's like I'm making a lot of changes. I'm doing a lot of betting on myself. I've blown a lot of stuff up and I stand by those decisions, but it gets a bit challenging.
Liz Moorehead:But what I do find interesting in preparation for this episode, and I think I shared this with you, I found this great article in Psychology Today that talks about, like, 5 different ways that you could talk to yourself. But then I found this one nugget of research that I thought was just completely crazy to me and I tested it the whole week. So the way we prepare for this episode, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, is we actually have an entire week in which we can research, prep, whatever, because I prepped that outline a week in advance. So I decided once I found this research that I was gonna test it for a week to see if it made any tangible difference.
George B. Thomas:I love that. So
Liz Moorehead:yeah. So here's the quote. In a study, people who use the first person when talking to themselves before a task were less effective than those who spoke to themselves in the second or third person. Because when you create psychological distance in our self talk, then it can help us calm down and face challenging moments. So me saying Liz Moorehead is trustworthy, Liz can do this.
Liz Moorehead:Liz is trustworthy. In theory, it's supposed to be more effective than saying, I can trust myself or you can do this. You've got this. So I spent all this week talking to myself in the 3rd person, and I was pushing myself to make some changes in getting back into my workout regimen and just I had some big scary stuff that I had to really work on this week. It made a huge difference.
Liz Moorehead:Now sometimes I'm just talking to myself like, alright. I'm amazing. I can do this. It's pretty awesome. But there were times where I did have to say out loud, Liz Morehead is trustworthy.
Liz Moorehead:Liz Morehead can be trusted to make better decisions. Liz Morehead will get her butt to the gym, and she's gonna feel amazing about it afterward. It made me move faster. And it for the first few days, I was like, it's probably just because I'm excited about a new thing that I'm doing. But it worked as recently as yesterday afternoon, sitting in a parking lot in front of Planet Fitness in Hamden, and I'm like, I do not wanna go in.
Liz Moorehead:But Liz Moorehead makes better decisions than that. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:And she got
Liz Moorehead:her butt in there. So I think that is something that is interesting. I started noticing that it's almost like, you know, I'm a marketer. So I'm like, I'm rebranding myself, and it made me feel more like a whole person.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. No. And it's funny because when I saw that research that that you put out there and then that was a talking point, I got excited. Because, again, if you go back to the beginning of this episode where I said pulling the blocks apart, Like, that's one of the things. I got excited when I saw that because I was, oh, I call myself George all the time.
George B. Thomas:Like, I speak to myself in, like, using my name. And I picked that up actually. Marcus Sheridan told me about a book, and I read this book. And in the book, it talks about how people love their name, and they love when you use their name. And I immediately went, well, then I like my name.
George B. Thomas:I should use my name when I'm talking to myself, and I I literally took what was an external communication hack or technique and used it for me, which, by the way, I want all the listeners to think about that. List out all the communication presenter techniques, and what if you use those for yourself instead of just for your audience or your employees?
Liz Moorehead:I love that. The other two techniques that I love to use, and this I have to admit I did not get for myself. This is a dear friend of mine. Her name is Swan, which by the way, incredible name. Right?
Liz Moorehead:Like, talk about everybody loves their name. Of course, she would love her name. I used to get really down on myself and say I'm just so tired of self sabotaging. She's like, uh-uh. No.
Liz Moorehead:No. No. No. She's like, humans don't self sabotage. You were trying to keep yourself safe.
Liz Moorehead:So thank yourself for the patterns that you used to feel that you needed in order to stay safe and set those to the side. Because it's all that's effort that's trying to happen. Even if some people do wanna qualify and call it self sabotage because they can technically see that as the outcome. Fundamentally, at the of the day, we're not self sabotaging creatures. We're not here to make ourselves fail.
Liz Moorehead:We're here to keep ourselves safe. The other thing I like to do is and this is where we get back into the our thought. Our words tell us what our thoughts are. Our thoughts dictate our reality. If we keep telling ourselves that we are going to fail, we are confirmation bias creatures.
Liz Moorehead:We are gonna go out into the world and seek evidence that we are failures, that this is not something that we are good
George B. Thomas:at. So sometimes I will go out of my way and say things like,
Liz Moorehead:Liz is gonna seek evidence that this is sometimes I will go out of
George B. Thomas:my way and say things
Liz Moorehead:like, Liz is gonna seek evidence that this is working, and then I will just start tallying up that evidence. So that's a little self talk thing I'd love to do.
George B. Thomas:Now I
Liz Moorehead:do wanna move into another talk thing I love to do. Now I do wanna move into another bit of research here. Because as a professional word nerd, you know, I love words. I obsess about the precision of words, how people use them, why we use them. And there was this really fascinating bit of research about the Hopi Indians.
Liz Moorehead:So there's this thing called the Superior War of Hypothesis, which states that the structure from grammar to verbs and all that stuff in a person's language will influence how they perceive the world. So they did this study at Yale, which involved working with many Native American languages including the Hopi Indians. And Wharf discovered that the Hopi language is actually quite different from the English language in many ways, particularly in regards to time. Western cultures and languages view times as a flowing river that carries us continuously through the present, away from the past, and into the future. So the Hopi speakers, however, are have very different ideas about time and thus their language reflects that.
Liz Moorehead:They think about time differently. They do not have concepts of past, present, and future or in their language. Instead, they divide the world into what is manifested and what is unmanifested. Manifested consists of the physical universe, including the present, immediate past, and the future, and unmanifested consists of the remote past, and the future, and the world's dreams, and thoughts, desires, getting more into that esoteric space. But there are also no words for minutes, or days, or days of the week.
Liz Moorehead:And so native Hopi speakers often had a great difficulty adapting to life in English speaking world spaces when it came to being on time for their job or other affairs. And it wasn't because they're lazy. It's not because they aren't freaking magical. It's simply due to the fact that their language dictated how they perceived their reality. And I would love to hear your thoughts on that because I know that was something that interested you.
George B. Thomas:Without a doubt, I was like, oh, this is juicy. So first of all, just know that you sent me on this spiral that might be a whole episode in the future around living in a bubble or a global episode in the future around living in a bubble or a global perspective or something like that because my immediate was like, oh, great, Liz. Thanks pulling one random, you know, tribe out for us to have a conversation about. But did you know in Mandarin, earlier is up, later is down, or that Yucatec, Mayan have no word for before or after? So this isn't just one tribe.
George B. Thomas:This is like multiple civilizations that based on language have a different belief structure to what we set our freaking watch to on a daily basis, to what we set our meetings to. Anyway, I digress. Did the research surprise me? Not dramatically at first. Like, when I read the thing, I was like, okay.
George B. Thomas:But when I had time to think about this line, Liz kinda did, and the line is the Hopi language has no present, past, or future tense. By the way, the keyword in that is tense. Anyway, instead, they divide the world into manifested and unmanifested domains. I was like, wait. Wait.
George B. Thomas:Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
George B. Thomas:Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. What?
George B. Thomas:Rewind. Let me play that back again. And if I think about that in the light of this podcast and of our culture today, Western, you know, Americanized civilization, we're always talking about being in the present. What would we say if we couldn't use that word? Would it even be an issue if we couldn't use that word?
George B. Thomas:Also, so many folks are stuck because they relive their past over and over again or are afraid of what they won't do or worse, what they might be possible of in the future. What if those didn't exist? Like, how much further or impactful could we as humans be if we weren't preaching a narrative of be in the present and we weren't always reliving the past and we weren't always fearful of the future? What would that unlock in us? Now the other thing that I did find interesting in this was this, the Hopi manifested, domains consist of physical universe, including the present, the immediate past, and the future.
George B. Thomas:The unmanifested domain consists of the remote past and the future and the world of dreams, thoughts, desires, and life forces. Ladies and gentlemen, if I could get you to spend less time in the past, present, and future, and get you to spend more time in the dreams, thoughts, desires, and life forces of your life. If I could wave that magic wand, I would so went on a research deep dive, and the term grabbed my attention that tense. So you kinda have to pay attention to that. But humans, this this is the line where I was like and this is other research that I was doing, which, by the way, is where I came up with the Mayan thing and the Yucatec and the Mandarin and and all that.
George B. Thomas:Humans are at the mercy of the language they use. Blew my mind, and when I dug deeper, the Hopi Indians, there was no substance called time. You even mentioned it. There's no word for time. There's no timeline.
George B. Thomas:There's no time spatial metaphors like we use all the time. They had no tense for time, and we think of time because of our language, like, versus Hopi time in their way because they speak Hopi. Like, we're stuck in this narrative because of the words that we can use around it versus what I would almost say their freedom based on the words that didn't exist. So this got me to think, Liz. What if moving forward, we spoke George or we spoke Liz or we spoke Billy, and it was a subset of words that we allowed or did not allow in our vocabulary based on what created or moved us into being the best beings we can be.
George B. Thomas:Also, I have to say, I love that Hopi time, if you do a little bit more research, is about cycles, rituals, and mental preparation for key events. So I gotta do something here. If you, listening to this podcast right now, could spend more time in dreams, thoughts, desires, and life forces, and realize the important flow that you're looking for in life is around the cycles, rituals, and the ability to have mental preparation for key events in your life, and you could dictate the words that you're allowed to use and not allowed to use, how would just that block of information change your life?
Liz Moorehead:Talk a lot about everyone having the ability to choose their day based on the language they use. What does that mean?
George B. Thomas:So this question leads me into a couple areas with about 2 minutes left for us to finish this podcast, which, by the way, just so the listeners know, we skipped about 3 or 4 questions that we wanted to get to because it's just such a big topic. And the reason I'm bringing that up, Liz, is because I think that there's probably, like, a version 2 at some point down the road where we get more in the nitty gritty of the words that we allow or don't allow in our lives. But choosing your day based on the fact of being able to talk your own language based on a new understanding of time and vocabulary, your question leads me into 2 places that I have to talk about. 1, choosing the language to speak to yourself in a way that you speak it using your name that plants a seed, that waters the seed, that grows the plant, that grows into a great enormous tree in your life of self belief. And I did that on purpose, by the way, because I believe that there might be people listening to this podcast that just don't have self belief.
George B. Thomas:So start it as a seed and grow it. I started at Amplify It because I'm ready to amplify the self belief, self trust. The other thing is, and I kinda bumped into it earlier, you gotta own your ish. There's a whole another podcast episode that we probably need to do on owner mentality, and I don't mean, like, business owner mentality. I just mean owning your life.
George B. Thomas:Owner mentality. But the way I'll put it here is the captain of your own ship. You have to be the captain of your own ship. You have to have your set of maps for your life. You need to be able to speak to yourself and speak to your crew.
George B. Thomas:You need to know the direction that you're headed to use the right language to get you there, and the last piece I'll say about this is that if you are the captain of your ship, you have to believe that you're gonna make it to your destination because the crew, family, friends, employees, whoever, they are looking to you to get them to the destination. You can't self doubt yourself. You can't show up and not have a destination. You can't show up and not have maps. So after this podcast, I need you to sit down and I need you to think where am I headed?
George B. Thomas:Who am I taking with me? What words? What language do I need to use internally to fill myself up to be able to make that journey with those humans? Fundamentally, I believe that there's not a lot of people that actually take the time to just even understand that part of their life.